Bettina Arndt on sex starved husbands

[Hoosier_Daddy]

I was thinking more long term than you. Do you know of anyone who has recovered from 2 or more years without sex?

Re reading this I actually chuckled at the use of the word recovered.

 

[Allegra]

Give me some examples.

I really hope you meant examples of circumstances which would cause a couple to have to abstain for extended periods of time and not asking HD to disclose the identities of people who have disclosed details about their sex lives to him!

 

[stinkcat_14]

What a weird request? You want names and addresses? I
Can’t do that.

But I assure you in my time as an nfp instructor there were many couples who abstained for long periods of time. Medical reasons, a bout with cancer, or another disease. Life threatening pregnancy issues etc. marital issues, addiction, infidelity, abuse.
Physiological issues, depression, sexual abuse victims, etc. these are all things that can cause periodic or even permanent abstaining. And it’s the character of the people that shines through. Or doesn’t.
Nobody has exploded for lack of sex.

Also and as an aside, these threads absolutely amaze me on CAF.

There is a big difference between abstaining from sex and tolerating abuse. It is a morally praiseworthy thing if a man and woman jointly agree to forgo sex. However, no spouse has the right to impose no sex on the other spouse. Like I said, it is the marital debt, not the marital suggestion. The wife in my example is sinning, whether it is mortal or venial is not something we can say. She has the right to ask not to have sex because of her problems, she has no right to demand that he live a life without sex.

 

[stinkcat_14]

I really hope you meant examples of circumstances which would cause a couple to have to abstain for extended periods of time and not asking HD to disclose the identities of people who have disclosed details about their sex lives to him!

I am not asking for names and addresses. But I would like to know how a couple recovers when a wife says to her husband: “you get nothing, take it or leave it” and repeats that for two years. The wife in my example is getting everything she wants in the relationship. He runs ragged trying to keep her happy, and she abuses him when he asks for her to take his needs seriously. How does a sexual relationship recover from this situation? Just give me one example of how one can recover from this?

 

[stinkcat_14]

As long as the complaint is a serious one and not just whining. A serious discussion about the lack of intimacy in a marriage would involve an acknowledgement or at least a seeking to understand the circumstances which are causing the lack of intimacy and to make or take suggestions about how to alleviate the problems.

I would argue that if a wife has neglected her duties for two years and abuses the husband when he asks her to take the problem seriously, then I would say that the husband has a serious complaint. Both wife and husband have a moral obligation to take the issue seriously.

 

[stinkcat_14]

Re reading this I actually chuckled at the use of the word recovered.

I meant recovery of intimacy in marriage. Obviously one can live ones whole life without sex. But to live with the constant rejection and gaslighting that occurs when one spouse refuses to take their marital obligations seriously is not easy.

 

[UbiCaritas]

Give me some examples.

Well, if a woman had a combination of my and a close friend’s issues, it’s entirely possible that that couple could look at 2 years of abstinence.

I have had to go on doctor-ordered pelvic rest during pregnancies in order to avoid miscarriage/preterm labor. While I am unable to breastfeed, a friend who does but who has in the past REALLY needed to avoid pregnancy agreed with her husband that they would abstain for as long as she was breastfeeding, breastfeeding NFP often being a bit dicey, and then continue doing so until she was in regular cycles again.

If I could breastfeed and decided to, my health issues would mean that my husband and I would probably make the same decision–ie, abstaining during pregnancy if necessary and then until I was in regular, post-breastfeeding cycles. Neither situation is particularly uncommon, and a combination of them, while rarer, is anything but unheard-of.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

I meant recovery of intimacy in marriage. Obviously one can live ones whole life without sex. But to live with the constant rejection and gaslighting that occurs when one spouse refuses to take their marital obligations seriously is not easy.

I Agree and that is horrible. However it isn’t the sex that’s the problem but the other things you mentioned. Why would sex with a rejecting gaslighter be something needed? It’s a form of abuse.
A healthy person in a healthy marriage would not have these issues.

 

[Xantippe]

I was thinking more long term than you. Do you know of anyone who has recovered from 2 or more years without sex?

In the context of NFP, a lot of couples are going to wind up dealing with something like that kind of abstinence during perimenopausal NFP.

webmd.com/women/tc/normal-menstrual-cycle-perimenopausal-menstrual-cycle

“Perimenopause, which means “around menopause,” refers to the 2 to 8 years of changing hormone levels and related symptoms that lead up to menopause. The most common sign of perimenopause is longer, often irregular menstrual cycles that are caused by hormonal ups and downs.”

If you look at a book with a chapter on perimenopausal NFP (say, for example the Kippleys’ Art of NFP), this comes up. Cycles get very irregular and weird and a lot of the normal NFP landmarks are gone. You know that menopause has finally arrived when there has been a year of no cycles, but up until then, it can be very frustrating.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Oh, **now **you mention that she was sexually abused as a child.

Previously, she was just an inexplicable meanypants.

That probably goes far to explaining why she doesn’t want to do counseling–she probably is afraid of winding up re-living her abuse if she talks about it. (Unfortunately, there are inept therapists who don’t understand that sort of thing–I’ve encountered at least a couple people who had that trouble with therapists who walked them straight into their PTSD.) So her avoidance of therapy is also not a sign of her being mean or illogical–bad therapy itself can be damaging.

Here’s a piece by a woman talking about how her childhood sexual abuse affects her marriage and her husband:

natalierose-livewithpassion.blogspot.com/2017/02/intimacy-after-abuse-my-childhood-abuse.html

A whole lot of women have either a history of childhood sexual abuse or rape.

Maybe people should be madder about rapists, not madder at victims of sexual assault or abuse?

Yeah, these threads have a pattern…

 

[Xantippe]

Again, I have no idea, as I’ve never met the man, the wife, and would have to judge based on a third person’s impression of a one-sided complaint. But in general, the spouse who isn’t getting any might be a victim, but it’s important to realize that in the vast majority of instances, he or she isn’t the victim of their spouse, but of the circumstances that have victimized both spouses. This is very clear in the example of your friend and his wife. I guarantee you that no woman aspires to a lifetime of wallowing in trauma from sexual abuse.** Seeking treatment isn’t something as easy as going to the pharmacy at Walmart and saying, “I’m here for my weekly cure for sexual abuse trauma.” It is a long process with forward and backward steps and it doesn’t always work. I’m sure your friend’s wife is suffering from the situation at least as much as your friend is.** I’m sure there are some genuinely narcissistic women out there who seek to hurt and manipulate their husbands by withholding sex for no good reason, but they are few and far between.

Right.

 

[Xantippe]

Yeah, these threads have a pattern…

You mean the appearance of the sudden surprise detail that completely changes the picture?

 

[stinkcat_14]

Right.

From the worlds point of view, there is a reason why the counselor told my friend to get out of the marriage. Living in a marriage with someone who was abused is difficult in the best of situations. When someone refuses to get help and doesn’t care how much they have hurt their partner, then it becomes absolutely impossible. It is particularly bad when there are children involved, you don’t want children to see that tolerating abuse is the normal way of living.

 

[Xantippe]

As much as people are always on about males having physical needs met by sex while females have emotional needs met by sex, I actually think that for many or even most husbands who feel “sex starved”, the issue isn’t necessarily frequency, but whether or not he feels desired by his wife. I don’t have research to back this up, but I observe that husbands are much happier waiting for fertile periods or post-partem periods to finish up if they feel their wives are waiting with them and looking forward to sex and not considering the dry spells as getting out a chore. Meanwhile, I suspect that lots of men who are intimate with their wife frequently don’t really feel satisfied if their wife acts as if she’s just crossing another chore off the list. Sexually healthy men have emotional needs met by sex just like women do, and a 10 minute boink isn’t going to do the trick if the couple looks at it as quickly dealing with a purely physical need like handing a hungry child a nutrigrain bar.

Right.

I think it’s possible to hyperfocus on the physical dimension–but it’s also true that there’s also a category of guys online who complain about how their wives have sex with them, but it’s “starfish” or “duty” sex.



So, not only does there need to be sex, it needs to be genuinely enthusiastic sex…on demand.

Lots of luck with that!

 

[stinkcat_14]

You mean the appearance of the sudden surprise detail that completely changes the picture?

I don’t really think it changes the picture that much, the moral obligation on the part of the refusing spouse is still there. The Church does not teach that spouses who were abused are exempt from the marital debt. The refused spouse may owe patience, but the refuser does not have the right to just say: “you get nothing, take it or leave it”

 

[Xantippe]

There is a big difference between abstaining from sex and tolerating abuse. It is a morally praiseworthy thing if a man and woman jointly agree to forgo sex. However, no spouse has the right to impose no sex on the other spouse. Like I said, it is the marital debt, not the marital suggestion. The wife in my example is sinning, whether it is mortal or venial is not something we can say. She has the right to ask not to have sex because of her problems, she has no right to demand that he live a life without sex.

I don’t see how you can be so sure of that.

Also, is he really going to go ahead and have sex with her, knowing that while he is having sex with her, she is re-living her sexual abuse trauma?

 

[Xantippe]

I am not asking for names and addresses. But I would like to know how a couple recovers when a wife says to her husband: “you get nothing, take it or leave it” and repeats that for two years. The wife in my example is getting everything she wants in the relationship. He runs ragged trying to keep her happy, and she abuses him when he asks for her to take his needs seriously. How does a sexual relationship recover from this situation? Just give me one example of how one can recover from this?

There’s a book called “Boundaries in Marriage” that your friend probably ought to read.

 

[stinkcat_14]

I don’t see how you can be so sure of that.

Also, is he really going to go ahead and have sex with her, knowing that while he is having sex with her, she is re-living her sexual abuse trauma?

In my opinion, the sin is not in the not having sex. The sin is in refusing to take the problem seriously. When my friend says: “we have a problem in our sex life” and the wife says: “no we don’t”. The wife is sinning.

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t really think it changes the picture that much, **the moral obligation on the part of the refusing spouse is still there. **The Church does not teach that spouses who were abused are exempt from the marital debt. The refused spouse may owe patience, but the refuser does not have the right to just say: “you get nothing, take it or leave it”

Let’s say that the refusing spouse agrees to sex and then experiences flashbacks of rape and molestation during marital relations.

In what way has that moved the couple forward? I would say that that is, if anything, a big step backward.

I really encourage you to read the post (it’s short) by the woman talking about the effect of her past abuse on her marriage:

natalierose-livewithpassion.blogspot.com/2017/02/intimacy-after-abuse-my-childhood-abuse.html

“My husband finds himself accidentally re-creating my abuse. Gosh. Could it be any worse? Nope, not really. On occasion, during intimacy, something will happen that reminds me of some aspect of the sexual abuse I experienced. Or to put it more bluntly, my husband will do something that reminds me of something my abuser once did to me (please note, my husband is very kind and respectful to me, there are just some things within sex that unavoidably remind me of my abuse.)”

“2.) My occasional utter disdain for sex leaves my husband feeling rejected and undesired. Sometimes our sex life is healthy and robust and other times, not so much. Like anything, it seems to have seasons, and during times of greater emotional difficulty for me, I tend to avoid sex.”

“3.) My husband’s needs take the backseat. There’s no way to sugar coat this one. Also, I was having a hard time articulating it, so I asked my husband to explain what it means to him. Here’s what he said, “Because of what you went through, my priority can never be my own needs and desires. It has to be about you and whether or not you’re okay. Something that, in my mind, is beautiful and connective might be really terrible and triggering for you. It might never be okay, and that has to be alright with me. I have to find peace with that. It’s hard. Sometimes it’s really difficult for me to understand how this thing [intimacy] that is supposed to be profound and beautiful between two people can be something horrible for you.” It’s been helpful to work on finding things within intimacy that don’t bring up any bad memories for me or discovering new ways to sexually connect that are solely ours. We talk about it as often as possible.”

That couple sounds like they are doing very well (or as well as possible under the circumstances), but it’s not easy working around trauma.

I also think that you are mixing up the issues of sexual refusal and unkindness. I think your friend has to accept his wife’s “nos,” but he doesn’t need to accept unfairness or unkindness.

 

[Xantippe]

In my opinion, the sin is not in the not having sex. The sin is in refusing to take the problem seriously. When my friend says: “we have a problem in our sex life” and the wife says: “no we don’t”. The wife is sinning.

I don’t see how, as a Catholic, you can be so certain when another person is sinning.

At my house, I have to deal with phobic behavior from two family members. One family member was once horribly bitten by a dog and has had many years of terror whenever he sees a dog off-leash, even an obviously happy Golden Retriever, and even if the dog is 100 yards away and innocently enjoying a frisbee game or fetching a tennis ball. I’ve often been asked to go over to the dog owner and ask them to leash the dog. So embarrassing!

Another family member is high functioning autistic and petrified by having to talk to unfamiliar people, even when the unfamiliar person is her own grandma. She goes into panic mode at the idea of us eating lunch or dinner with people she doesn’t know well, even if she’s only going to have to say “hello.” There have been a number of occasions when she refused to sit at the same table with our friends. Again, so embarrassing!

So, are these people sinning or selfish, or are they just paralyzed by fear?

I’ll be honest, both of these phobias have caused me a lot of inconvenience and embarrassment over the years (not to mention depriving me of much-needed social contact)–but however much I suffer from dealing with their fear, they are both suffering a lot more when confronted with a dog or an unwanted social interaction.

So, I would suggest your friend do a lot of reading on boundaries, PTSD, recovery from sexual abuse, and phobias. I just do not get the feeling that either of you understands any of those things.

Edited to add: When your friend’s wife says “no we don’t,” it reminds me a lot of my family members’ phobias. Rationality and fairness go right out the window when a person is gripped by fear. Unfortunately, it’s pointless to reason with a terrified person–the fear is always going to be stronger.