Losing,
I know nothing about you. With that said:
- Women are wired to care for children, unless they make a concious effort what happens is: the kids get their time, love and attention, work (job plus house stuff) gets the rest and you are left with scraps
- Sounds like you are already deprioritized, another child will simply push her workload up, her stress level up and your priority down
- There is a serious respect issue on top of this and it manifests itself in a few glaring ways from your initial post:
1. Her desire is low (that doesn't mean she can't get aroused, just means she starts out not feeling desire, fairly normal stuff). However, you are getting the - it doesn't matter to me so we aren't going to do it - suck it up - treatment. That is a respect issue.
2. This whole game of "you have no say in this matter". Like you, I might forget a conversation about whether we should paint the den a light gray color or a bluish gray color. However A new child represents:
1. An additional 18 year commitment to your marriage
2. A 250K financial commit
3. A LOT of extra time/effort for many years
The odds of you "forgetting" a discussion about a new child are very low. This bit about "we talked about it and you agreed" may show a huge lack of respect.
If you are so inclined you could have a calm, low key conversation that goes like this:
You: I am a bit bothered by the idea that we had such an important life altering conversation about having a child and for the life of me I can't remember it. Perhaps you can help me recall it. Where were we physically when we talked about it? When was the conversation? What did you say/I say?
If you truly did forget, having her give you a bunch of contextual cues may trigger the memory. If it does you may discover something interesting. The conversation may have been something like this:
Her: I think it is lonely for a child to not have siblings
You: I guess it could be
End of discussion. She could choose to interpret that as meaning whatever she wants, even though a sane person would not claim this represents any type of meaningful communicatio.
I am going to add a few more thoughts in the hope that you will use them in a constructive manner.
Basic male wiring works like this:
- I have a HIGH drive to have sex. High enough that even if I feel that my W doesn't treat me that well I STILL want to have sex with her all the time.
- Even if our marriage is mediocre, I want to have a LOT of sex.
- Even if our marriage is bad, I STILL want to have sex
Basic female wiring works like this:
- I have a HIGH desire to have some number of children. Might be two, might be 5.
- Even if our marriage is mediocre, I still want those children.
- Even if ADDING children will make our marriage WORSE, I STILL want to have those children.
So with that in mind you need to have an equal amount of resolve and compassion. Just as her sexual rejection hurts you, your refusal (if that happens), to have another child will hurt her as much.
Her desire opens a door that would otherwise remain shut. Your core issue isn't that your sex life is really bad, that is just a symptom. The real issue is that your marriage seems to be broken.
Before proceeding, stop for a moment and ask yourself some tough questions:
- Is your wife the highest priority in your life?
- If so, do you think you really understand her? What she likes/dislikes about you and life in general?
- If so, could you sit down and write a list of what she likes/loves about you as a person? Example: you are kind, considerate, supportive, patient, etc. These are "traits". They represent what you "are".
- And a second list of what she likes/loves about what you DO, these are manifestations of your traits: if you are kind and supportive than you listen and empathize when she is upset and don't try and solve her problems, and/or push her to "calm down" as quickly as possible. If you are helpful, you do x,y,z around the house, with your child.
- And a third list about the traits/aspects she dislikes (e.g. you are quick to anger, overly emotional, clingy, fat, bald, etc.)
- And a fourth and final list of how your behavioral traits translate into love busters: you frequently say "I love you". So frequently that she rarely gets to "say it to you first", and instead feels like when you say "I love you", you mean "do you love me"?
If you don't know this stuff it may be because she is:
- Non verbal AND
- Non communicative non-verbally
Or it might be that you pay little attention to her tone of voice, body language and facial expressions.
Given all that as context, the door is opening. She wants a child. You want a healthy marriage. This is the only opportunity you may get to improve the marriage. Go read married man sex life "MMSL" by Athol Kay. And read "no more mister nice guy". And then create a plan to get you to where you want to be. In parallel, ask your wife to fill out a "love busters" questionnaire with you.
I am going to want you in advance. MMSL and NMMNG are both good. But by themselves they may not change things much. However, AFTER you put the concepts from those books into action for a few months AND then have a discussion that loosely goes like this, they may get you to a good place:
"Our marriage is not at a place where I need it to be for us to have another child. I am willing to discuss another child AFTER we resolve our issues, if you are willing to do that let me know and we can talk.
And that talk has to start with the full list of what she needs to be happy with YOU - if she won't tell you, there is zero chance of success. If she lies to you "I AM happy with you" there is zero chance of success. FYI: If she was happy with you, she wouldn't be starving you of sex.
If she does tell you, and she is clear and specific and reasonable then you respond in kind. And yes, part of this discusion will be that you say "I don't know what turns you on/off either inside or outside the bedroom. I need you to tell me. And if you honestly don't know, you need to be willing to experiment inside the bedroom until we find out how I can get you warmed up even when you start out not feeling desire. And I need you to know something. If you truly don't love me enough to feel good about making ME happy, you need to tell me."
That last bit is core. If making YOU happy, doesn't do much for her, that is not fixable. Because then it all comes down to lust, which is a VERY fickle thing in most women.
It is also true that she likely has little interest in any of this. Her wiring is driving her towards another child. The shortest path there is going to be to directly/indirectly threaten you with divorce unless YOU DO WHAT SHE WANTS. Unless you have the resolve to accept that risk, none of this matters.
Ultimately to turn a mediocre/bad marriage into a good/great marriage you need to be willing to let your partner threaten the marriage. Or more simply: To greatly improve a marriage you often have to BET the marriage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by losing_hope  So I've written quite a bit about my wife's jealousy, especially how she thinks I'm cheating on her, when I'm not. But now I have another issue.
For a long time now, her libido has been way down. If it was up to her, I think once every couple of months. But her psychiatrist suggested that we should just schedule the sex, especially since we have a young boy, and with work and all, it might be the way.
One time, when I said that I'd like to have sex twice a week, she burst out crying. And even with scheduling sex once a week, she still avoids it about half the time with one excuse or another.
But today, kind of like you'd say to your spouse "I'm going to get a haircut tomorrow", she said to me "I'm going to try to get pregnant after the summer."
Okay. First of all, I am fairly sure she did not discuss this with me. I would have remembered. She insists she did. I may forget where I put my keys, but I don't forget things like this.
Either way, neither of us can prove the other one wrong, so be it. It's not worth fighting over.
But my question is - isn't it bit insulting that at the same time she does not want to have sex, but wants to get pregnant? It's like I'm reduced to only a sperm donor role here.
I tried to tell her, that I think it's more important to work on ourselves and our marriage first, and that will make us be better parents. But she has trouble with things that do not yield immediate results.
So she got quite upset, and has been giving me the silent treatment for most of the night. From talking with her psychiatrist, I don't think the silent treatment is really an angry reaction to me, but more because she's upset at herself for letting herself get upset.
Also, it sounds really mean, but I'm afraid that another child would probably push us towards divorce, at least right now, for various reasons. One being that due to her medical condition, her hormones really do a trick on her, causing her to have uncontrolled anger. Birth control pills help a bit, but she takes also other medication like for example for anti anxiety, which she would have to quit.
I have a feeling she thinks that getting pregnant again would somehow fix everything that she feels is wrong in her life, and that's why she feels so strongly about it. |
2Likes
Little sex but wanting to get pregnant 
