Mr Wolf

I’ve been reading in this forum and the thread on Does Your Wife Initiate Sex really got me to thinking so I decided to add my perspective. I see so many posts from men and women that have an “it’s the man’s fault tone” and “if he would just change then everything would be okay perspective”. For the record, I am divorced as a result of my ex wife having multiple affairs for which she blamed me 100%. I was also the blame for how she felt about herself, the state of our marriage, her job dissatisfaction, the global economic crisis and any other global societal ill. I am now about 2 months away from marrying a wonderful emotionally healthy woman.

Let’s face it, we all do wrong in relationships at time. People conveniently forget that for every disgruntled woman/man out there with a list of grievances for their partner’s failures, there is a man/woman who has been in a relationship with them who has a list of grievances JUST AS LONG. If you have a mate that accepts and tolerates and loves you through your issues, count yourself blessed.

Don’t punish the man because he doesn’t meet some nebulous unstated expectation that in all likelihood his wife/GF doesn’t understand herself. Her withdrawal sexually is the punishment cloaked in so many other crappy excuses (I need romance and excitement, I need him to be more dominant, I need him to do more chores around the house, I need him to constantly tell me I’m pretty so I’ll feel good about myself, I need him to listen to me and talk to me, blah, blah, blah). These are legitimate needs but they shouldn’t be used as excuses to punish your man and withdraw from him. People (men and women) need to be adults and deal with the issues in a healthy and productive way. This is not a communication style Mars/Venus issue – it is a being an adult issue. No one should want a tit for tat relationship: If you make me pay (which you have by withdrawing sexually) for everything I've done wrong, then you've stated definitively that the way relationships should work is that people make others pay for their failures. No double standards.

The sexual health of a relationship is the primary responsibility of both the man and the woman. A big part of what bothers a lot of men (sorry for generalizing) over time is the sense that their wife/GF is getting one over on them and that she has access to all of this secret information that he can never have. For relationship advice, I frequently see the implication that if the marriage/relationship has problems – especially sexual problems – then it’s the man’s fault and only he can fix it. He needs to step up and be a MAN! Be more Dominant. Initiate more, be more aggressive, make more money etc. Or he's supposed to become Mr. Emotional Transparency and a surrogate female BFF so she never feels unfulfilled again and gets the Best. Marriage/Relationship. Ever., and thus feel sexually attracted to him because she now feels happy, healthy, whole and amorous with *that* kind of marriage/relationship. In essence this comes down to “look at how much happier we are now that you do everything I want because you are afraid that I will withdraw sexually and now I’m willing to have sex with you and maybe initiate it”!!

This is one of the major issues I have with most relationship rescue philosophies. They imply that the man must clean up all of his crap, every mean thing he ever said, every insensitive thing he ever did and convert himself into the perfect Robo man in a way that precisely fits his wife's taste...and her job is… well… nothing. And then she might feel like being sexually intimate with him and MIGHT even initiate it once in a while. Just like women find it sexually attractive for a man to initiate sex and be the aggressor, many men find it just as attractive when a woman shows definitive interest, initiates it and is the aggressor – this is why so many men get caught up in affairs as their affair partners are usually way more aggressive about sex than their mates (I am in no way justifying or condoning affairs by anyone). Men don’t’ want to have sex with women who act like shy little school girls - that's gross actually. And by initiating it I don’t mean just wearing something different or nothing at all so that he gets the hint. I mean truly taking the initiative frequently to show your man that you have that animalistic, lustful, carnal desire for him and you plan to tear him apart. That also means being very active during your lovemaking – let him know you like what he’s doing, initiate position changes… Let yourselves go physically and emotionally during sex – trust me he WILL NOT JUDGE you.

AFEH

I chuckled while reading your post, mainly due to the accuracy, truth of it. In the 42 years I was with my wife she never once denied me sex. As a husband I was pretty good but not always good yet still I wonder if I’m the only husband in the world who had a wife who never denied him sex.

I think it was probably more to do with the woman in my wife than the man in me, but by how much I just don’t know.

But I do believe the husband has got to behave such that he is a keeper (in that his wife always wants to keep him by her side) and likewise I believe it’s mainly for the man to make sex something his wife looks forward to, something she enjoys doing for herself and for her husband. And in that he needs to be creative and come up with many ways of enjoying sex. The sex wont always be passionate, sometimes it will be dutiful, other times quickies and whatever else.

For me it was one of the gifts, blessings my wife brought to me in my marriage to her.

Mello_Yellow

Yep, you are the only one!

MAEPT10

I love this post.

Enchantment

Hi Mr Wolf ~

Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials.

I think one of the key phrases you used was 'emotionally healthy'. I think that we see a lot of problems on TAM and there is often one, the other, or both spouses that are not as emotionally healthy - as 'grown up', if you will - as they could or should be. Problems are often not addressed as they occur and are swept under the rug, where resentments and all sorts of other ugly things can start to grow and breed and eventually poison the relationship.

I haven't noticed so much that men are told that it's always all their fault. I HAVE noticed that the majority of sexless posts come from men and a lesser number from women who are in sexless marriages with LD men. The only advice that can be given is directly to the original poster - and it usually is of the flavor to 'sharpen yourself up and step up to the plate handling your own issues and holding your spouse accountable for theirs', whether man or woman.

I know as a wife who has a lower drive for sex - or maybe I should say a different kind of drive, response, and viewpoint on sex than my spouse does - it can make marriage a challenge. It takes effort and teamwork on both of our parts to make our marriage work and to see that both of us are fulfilled and happy. I think the most important thing in a situation like this - all too common for sure - is that you are both committed to each other and the relationship. The willingness of each partner to see to the needs and desires of their spouse, and to not rug-sweep issues, will give you a view into how committed and emotionally healthy they truly are.

Best wishes.

__________________

Enter these enchanted woods, You who dare. ~ George Meredith

deejov

I can understand. I did read MMSL.. it's helpful for women as well.
The one imortant aspect that was mentioned that made sense to me (the sexless partner) was this;

you are the only one that can fix the problem. She can’t, through an act of willpower, make herself want to have sex with you. Pay attention to the difference here, it’s critical you understand this. She can make herself have sex with you, she just can’t make herself want to have sex with you.

I think it's really about finding the inner sex goddess and showing her it's okay to let it out.

And by the way... when women cut off men for not meeting their needs... if that's cruel and unacceptable... why is the advice to then stop meeting the wife's needs? Isn't that tit for tat?

I know I know... she did it first, and you maybe feel like you have no other option, but I sometimes feel the 180 is used in this manner as opposed to being a preparation for divorce.

CWM0842

Nice rant. Pretty accurate and would be a good tie-in the feminism thread.

lovesherman

I agree with Enchantment's point that because most of the people complaining about sexless marriages here are men, the only advice that can be given is for them to change the dynamic in their relationship. We don't have the wife's point of view, so we cannot give her any advice. You can only change yourself.

The other point that I would make is that many women do not understand the male sex drive. They do not realize that it is not only physical, but an emotional connection that the man makes with his wife during sex. It is up to the husband to communicate this fact to his wife.

mr.miketastic

Let me try to answer from experience. Been more or less cut off for years now. I had to pry things out of her, and I would improve. I jumped every hurdle and worked my a$$ off to meet her needs. Mild improvement for about a week.
After years one tends to just say eff it and quit trying. Also, being told to guess what she wants without any further illumination is also a **** move.

deejov

Mr. Mike
After years of this behavior.... I can understand WHY you would give up. What I don't understand is why it goes on for years. That is 50% of the sexless partner's burden. While I say I dont understand... I do have empathy, and I'm not judging.

You feel like you have no other option. So are you still married, and if so, why?

Halien

Its an interesting discussion of the problem, but just like many of the threads regarding this subject, I have to ask what good does it do? How do these arguments practically fix the problem?

I'm not being sarcastic. I've seen quite a few threads where it seems as if the unspoken root cause of the problem is that the wife does not participate in a healthy sex life. So, she should fix it by having more sex. By initiating said sex more often, and being receptive to it. But, unfortunately, she has to be aroused for these wonderful things to happen. Can't guilt her into being aroused. Can't persuade her to believe that its only fair for her to want sex, and this will make her aroused. Can't really convince her that being a shy little school girl is so pathetic that she should spontaneously want to become aroused more often.

Really, western culture seems to treat a man and woman's sexuality as if it is some external object that can be shaped by human will, or standards of decorum. We try to push sexuality into an object that can be awakened by applying a few simple ingredients. I'd argue that sexuality is really a part of us. Think of how silly it would sound to tell a red skinned woman that she needs to be white skinned more often. She should be white skinned because that is what she agreed to when she married.

Like AFEH's marriage, there has never been any denying sex or asking for sex in my 25 year marriage. I probably just stumbled into blind luck with a woman who tended to deny her sexuality before we met, but felt sorry for me or something. Really, though, there is an independence of character that I've noticed in AFEH that probably has a lot to do with it. Not at all suggesting that the people who have this problem are the cause of it, but only we can reshape a shared vision going forward. In reading many of the situations on this site, my wife and I were different than some in stressing an approach to marriage that leans toward the side of 100% unity, and 0% independence when it comes to our vision of the future state of the marriage. I gave up things that made her feel vulnerable, and she gave up things that made it feel like I was competing with others for her attention. Its all about deconstructing modern paradigms to understand what really gets in the way of real intimacy.

AFEH

How much respect would you have for a person who jumped every hurdle you put in front of them? Would you have sex with a person you didn’t respect? Or more to the point, would your wife have sex with a man she doesn’t respect?

Don’t you think you lost your wife’s respect for you by jumping over those hurdles she set you?

AFEH

I got as much sex as I ever wanted. To actually verbalise the words “Can we have sex?” or something similar I never did that. For me that would be some sort of grovelling and to get a no would have been very demeaning.


I did offer to pay for it though on a few occasions as a bit of a tease, got a great response and we worked out a deal.

Mr Wolf

How can any person seeking help on this issue know what to change about themselves if their mate does not/will not explore the issue and communicate what the issue is? I find that to be the most common problem on both side of the gender divide.

My point is that both people have a responsibility in the issue. For example, to simply tell the man to fix what you can about yourself and make yourself more appealing, be a man, don't lose her respect, etc. doesn't help if the issues is a hormonal issue with his wife (which she hasn't bothered to share or even explore) and the real fix is a slight change in her meds. Likewise, that advice doesn't help if he is doing something that makes her feel vulnerable and he doesn't kow it.

lovesherman

That is indeed the weakness of offering advice on an anonymous forum. We cannot know what is going on from the other spouse's point of view. The OP has to scroll through the opinions and choose what is relevant to his/her situation. Sometimes it takes lots of questions to elicit the true situation from the OP.