# What should I do?



## helpme851 (Mar 20, 2010)

Hi there.

I don't even know where to begin. I'm tired of being married, I'm tired of the endlessly fighting with my wife, I'm just tired. We've been married nearly 3 years after getting married at 22. We had been dating for 6 years before we got married, and it seemed like the natural thing to do. We had not lived together prior to marriage, and we mutually decided to save sex until marriage.

In general things we quite good when we were dating, we had issues but we always got through them together and spent a lot of time having fun with each other. And previously I've always been a defender of marriage. I've always believed that you can't hope for a good relationship, you have to decide to have one. And now I feel like a failure, but I think the decision to have a good marriage isn't just up to me, it is up to her too. We never have sex. I can count on one hand the number of times we've had sex in the last two years.

This of course bothers me greatly and it not for a lack of effort on my part. I've done everything she has asked me to in an attempt to move things forward, but in her own words she admits she doesn't like to have sex at all, and whenever I try to do something nice, to her it appears that I'm just trying to get her in bed. Yet I've explained to her over and over that I'm being nice to her in order to improve our relationship, and that yes, it may lead to us having sex because I believe people in a happy relationship have sex. But I do not see her as a prostitute whereby I do X and she owes me Y. So basically anytime I make an effort to create a "romantic dinner" I get shot down because I'm just a pervert who only wants one thing. I'm not sure how I can make this anymore clear to her, maybe someone can help me, because we are at a total stand still here. Unforunately I believe she wants a platonic relationship, which is one I just can't be happy in.

But it is always more. If I did this, or I did that, she would have sex with me. But it never works. I spent more than three months doing everything she asked me to do (which was generally just spending time around her more, this is what she always claimed to want), and it was all for naught. So now she wonders why I don't try to spend a lot of time with her anymore, and tells me that she made mistakes in the past and that she'll change if I go back to trying to spend time with more. And I've tried for limited amounts of time, but I don't see the effort on her part, so why should I keep trying? I believe now that she should have to the one to initiate the change since I proved I am capable of changing, but she refuses because she treat me with respect or have sex with me until I spend all this time with her, which again, in the past has been a failure.

We split up the housework fairly (both of us agree on this), our finances are in good order, we really have a great life together in many ways. But I knew going into this marriage she was going to be someone who wanted her way or the highway and I thought I could live with it. But I'm tired of getting yelled at for making very minor mistakes. I'm tired of being berrated when she wants me to kill a ladybug and I say "just a second, I am busy". I'm tired of being verbally assaulted despite apologizing for forgetting to put the toliet seat down, or loading the dishwasher wrong. Her irrational fears and beliefs are getting to me, they put us both in a bad mood and make us unhappy with each other for no good reason.

But most of all what bugs me is that she simply doesn't treat me like someone she loves or even respects. She comes home and doesn't even say hi to me. She doesn't give me a kiss. She does nothing. And it has always been this way since were married (when we dated we always kissed each other when we came and went). We have many pets, and she loves them to death. When I come home I seek her out, kiss her, hug her, and talk to her. I used to do that too when she would come home, but often she would be frustrated with her job and push me away. She works a science job she doesn't want to do and wants to go work at an animal shelter which is fine. She actually did leave her job for about 5 months and work at the animal shelter and she claimed she was happy. But still, she didn't care to say hi to me during that time, or treat me with anymore respect. When I bring this up, she disregards it, which amazes me. During the time she said she was happy with her professional life, she didn't treat me different at all.

And then there is the pets and the chores. We both love our animals very much, but she tells me all the time she loves them because they love her back and don't hurt her, while I apparently hurt her. When I press, she admits the reason she is upset with me is I don't spend enough time with her. And that is funny because when she was feeding or taking care of the pets or making dinner or doing the laundry she wants me to follow her around and talk to her. Fine, except she doesn't talk much because she is concentrating on things, so basically the conversation lasts 45 seconds of me asking questions and trying to spark a conversation, then I just sit there idle. I offer help but she proclaims that I couldn't do a good a job as her on whatever chorse she is doing. However, when I am doing any of my chores, she sits on the couch and watches TV and knits. This is perfectly acceptable to me so I say nothing, but quite a double standard.

Eventually I convinced her of such, but even still somedays she screams at me for sitting on the computer and not spending time with her when she doing chores. And I've gotten really sick of it. She apologizes when I confront her about it immediately, but I believe there is something beneath it all that bugs her when I use the computer when she is doing chores because she lashes out at me so often.

And finally there is just the philosophical differences between us. We've discussed many of these at length basically everytime ending badly and we just can't reach common ground on how to fix our relationship. I believe sex and physical intimacy is part of a relationship between a married couple is very important, and I do not believe I can be happy in a relationship that lack it. Is that ok for me to think? Am I being a pervert? She believes that sex isn't a part of love, and that I need to love her before we have sex. The issue here is that anything I do for her in her eyes is just me attempting to get her in bed because we don't agree philosophically.

She refuses to go to counseling over these issues, and refuses to go out on dates with me, unless the date is taking our dogs somewhere in which case the focus is on our dogs or out to dinner on a day where niether of us feel like cooking. A walk on the beach together (something we enjoyed often when we were dating)? Probably never going to happen again.

*Is this normal? Is this being married? *I am a very happy person in general and very optimisic. My wife once was, but at this point she is so upset with the world (treatment of animals, lack of rights for certain groups [gays, women] ect...) she is quite pessimistic most of the time. At this point though, I am not happy, in fact very unhappy with our marriage and my personal life. I fear getting divorced because it would ruin my financial stability (we are doing really well here) and because she is the kind of person who wouldn't mutually go through with it, she would fight me tooth and nail the whole way. Honestly, I don't think these are reason for us not to get divorced but I don't know what to do.

Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far, I probably just wrote a book...


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## Blanca (Jul 25, 2008)

helpme851 said:


> *Is this normal? Is this being married? *


i dont know about normal but sounds about how my marriage is, too. except my H is the one that doesnt want sex very often. 

im also extremely sexually frustrated. i dont think its a small thing. why else would you get married? i can be friends with anyone. i only have sex with one person. so to me its a huge deal. 

i havent really decided what to do about things. but the more stories i read on here the more i realize its not going to get any better. and trying to get him to change just sets me up for resentment and anger. so, sorry im probably not much help. but just hang in there. i know how frustrating it is.


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## DennisNLA (Jan 26, 2010)

Helpme, 

I think you need to run into individual counseling ASAP, from either a licensed therapist or your spiritual leader. You need to determine what will make you happy right now. You cannot change the values of what your wife believes in. Go into counseling to determine if this is the marriage for you. If not, you are young enough to find someone else. We all make mistakes and G-d will forgive you if you ask him. It is a far bigger mistake to be fighting and bickering for years on end as the resentment of this issue festers and end up taking it out on your future children. 

From your note I assume you two have no human children right now. Please take this advice, do not have intercourse with your wife until you accept the marriage the way it is. This would be after a substantial period of counseling. The last think you need right now is for your wife to become pregnant and further complicating matters. 

Your wife is going to need to make a change in her values. You can not make it for her. Not all marriages are destined to work out. Trust me from my 20 years, the sex does not get more frequent once children are around. The marriage just gets far more complicated and you have substantial issues you need to work on before an accident or planned pregnancy happens. Do not trust your wife that she is still taking birth control once you start confronting these issues with her also. Please keep this as simple as possible.


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