Intimacy Compatibility

[Tarsier]

I am very confused how any of this indicates that *she *has a problem (especially one possibly requiring medication.) She is responsive to your needs and seems aware of your emotions, and is even pushing herself out of her comfort zone to please you.

There are natural ebbs and flows in a relationship, of course. But we all have to do our part, and here it seems like she’s really making an effort. So I don’t understand how it’s her with the problem.

That’s also because you are only getting snippets of the situation, and I’ve tried to keep the thread balanced. We both have issues that we need to work out.

This has been a problem through the duration of our marriage. It isn’t as though she’s just recently been having some intimacy issues. The rough patches tend to be followed by good patches as we try to repair things.

It’s caused some real problems in the past. She admits that she has no sexual drive and has never experienced climax during our 18 years. If that’s not an indication that medication might be necessary, I’m not sure what symptoms one would look for. I’m not a doctor, but nor has a doctor been involved in evaluating, so it’s all speculative. It might be something needing counseling, especially considering that well over a decade into our marriage, she still felt the need to cover herself during relations. Might be that I’m just not someone that excites her in that way because of personality flaw or some other reason. Maybe she feels I’ve hurt her in some way. I’m not aware of such a reason, but again, counseling would help to root that out.

But again, this only is right now about sex because of a response to your post. The greater need, and the one I’m trying to focus on by having us step back from sex, is the idea of intimacy and affirmation at other times in our lives. I’m talking about holding hands, kisses that are more pecks on the lips, a hand on the leg during a long driving trip.

 

[Tarsier]

OK, but that’s not what you said initially.

You are saying different things and offering different explanations with each post. It may help you to be clear from the get-go, both here and with your wife.

I say try the love languages book if you are looking for other ways to build intimacy. Is your wife aware of what you’re trying to accomplish? Because she could just be hurt.

Sure I’m saying different things and different explanations with each post, as this is a situation that spreads over 18 years and is more complicated than one or two things. If I’ve sometimes been vague, I apologize. My wording earlier on was more careful, because I didn’t want this to turn into a “different sex drives” conversation, as it isn’t in my head, though I can’t pretend that isn’t a big factor.

I think she’s vaguely aware, and we need to talk more. I very much admit that, but I can assure you that she wasn’t hurt last night in any way I could detect. We still had a nice evening, even after.

 

[pensmama87]

Sure I’m saying different things and different explanations with each post, as this is a situation that spreads over 18 years and is more complicated than one or two things. If I’ve sometimes been vague, I apologize. My wording earlier on was more careful, because I didn’t want this to turn into a “different sex drives” conversation, as it isn’t in my head, though I can’t pretend that isn’t a big factor.

I think she’s vaguely aware, and we need to talk more. I very much admit that, but I can assure you that she wasn’t hurt last night** in any way I could detect**. We still had a nice evening, even after.

I think you need to talk to her straight-up. It’s funny because the impressions I get from your post is actually one that is often a criticism of wives: we expect our husbands to “just know” things without actually telling them, and then get mad for them for not knowing. It’s not a productive exercise. (I’ve been there, as a wife, by the way, countless times. I’m much more to-the-point with my husband now, and we are much happier.)

I think, if your wife is not interested in counseling, it might benefit you to go by yourself. Not that there’s anything wrong with you, but it just might be useful to learn some different ways of communicating. I know you’ve only had snippets here, but it seems to me like your wife does love you and wants to please you. That’s very, very good. What you might want to address in counseling for yourself is how to show her that you are appreciative, and how to tell her what you need, and how to ask her for what she needs and then give it to her.

One thing about counseling is that we often think of it as a failure or weakness on the moral level. Your wife might resent it as a suggestion because to her it might look like an attempt to assign blame rather than an invitation to improve her health and the health of your marriage. After being in counseling several times myself, I have to say that even when things are good, if you have a good therapist you can learn quite a lot. At present I don’t think it’s necessary for me to go, but I am still using the tools and communication strategies I learned, and I use them with people who absolutely refuse to go to counseling and are unlikely to ever change their minds about it even if it would help them.

 

[Tarsier]

I think you need to talk to her straight-up. It’s funny because the impressions I get from your post is actually one that is often a criticism of wives: we expect our husbands to “just know” things without actually telling them, and then get mad for them for not knowing. It’s not a productive exercise. (I’ve been there, as a wife, by the way, countless times. I’m much more to-the-point with my husband now, and we are much happier.)

I think, if your wife is not interested in counseling, it might benefit you to go by yourself. Not that there’s anything wrong with you, but it just might be useful to learn some different ways of communicating. I know you’ve only had snippets here, but it seems to me like your wife does love you and wants to please you. That’s very, very good. What you might want to address in counseling for yourself is how to show her that you are appreciative, and how to tell her what you need, and how to ask her for what she needs and then give it to her.

One thing about counseling is that we often think of it as a failure or weakness on the moral level. Your wife might resent it as a suggestion because to her it might look like an attempt to assign blame rather than an invitation to improve her health and the health of your marriage. After being in counseling several times myself, I have to say that even when things are good, if you have a good therapist you can learn quite a lot. At present I don’t think it’s necessary for me to go, but I am still using the tools and communication strategies I learned, and I use them with people who absolutely refuse to go to counseling and are unlikely to ever change their minds about it even if it would help them.

I agree. Talking about things is tough for her. She doesn’t feel comfortable and clams up. By her own admission, she just doesn’t know what to say, so I end up feeling like a jerk because it becomes one-sided.

That’s why I’d like her to take that quiz. Maybe she can communicate to me through those results, which might be more comfortable.

But I need to talk about it. That’s my primary motivation for posting here. It’s been very helpful emotionally just to slightly vent and to receive thoughts and encouragement. I did go to a counselor on my own last year. Just one session before that therapist got a new job, but I need to get in touch with someone new.

But yes, I recognize that she loves me, which is explained by her offer last night, when it was late and I know she was tired. I just want us to get to the point that we both read the other’s expression of that in a positive way.

Thank you for your insight and perspective.

 

[Tarsier]

Thank you for sharing, I appreciate that must have been hard to write. You didn’t open up about that the first post, or the second or even the third so I am concluding this is something you don’t like to discuss.

Your wife’s body belongs to you, your body belongs to your wife. You are ONE FLESH this is what happens when you took your vows. The desire for sexual union and satisfaction is normal and natural and God-given. The fact that you have spent 18 years in self-doubt about your sex life is a heavy cross.

To discuss with your wife her body, to be open with her about different ways to try and please her to bring her to climax is not selfish, these are ways God designed to bond the couple and bring the marriage closer together. We are called in marriage to give to one another fully! I assume you are not asking your wife to hand from the ceiling wearing a strange outfit, you are requesting to touch her body, gradually in loving ways. This is normal and natural. I would ask her if she, as a loving gift to you would be open to letting you simply do that, gradually over time with no pressure involved. Hopefully over several months time and with much patience you might get the results you desire.

Thanks. I don’t like talking about it and didn’t want to be too detailed here in a “family life” thread. I feel it is a violation of her in some way to discuss, but I felt the need to clarify after there was some confusion.

And, again, the more I write about things that are difficult for me in this relationship, the more it appears that I’m myopic in my perception of the problem. I know that I have my own issues (who doesn’t?) but sometimes it’s hard to understand someone else’s perception of them, either the perception of which they are aware or one that is more subconscious.

There is a selfish side of me, for sure, who desires the passion of each of us feeling an attraction to one another and a great desire to enjoy our company physically (no chandeliers necessary). Her cycles are less regular, so we sometimes have long periods where we abstain due to NFP (longer than is typical, from what we learned from our coach), so (again, the selfish side of me) really wants that those times of abstinence be filled with prayer, for sure, but also with just genuine affection and that those times of relations to be something that is prioritized to be an important part of our lives (not the only part of our lives or the MOST important part) after we’ve waited a while for them.

 

[E_7]

The 5 love languages quiz helped on reaffirm how my husband feels loved. He is acts of service which means that I must keep the house super clean for him to feel loved, cook and do all service acts for his happiness. I dislike his love language, but I try to be his "personal maid (that’s how I see it) the best I can. And I am words of affirmation which means that any insult, or name calling and criticism would break me. It’s still a work in progress, it’s hard to put the housekeeping top priority while caring for my son.

My point is, To love, you don’t necessarily have to like doing something. You can feel disgusted, repulsed, a slave but you can choose to love the person. An example is a turtle that had its cast broken and flies started to populate it and disintegrate the skin of the trutle, you want to help the turtle and although you feel disgusted, you pick out the flies and eggs and clean it…that’s love.

 

[Tarsier]

18 years of living this way I can see you are quite broken hearted.

This is key. I’m trying to help her understand that it isn’t about satisfying some physical need, but about a reassurance that I’m important to her. This thread has helped me understand that she’s communicating that to me on some level (in some love language) that I have to help her and me figure out.

My concern right now, however, and the reason I haven’t posted about this in the past, is that this is the first time it’s starting to affect me in that I’m starting to not look forward to or particularly enjoy our physical time together. Again, still very attracted to her and still with a sex drive, but starting to associate our time together with anxiety and resentment, so something’s definitely broken, and that’s part of why I need to separate from it.

She came from a home without a lot of affection, but I came from one with divorced parents and my mom’s affair that ended the marriage, and I think this all has a lot to do with it, with my need to be reassured that I’m important to her.

I don’t think divorce is in our future. It never crosses my mind, nor does infidelity.

It just all has me worried as I look at a point in my life that could be the end to something.

 

[Tarsier]

This would seem natural to me. An imperfect analogy if you took your wife out to dinner every month, only you simply went through the motions and didn’t seem to enjoy the evening in any way. While it’s good and wonderful that you are taking her to dinner, it would only be natural on some human level for your wife to desire you to mutually enjoy the dinners with her. After 18 years your wife might ask to stop going to restaurants altogether, not that she hates to eat, but that the experiences are actually a somewhat painful reminder of how you are not connecting.

Imperfect analogy of course, however sexual intimacy for you (however enjoyable) might be also a painful reminder of how you have had 18 years of not connecting the way God designed for you to connect which is a painful cross that you would rather avoid.

On a positive note, we had a very good evening last night. Just enjoying each other’s company. Kissing for a while (half hour?) and then I told her the reason I had been withdrawn physically and that I was willing to go further if she agreed that we really needed to put some focus on just rediscovering how to be close to each other, have fun with each other, touch each other, etc.

She said yes, and I’m not naive enough to believe I just fixed all the problems in the world with that conversation, but it opened the door for further dialogue without some kind of confrontational, tearful talk. I can send some articles to her or the quiz without them seeing to be out of the blue.

So, we’ll see. I haven’t mentioned the subject of chandeliers yet.