m76
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Post by m76 on Jun 17, 2024 7:25:21 GMT -5
I'm not sure everyone experiences this or not but I'm trying to put some feelings into words. I have a lot to be thankful for right now. My wife who up until a few months ago would push me away if I tried to touch her at all, will now let me kiss and hug her, sometimes she'll even lean on me in bed, if I ask her to. She's touched me sexually for the first time in over 6 years just last week... So like I said there's a lot of progress to be thankful for.
And yet.... I don't feel thankful at all. I feel sad and angry. I woke up this morning leaned over and put my hand on my naked wife's bum, she's awake but there was no reaction. I can tell my touch makes her uncomfortable and it kills me a little bit every time I realize that she has no desire at all. She says things like she loves me and I'm her best friend...but its not enough.
As I'm writing this, I think I know why. Up until 2 weeks ago, I was ready to tell my wife I going to leave. Last week she finally agreed to sexual touch and I got some hand action. Now, I know that's not enough for me, but it is that little bit of progress that gives me hope and keeps me around for a little bit longer. But now because of that I'm back in the waiting limbo, waiting to see if it actually will go any further.
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Post by lonelyhubby on Jun 17, 2024 8:35:14 GMT -5
I understand. It's the breadcrumbing effect. Just enough to keep you emotionally hooked, and now you are back to where you were instead of committed to moving on. Perhaps she realized you were prepared to split and that is what the "effort" was all about - re-establishing the connection just enough to keep you where she wants you? Just a theory. I am experiencing the breadcrumbing from mine as well - 2 steps forward, 3 steps back
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Post by Apocrypha on Jun 17, 2024 14:13:32 GMT -5
I'm not sure everyone experiences this or not but I'm trying to put some feelings into words. I have a lot to be thankful for right now. My wife who up until a few months ago would push me away if I tried to touch her at all, will now let me kiss and hug her, sometimes she'll even lean on me in bed, if I ask her to. She's touched me sexually for the first time in over 6 years just last week... So like I said there's a lot of progress to be thankful for. And yet.... I don't feel thankful at all. I feel sad and angry. I woke up this morning leaned over and put my hand on my naked wife's bum, she's awake but there was no reaction. I can tell my touch makes her uncomfortable and it kills me a little bit every time I realize that she has no desire at all. She says things like she loves me and I'm her best friend...but its not enough. As I'm writing this, I think I know why. Up until 2 weeks ago, I was ready to tell my wife I going to leave. Last week she finally agreed to sexual touch and I got some hand action. Now, I know that's not enough for me, but it is that little bit of progress that gives me hope and keeps me around for a little bit longer. But now because of that I'm back in the waiting limbo, waiting to see if it actually will go any further. I've been where you are now. I'm going to play back to you a theme that's running in your posts consistently. "wife... will now let me kiss and hug her" "she'll even lean on me in bed, if I ask her to." "touched me sexually for the first time in over 6 years just last week..." (noting though, from your other post, you had to ask her to, it was i n the context of therapy, and then afterwards she said a comment that sounded like s he wanted you to know that she didn't enjoy this).
"I can tell my touch makes her uncomfortable" This doesn't sound like "progress" to me on either of your parts. You are looking at the presence of sexual activity as proof of love and care. It doesn't matter, seemingly, that she clearly doesn't want to do this with you. For her part, she's occasionally "letting you" perform some form of sexual act, but she's going out of the way during or after to let you know she doesn't appreciate it as she goes through with it. It's ok to have a normal human need and you deserve a loving touch, but it doesn't sound like this is a person who feels that way with you or about you. Also, I see no evidence of your claim "I realize that she has no desire at all." In fact, you said she reads steamy bodice rippers. This reads to me as antipathy toward you or the state of being married to you (or at all). Do you really think that if you two split, that would be the end of sex for her? You don't think she would go on a tear to "find her sexual self again?" She thinks she's the hero of your marriage and that you are screwing it up by focusing on the thing that's going to end it. In her mind, she's willing to stick with you and whatever the two of you have (assuming there is no affair yet), even though she feels antipathy toward you, and is willing to suffer celibacy to do it. She likely cast you in the role of a rutting pig or the evil lecherous prince. What you want is the desire that leads to the sex. The love. The care. The need. The trust. The intimacy between two people. You can have sex without those things. That's the sex you are having now, when she "lets" you do whatever with her. Or, at least that's the sex your perceive you are having with her, based on the language you use when you describe it. That's transactional language - and its framed in about the way one might arrange something with a prostitute. And no, I'm not comparing her to a prostitute, but you can bet your a$$ she is seeing you as a john every time you want to express intimacy in that way with her. So, while sex might be happening in some form when it wasn't before, this doesn't look like progress to me.
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m76
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Post by m76 on Jun 17, 2024 22:45:59 GMT -5
You're right. I've been thinking about this all day. Even if she allows me to touch her, I know now she she truly doesn't want me to. We're in a situation where if I get what I want she'll be unhappy. If I don't get what I want I'm unhappy. It seems there really is no win-win here.
Fuck.
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Post by ironhamster on Jun 18, 2024 4:20:54 GMT -5
You're right. I've been thinking about this all day. Even if she allows me to touch her, I know now she she truly doesn't want me to. We're in a situation where if I get what I want she'll be unhappy. If I don't get what I want I'm unhappy. It seems there really is no win-win here. Fuck. It's probably worse than that. She has to sacrifice herself to appear attracted to you enough to have sex with you. I suspect we can all agree that we want our partners to desire us. Sex with someone that has to put on a performance isn't the kind of sex I want.
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Post by isthisit on Jun 18, 2024 5:41:49 GMT -5
You're right. I've been thinking about this all day. Even if she allows me to touch her, I know now she she truly doesn't want me to. We're in a situation where if I get what I want she'll be unhappy. If I don't get what I want I'm unhappy. It seems there really is no win-win here. Fuck. It's probably worse than that. She has to sacrifice herself to appear attracted to you enough to have sex with you. I suspect we can all agree that we want our partners to desire us. Sex with someone that has to put on a performance isn't the kind of sex I want. Acquiescent sex? Yak. I’d rather do it myself. To quote deadzone75 at least that way everyone involved is enjoying it.
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Post by isthisit on Jun 18, 2024 5:45:12 GMT -5
You're right. I've been thinking about this all day. Even if she allows me to touch her, I know now she she truly doesn't want me to. We're in a situation where if I get what I want she'll be unhappy. If I don't get what I want I'm unhappy. It seems there really is no win-win here. Fuck. There are win-wins available- just not with your wife. Separating amicably would result in a win-win. She gets to revel in celibacy, and you get the opportunity to move on with someone more suited to you. Alternatively, you could quit seeking something wifey clearly does not want and get some side action, commercially or otherwise. All rubbish choices, but that’s all that’s on the table for you, and everyone else.
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Post by mirrororchid on Jun 18, 2024 6:13:38 GMT -5
I'll toss in the opening marriage option. She may divorce you, accept the new norm, or (longshot) actually fix what's wrong. (communicate her displeasure, seek medical help, forgive a past transgression she's holding on to, face reality instead of romance novel fantasies.)
She has the problem with intimacy, she's not fixing it. It's up to her. Opening the marriage forces the issue. (It may also make her divorce you, fair warning) Also fair warning, married men can find dating difficult and divorce may be a next step you'll want to get rid of the millstone. Lots of women like those romance novels that end in weddings.
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Post by Apocrypha on Jun 18, 2024 11:35:49 GMT -5
You're right. I've been thinking about this all day. Even if she allows me to touch her, I know now she she truly doesn't want me to. We're in a situation where if I get what I want she'll be unhappy. If I don't get what I want I'm unhappy. It seems there really is no win-win here. Fuck. I just see a lot of similarities with my own former situation here, and I want you to avoid the pitfalls I stumbled into - with everything the hard way. A couple points I'd add: I think as a coping mechanism or perhaps as a failure of imagination, most people (myself included) come into this perception of unwanted celibacy by medicalizing it in some way. So, we view it as an exterior threat to the marriage or something that afflicts both of you and needs to be managed. She's lost her sense of desire. She's become aesexual suddenly, somehow. Like, what if your partner came down with a debilitating disease, or lost a leg or a sense? Framing it this way makes it less personal, allows for more forgiveness for how it affects you, and falls under "through sickness until death do you part". It gives you permission, if not a duty, to pick up her slack and to persevere. It's the two of you together, facing this problem down but from different sides of it. The thing I've noted time and again though, is that this medicalized loss of sexual desire seems to evaporate in a hot second once the circumstances and/or partner are changed. In my case, it changed within a couple days of merely the conversation in which we established we would separate - BOTH times. The second time (following a failed open relationship fallback as an alternative to divorce) she had posted an ad the next day following the conversation in which we established we wouldn't date other people until we could move out. I have seen evidence of that in my own former marriage, with a circumstantially "aesexual" wife, who turned into the stuff of Penthouse Letters when having an affair, when later we eventually opened the marriage for a while, and seemingly in her post-marriage life. TO THIS DAY, former Mrs Apocrypha still clings to some personal narrative that she just cared less about sex than me, despite apparently carrying on with two FWB for a number of years, and engaging in what turned out to be another affair with a married man for 4 years. Of the many, many, post-marriage women I've dated since separation and divorce, I've heard the phrase "I thought I had lost all interest in sex and become aesexual" more times than I have fingers from women who CERTAINLY demonstrated that they were not aesexual. So, this is a fiction that people tell themselves, as well as their unwillingly celibate partners. Why is the medicalizing of this important? Because it becomes crutch that prevents people from seeing the interpersonal problem as it is and applying a response with an appropriate measure to have an effect on the situation.
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Post by Apocrypha on Jun 18, 2024 11:58:48 GMT -5
I'll toss in the opening marriage option. She may divorce you, accept the new norm, or (longshot) actually fix what's wrong. (communicate her displeasure, seek medical help, forgive a past transgression she's holding on to, face reality instead of romance novel fantasies.) I'd offer a qualified second for this one, underlining your caveats. As long as the two of you are "working on it", you are in a stalemate that favors celibacy, at least between the two of you. YOU will be working on it, while SHE is the one with the supposed absence of sexual desire (which is likely untrue) and her work will be in filibustering, deflecting, misdirecting, gaslighting - anything to buy another day. While I did not find that including other people ultimately "saved the marriage", what it DID do was get us off the stalemate by attaching a consequence to doing nothing. You see people sit up in their marriages also at the time they find out about their partner's affair (it's still stalemate until the affair is disclosed though). What I learned was, when staring down the knowledge that an imminent encounter is about to happen, it has a way of making people get very honest eventually about the kind of relationship they are in and what they want and demand from their partner. It gets very hard to account for one's behavior if you don't want your partner, but also don't want anyone else to have them. The redefining of a monogamous relationship to an expectation of mutual celibacy becomes very apparent to both of you, and hard to defend -- which then shines a hard light on the question of whether or not you have an actual marriage as either of you define it. It has a way of making people sit up and take this seriously. The problem is that you can't pose it as a question or as seeking permission. There's no upside to granting it. And you can't be bluffing about "some time in the future". You really do need to mean it - because just the conversation about it is basically putting a gun to the head of your relationship. No one takes it seriously until the ad is placed and calls are being vetted, and you have plans with a date on Friday instead of staying home. Basically, it spikes the ball into her court hard. You are going to find sexual expression in your life with someone who wants it with you. You would prefer it to be your wife. That door remains open for now, but who knows what happens once you walk through it? The negotiation now is just about how much or how little she wants to be involved with yours - with the understanding that if she spoils it for you - that leaves only one option and you will be prepared to take it. And don't accept "don't ask, don't tell" --> that puts all the onus for discretion on you and simply defers the detonation. An open marriage is open - it's about looking right at it and choosing it.
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Post by deadzone75 on Jun 18, 2024 22:37:20 GMT -5
You're right. I've been thinking about this all day. Even if she allows me to touch her, I know now she she truly doesn't want me to. We're in a situation where if I get what I want she'll be unhappy. If I don't get what I want I'm unhappy. It seems there really is no win-win here. Fuck. It's only a loss if you stay. It's even worse than no sex. She speaks dark things that suggest she gets off on your misery. She said that she gets everything she needs from you doing things for her AND...your counseling sessions. What the fuck does that mean? Going to a marriage counselor shouldn't be treated as an enjoyable thing. It's not a date. If you are in marriage counseling, at least one of you has a major fucking problem. Now an exception could be if said sessions are actually improving your marriage, and you are both getting something out of it. She has resisted it from the start. She has refused every single assignment given. You have gotten nowhere for months besides a recent hand stroke, probably because she knew you were about to take a step in the right direction: away from her. And if she sensed you were about to leave and could only manage enough give-a-shit to give you a hand job and then tell you "K, hope you're happy"? If you really want to shock her, cancel the sessions. Sleep in a different room. She obviously enjoys sleeping naked inches away from you, further proof she likes fucking with your head. Put a stop to that shit by sleeping on the couch, or on the floor, or in your car, anywhere the hell away from her. See how she reacts. Take yourself back to a time before you met her. Forget your life since. If someone approached you and told you that you were about to meet and marry a person who would, at some point, refuse to have sex with you for 6 years, would you court her anyway and hope that in year 7 or 12 that you could maybe touch her vagina...not have sex, but just poke her vagina? Or would you run for your life screaming? Of course you would run. We all would have run if our future selves came back to the past and pimp-slapped us with our future truths. And you could still run. You could run right tonight, to borrow a line from "Dawn of the Dead".
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Post by toughtiger on Jun 19, 2024 8:45:33 GMT -5
You're right. I've been thinking about this all day. Even if she allows me to touch her, I know now she she truly doesn't want me to. We're in a situation where if I get what I want she'll be unhappy. If I don't get what I want I'm unhappy. It seems there really is no win-win here. Fuck. I have had this same up and down .... but in the end it is NOT enough. I was to the point where I thought even any sex was ok .......but I see I deserve better... I deserve to be wanted and desired ... not placated.
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Post by deadzone75 on Jun 19, 2024 10:21:40 GMT -5
You're right. I've been thinking about this all day. Even if she allows me to touch her, I know now she she truly doesn't want me to. We're in a situation where if I get what I want she'll be unhappy. If I don't get what I want I'm unhappy. It seems there really is no win-win here. Fuck. I have had this same up and down .... but in the end it is NOT enough. I was to the point where I thought even any sex was ok .......but I see I deserve better... I deserve to be wanted and desired ... not placated. This is so true. We've all settled for shit sex. And I mean, bad, bad sex that would make you cry and give you depression and almost make you wish you were the one who was lying about being asexual.
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Post by Apocrypha on Jun 19, 2024 10:34:10 GMT -5
You will have ups and downs, but what is the minimum acceptable threshold for a marriage? What is a marriage, as opposed to, let's say "an amicable ex-spouse"? Are you now, and when were you last, anywhere close to what either of you would call a marriage? I mean, you can even have this as a conversation with her directly - disarmed and both on the same side, with total empathy rather than anger. When the two of you got married, was whatever this is part of the expectation? I don't mean an obligation fulfilled or not; I mean would EITHER of you recognize this relationship format as what you agreed to? deadzone75 poses the thought experiment perfectly. Imagine you are dating and just meeting this person. How long would you run this clock before calling time. Also, I support deadzone75's view of changing the game by removing the constants, but not to shake her up (it will), but rather for yourself. Look, scroll up and reread the pieces I snipped for you in that initial post. NOTHING about that, and your role in it is hot. You are dealing from a frame of zero personal sexual agency here. Your definition of success is her "letting you" do things to her. It's time to reset and find your mojo. Disengaging from this game and from things that present the conditions for it to play out on her terms will help you find your own place and what YOU want. You aren't going to get anywhere with her parading her naked ass in front of you like some torture out of Greek myth. If you are going to be roomates - if she doesn't want this - then stop pretending that you are something you aren't. She's depending on you doing that as well. Seeing you pining and grovelling for a snack like this isn't making her respect you and isn't ever going to turn her on (if it did - and it DOES for some people - she would suit up and lean into it, and you'd know it turned her on). Stop going to bed with her. Stop casual nudity. Quit tolerating and presenting nudity in a non-sexual context. This is your housemate. Your business partner. Switch your couple's plans to personal plans. Get a solo tent and go camping on a weekend. Have a barbecue and invite the neighbors. Re-ignite your male friend network - call them. Make plans and have a beer with them, and don't invite her. If you don't have your own friends, begin looking for activities to join - running club? dragonboating? choir singing? boardgames? Get out there doing things with people. The friends will come. Have interests, choices outside of your marriage, so that if you imagine answering "tell me about yourself" with a cool answer. Work on your personal fitness and style - get yourself sorted into dating shape. No matter which way this relationship goes, doing all of those things isn't going to make your situation worse and its going to give you confidence - which I think you need.
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Post by Apocrypha on Jun 19, 2024 10:43:46 GMT -5
I went to counselling for years with my then-wife - in total 3 different counsellors. She had an affair WHILE we were in marriage counselling. I ended the last counselling run when it dawned on me that my assumptions around what we were doing were all backwards. I had entered counselling with the goal of finding the necessary tools to improve our relationship such that it was mutually enjoyable. What I realized was that she had entered counseling as she said, with the goal of figuring out whether we should be married. In hindsight, I realized she was starting from the belief that we shouldn't have been married, and that counselling would confirm that belief. She had already left the marriage and was using counselling to validate her choice. As such, counselling was simply became another venue in which to express conflict. She had no goal to use it to become closer. Moreover, the counselling gave us all kinds of interpersonal tools for talking and resolving conflict, but while we became much better partners in that respect, it didn't affect the fundamentals in any way. She didn't see me as a husband and didn't treat me like one. I do not think marital counselling is helpful unless BOTH parties are committed to the relationship.
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