# Having issues (sorry, long)



## Joe's Wife (Apr 27, 2012)

Not sure where to post this as it is both a sex issue and a relationship issue.

My husband and I are coming up on our one year anniversary. We've been living together for 3 years and dated for 2 years before that and were friends for 2 years before that (we met in 2004).

In December, I quit my job with the blessings of my husband. In February, I started my own business. I completed my certification in my field in 5 days (normally takes 90 days) by working 12 hour days on it (the only 5 days I have put in 12 hour days). Since getting my certification, I've been working 6-10 hour days. My husband works 10 hour days.

My husband feels that since I work from home, I should have to do 100 percent of the cleaning. I do the best I can, but at the end of the day, sometimes we get in bed and we're in mid conversation and I am so tired I pass out without realizing it. My husband then gets very irritated with me and tells me that he "wanted some." I told him that if he helped me out with the household chores, perhaps I would not be so tired. Then he lectures me about balancing my home life with my work life (in other words, he would rather me only work a few hours a day and focus on cleaning up after him the rest of the time).

Then recently, my husband has decided to completely depart with the romance department. His idea to get me in bed in the morning is after I get out of the bathroom when I get up, "Don't get dressed yet. I want some." When I tell him I want coffee and I have to feed the cats (once I'm up, until I feed them, I cannot do anything), he gets in a ticked off mood. If during the day, he wants some, he'll come out and say "I want some." If I deny him of it (because "I want some" is such a great turn on and gets me in the mood every single time), he gets whiny (major turn off) and then gets ticked off.

My biggest complaints with him are:
1) He will not say "I love you." When I say it, his response, "I know." 
2) He will not help clean or clean up after himself.
3) He gets irritated with me when his whining turns me off.
4) I would just love a little bit of romance. It seems like all he does is work, watch TV, work on his StarWars costume, visit his Star Wars sites and think about sex and food.
5) When he begs for sex and to try certain things (which some things are outside of my comfort zone) and he begs and begs and whines when he finally realizes that the answer is not going to change.

I even went as far as sending him an email from his account with links (to Joe from Future Joe) on how to spice up our love life with romance.

Is it wrong of me to be turned off when he just comes out and says "I want some" without any romance to it? I would be more giving if we had more intimacy.


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## Toffer (Jan 31, 2012)

Joe's Wife,

No, it's not wrong for you to be turned off. 

If you are working a full week and he is working a full week (regardless if either of you works from home) the household chores should be split down the middle.

I think your husband needs a little education on how to be romantic. I would strongly recommend counseling right away. Your marriage is only a year old (3 years living together) and the bloom should not be off the rose this fast. 

I would tell him again everything you said here and what your needs are. If he is unwilling or unable to meet those needs (or for God's sake at least try) you need to consider what the next step is.

Can you see yourself in this marriage 5 years down the road if nothing changes?


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## Hicks (Jan 14, 2011)

When he says "I want some"
Say "I want some" (pause) then fill in the blanks with Help, Romance, fun .... and then move along with your day.


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## Cherry (Sep 23, 2009)

Sounds like it's time for marriage counseling. From what you've written, it sounds like he wants you to be his maid and an on demand sex slave. In my humble opinion no spouse should lecture another spouse about cleaning, when they don't do crap around the house.

What do you get out of the marriage? What does he do for you?


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## Enchantment (May 11, 2011)

Hi Joe's Wife ~

Welcome aboard!

Well, this seems to be too common of a problem ... and it's the 'chicken and egg' scenario whereby one spouse needs to have emotional intimacy/romance before they can feel sexually giving and the other needs the sex before they can feel emotionally intimate.

So, two things I can think of. The first is to just be brutally honest with your husband that begging, whining, and not helping around the house are major turn-offs and you expect that he will own and work on those issues because he is a grown man.

You can suggest going over the chores that are required and splitting them because the issue is not that one is home and one is not, but the fact that both of you are engaged in working the same number of hours. While you may be able to squeeze certain chores in while you are home working (and I know because I work from home half the time), you cannot be expected to carry the full load of chores.

Be confident and calm when you discuss this. If he still resorts to begging/whining/not helping, then calmly remind him that those are major turn-offs and a confident engaged man is a sexy man and you want some *fill in the blank with what you want*, wink at him, walk away, lather, rinse, repeat.

The next is to try a bit of an experiment - and that is to truly try and meet his sexual needs as best you can and with a giving heart for a period of time (like the next month or two) and see if it doesn't improve some of the negativity he has going on and help to foster some of the intimacy that you need.

If after doing this for a period of time and things don't seem to improve, then you'll need to have a bigger pow-wow where you talk about what each of you see as being the current and future state of your marriage (which you should do at periodic points anyway), and you need to have a plan in your mind as to ways that you feel comfortable in escalating things if they continue to deteriorate ... so step 1 was the 'experiment' above and continual reinforcement of acceptable behaviours, step 2 may be this pow-wow and a complete de-prioritization of doing certain things ... for instance maybe he is now solely responsible for cleaning up after himself or doing his own laundry or cooking ... step 3 may be to search out some marriage enrichment opportunities (books, seminars) that you can do together... the next step may be to insist on marriage counseling ... after that if he refuses, you may go on your own to decide how best to proceed ... etc.

Best wishes.


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## Grayson (Oct 28, 2010)

I can certainly understand why you would be put off by his behavior. As a Star Wars geek, myself (which I'm assuming he is based on one of your major complaints), I'd like to put a different spin on another of them. Is it possible that his "I know" response to your "I love you" is him mimicking the same exchange between Leia and Han in The Empire Strikes Back, thinking he's being cute and charming (and, from the sound of things, failing miserably)?

I mean, he clearly doesn't communicate with you appropriately, but that particular point stuck out at me as him possibly trying but failing as opposed to the other examples, which sound like him not trying at all.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## PHTlump (Jun 2, 2010)

Joe's Wife said:


> Since getting my certification, I've been working 6-10 hour days. My husband works 10 hour days.


Then you should be doing the majority of the chores. If you each work a 10-hour day, then you should each be tired and do minimal chores that day. If you work a 6-hour day and your husband works a 10-hour day, then you shouldn't just sit on your butt for 4 hours and then complain that your husband doesn't do chores.



Joe's Wife said:


> My husband feels that since I work from home, I should have to do 100 percent of the cleaning.


If you live in a one-bedroom apartment, and cleaning takes 30 minutes a day, and you're working two hours a day less than he is, then he is correct. However, if your husband is a pig and thinks the floor is a clothes hamper and expects you to clean up after him, then he's being unreasonable and creating more work for you.



Joe's Wife said:


> I do the best I can, but at the end of the day, sometimes we get in bed and we're in mid conversation and I am so tired I pass out without realizing it. My husband then gets very irritated with me and tells me that he "wanted some."


Your husband needs to anticipate problems like this. If you're consistently tired at 11pm, then it's stupid for him to plan to initiate sex at 11:30pm. He needs to back it up to 10pm when you're conscious.



Joe's Wife said:


> ... he would rather me only work a few hours a day and focus on cleaning up after him the rest of the time).


There's nothing wrong with that, if you both agree that you should be a housewife.



Joe's Wife said:


> Then recently, my husband has decided to completely depart with the romance department.


Your husband needs to realize that he's failing to create any attraction. Over the long term, this will very likely lead to a sexless marriage. Your commitment to feeding the cats is just an early excuse to avoid sex with your husband. Over the years, if your husband doesn't change his ways, you will find many more excuses. His windows of opportunity for sex will become narrower and narrower. And he'll end up on here complaining about the fact that he has sex once a month with his wife.



Joe's Wife said:


> My biggest complaints with him are:
> 1) He will not say "I love you." When I say it, his response, "I know."
> 2) He will not help clean or clean up after himself.
> 3) He gets irritated with me when his whining turns me off.
> ...


I suggest that you start to align your actions with your words. It sounds like you end up giving in to your husband, but resenting it. So stop that.

As I said, I recommend that, since you work fewer hours than your husband, you do the majority of the housework. But, your husband should clean up after himself. If he leaves beer cans on the coffee table, leave them there. He may ask you about it and you can tell him that he's a big boy who can pick up his own socks and throw his own trash away.

If he won't tell you he loves you, stop telling him that you love him. He will very likely notice. Then you can tell him that you're tired of being the only one to say it. If he wants to hear you say it, he can say it back.

As for the whining, make a big deal out of it. When he whines, run out of the room like it hurts your ears. Adamantly refuse anything he whines about. Tell him your motto is "no whining." And, you can even throw him a bone and give him something you know he wants, but that he hasn't whined about in a while.



Joe's Wife said:


> Is it wrong of me to be turned off when he just comes out and says "I want some" without any romance to it? I would be more giving if we had more intimacy.


Nope. It's not wrong. It's pretty typical. You just have to be proactive about the problem. It's very common for a woman to withhold sex because there's no intimacy, and then the man withholds intimacy because there's no sex. From that point, it's just tit for tat in a spiral down to misery. So don't fall into that trap. Don't necessarily withhold sex. But have sex when your husband is being good and be very clear about what he's doing, and when, that keeps you from having sex.

Good luck.


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## Browncoat (Mar 25, 2012)

Wow, so sorry it sounds like your husband wouldn't know romance if it jumped up and bit him square in the face with the ferociousness of a bear and then chased after him with a chainsaw.

I'm a big nerd myself, but even a nerd can be romantic. Romance for me comes from the passion within me for my wife, it also comes out of me in a lot of creative ways because my wife is not easily brought to bed.

My advice:

Let him know exactly everything you posted here and how deeply it bothers you. Show him the depths of emotional hurt the lack of romance is causing!

Feel free to say no to sex, and when you do let him know that you want him to bring out his romantic "A" game. You can be either blunt or sweet about it depending on how you feel your husband will best respond (just don't be cruel).

If he wants you, and he knows the only way to get there is by meeting your needs first (which you will have to train him to understand). He'll more than likely step up to the plate.


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## Joe's Wife (Apr 27, 2012)

I showed him this and everyone's responses. We had a very long conversation after he saw how upset I was. He's really a great guy. He just needs to learn a few things. I think I might need to learn how to communicate a bit better with him.

Grayson, my husband said that you hit the nail on the head about the Star Wars quote.

He said that our problems are more of a communication issue. When we first met, I made it clear that I was not the person you give flowers to and write poems about. He took that as being that I don't care for any romance. I told him it was little things that mean the difference for me...like last year when he randomly cleaned the bathroom the way I do it (and I am thorough about it). Told him that made my heart smile and I appreciated it. 

He agreed to try to be more romantic and joked around about needing to take classes about it. He said that when he dated other women, he never really got schooled on it and I'm the first woman he's had to be romantic with (to be fair, his other girlfriends either used him, his family or were trashy).

But because he knows I'm in some major pain (pulled shoulder muscle-4th time since October), he's been driving me to my meetings with clients, on my errands and even bought dinner. Going to break out the back massager and who knows.

He's on vacation next week and he's agreed to try a couple's massage. He was really interested in the 7 Days of Sex Challenge I was reading up on. He wants to try that too.

Guess it helped that he read everyone's replies and he read what I had to say. Thanks.


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