Tall Average Guy

I once read an article about a man who had gone through mental and physical abuse as a child. He stayed away from "owning" anything, becuase growing up, those items were used by his abusive parents to hurt him by taking them away or destroying them. He also had difficulty believing he deserved to own things.

Tall Average Guy

I think this is a huge issue. I would even go so far as to say it is the primary reason for her attitude toward sex. I think IC for both of you, directed toward the abuse you each sufferred, is a must.

Browncoat

I realize what you are saying, though I don't see a disconnect. (please point it out to me again... I might be totally blind to what you are trying to get across)

All I really enjoy getting from people is the joy of spending time with them.

With friends that means joking around and having fun doing anything. We can be at a party, at a ball game, doing work for some charity/church function... really doesn't matter to me. I just enjoy the time and the camaraderie (and most of all I enjoy having conversations about non-trivial things). I'm very easy going and very laid back... I just go with the flow.

With my wife, all I really want from is all the things I mentioned that I want from a friend (and she is a great friend), as well as sharing affection and sexual intimacy together.

I also appreciate and love that she meets my other basic needs: cooking for food, shopping for groceries and incidentals, and doing the laundry so we all have clean things to wear. I appreciate all those things and I am quick to thank her for those things... I really do appreciate them so much, simple as those things are.

My wife knows that's all I want. She's known that about me since very early on when we were dating (I'm a very simple guy).

She's never been one to try and give me things, or frankly others either. She's just not much of a gift giver outside of Christmas and birthdays/anniversaries.

I wish I could manufacture wants if that's what makes others more comfortable and happy. I realize others seem to want stuff... I just don't. In fact I go out of my way to get rid of stuff that I no longer need. I feel like unwanted things are a weight around my neck... ugh just clutter and junk. No thanks.

Browncoat

You are likely quite right. Fortunately we're already in IC with our ST. These matters are some of the things she's going over. I guess my wife and I should talk more about her abusive past ourselves. We tend to avoid that topic, even though we are open about everything. That is she won't shut down and not talk about it... it's just not discussed between us.

She did go through therapy a few years before we met on these matters... but at that time she was a virgin so they likely couldn't get to the bottom of everything.

MYM1430

Browncoat,

Why do you feel uncomfortable when people give you things?

What you wrote resonated with me. I feel uncomfortable when people give me things. I was bullied in school and it affected me profoundly. I have a poor opinion of myself. I don't desire gifts and am embarassed by any personal recognition or celebration. I don't have any prized posessions. I don't ask for anything, can't think of anything that I want when people ask me. I always am thinking about how to serve others and be helpful. I am very grateful for what I do have in my life and recognize that I do not need anything more. HOWEVER, I do not feel desired by my wife. She does not seem attracted to me. She does not refuse me but I don't sense any passion in her response to me. I am often tempted to just stifle those doubts and be grateful for what I have. Yet there is a part of me that is secretly angry and feels deprived. The more I push it down the more depraved it comes up the next time. I'm not sure you feel this way, but I could really identify with what you expressed.

MYM1430

Is that all you want? You don't mention here that you want her to enjoy herself (you wrote this in a previous post). What other things are missing from this list that your wife may not know? I'm not sure you are as simple a guy as you think. I don't believe that anyone is simple. I think she is treating you very simply and very much in line with what you have revealed about yourself to her. I suspect there are hidden areas of your self you have not explored for yourself or allowed her into.

You have very strong feelings about "things". If they were truly unimportant to you, I doubt you would feel so strongly.

Browncoat

You are right, I want her to enjoy sex and intimacy... because I can't enjoy it w/o her enjoying it (if that makes any sense). Though I think that's true for most people (could be wrong though).

Her enjoying me also is a form a affirmation, that she actually loves me. Without that affirmation back I just feel undesirable, unwanted, and not cared for... I don't feel fulfilled and I don't feel like I'm a husband. Without all that I feel like I'm her friend: we can message each other's feet and joke (leaving me feeling unfulfilled sexually/intimately).

I have to admit that in some small measure it makes me doubt myself as well. Am I a bad lover? Should I be doing this or that better? I feel inadequate.

All this came up in therapy and we've discussed it at length at home as well. A big part of the problem though is that she just doesn't look forward to or enjoy sex much... aside from it pleasing her. She tries to offer it like a gift to me, but it feels hollow because her heart isn't in it. Again making me feel unfulfilled like I talked about before.

Well there are multiple reasons.

One is that getting more stuff is that it feels like a chore rather than the blessing it's intended to be. It's a chore because I have to be grateful and loving in response, when in my heart I see this as just another item I have to find a home for. If the person who gives me a gift is far away I often times find someone else to give the item to or return it for cash if I can. That too is a chore.

Don't get me wrong I appreciate that someone tried to do something nice for me... but in the end it's just creating a job for me and giving me something I almost always don't want and won't use (it's very very rare that I actually receive a gift and I actually really end up liking it).

If you do get rid of a gift later, because you don't want the clutter... that to sometimes creates drama. Why didn't you keep the gift? Don't you like the gift? Ugh... just don't want to go there.

One other reason is that I don't like feeling indebted to others. I do things for others because I like/love/care for them... and I don't expect a thing back in return. Some people though expect something back, if not right away at some later point in time. With many there's a sort of tit-for-tat expectation. If you fail in some way, even if you just plain forgot (which often times I do because I just don't want the items anyway) then suddenly there's all this drama... ugh all so pointless. I just feel very strongly that gifts should be given and that you never expect a thing in return. Frankly I resent that expectantly giving attitude, though that likely comes from my mother's side of the family where they got quite nasty if you didn't return an appropriately wonderful gift to theirs (even though you didn't know what they gave you until you two opened it at the same time on Christmas). That attitude is just ugly to me.

Yet another reason is that when you receive a gift you become the center of attention. I don't like being in the limelight. Yet somehow while being uncomfortably put in the limelight you have to put those feelings of discomfort away and show the giver real gratitude (they deserve as much).

Another reason is I don't like having worthless things that have no sentimental value to me around. If something has a function, I have no problem keeping it around and finding a good home for it (tools, equipment, etc.). It has to be something I need though, even if just sometimes. If something has sentimental value (e.g. something my kid made), then I'm again all to happy to find a home for it. Otherwise it's just an annoying nick knack that I want to get rid of, but can't always due to the reasons I gave before.

I don't like having so much stuff that I can't find things I need when I need them. I don't like the feeling that I'm drowning in junk. I like to keep things to a minimum and reasonably organized.

Lastly I often times don't feel worthy of getting gifts (that's where the guilt also comes in). I hold others I love in higher esteem than myself. The act of receiving a gift sort of upsets that balance for a moment, because in that instant another has put me in a place of honor which I feel is undeserved. I know this statement will draw all manner of attention, which is partly why I debated if I'd add it... but it's the whole truth so there it is.

To others this may seem like some big deal that I need to work through, but frankly I'm comfortable with that attitude. The world would be a better place in many ways if people in general valued others more than themselves. What a loving and kind place the world would be!

Lyris

It sounds like you don't feel worthy of the attention and love of others, when it is expressed in gifts. I don't think consistently valuing others over yourself is at all a healthy way to live and it is leading you to disallow the people who love you to show that they do.

Have you considered the powerfully mixed messages you are sending your wife? On the one hand you are saying how little you need others to love you, how easy you are to please, how you only want to give. On the other hand you are being very very specific about how your wife can show love to you. From what I understand it is physical/sexual touch or nothing. And your wife is a child sexual abuse survivor so physical/sexual touch may be the one form of love expression that makes her uncomfortable. Maybe it makes her as uncomfortable as receiving gifts or public appreciation makes you.

It's interesting that it has taken until now for you to mention that your wife was sexually abused (sorry if I missed it earlier). It seems so obviously connected to the issues you are having. During her most vulnerable and formative years she learned that touch was not safe or loving. She has probably worked hard to separate her emotions from her physical self for so long that it now feels completely normal to her. That's why she is so disconnected during sex and why she doesn't think to offer physical touch during the day.
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Browncoat

Thanks for the feedback Lyris. Please keep in mind that in text sometimes a serious of questions can come across as antagonistic, which isn't my intent. So please don't think I'm trying to be aggressive with my questions (and I really hope they don't sound that way).

How so?

Is gifts really the main way people show love for others?

Is it wrong to ask that people show you love in the way that makes you feel loved?

I try and love my wife the way she wants to be loved, why is it wrong for me to ask that she do the same for me?

That's how I feel love. Is it wrong to feel loved primarily in one way?

Don't most people feel love primarily in one way more than other ways?

Good question!

In our case though it doesn't make her uncomfortable. She has told me many times just how much she loves be caressed and touched. It makes her feel so very good, and you can see it in her body language as well. She just melts like butter at my touch and relaxes.

This is one of the reasons we thought for the longest time that she had put the sexual abuse behind her.

I did mention it before post #7 in this thread (first page). I don't talk about it a lot though you are right on that point. It's something I suspect we are going to have to deal with more in the days to come. It's just not a fun topic to touch on... but to make progress it seems more and more that we are going to have to go there.

I'll have to talk to her about this tonight, thanks for bringing that talking point up.

Lyris

Gifts can certainly be one of the main ways people show love. It's one of the five live languages after all. It's actually one of my husband's top two - physical touch and gifts. I always pick him up a little something when I go out to show him I'm thinking of him. Usually something little and edible. He's great at birthday and anniversary presents and refuses to do any kind of asking or hinting as he says the point is that I put the time into thinking of something and getting it for him with no input from him. Gifts are not high on my priority list, so it took me a few years to get into the swing of it and get it right.

If course it's not wrong to want to be loved the way you feel most loved. Hopefully you and your wife can come to some compromise there. For me, my love languages are physical touch and words of affirmation. Physical touch is fine, it matches my husband, but he really doesn't value words of affirmation at all. I've come to accept that over the years and have trained myself to feel love from him when he puts a lot of effort into my birthday present, and when he keeps things organized and helps me with stuff. He tries with words, but it doesn't come naturally to him.

Maybe you can do something similar and try to feel love the way your wife offers it, while still working towards greater physical intimacy.
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Browncoat

I've done the Love languages test before. My top 3 are Physical Touch (by a landslide 11/12) and neck and neck are Quality Time and Words of Affirmation (one point apart). Gifts for me got a big 0.

My wife scored highest on acts of service and quality time, which in a way I've known for years. It's why I make a point to help her around the house and try and do nice things for her when opportunity arises. We do spend a lot of time together, and we talk a lot about all sorts of things. I love those times and I know she does as well.

Still for me it's not enough. I wish it were otherwise given our situation, but for me sexual intimacy is a HUGE part of how I feel loved. Great sex can give me a sort of emotional high that lasts for days and days, sometimes weeks. It just makes every part of our home life that much brighter, and inspires me to do more for her. It makes me really ENJOY doing those extra chores here and there in the house.

The problem is good sex doesn't come often, even if we have sex frequently. Bad sex, which unfortunately we have all too frequently, leaves me feeling empty and hollow... and if it happens too many times in a row doesn't help me at all.

This is why I asked her to stop coming to me for sex unless she's really in the mood. At least until next Friday. If she's not in the mood but she comes to me purely because she knows I want it badly... it often times just makes things worse. She's far too likely to become a rag doll and loose focus right and left, which just puts me in a worse mood and no one is happy.

Enchantment

I think this is the 'root' of everything. The things that happen to us in our childhoods we carry with us throughout our lives ... they shape and mold us into the individuals that we are as adults. If we don't address the negative things that happened to us, then they can continue to influence us and our relationships, most often in a negative way, throughout our lives.

I think that both you and your wife need to be willing to work through these potentially very painful issues as individuals first so that you can learn how to manage them and reconnect with each other in a more positive way. Otherwise, you are connecting with each other through a veil of long-held, possibly pain-created and negative behaviours. The veil must be lifted and new positive behaviours must be learned.

Best wishes.

__________________

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

Mavash.

If I had a dime for every time I told my therapist I "didn't want to go there" I'd be rich now. The one thing I wanted to avoid was the very thing I needed to face in order to be free.

And no it certainly wasn't a fun topic to touch on.