husband1987

So, like many people on here, I am in what I consider a sexless marriage. To get started, forget about her cheating, just trust me, it isn't happening. Love and honesty aren't issues.

My wife and I have been married barely a year. We've been together for about 2.5 years. We met at 21 and both just turned 24. In the first six months we were together, we had sex multiple times a week. After that, it became once a week, twice a month, once a month, and now, ever since we got married, about every month and a half. First anniversary sex?...no. Birthday sex?...no. Valentines, Christmas...no, no. We didn't even have sex for the first two days of our honeymoon in Mexico which was directly after our wedding. I love her more than anything, but I want intimacy. Without it, I feel like we have lost a great deal of passion.

The issue has been talked about multiple times. Her usual reasons include she is tired, she hurts, she is on birth control (she refuses to get off of it), she just wants to be sweet, she is fat (she's not), and she has no desire and the thought of it disgusts her (forget about oral). She says if we would just go to bed earlier, but she watches some show or works on photos (photographer) whenever she has a free moment, usually until she gets tired and falls asleep. She actually loves it most when we sit, watch TV, and I rub her head and back. That's fine, but dang it gets boring.

I've tried backing off the subject (because she often assumes I'm shallow(she's told me straight-up)) and doing more to help her out. I l began increasing my workout intensity and got ripped to increase her attraction. I understand that birth control may be an issue, but she was on it in the beginning with no problems. Actually, most everything that is an excuse now was present before but not a problem at the time. She has said before she thought she would need to have sex more to keep me in the beginning which wasn't true and almost feels like an illusion (not implying it actually was). Granted, she works hard, but I work hard too, and stay stressed working on my Ph.D. I know I can do better at being a better husband and at being more attentative, but is anyone perfect? Oh, and my attempts are rejected 100% of the time. When we rarely do it, it is because she either wants it or feels guilty, not sure which one anymore. It is kind of emasculating to not be able to pick-up your own wife (sadly, it would be easier to pick-up a stranger).

Anyways, I'm becoming more depressed about having a relationship without passion. Also, it is messing with my head and I'm having increased trouble controlling myself because my anxiety to do good has increased because I know it will be a while before I get another chance. No male my age has posted on this thread. She now thinks I don't care about her because I'm beginning to lose my affection (fewer head and back massages, or don't hold her as much, things she considers innocent and sweet). I love her, but I'm just beginning to give up, and what's the point in being affectionate if I'm just going to get aroused and make her mad. Heck, any 24-year-old male is going to get aroused laying in bed next to a beautiful half naked woman (she even falls asleep every time after I give her full-body aka nude massages). It's like a bad joke.

I would love to hear any suggestions or comments. It would be nice to know that I don't have to feel like a jerk but maybe I should just respect her and find a way to be affectionate without any thought of sex.

PHTlump

If nothing has changed, then there is probably no particular, environmental or hormonal cause.

Am I reading this correctly? She used sex to lure you into marriage and now that you're hitched, she has no further use for sex? Yikes.

You should be concerned. Sexless marriages don't resolve themselves naturally. You need to change the trend you're currently on.

You may be onto something. You've tried backing off sex. That makes her happy, but doesn't get you more sex. You've tried helping out with her chores. That also makes her happy, but doesn't get you more sex.

So you've got to shake things up. I recommend two strategies. First, go to Married Man Sex Life and look over Athol Kay's blog. He's got awesome information and strategies. He's written a book that is even more awesome than the website.

Basically, Athol's strategy is called the MAP. If you are a 5 and your wife is a 6, she may think you're unworthy of her interest. If you increase your attractiveness to a 6, she becomes interested again. If you get up to a 7, she starts to worry that you'll leave her for an upgrade and she brings up her game in the bedroom to keep you satisfied. This strategy is very effective, but takes months or years to reach its full effect.

A second strategy is faster and you've stumbled onto that now. It's called the thermostat strategy. You are the hot spouse and you're wife is the cold spouse. Your wife likes you being hot, but she's not willing to heat up herself. The way to get her to take notice of the problems in your marriage is to cool off. Since she's not meeting your needs, you can stop meeting hers. When she asks you why you're suddenly being cold, you can tell her that you've decided you're going to match her level of effort in the relationship. Why should you love her more than she loves you?

The thermostat strategy is riskier than Athol's MAP because you're not changing yourself much. You're simply not being as nice to her. That may lead her to withdraw further, have an affair, or divorce you.

Until you have resolved your sexual issues, you should absolutely NOT have children. There are way too many stories on these boards of men with unsatisfying sex lives having children only to see their sex lives collapse completely and be stuck in the marriage because of the children.

husband1987

Thank you for the reply.

You might be right about the looks ratings. Even though I consider her to be the prettier one, she swears she isn't as good-looking (she is). She doesn't workout anymore and I continue to body build (note: no steroids).

Regarding the trickery, she did say she felt that lots of sex would keep me interested. Once we became engaged, sex started to drop off dramatically. But I'm not implying that she tried to trap me.

The sad thing is she always asks me if I'm happy and if I have everything I wanted in a new wife. Of course I say yes, but I'm honest, and tell her I wanted a passionate relationship.

No, kids won't make it better, especially while I'm in grad school. We are mature and understand that. If anything, they will distract her more.

Enchantment

Hi husband ~

Sorry you are going through this. It never seems to fail - we all seem to be destined to have incompatibilities in one way or another with our mates - I guess it causes us to have to grow and stretch and mature in ways that we never really want to sometimes.

I agree with PHTlump's advice. Here, also, is the thermostat thread that he mentioned:

The thermostat - the ultimate barometer of your R

I quoted something from your original post that concerns me a little bit. I'm concerned that the thought of sex disgusts her. Do you know what kind of upbringing she had? What her prior sexual experiences were? Whether she had any sexual abuse in her past? I'm wondering what the origin of her repression is.

Best wishes.

__________________

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

husband1987

I know she was never sexually abused, and she has only been with two other guys. However, these two were complete jerks and she was engaged for a month to the worst one. She has mentioned that girls are raised to think guys want one thing, and when I try to explain to her that it actually means something much deeper to me, she shrugs it off.

I've heard sex described as grotesque by others on birth control. However, birth control isn't a new thing for her.

husband1987

I read the thermostat advice and it isn't completely accurate. She is wonderful to me. She always calls and texts me, kisses me, tells me she loves me, but she will not have sex with me. She just seems perfectly happy without it, and expects me to remain sweet and be patient.

Enchantment

Well, hormonal birth control can definitely mess with a woman's libido, usually depressing it. When you mess with your hormones, there's often some kind of repercussion in many people. When I was on bc pills in my early 20's for a few years, and then went off them, my H and I used to joke that the way they worked was by making the woman want to be celibate.

Well, your wife has some hang-ups, doesn't she? Those can be hard to overcome - and SHE has to be the one that needs to want to overcome them. She has to the one in the starring role for that, but YOU get to be the supporting actor in all of this.

What do you think would get her attention enough to care to try something? Would she be willing to go off the bc as an experiment? Would she be willing to go to a MC so that you can start communicating about this? Would she be willing to read any marriage books - there are a lot of good ones that can help describe what sex within marriage means to a man?

In the meantime, read through the other resources you were given and look at implementing some of those changes in yourself - to try and help yourself gain back some of your sense of worth and to try and inspire or spur a change within her.

Best wishes.

__________________

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

Enchantment

You are okay with remaining sweet and being patient - even if you have to remain that way the rest of your married life?

I think this will be hard for you, BUT if you are not willing to 'rock the boat' in some way, then you will need to brush up on that patience - you will be having to be patient for a long time.

Let me ask you this - do YOU feel like you should have to defer to what it is that she wants in this? If so, why?

__________________

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

husband1987

I agree with you there. I've told her the same thing. Our couple friends got off BC and talked with her about it because their sex lives improved. No go for her. It's not that she wouldn't do the things mentioned, she just doesn't think sex is important enough to do them. I would probably have to threaten divorce which I wouldn't do.

What I have noticed is that she is nicest girl I've ever been with and the most sane. With that said, the crazies were all very active.
Is that a tradeoff for men.

husband1987

Because marriage really isn't about sex in my opinion. However, I didn't know how hard it would be to live without a nice sex life. My tone may change in time. But no, I do not think it is fair. I just keep telling myself that there is a legitimate reason (stress, hormones) that will change. I'm probably being naive.

Maybe I should turn up the heat. Just hate sounding like a sex-hungry jerk. She does ask every now and then if I think about other girls. I guess it bothers her that I work with young college girls and she says other girls often notice me.

MEM11363

H1987,
In a healthy loving marriage the following statements are ALWAYS true:
1. Each spouse makes a good faith effort to do things that make their partner feel loved
2. And perhaps even MORE important each spouse makes a sincere effort to AVOID doing things that cause their partner to feel UNLOVED

Your W likely NEEDS you to show some edge for her to feel desire. That means when she is behaving in a manner inconsistent with 1 and 2 above you let her know through your actions that you are disappointed that she has deprioritized you.

I bet every time she sends you a text/tells you she loves you - you respond in kind quickly and completely. For a woman who NEEDS sexual "tension" that is a TOTAL desire killer. Total.

The fact that she won't switch to condoms is a HUGE message that you and your emotional need to feel love through sexual intimacy have been completely deprioritized. At some level she is shocked and disappointed that you are not standing up for yourself.

If you are too afraid of "upsetting" her to calmly tell her that you will not continue to make her your highest priority when she is treating you this way, then you WILL have a sexless marriage for as long as you two remain married.

You truly believe you are being kind and patient and respectful. At a core/primal level she perceives your behavior as fearful and weak. She may like you, but she cannot respect you when you behave that way.

husband1987

Wow, that it some deep evolutionary stuff, but it makes sense. She knows I'm completely unhappy with the situation, but I do stay kind.

She freaks when I turn a cold shoulder, but maybe I will do it, tell her why, and let her deal with it. It's not that I'm afraid, I'm just trying to be a gentlemen, but this forum is confirming my hunch that I am in the right.

MEM11363

H1987,
You need to prepare yourself. And you need to have a plan.
Step 1: Stop reassuring your W that you are ok with what is happening. You are not. And frankly you shouldn't be.
Step 2: Prepare yourself to accept that she is going to get extremely upset with you for a while. This will pass IF and ONLY IF you remain calm and firm. Do NOT let her get you angry. Do NOT say anything mean or hostile to her. Simply stop being so loving and supportive and let her melt down so that she can have an "epiphany" and realize that a sexless/near sexless marriage is EMOTIONALLY harmful to the HD spouse and therefore to the marriage.
Step 3: You need to be clear and concise regarding your expectations for her. If it were me those would be a short non-negotiable list.
A. She goes off the pill immediately. It is a possible contributor to the problem and therefore it must go. This is not optional.
B. She begins to make AT LEAST as much effort as you do non-sexually. This means that you alternate giving massages. They don't need to lead to sex. However if your typical massage is a half an hour - hers needs to be comparable. She is NOT allowed to tease you - inner thigh massage/etc. UNLESS she intends to actually have sex with you.
C. AFTER she has been off the pill long enough for its libido impact to have dissipated (I don't know how long that is - google research may give you an idea) SHE and you need to BOTH learn how to get her in the mood when she starts out in "neutral". Most women, if they love their (typically) higher drive partners, are willing to let those partners gently warm them up so that they get aroused and desire sex.

In the meantime I suggest that you get MMSL by Athol Kay. Read it. Try some stuff and see what happens. For instance my W likes to wrestle. It is a type of foreplay for us. I would NEVER in a million years hurt her. That said, she likes it when I overpower her. I think this is very common.

MEM11363

H1987,
One last thing. Your W is not nearly as happy as she could be. But she is "comfortable". By removing her comfort, you will make her very angry. That is ok. In fact it is NECESSARY. However, she will likely test your resolve in the most extreme fashion possible. She may hint/threaten to end the marriage. And when that happens you need to show her that you have the courage to BET the marriage to save the marriage. If she is willing to end the marriage - rather than work with you to make it a healthy marriage - you NEED TO LET HER do so. Don't get aggressive and feed her anger. Just let her know that you will respect her decision if she would rather walk away then treat you like a man and show you and your needs respect.

IF YOU FOLD, when she seems to be considering walking away, you will NEVER have a healthy marriage.

Trust me on this. One reason my W and I have a loving marriage is we are both fully cognizant of the fact that if either of us treated the other badly over a period of time, the badly treaten partner would walk. This is not a bad thing. It is a good thing.

Hicks

The first thing you have to do is decide that sex is very important to you. And that you can't, as a man, decide that everything is great except for sex. You have to decide and realize that by anyone's definition of marriage, including all men and all women and all churches, that sex is the key part of marriage that makes it different from all other relationships. In other words, YOU are NORMAL, and your wife is the one who is lacking. You are not a pervert or a pest or insensitive or any of that.

Now, your wife does not value sex, becuase every man she meets and has ever met wants her sexually. Therefore there is no value to her in sex. You as a man pursued hundreds of women for sex. And the ones that "give it up" must love you. Therefore you equate sex with love.

Now, one of the things you have to do in your marriage is find the thing that sex does for you, i.e. makes her feel loved, happy, fulfilled.

In addition, you have to go the tough love route that MEM outlines above. I will say that when you do step 3, you need to tell her that sex is important to you on an emotional level and try to explain the difference between how a man views sex compared to a woman. She will throw alot at you. She will say you are selfish, all her excuses, you are a pervert and all of that. Your answer to this is that you are not forcing her to do anything, that she has to look in her heart and decide what kind of wife she wants to be in her marriage.

Underlying all this you need to make it clear that if she cannot choose to provide you with sexual fulfillment, that she is not abiding by your definition of marriage and she is choosing not to participate in the marriage.