Intimacy issues in marriage

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HardWork

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First time posting here so please bear with me.

My wife and I have been married for 8 years and together for 12. We have two young kids 5 and 6 and since being blessed with them my wife’s additude about sex has changed greatly. I did not fight for our intimacy for a number of years as I hoped and prayed it would return as our children grew. It created great strife for me because I receive love through physical touch. As it begain to feel like the loss was to great I started to attempt to discuss it with her. In all honesty I felt like I was never heard. She was always to tired or disinterested. 2 years ago I asked for us to go to counseling but after meeting with one she felt we could do it on our own. Another year passed and I felt Little had changed and found a few counselers and we reviewed them together and have been in marriage counseling for the past year. Kids being first was the first big issue that came up and has changed some. Then frequency of intimacy was a topic and it seemed to help because we make love more often now. I could do it multiple times a day and she would be good twice a month. We came to a place where 2 times a week would hopefully work. The increase in intimacy helped with my needs but to quality of our intamcy didn’t do it for me. Many times it felt rushed to completion or duty sex and that doesn’t help me cultivate the love I would like. Fast forward through the year of counseling with ups and downs and here we are today on the brink of divorce.

Our intimacy consists of very limited activities, to me it feels like a very limited space. She has issues with how she grew up and sex being shamed and some body issues which I try greatly to let her know she is an amazing women and I love her and desire her in any shape of form but she still flinches if I touch her. We have addressed in counseling but Change has been limited. Even attempting the excersises from counseling has been a huge challenge.

This weekend I shared the way I feel and in return I was told my wife is at her breaking point. She feels she will never be enough sexual and it truly feels like she has little to no drive to see a change in our intimate activities. No matter how I have asked for her to open up it does not seem to register as anything other than pressure for her.

I have made changes in how I help around the house and with the kids and try to do thing things she says fill her cup up and I feel I have been doing them for a long time now. When I ask if I am fulfilling her needs she says yes. But now her feels are that this issue is like a black cloud over us at all times. She feels that I just need to be happy with what we have. It is tearing me apart inside, feeling like my wife doesn’t care about me the same way I do for her.

No abuse in her past, prior to us finding each other i had more sexual experience than her, we come from similar upbringing

I fear my hope is almost lost and I pray about it a lot but I worry that a lack of sexual fulfillment in my marriage is going to ruin our relationship as it may have already happened.
 
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Dear brother,
I will pray for your marriage.
If you are able to have intimate relations twice a week, that is more than some, and certainly, more than you would have if divorced.
Do you pray together every evening? I would encourage you to do that, as it’s a big predictor of happiness in marriage. It doesn’t have to be a long prayer, even just a couple of minutes at times to make sure you are both on the same page.

I would urge you to continue with your efforts to show your love by helping around the house and with the children. Perhaps have a date night where you take her out for dinner.

Please don’t consider divorce unless mental illness or abuse enter the picture, That is so hard on children, not to mention the parents. The children inevitably think it’s their fault, and that’s a wound they would carry all their lives.
Congratulations on sticking with it. I pray that Our Lady will infuse joy and peace into your relationship.
 
Twice a week?

Dude, you have it made.

Not to mention that your wife has issues she dosn’t seem ready to deal with. You CANNOT push her.

If you want “physical affection” and you are willing to take it in every form why do you have to be touching her breasts when you know it causes her issues. After years of being pushed where she’s not ready to go, it’s no wonder she’s frustrated.

Also, verbal abuse is abuse. She was abused. She now has a husband who’s expressing his constant disapointment. YOU need to go to councelling by yourself becuase she’s never going to be in a place she can heal if she has to worry about you abandoing her for already giving all she can.

As the other poster said, you need to readjust your priorities. You’re going to push her over the edge and you’ll get zero physical affection and sex as a divorcee.
 
Do you ever attempt non-sexual affection, with no expectations leading up to sex? As Xanthippe Vooheers says, if touching in certain ways causes her distress, you shouldn’t push her on it and be patient. Work with her, not try to force the issue forward.

You say your primary way of feeling love is physical attention, what is hers? Do you do things for her without her telling you what she needs? It sounds as though her needs and worries are being dismissed.
 
I do not verbally abuse my wife. I do not share my feelings with her on this topic often because of my awareness of the pressure it causes. By often I mean I will go months without saying anything but positive comments to her about us and our intimacy.

I do not want for sex, I wish for intimacy and passionate love making. I do not touch her privates because of how she feels. I respect her feelings and I do all I can to foster an open environment but discussion doesn’t happen, actions do not happen.

I have read all kinds of accounts online and always find it interesting that some comment on frequency like it is all that should matter. “Be happy your getting some” and at first when frequency increased it felt good until it it was the same time and time again, our routine does not create a bind for me. Frequentcy doesn’t matter to me if it doesn’t feel like a connection is being made between us. I am not looking for my wife to satisfy the need of an relapse or orgasm I am looking to bond deeper with my wife through physical pleasure. My love language.

We went 5 years of once a month or less so yes increased frequency can feel better but when it doesn’t feel like it creates or grows our connection it doesn’t matter how much it is. I don’t want for more sex I would be fine with once a week if it felt like it was the two of us together enjoying each other not just something to check off the list.

I have worked hard over the past year to remove any kind of sexual pressure from our lives in hopes that it will help my wife find her voice and find her desire but it feels like it has only slowly exstingushed the hopes of my desires to be fulfilled in our relationship. I am doing individual counseling as well and it has helped me see things differently but it doesn’t remove the void I have in my relationship due to lack of true physical intimacy.
 
You don’t abuse your wife, I didn’t say you did. I said she WAS abused. She had, in the very least, sex shaming and body shaming issues. Very rarely do these not involve some sort of abusive occurrence. In one sentence you acknowledge that in another you deny it. These things are HUGE. Part of her is broken. Your disappointment with her isn’t going to help. Your disappointment is not abuse, but she’ll never heal if she feels that.

You said you’d want sex multiple times a day vs her being happy with twice a month. You then came to an agreement. You then state you don’t want legalistic measures. I’m confused and I’m not even a part of the situation.

Stay with the individual counselling. I’m thinking you have the male version of the Disney princess idea of sex & marriage.
 
Consider love languages - you have a primary one, and one that comes last. For your wife, I would guess that physical affection is last on her list. What is her love language? What comes first for her?

It must be very difficult for your wife to feel as though sex creates a bond between you. If she is uncomfortable with physical touch, it isn’t surprising she treats sex as a duty. Talk to your wife about it, and listen to her, truly listen.
 
Lou thank you for your comments.

I do not push her, I support her in every way I know how.

She likes acts of service and I do for her all I can with out her needing to ask. I ask her at least a couple times a week if there is anything else I can help with but have yet to discover more I could do to speak to her desire way to be loved. She says she feels loved.

I try my best never to dismiss her feelings and desires. I have tried for date nights but am told they just create more pressure. I make sure to get her time alone as she is a stay at home mom. I clean and cook when possible and work and play with kids and work on homework with them and do bed time.

I give her messages and brush her hair with no expectation.
 
HardWork said:
I give her messages and brush her hair with no expectation.
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If she likes massages do you ever ask her for a ZERO sexual implications massage? IE no touching the area in or near wee willy winky.
 
But does she know it comes with no expectation?

I know you say physical touch is your love language, but if it’s something which causes her immense distress even after all your years of marriage, you may have to just accept it won’t happen anytime soon. It sounds like she needs to go back to counseling, maybe by herself. If she doesn’t feel sexual at all, I can see why two times a week sounds too much for her.
 
She does know it’s no expectation. I verbalize that so its not a question for her.

It wasn’t like this before kids her privates where not off limits. She still has an orgasm everything with few exceptions.

I worry that this will be our future and I don’t want that. I am more than willing to try anything that could help us through this but I am feeling lost. Most of the things that we have tried I feel like are never kept with for any time.

Over all I have a huge feeling of loanlyness laying next to my wife while she sleeps.
 
HardWork said:
It wasn’t like this before kids her privates where not off limits. She still has an orgasm everything with few exceptions.
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I suspect that having children have made her body issues re-emerge.
 
She had some tears with both but healed fine physically

How do I help her feel better about herself? With her body issues?

I feel as a lost because I don’t think I can offer any kind of help for her personal issues beyond what I already do. But she also doesn’t seem to want to address her own issues either. Am I just to wait and suffer in silence for the hope that someday she may find solutions for herself?

I feel helpless in our relationship
 
I think there’s perhaps a bit too much detail in one part of your OP for it to be considered a PG post. Some here will roll their eyes, I know. You might consider editing that one small part.
 
HardWork said:
This weekend I shared the way I feel and in return I was told my wife is at her breaking point. She feels she will never be enough sexual and it truly feels like she has little to no drive to see a change in our intimate activities. No matter how I have asked for her to open up it does not seem to register as anything other than pressure for her.
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Then you have to stop pressuring her. It seems like she has been willing to work on things- she’s gone to counseling with you, and is intimate with you twice a week! Yet still this is not good enough for you. She is lovingly giving you more than she is in the mood for. But you told her it’s still not what you want- of course she feels pressure.

A woman who doesn’t feel like she is “performing” well enough for her husband is going to feel self-conscious and want to avoid. I don’t think it’s helpful for you to point out that you are still not satisfied.

It seems like, from what you’ve written, you have made changes (helping with the kids, etc.) in expectation that you will get something in return, and you’re not getting it. She can sense that, if you haven’t outright said it to her. My advice is to focus on giving without expecting anything at all.
 
HardWork said:
I feel helpless in our relationship
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I have a feeling that THIS more than anything else is the crux of the issue. Your feelings of helplessness are quite literally driving you crazy. So you’re doing things like chores to try to fix her.

You can’t fix her and every time you do something with the expectation that it will fix her you drive her farther and farther away.
 
Your wife sounds like she is basically happy with her life and you are the one that is unhappy. Do you think you would be happier without her? I don’t mean for you to answer that here, just something to think about. If you divorce, as someone already mentioned, you would have no intimacy at all.

My thoughts are that your wife is not really the problem. You want something that she cannot give you. You are having more intimate moments, but still not feeling close to your wife. You have to ask yourself why that is, and why you are putting the “fault” on your wife. Really, you have just shown that the number of times a week is not what causes you to feel close. There are people that are together once a month or so that do not feel the loneliness you describe. So perhaps it is not really about the physical act at all. It’s something else that is missing.

And I am glad to hear that you are going to counseling alone, because I honestly believe the issue may be with you, and your expectations of what your intimacy should feel like.
 
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I was a little bit taken aback when you said you could have sex twice a day. Obviously you have a very high sex drive, but in my mind, having sex twice a day is immoderate. It’s not about satisfying your physical desires.

Like the women said, twice a week seems quite normal and positive, as the ladies on this thread attest to.

I didn’t mean you Xanthippe…just hit the wrong response button.
 
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Thank you all for your responses. It is giving me some good perspective to think on. I am thankful for your words.

I need to look deeper within my self to answer the question of what is I am missing more than on the intimacy level.

I am terrified of loosing my kids, I want this to work so bad. I love my wife.

A feeling of helplessness is an issue for me and needs to be looked at further.

I love physical pleasures it is the fire that lights my soul. So I understand twice a day sound like a lot to others but I have learned this about myself. The change since children has created a void in that space for me.

I also understand that I am pushing my wife even when I don’t see it and i have a hard time wrapping my head around what to do as my desire is truly to be closer. I do not wish to drive her away but I see that is exactly what I am doing when I share my feelings with her.

I don’t know how to bring her closer, while at the same time trying to be happy when something so close to my core feels unsatisied.
 
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