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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2017 16:36:54 GMT -5
My marriage is turning around slowly. I changed myself first and then came to her. I begin to meet her needs and in return asked her to meet mine. I let her know that I had enough and that I would make up my mind by the new year, if I was going to leave. It was not a decision that I threatened her. It was real. I have a family and children. I would loose a lot by leaving but it's nothing compared to a wasted life with someone who does not care to meet your needs. I refuse to live a life scared of being alone. The reality of the situation is that you're alone in a SM anyway, no matter what you tell yourself.
I'm slow to make a decision but when I do it's permeant. I've let friends and family go without talking to them again. My wife knew that I was at this point with her. The situation became real that I would leave, if things did not change. I changed myself and am still working on becoming a better human being. I played a large role in the dysfunctional aspects of our relationship. I think this is the first step to getting out of a SM. You have to be honest with yourself and accept the role you play. I begin working on myself for selfish reasons. I knew that if I was starting a new relationship that it would be same thing in time. I've noticed now that people are more attracted to me since I've begun working on myself. I'm much more relaxed and no longer at the whims of my emotions. I'm more able to clearly see my situation. Where before, I was one big ball of emotion.
My marriage was not always sexless and I think the lack of sex was a major indicator of the dysfunctional aspect of the relationship. I've begun to recognize the faults in my wife more, which before were not so obvious. Of course, I have many faults. And living with someone is about compromise. I do not expect perfection and everyone has some issues they struggle with.
The new year has come and my wife is slowly changing. Will it be enough? I'm still not sure. I want to see continued growth in myself and the wife. If she starts to go backwards in the relationship, then I'll be heading out the door. I realize that I'm at a crossroads in my life. I'm getting close to 50 and still have many good years left for a fun and satisfying relationship with a woman who wants the same thing. I realize after being on here that there are other women who enjoy and desire a fun sexual marriage with intimacy. I prefer that my wife would fully come around since we have 22 years together. Also, we're good friends. But at the same time, good friends does not always equate with a lover and intimate partner.
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Post by baza on Jan 1, 2017 17:15:48 GMT -5
I reckon that no matter what, your policy of working on your own personal development is a very smart move.
If that results in improved relationships generally (and it almost certainly will) in your life that's great. If it results in an improved / resolved marriage, that's great too.
Looks like you are doing your job. Much will depend upon how well Mrs heraclitus does her job, and that's something over which you have no control at all.
But you're doing your job, that's all you can do. Hope you get your desired result Brother H.
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Post by baza on Jan 4, 2017 22:53:16 GMT -5
I'm expecting to get 100 one word replies to this one, but I had to ask anyway. I am a denizen of another forum, and I can tell you of several who have; five off the top of my head. I can also point you in the direction of several women bloggers who were refusers and now are sex-positive writers, encouraging other women to stop being frigidaires (not their terminology, of course.) Brother csl. That "5" you can think of off the top of your head is out of how many ??
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Post by csl on Jan 4, 2017 23:19:10 GMT -5
I am a denizen of another forum, and I can tell you of several who have; five off the top of my head. I can also point you in the direction of several women bloggers who were refusers and now are sex-positive writers, encouraging other women to stop being frigidaires (not their terminology, of course.) Brother csl. That "5" you can think of off the top of your head is out of how many ?? I'm reminded of a B.C. cartoon where one of the cavemen comes up the Peter, the know-it-all, and slams four identical snowflakes down on the stone/desk and shouted, "I thought you said no two snowflakes are alike!" To which Peter replied, "I said no TWO snowflakes are alike." When I read your post, the first thing I thought was, "I should have stopped at one", as the thread title was "Has anyone actually turned a SM around?" I answered, as I said, off the top of my head with the five that came to mind within seconds, not taking into consideration the parameters of the question. In my defense, while I have a pretty good memory, I don't think it would be kosher for me to try to recall every thread I have read on that site from the past five years in order to compile a database for future reference. I do know of a few others in which the marriage was turned around by the refuser (please, brace yourselves) repenting of their refusal and becoming active and engaged partners with their husbands in their beds. Oh! Stream of consciousness warning--as I'm typing out this reply, I'm recalling a sixth marriage turned around. One of the followers/commenters of my blog is a wife who is a former refuser. In a response to one of my posts, she wrote that she was grateful for the day that her husband shared his pain over his refusal in a way that hit her hard. She, too, repented and the two of them changed their SM into a healthy, sexual relationship.
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Post by baza on Jan 4, 2017 23:31:02 GMT -5
Well, to put it another way Brother csl, how many members of that group are there (approximately) from which these 5 or 6 examples are drawn ??
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Post by csl on Jan 4, 2017 23:54:48 GMT -5
Well, to put it another way Brother csl, how many members of that group are there (approximately) from which these 5 or 6 examples are drawn ?? Does it matter? Just because I can only present the stories of a few that I can recall.... Oh, shoot, how could I forget L...h? #7, a woman whose husband preferred to masturbate rather than have sex with her. She battled esteem and depression issues for several year, but one day, when she came home and found the used tissue still on the bathroom floor, she had a pure hissy and told her husband he had thirty days. He had to either see a counselor or an attorney. That was nearly 10 years ago; he did go to counseling, and they turned their relationship around. ..... doesn't mean that there aren't others. As well, while ILIASM is merely about sexless marriage, that other site has many different fora dealing with other aspects of sexuality, such as porn, infidelity, immodesty (it is a Christian site, after all), in-laws, masturbation in marriage, medical conditions like vaginismus and low testosterone, etc. There are thousands of registered members (you have to be a Christian to register; or at least never, and i mean NEVER, support any concept that would be deemed as supporting monogamy.) We have people who are struggling in SMs, some who trying to turn their SMs around, some who are in the process of turning their SMs around..... #8 - most drastic SM, but easiest turnaround of all. About three years ago, a man from a Scandinavian country, 30+ years SM. Came to the board, with the idea of sharing his wisdom on how to endure decades of sexlessness. When challenged about his ideas, he went to his wife to confront her, and she said that she thought he no longer wanted sex, and asked if he wanted sex. ..... some who are dealing with infidelity or spouses who prefer porn to them, etc. It's an eclectic group.
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Post by baza on Jan 5, 2017 0:27:52 GMT -5
Another attempt then.
It would seem that The Curmudgeon Librarian blog has about 640 followers according to the site. "If" that is a fair representation of the membership, then the "turnaround" figure is about 8 (as per your info above) in 640, or about 1 in 80, or if you prefer 01.25%.
Although those figures above are nothing startling, they are streets ahead of the ILIASM records (which was 8 in 50,000, or about 1 in 6,250, or if you prefer 00.02%) by a huge factor.
So the "turnaround" figures of The Curmudgeon Librarian group appear to be vastly superior to those evident in the EP / ILIASM group.
For example, if the EP / ILIASM group could emulate a 01.25% turnaround rate, that would be about 625 out of 50,000 instead of a paltry 8.
Suffice to say, neither groups rate of successful turnarounds is anything to write home about.
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Post by csl on Jan 5, 2017 9:10:56 GMT -5
Another attempt then. It would seem that The Curmudgeon Librarian blog has about 640 followers according to the site. "If" that is a fair representation of the membership, then the "turnaround" figure is about 8 (as per your info above) in 640, or about 1 in 80, or if you prefer 01.25%. Although those figures above are nothing startling, they are streets ahead of the ILIASM records (which was 8 in 50,000, or about 1 in 6,250, or if you prefer 00.02%) by a huge factor. So the "turnaround" figures of The Curmudgeon Librarian group appear to be vastly superior to those evident in the EP / ILIASM group. For example, if the EP / ILIASM group could emulate a 01.25% turnaround rate, that would be about 625 out of 50,000 instead of a paltry 8. Suffice to say, neither groups rate of successful turnarounds is anything to write home about. I've got 640 followers? That's news to me! I just went to my Insights page, at Wordpress, and it tells me that there are 70 who follow me by Wordpress notification and 28 who get email notifications. An average day for the blog will be 20-30 visitors with 75-80 individual views. Good/great days will have 150-250 views. But followers? That's news. Please don't conflate my blog with that of the forum I am referring to. As I said above, that Christian forum has thousands of registered users,..... Oooh! #9, and this one is directly attributable to me! I did a post a series on Addressing the Sexless Marriage a couple of years ago, and one of the things I suggested was scheduling sex. Last year, in an exchange in the comments, one of my readers said that scheduling sex was a gamechanger, that it turned their sexlife around.
..... and my blog which is just a forum for me. Other than #9 above, none of the turnarounds I mention are directly attributable to my blog. The others are from that forum. ~ ~ ~For brevity's sake, I am going to use the term xforum for "that other forum". As to the differences in results from iliasm and xforum, I think that attributable to the nature and outlook of the two sites. xforum consists of Christians only, and chief among "the Christian guilts" (as noted here in another thread) that are part and parcel of Christianity is the belief that marriage is holy and unique, and confers divine responsibility. After all, the last book of the Old Testament says "God hates divorce", and that's a pretty good fillip for wanting to fix whats broken. iliasm consists of all kinds of people and is a melange of thoughts, attitudes and beliefs. A commonly shared iliasm belief is that "refusers can't change", that "iliasm sh***les can't be turned around". I'm not saying that to condemn iliasm, just noting the difference in expectations. Here, exit plans are a major topic; on xforum, if you talked of exit plans they would think you're speaking in tongues. ~ ~ ~Yes, I would agree that the numbers, as you present them, are nothing to write home about. But maybe the difference may be attributable to the difference in the mission of the two sites?
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Post by csl on Jan 5, 2017 9:34:44 GMT -5
This illustrates my point. After composing the long reply to Baza, I went to xforum for my daily catch-up read. One of the first posts I came across was in the Prayer/Praise forum, and the guy started off telling about his morning wake-up call by his wife, and ended with this:
He's not one that came to mind when I responded in this thread, but he is there. And I don't know how many others there are. So I would ask that you not take my recollections as the sum of turnarounds on xforum.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2017 10:02:59 GMT -5
Another attempt then. It would seem that The Curmudgeon Librarian blog has about 640 followers according to the site. "If" that is a fair representation of the membership, then the "turnaround" figure is about 8 (as per your info above) in 640, or about 1 in 80, or if you prefer 01.25%. Although those figures above are nothing startling, they are streets ahead of the ILIASM records (which was 8 in 50,000, or about 1 in 6,250, or if you prefer 00.02%) by a huge factor. So the "turnaround" figures of The Curmudgeon Librarian group appear to be vastly superior to those evident in the EP / ILIASM group. For example, if the EP / ILIASM group could emulate a 01.25% turnaround rate, that would be about 625 out of 50,000 instead of a paltry 8. Suffice to say, neither groups rate of successful turnarounds is anything to write home about. Come on Baz stop winding up Csl you know she gets mad when anyone questions or disagrees with her. And throwing in a little sarcastic humor just confuses her. I think you should pray about it my friend
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Post by csl on Jan 5, 2017 10:23:25 GMT -5
Another attempt then. It would seem that The Curmudgeon Librarian blog has about 640 followers according to the site. "If" that is a fair representation of the membership, then the "turnaround" figure is about 8 (as per your info above) in 640, or about 1 in 80, or if you prefer 01.25%. Although those figures above are nothing startling, they are streets ahead of the ILIASM records (which was 8 in 50,000, or about 1 in 6,250, or if you prefer 00.02%) by a huge factor. So the "turnaround" figures of The Curmudgeon Librarian group appear to be vastly superior to those evident in the EP / ILIASM group. For example, if the EP / ILIASM group could emulate a 01.25% turnaround rate, that would be about 625 out of 50,000 instead of a paltry 8. Suffice to say, neither groups rate of successful turnarounds is anything to write home about. Come on Baz stop winding up Csl you know she gets mad when anyone questions or disagrees with her. And throwing in a little sarcastic humor just confuses her. I think you should pray about my friend And what makes you think that all librarians are women? oh, wait a second, I see what you did there. Well played, sir, well played.
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Post by Lithium92 on Jan 5, 2017 11:33:02 GMT -5
Earthhorse
This is a bit off topic, but I'm the child of a family dominated utterly by my Borderline Personality Disorder mother, and now in a SM (my wife's the refuser). I can empathise with your wife though, BPD's really similar to NPD, and growing up with it totally fucks with your ideas of intimacy, trust, and understanding that you actually have needs, let alone how to get them met. I managed to pretty much sandbox my own sexuality from anything my mother could go near, which has left it relatively unfucked up.
Everyone's different, but speaking as someone who just about survived my upbringing:
* it seems cutting toxic parents out of your life is the necessary first step. Nothing's going to change till you do that as you're using all your energy just to survive as your own person while they're around.
* Then you have to recalibrate how you react to more or less everything else, and that obviously takes time.
* She's probably got a ton of 'fleas' - shitty behaviours learned from her upbringing, basically. Once she's on the case, and out from under the parents, they may well go quite easily.
* Understand her instinctive go-to interpretation of your actions is going to be based on the cruel, manipulative stuff they've pulled on her forever, however much she knows that's not you, and she'll need to think her way round it. I'm guessing that's going to be where she's focussed now. Reassure her that you're not them, you don't do that stuff and you never will (and she's seen how you've changed, how committed you are to the marriage, and you're working to change to).
* You've probably figured this out now, but the essence of that kind of emotional abuse is that it deliberately annihilates your boundaries and identity and every interaction is loaded. She's going to need time to learn to trust that you're doing neither of things, and she's safe. I know you've probably being showing her that for years, but she's only going to start believing it now she's beginning to come out of the woods.
* In general, just never, ever do anything that looks like the kind of shit her family pulled (God knows my marriage is dysfunctional and sexless, but that's the one thing that would send me running for the hills if my wife did it. She doesn't, hasn't, and wouldn't).
It's tough, being low down the priority list (I'm way down my wife's, sexually, for completely other reasons), but if she's working on it, there's hope. Feel free to PM me if you want.
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Post by novembercomingfire on Jan 5, 2017 11:45:36 GMT -5
Earthhorse This is a bit off topic, but I'm the child of a family dominated utterly by my Borderline Personality Disorder mother, and now in a SM (my wife's the refuser). I can empathise with your wife though, BPD's really similar to NPD, and growing up with it totally fucks with your ideas of intimacy, trust, and understanding that you actually have needs, let alone how to get them met. I managed to pretty much sandbox my own sexuality from anything my mother could go near, which has left it relatively unfucked up. Everyone's different, but speaking as someone who just about survived my upbringing: * it seems cutting toxic parents out of your life is the necessary first step. Nothing's going to change till you do that as you're using all your energy just to survive as your own person while they're around. * Then you have to recalibrate how you react to more or less everything else, and that obviously takes time. * She's probably got a ton of 'fleas' - shitty behaviours learned from her upbringing, basically. Once she's on the case, and out from under the parents, they may well go quite easily. * Understand her instinctive go-to interpretation of your actions is going to be based on the cruel, manipulative stuff they've pulled on her forever, however much she knows that's not you, and she'll need to think her way round it. I'm guessing that's going to be where she's focussed now. Reassure her that you're not them, you don't do that stuff and you never will (and she's seen how you've changed, how committed you are to the marriage, and you're working to change to). * You've probably figured this out now, but the essence of that kind of emotional abuse is that it deliberately annihilates your boundaries and identity and every interaction is loaded. She's going to need time to learn to trust that you're doing neither of things, and she's safe. I know you've probably being showing her that for years, but she's only going to start believing it now she's beginning to come out of the woods. * In general, just never, ever do anything that looks like the kind of shit her family pulled (God knows my marriage is dysfunctional and sexless, but that's the one thing that would send me running for the hills if my wife did it. She doesn't, hasn't, and wouldn't). It's tough, being low down the priority list (I'm way down my wife's, sexually, for completely other reasons), but if she's working on it, there's hope. Feel free to PM me if you want. This is a nice assessment. I am in the process of working on issues that may ultimately resolve some of the issues in my marriage. The sexlessness will not be one of those issues, and i know it. My partner suffers greatly from having lived with a rather vicious and narcissistic family, but she is just not going to work on the zero libido piece of it no matter what. The fact that you seem to describe a scenario with a refuser who is willing to try sums it up - nothing changes without willingness to change.
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Post by Lithium92 on Jan 5, 2017 12:05:20 GMT -5
Earthhorse This is a bit off topic, but I'm the child of a family dominated utterly by my Borderline Personality Disorder mother, and now in a SM (my wife's the refuser). I can empathise with your wife though, BPD's really similar to NPD, and growing up with it totally fucks with your ideas of intimacy, trust, and understanding that you actually have needs, let alone how to get them met. I managed to pretty much sandbox my own sexuality from anything my mother could go near, which has left it relatively unfucked up. Everyone's different, but speaking as someone who just about survived my upbringing: * it seems cutting toxic parents out of your life is the necessary first step. Nothing's going to change till you do that as you're using all your energy just to survive as your own person while they're around. * Then you have to recalibrate how you react to more or less everything else, and that obviously takes time. * She's probably got a ton of 'fleas' - shitty behaviours learned from her upbringing, basically. Once she's on the case, and out from under the parents, they may well go quite easily. * Understand her instinctive go-to interpretation of your actions is going to be based on the cruel, manipulative stuff they've pulled on her forever, however much she knows that's not you, and she'll need to think her way round it. I'm guessing that's going to be where she's focussed now. Reassure her that you're not them, you don't do that stuff and you never will (and she's seen how you've changed, how committed you are to the marriage, and you're working to change to). * You've probably figured this out now, but the essence of that kind of emotional abuse is that it deliberately annihilates your boundaries and identity and every interaction is loaded. She's going to need time to learn to trust that you're doing neither of things, and she's safe. I know you've probably being showing her that for years, but she's only going to start believing it now she's beginning to come out of the woods. * In general, just never, ever do anything that looks like the kind of shit her family pulled (God knows my marriage is dysfunctional and sexless, but that's the one thing that would send me running for the hills if my wife did it. She doesn't, hasn't, and wouldn't). It's tough, being low down the priority list (I'm way down my wife's, sexually, for completely other reasons), but if she's working on it, there's hope. Feel free to PM me if you want. This is a nice assessment. I am in the process of working on issues that may ultimately resolve some of the issues in my marriage. The sexlessness will not be one of those issues, and i know it. My partner suffers greatly from having lived with a rather vicious and narcissistic family, but she is just not going to work on the zero libido piece of it no matter what. The fact that you seem to describe a scenario with a refuser who is willing to try sums it up - nothing changes without willingness to change. Yeah, I was assuming from Earth's first post his wife is at least trying. If she can't/won't/isn't ready, the patterns will just repeat forever. I'd got rid of most of my fleas by the time I got married, but I still had an occasional nasty temper though not wayyy off the scale, and my wife is more than usually sensitive to that kind of thing. It took her telling me she wasn't sure if we could stay married if I didn't cool it. I wanted to stay married, and I cooled it. If not easy, it was straightforward, and pretty quick to change. But I wanted to do it, for sure. Your partner's zero libido may not even be part of her family stuff, or it might be so deeprooted she can't face going there. I'm just as baffled by people not wanting sex as any of the other refused people here...
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Post by novembercomingfire on Jan 5, 2017 12:26:41 GMT -5
This is a nice assessment. I am in the process of working on issues that may ultimately resolve some of the issues in my marriage. The sexlessness will not be one of those issues, and i know it. My partner suffers greatly from having lived with a rather vicious and narcissistic family, but she is just not going to work on the zero libido piece of it no matter what. The fact that you seem to describe a scenario with a refuser who is willing to try sums it up - nothing changes without willingness to change. Yeah, I was assuming from Earth's first post his wife is at least trying. If she can't/won't/isn't ready, the patterns will just repeat forever. I'd got rid of most of my fleas by the time I got married, but I still had an occasional nasty temper though not wayyy off the scale, and my wife is more than usually sensitive to that kind of thing. It took her telling me she wasn't sure if we could stay married if I didn't cool it. I wanted to stay married, and I cooled it. If not easy, it was straightforward, and pretty quick to change. But I wanted to do it, for sure. Your partner's zero libido may not even be part of her family stuff, or it might be so deeprooted she can't face going there. I'm just as baffled by people not wanting sex as any of the other refused people here... I have concluded that her noninterest in sex arises from a place that she refuses to revisit - and I accept that she probably refuses to visit this place because it would cause her too much pain. Her anticipation and fear of this pain precludes her even thinking about it and far exceeds her interest in whether i am happy or not. Sobeit. I now will take her as she is. I will try not to complain, but i know i will at times. The life I dreamed of will never come to pass. I'll acept what i have and at least be grateful for that. As my hero Patti Smith once said, "not all dreams need to be realized ..."
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