My husband told me that he was bored with me. That I never listen to him when he tells me about how to improve my appearance. That he is embarrassed to be seen as the stereotypical black man with a fat white wife.
I feel like crap....but want to give my perspective...I am by no means ugly though I am fat I'm not obese. I weigh the same as when we met. When he has told me how to improve my appearance, he will say "why don't you do things like a lady?" he will constantly compare me to other women...she does this why don't you? [I've addressed this in other threads as well...too many criticisms to post here] Another point i have is that he is not classically attractive though he is attractive to me, i would never tell him how he needs to change his appearance....he is fat, he is bald, he wears glasses, his feet are gross...ugh...
He has a sex drive, he just doesn't want me. I once caught him emailing women on some dating site for one night stands "i'm taken, but am open to women" was his message.... and when the woman didn't write back it was "hey, whats up?"
i am always sexually available to him and open to anything...if he wants sex and loves my like he says he does...why can't he just do me?
Bob,
Your post literally brought tears to my eyes. How do I reconnect with him? I love him with every fiber of my being. I know he feels the same way about me. We just got so bitter and angry and now do whatever hurts the other the most. I don't know how to fix this.
Bob,
Your post literally brought tears to my eyes. How do I reconnect with him? I love him with every fiber of my being. I know he feels the same way about me. We just got so bitter and angry and now do whatever hurts the other the most. I don't know how to fix this.
Well that sounds like resentment, on both sides. Resentment does kill love and therefore marriages. I discovered resentment can go back years, sometimes decades. Resentment puts a hold on love, passion and generosity. It not only puts a brittle hold on those things it totally blocks anymore coming in. I’ve experienced it my marriage and observed it in others. It is not nice, I think resentment is somehow evil.
What can you do? I cleared myself of resentment towards my wife as we went along in life and stuff happened. I did it by forgiving her. My wife never did forgive me, right until the “bitter end”. She was traumatised after we split up. Righto. I told her often resentment was a killer and showed her what to do to be rid of it. When I finally accepted she couldn’t or wouldn’t I quite literally gave up on her.
I don’t know any other way of being rid of resentment other than through forgiveness. I do know and accept that some people find it impossible to forgive. To me these are “small people”.
There is a new personality disorder being proposed, Post Traumatic Embitterment Disorder. This is serious stuff, when bitterness really takes a hold of those unable to forgive. I unfortunately have first hand experience of the consequences when it gets this bad inside a person and I’m thinking of offering help to the psychologist leading the proposal. I witnessed one man taking his own life and 6 others because he was embittered.
But yours is no way near that magnitude of a problem. You are an articulate and healthy woman not only looking for but also wants a solution.
How did I be rid of my resentment? I found a process of forgiveness that worked for me, there are a few on the internet. Then I’d take myself to somewhere quite and peaceful, a village church, private prayer room in a cathedral, some woods, a river anywhere quite and peaceful and then go through my process of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not for the other person, unless of course they ask for it. Forgiveness is for ourselves simply to prevent us from becoming an embittered person. A person who looks back on “faults” instead of the good. Me I’m far too forward thinking to do that stuff. Sure I am now, it’s trying to sort out 42 years with my wife so I can understand it all, eventually forgive her and move forward with my life.
So write yourself a list consisting of the “offences against you” from the past. Go through the list and forgive him for every offence. Then tell him you want to work through the issues with him, the issues on both sides and if you haven’t as yet take yourselves off to MC.
A lot of women seem to think that men aren’t emotional beings. That is so untrue it’s unbelievable. Men are truly passionate beings. Look at all the great artists in the world, the composers, the poets, the philosophers etc. etc. That doesn’t/hasn’t come about by a freak of nature. That stuff comes from the deep passions and deep emotions within Man.
So of course men’s sexual performance is deeply affected by their relationship with their wife and it is in the main their emotional relationship as well as the philosophical side of things. Want to perk a man up? Tell him you appreciate him. But don’t do it glibly and expect a response. Really study your man. Look for what he has done in the past that you appreciate him for and then tell him about it. Be sincere about it and maybe put it in a note or somewhere he’ll find it by surprise. Leave him little notes all over the place over time. Make a campaign of it. Some wives put these things in lunch boxes for example. But it must be sincerely felt by you otherwise it will come across as fake.
I didn’t even think of “sex as sex” with my wife. It isn’t that way for me. If I wanted that I’d go and pull a woman or pay a prostitute, something I’ve never done. For me with my wife it was “making love”. Sure that can be in the kitchen or wherever but it is still making love. It’s a soulful and spiritual connection as well as an emotional and physical connection. It is possession. It is “mine” and nobody else’s. That’s why men get truly distraught when they discover their wife having an affair.
Bob
Absolutely beautifully stated. So true. My husband also has talked like this, it is never sex to him, but only "making love". We have cried together while climaxing a couple of times. Truly this is a soulful & spiritual connection, it touches the depths of us.
BOB- Why in the world did your wife leave, you sound like you have a heart of GOLD ! I don't know your story but the way you talk about her, even after the fact - WOW.
Bob,
I think his emotions run high when it comes to sex. He has to feel connected to me, in love and close. Perhaps he doesn't feel this. He has told me many times that I am difficult to talk to/with. It is frustrating because the words that come out of his mouth do not match his actions and I call him out on that. Maybe that makes me hostile to him."You're hot", "You are the love of my life", "You are so sexy" but then the actions are he watches television and plays on a computer. TMI....when we are in bed he DOES make me feel that way. He doesn't initiate though.
Basically you are telling me that your husband thinks of sex like a chick does. Connection then sex.
The more common male response is sex to feel connection. That is certainly the world I live in and the way I feel.
Bob,
Your words couldn't have been truer to our situation. The resentment goes back many many years. When I found out I was pregnant, scared and in college, the first words out of his mouth was "God, my parents are going to kill me". He never once asked how I felt about all of this!! No, all about OTHER people. Screw me. I do not think I ever forgot that. Really, how could you? To date, I have never felt like a priority in his married life, ever. He says I am but I do not feel it. Just in case you do not know our situation....we met at the age of 9. Hated each other, later became great friends, became best friends, dated others and had sex with others, then started dating each other, started having sex with each other and eventually I got pregnant. We truly love each other...it has however come to a divide. Resentment, anger and bitterness is all I can think about. He just says time and time again to "move past it". He doesn't want to explore a damn thing. I often wonder if we got married because I had his son. It sucks.
Yes, Deejo,
His first, left him feeling like a user and an *******. She was a friend of his and he basically used her for sex. I don't think he has ever reconciled that within himself. He then in essence changed his "moral code" and sex was only to be had in the case of love. I have no idea why this happened. Guilt? She really loved him.
He is not religious. Granted we met in church but aside from our children being baptised, we haven't set foot in church.
Bob,
Your words couldn't have been truer to our situation. The resentment goes back many many years. When I found out I was pregnant, scared and in college, the first words out of his mouth was "God, my parents are going to kill me". He never once asked how I felt about all of this!! No, all about OTHER people. Screw me. I do not think I ever forgot that. Really, how could you? To date, I have never felt like a priority in his married life, ever. He says I am but I do not feel it. Just in case you do not know our situation....we met at the age of 9. Hated each other, later became great friends, became best friends, dated others and had sex with others, then started dating each other, started having sex with each other and eventually I got pregnant. We truly love each other...it has however come to a divide. Resentment, anger and bitterness is all I can think about. He just says time and time again to "move past it". He doesn't want to explore a damn thing. I often wonder if we got married because I had his son. It sucks.
That’s the problem with having a memory, stuff stays in them. I once heard a wise man say something like be careful what you let in, you can never get it back out.
And that is true. But there are two types of memory, long term and short term. Stuff first goes into our short term memory, gets a bit sorted out through our thoughts and later in dreams and passes into our long term memory.
But then an offence comes along, we are seriously offended like you were when you told of your pregnancy. Now what happens? If we forgive the person for their offence and I mean truly forgive, it’s not something that can be rescinded, withdrawn, then in time the offence, along with all it’s associated emotions, sometimes traumatic, goes into our long term memory. In a way it is “forgotten” because the offence is no longer in our short term memory.
But those that don’t forgive keep the offences in their short term memory. And in that way they keep the offences “alive”, current. Offences that have now turned into bitterness and resentment are stored up in this way … in the short term memory. How and why people do it is way beyond me, but I know they do do that.
My wife would have won gold medals at the Olympics and been a true world champion with this stuff. I defy anybody to beat her lol. Except her mother of course.
It truly amazed and stunned me how in the heat of a conflict she could bring something up from decades ago that was never ever spoken about in all the time between. And this was “split second stuff”. There was no reflection, introspection or whatever to recall the supposed offence from her long term memory. It was there ready and waiting in her short term memory because she more than likely thought on the real and imagined offences going back decades every single day of her life.
My wife told me she loved me many times. I could never get how on earth she could love me while at the same time have strong anger and dislike for me. I couldn’t do that. I can’t love somebody who I dislike even a little bit and have even a little anger towards. I just can’t do that and if I could I wouldn’t. I much prefer to forgive and let it all go.
BOB- Why in the world did your wife leave, you sound like you have a heart of GOLD ! I don't know your story but the way you talk about her, even after the fact - WOW.
I wasn’t going to be a 75 year old man being taken to task yet again over something I did when I was nineteen. That’s just one example of quite a few. Some of the offences I supposedly committed were my wife’s way of denying responsibility for her own behaviour, which is obviously a lot worse. I hope that makes sense and kind of puts it into perspective.
I know quite a few men who didn’t have the balls or whatever to end it when they should have done and spent their old age with a bitterly resentful woman. A woman they’d loved, supported, helped and taken care of all their adult lives. It was truly pitiful to watch.
That wasn’t going to be me. I’d rather be alone and with half the money I had. But I do have other plans just not too sure what they are at the moment. Emotional entanglement with another woman is at the moment a frightening thought for me.
My wife was exceedingly special to me in many ways. But I couldn’t love a bitter and resentful woman, not after all I’d done for her over the years. I’d deserved one heck of a lot more than that.
What i personally learned from my guy's lack of sex drive and a recent discussion with him.
First off, some guys don't value sex above everything else. Mine is above all interested in the well being of his family. Since we've been going through a time of money problems, as he stated, he's too overwhelmed by a lot of concerns regarding that. That's all his mind focuses on and the top priority right now. Or as he said "how can i think about sex when i don't know if we're going to make it ok through another month".
Second, when resentment is built up, both women and men won't really touch someone they're extremely angry with. Sex means pleasure and a mental connection to some of us, connection that can't be formed with someone who's hurt you or didn't seem to respect/love us in the past. A lot of arguments and mean words that were said have an impact on all of us and they tend to remain in our minds.
Third in line, people who are rejected constantly will eventually have a low self esteem, they won't be confident, attractive and won't really try to do a lot of things anymore. It's hard to put sex on your calendar and still enjoy it. It's not natural, passionate anymore. It's a chore. But the person who isn't interested won't really start it. The person who wants it isn't willing to take a lot of risks to get it. In my personal case, i do want it and i could seduce him (i've done that before) but the idea of waiting for him at home in a negligee horrifies me because i'm terrified he'll say no and i'll feel worthless. If i could manage to build up that confidence and stick to it a couple of times, maybe a lot of things will change. At this point, that means detaching myself from him and caring less, to afford taking those kinds of risks. Detaching is immensely hard because i feel like we're already too far away from eachother emotionally. It's an awkward place to be in.
At this point, even talks become unnatural. The person who's witholding feels hassled and feels like their partner is always asking for sex (aka...."you say you want...but what about me, i'm pissed at you for a reason. despite that, it's still all about what you want/need"). The person who is asking for sex feels constantly pushed away, gets angry and can't communicate as effectively (tends to turn everything into a fight).
Add a bunch of other small mis-understandings to the mix and you've got yourself a guy who doesn't want sex anymore. Or a gal in other cases.
Bob, If I weren't married already I would surely beg you to marry me.
Are we having a long distance EA lol. It is really good talking like this though. It’s in depth stuff I could never get to with my wife. I saw a good mate the other day and he asked why I hadn’t been round for a while. I couldn’t exactly tell him that his wife needs to cool it with me and that’s why I haven’t been round. Instead I had to tell a lie, like I called round a few times but they weren’t in. I do seriously like the attention and I’m totally flattered.
What i personally learned from my guy's lack of sex drive and a recent discussion with him.
First off, some guys don't value sex above everything else. Mine is above all interested in the well being of his family. Since we've been going through a time of money problems, as he stated, he's too overwhelmed by a lot of concerns regarding that. That's all his mind focuses on and the top priority right now. Or as he said "how can i think about sex when i don't know if we're going to make it ok through another month".
Second, when resentment is built up, both women and men won't really touch someone they're extremely angry with. Sex means pleasure and a mental connection to some of us, connection that can't be formed with someone who's hurt you or didn't seem to respect/love us in the past. A lot of arguments and mean words that were said have an impact on all of us and they tend to remain in our minds.
Third in line, people who are rejected constantly will eventually have a low self esteem, they won't be confident, attractive and won't really try to do a lot of things anymore. It's hard to put sex on your calendar and still enjoy it. It's not natural, passionate anymore. It's a chore. But the person who isn't interested won't really start it. The person who wants it isn't willing to take a lot of risks to get it. In my personal case, i do want it and i could seduce him (i've done that before) but the idea of waiting for him at home in a negligee horrifies me because i'm terrified he'll say no and i'll feel worthless. If i could manage to build up that confidence and stick to it a couple of times, maybe a lot of things will change. At this point, that means detaching myself from him and caring less, to afford taking those kinds of risks. Detaching is immensely hard because i feel like we're already too far away from eachother emotionally. It's an awkward place to be in.
At this point, even talks become unnatural. The person who's witholding feels hassled and feels like their partner is always asking for sex (aka...."you say you want...but what about me, i'm pissed at you for a reason. despite that, it's still all about what you want/need"). The person who is asking for sex feels constantly pushed away, gets angry and can't communicate as effectively (tends to turn everything into a fight).
Add a bunch of other small mis-understandings to the mix and you've got yourself a guy who doesn't want sex anymore. Or a gal in other cases.
That’s exceedingly well articulated Nekko and it is very real. Time will tell what you will do about it.
I think in troubled times sex was probably my “weed” or whatever it’s called. Like having a joint, troubles seemed to disappear for a while, forgotten and a deep comforting sleep afterwards. Wake up on a high and refreshed, ready to go out and carry on the battle.
Re: What Kills a Man's Sex Drive? 
