# Sexless and PIV or not?



## bob1471 (Dec 27, 2013)

OK, so generally would non-PIV be included when defining sexless? (Not talking PIA - I wish! Not really talking P IN anywhere!) Ot should any act where orgasm is reached be considered "sex"? After all, an act you wouldnt do with mother or sister lol.

And asking women here, why is PIV that much more hassle? Without talking details here, there are other things that are quicker and less intrusive I suppose. But sometimes I don't understand why all the big deal about but being keen on PIV? Surely its not that big a deal? Bit messy maybe but if you really wanted it to be it doesnt take long etc.

As previous posts, sex life is not great. PIV is VERY rare. Other stuff is just about on the cards, just about.....

Be interested in womans take...


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## badsanta (Oct 13, 2014)

In marital terms, PIV can be legally required to "consummate" the marriage. 

After that has happened and it ceases later in the marriage, then refusal of PIV can be viewed as coerced infertility. 

Is she worried about pregnancy?

Badsanta


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## Cynthia (Jan 31, 2014)

If someone would rather focus on her man and thinks PIV is a hassle, she must not be getting anything out of it. I wonder why she isn't. Is her husband a poor lover? Is she ill? Are there relationship issues? Does she have a low sex drive, but is willing to do something to make him happy without getting her whole body involved? There are too many questions to answer such a general question. There is something going on that is making her feel like PIV is a hassle. What are those things?


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## WorkingWife (May 15, 2015)

To me, PIV when I don't feel like sex is pretty "invasive." Kind of like being forced to eat a steak when you're already full. I'll still do it and try to act happy about it but I don't enjoy it. I'd much rather give a blow job where I can focus on giving him pleasure without having to open my body up to something it does not desire. Having sex when you don't want it can actually cause an aversion where the non wanter (most often the wife) feels dread at the idea of sex.

If she never wants PIV it's hard but I would talk to her about it when you're not trying to have sex, just talking, and see if you can find out why she seldom wants it. She could even have a physical issue. And make sure she understands that you do want it and it's an important part of your marriage to you. It's an awkward subject but if you can get her to open up and be honest maybe you can find the winning combination for you.

If she's willing to do other things that bring about orgasm but not PIV I think there is something more going on than her just feeling like it's "a hassle." Like you said...it really doesn't take that long...

BTW, how often is "almost never" to you, and how often is she willing to do other things but not PIV?


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## richardsharpe (Jul 8, 2014)

Good evening
whether it "counts" doesn't matter. If one person wants it, and the other doesn't that is a problem. PIV is a common enough activity that wanting it cannot be considered "unusual" in any sense. Most men and women find it pleasurable so if she does not, its worth understanding why.


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## Vega (Jan 8, 2013)

bob1471 said:


> OK, so generally would non-PIV be included when defining sexless? (Not talking PIA - I wish! Not really talking P IN anywhere!) *Ot should any act where orgasm is reached be considered "sex"?* After all, an act you wouldnt do with mother or sister lol.
> .


Hmmm...

So, if your wife was caught in the act by you, having sex with another man, but neither one of them had an orgasm, would that mean that they didn't _really_ have "sex"?





> And asking women here, *why is PIV that much more hassle*? Without talking details here, *there are other things that are quicker and less intrusive I suppose*. But sometimes I don't understand why all the big deal about but being keen on PIV? Surely its not that big a deal? Bit messy maybe but if you really wanted it to be *it doesnt take long *etc.



Which is exactly the point. It may not take long for YOU to orgasm and your wife (as well as other women) might see this as you USING her body (vagina, hands, mouth, etc.) just for you to GET OFF. Kind of like you're using her to masturbate. It's like telling her that YOU want an orgasm and you want HER to 'give' it to you. I mean, fast-n-dirty is fine ONCE IN A WHILE. But I wouldn't want a steady diet of that. 

Not a good feeling.


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## WorkingWife (May 15, 2015)

You make a good point. If it "doesn't take that long" what we're talking about is the man relieving himself in the woman's vagina. If you have a happy marriage and feel loved and appreciated, most women don't begrudge hubby the occasional, or even frequent, quickie. But when the majority of sex "doesn't take that long" the woman understands she's being used as a hole and if her needs aren't getting met, she's going to find sex really unpleasant really fast and start to feel resentful.


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## bob1471 (Dec 27, 2013)

CynthiaDe said:


> If someone would rather focus on her man and thinks PIV is a hassle, she must not be getting anything out of it. I wonder why she isn't. Is her husband a poor lover? Is she ill? Are there relationship issues? Does she have a low sex drive, but is willing to do something to make him happy without getting her whole body involved? There are too many questions to answer such a general question. There is something going on that is making her feel like PIV is a hassle. What are those things?


Oh yes very long story here....

Long term illness - fibromyalgia = not easy for her. Young daughter to look after, work part-time - and we're both in 40s. Not easy.
Also, pretty sure shes into perimenopause too now.


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## bob1471 (Dec 27, 2013)

WorkingWife said:


> To me, PIV when I don't feel like sex is pretty "invasive." Kind of like being forced to eat a steak when you're already full. I'll still do it and try to act happy about it but I don't enjoy it. I'd much rather give a blow job where I can focus on giving him pleasure without having to open my body up to something it does not desire. Having sex when you don't want it can actually cause an aversion where the non wanter (most often the wife) feels dread at the idea of sex.
> 
> If she never wants PIV it's hard but I would talk to her about it when you're not trying to have sex, just talking, and see if you can find out why she seldom wants it. She could even have a physical issue. And make sure she understands that you do want it and it's an important part of your marriage to you. It's an awkward subject but if you can get her to open up and be honest maybe you can find the winning combination for you.
> 
> ...


Thanks. PIV - talking months gaps. The other stuff week or two maybe.

See my other post about external issues etc.


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## wantshelp (Mar 10, 2016)

bob1471 said:


> Thanks. PIV - talking months gaps. The other stuff week or two maybe.


I have wondered also, what the definition is. For me the total of all types of sex were under 10 for most years, but if you only counted PIV, it would be worse. But, I think any sex act that you enjoy together does count. IMO. What percentage of times you approach her does she refuse to do anything?


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## bob1471 (Dec 27, 2013)

wantshelp said:


> bob1471 said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks. PIV - talking months gaps. The other stuff week or two maybe.
> ...


Depend what you count as refusal? 

Remember she's ill. Some days I can see how worn out she is. Sometimes I don't see it. 

I'd say every time I mention she never refuses but may delay for day or two. Apart from piv like I said where it's like no not up to it.


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## Cynthia (Jan 31, 2014)

You should be talking to your wife about these questions and working through this with her. Marriage is about having each other's backs and working together through life. If you aren't doing that, there are deeper problems that need to be resolved. You cannot work through joint problems by yourself. It takes two to make a good marriage. If she is not willing to work through these things with you, she is not doing her part in the marriage. Why is that? Is there anything you can do to encourage her to work through this? Does she have a strong sense that the two of you are in this together and that you are with her through thick and thin? Do you implicitly trust each other? If not, then that needs to be addressed first. Sex is not going to happen if that is your main concern.


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

WorkingWife said:


> You make a good point. If it "doesn't take that long" what we're talking about is the man relieving himself in the woman's vagina. If you have a happy marriage and feel loved and appreciated, most women don't begrudge hubby the occasional, or even frequent, quickie. But when the majority of sex "doesn't take that long" the woman understands she's being used as a hole and if her needs aren't getting met, she's going to find sex really unpleasant really fast and start to feel resentful.


You are probably right that there is more going on than just it being a hassle. However, in your post above, I am not sure.

Maybe it is not quite that simple. As someone who was in a Sex Starved Marriage with a wife that absolutely would not have sex with him and when we did have sex she would emotionally hurt me, I have a different perspective.

Sometimes sex for a man is about feeling connected, feeling desired and feeling loved. After a while, rejection can create a conditioned response between two people. It isn't always about relieving himself in a vagina. Sometimes, like in the case with my wife, she didn't want me to feel emotionally connected to her. If I initiated and she responded positively for a while and then made it clear she didn't want me to have any pleasure, I would end it as quickly as possible. During therapy with a sex therapist, there were times she actually didn't know she was doing things that hurt me emotionally.

In a marriage we "condition each other" much like Pavlov and his dogs or BF Skinner. A wife can train a husband to only expect quick sex by how she reacts to him when they do have sex. If a guy has been so conditioned he may well be a poor lover to a new woman until his conditioning is changed and he can again freely make love. (Also a husband can train his wife to not provide him the emotional connection he needs.)

This may or may not be the situation. However, I wouldn't automatically assume he is the problem. 

My experience is that it takes two people to make a marriage great and two people to destroy a marriage. I was able to save my marriage and regain a meaningful sex life between my wife and me, but it was very hard to break years worth of habits and conditioning.

Change is hard and takes constant guarding against backsliding into old habits.

Let's now use a slightly different example. Pretend you are the husband in a relationship like the following......http://talkaboutmarriage.com/213620-post1.html



> I am like alot of other women on this site, have no attraction to my husband although I know he is a handsome man, I dont want him touching me or kissing me, it actually repulses me, I don't even pretend to like kissing or sex, I just refuse to do it.
> 
> He is an excellent husband, amazing Dad, provides what we need and more & would do anything for us, however it's just the one thing thats missing, but it is a HUGE part of a relationship. It breaks my heart to see how lonely & upset he looks lately because i do love him & care about him, im just not in love anymore. I have felt like this for a few year now, just not to this extent, it has obviously gotten worse, I had hoped things would get better....


This woman above at least understands what is going on and that she is part of the problem. Again, let's say you or the OP are the man in this relationship and want to feel emotionally connected to this "wife." You initiate and she just doesn't respond. How many times would you make sure she got lots of pleasure before you just try to feel some emotional/physical sexual connection and stop worrying about something she doesn't seem to want?

The couple needs professional help from a really good sex therapist. That is what saved my marriage.


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## WorkingWife (May 15, 2015)

This is a very good/interesting post.

Very interesting what you said about how we condition each other. I have definitely tried to hurry things along sexually in my relationship. Of course, that came after I got the clear message that my buttoned down hubby was unnerved (at best) by my wanton ways and I went from feeling frustrated to shut down to averse to just wanting to be done with it. :-(

On the other hand, regarding "just getting off in a vagina" - I actually have no real problem with this if my partner likes sex more often than me, though a BJ is easier on my physically. The problem I hear more from women and have felt myself is that the man cannot be bothered to to meet our emotional needs, like affection and conversation, and with sex, his idea of foreplay is grabbing at our breasts and crotch a few times. Most women in this position would say they just feel like a "hole" to their husband and they do not want the sex.

I personally don't understand the woman below who says how great her husband is but is not attracted to him. It doesn't make sense to me. If I think my husband is great, even if I'm really LD, why would I begrudge giving him a hand-job or blow job? I could do that with genuine exuberance even though it's "just for him" if I have goodwill toward him and feel full-filled by him as a husband. (PIV can actually be very painful if you're not ready. It's a totally different game, IMO.)



Young at Heart said:


> You are probably right that there is more going on than just it being a hassle. However, in your post above, I am not sure.
> 
> Maybe it is not quite that simple. As someone who was in a Sex Starved Marriage with a wife that absolutely would not have sex with him and when we did have sex she would emotionally hurt me, I have a different perspective.
> 
> ...


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## wantshelp (Mar 10, 2016)

WorkingWife said:


> On the other hand, regarding "just getting off in a vagina" - I actually have no real problem with this if my partner likes sex more often than me, though a BJ is easier on my physically. The problem I hear more from women and have felt myself is that the man cannot be bothered to to meet our emotional needs, like affection and conversation, and with sex, his idea of foreplay is grabbing at our breasts and crotch a few times. Most women in this position would say they just feel like a "hole" to their husband and they do not want the sex.


This is the perspective I would expect from a loving partnership. My policy is always "She comes first" (pun intended). I know I do whatever my partner likes because I genuinely enjoy seeing her orgasm. The physical part is unimportant to me unless it causes a lot of pain for me (which it does not). Although, ironically, I am fighting a painful throat infection from going down on my wife last week. She doesn't know that I have seen 2 doctors and had it cultured. She keeps suggesting that my "sore throat" is because of the oral sex and I keep saying, "nah, I'm sure it will pass soon." It's not a lie because I don't know for sure what caused it. 0 I know she would feel bad that it happened, but I would do it all over again because I like the connection. 



WorkingWife said:


> I personally don't understand the woman below who says how great her husband is but is not attracted to him. It doesn't make sense to me. If I think my husband is great, even if I'm really LD, why would I begrudge giving him a hand-job or blow job? I could do that with genuine exuberance even though it's "just for him" if I have goodwill toward him and feel full-filled by him as a husband. (PIV can actually be very painful if you're not ready. It's a totally different game, IMO.)


I don't understand it either... Although, based on experience in counseling, my wife has some hangups from her upbringing that sex is bad, dirty, only ****s have sex, and it's what rapists do. So why would someone who loves you want to do that to you? When we started counseling, she would literally avoid saying the word "sex". She would say "it". Anyway... the point is that sometimes it's a mystery because everyone has different thoughts driving their actions. The only way to understand is to talk about it openly without being critical of what they say. You have to hold back your judgement and see things from your partner's perspective to allow it to come out.


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## richardsharpe (Jul 8, 2014)

Good evening
The contrast between different relationships is so startling. It sounds like you are happy to do sexual things for your husband - BJs when he wants because PIV is uncomfortable when you are not aroused. His idea of foreplay is grabbing you. 

The concept is so alien to me. My wife gets constant romance - whether it is flowers by surprise at work, moonlit walks on a beach on a tropical island, or just love notes at work and hugs and kisses all evening. I don't think sex has ever (in 30 years) been one-sided. She did used to give me a BJ for my birthday - but always followed by my giving her an orgasm in some way. (She doesn't O every time, but usually, and I always do my best for her).

This may be at the heart of many discussions / disagreements here - different couples sex lives are so completely different. 







WorkingWife said:


> This is a very good/interesting post.
> 
> Very interesting what you said about how we condition each other. I have definitely tried to hurry things along sexually in my relationship. Of course, that came after I got the clear message that my buttoned down hubby was unnerved (at best) by my wanton ways and I went from feeling frustrated to shut down to averse to just wanting to be done with it. :-(
> 
> ...


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

WorkingWife said:


> ....On the other hand, regarding "just getting off in a vagina" - .......The problem I hear more from women and have felt myself is that the man cannot be bothered to to meet our emotional needs, like affection and conversation, and with sex, his idea of foreplay is grabbing at our breasts and crotch a few times. Most women in this position would say they just feel like a "hole" to their husband and they do not want the sex.
> 
> I personally don't understand the woman below who says how great her husband is but is not attracted to him. It doesn't make sense to me. If I think my husband is great, even if I'm really LD, why would I begrudge giving him a hand-job or blow job? I could do that with genuine exuberance even though it's "just for him" if I have goodwill toward him and feel full-filled by him as a husband. (PIV can actually be very painful if you're not ready. It's a totally different game, IMO.)


As to your comment about grabbing breasts and crotch, I know few married men, who love their wives that would do something like that. That might be the way their wife feels, but it is probably not how the husband is really acting.

One of the interesting things I learned in my recovery from a Sex Starved Marriage, was from Chapman's 5 Languages of Love. The lesson is that people are different, really different. For example, my primary love language is "touch" and secondary love language is "words of affirmation or praise." My wife's primary love languages are acts of service and quality time.

If I want to show my wife that I love her in a non-sexual way, my primary love language urges me to touch my wife, say on her shoulder, hold her hand, hug her, etc. My wife interpreted my reaching out to touch her as "pawing her to get in her pants." So when I wanted to feel close I would do what my natural love language was and she would feel repelled and do something to reject me. That would feel the equivalent of my saying I love you and she saying get away from me. Can you see how a spouse might exaggerate such a situation as all their husband does is grab a breast or crotch My wife told the sex therapist that I pawed and that she wanted intimacy, not sex. (That was until the therapist gave us some intimacy exercises that my wife could not do, then she said she really didn't want that much emotional intimacy.)

Similarly, if I used my secondary love language and praised her for something she did that made me proud of her, during our sex starved marriage phase, she would look at me and tell me to stop buttering her up to just get in her pants. Again, rejection of a gesture of love.

The point of this is that we do condition each other. Often we really don't understand our partner or what they are trying to non-verbally tell us and assign motives that really aren't their. In the process we hurt them in ways that change how they interact with us in the future. 

I was lucky through change on my part, education on my part, the help of a really great sex therapist, and a wife that was willing to try to do things to save our marriage, so that my marriage survived.

Now as to an LD wife loving her husband, but not being willing to have sex with him. My wife is LD and we both struggle with that. During our SSM, she once actually told me, "Don't touch me there, as if you do, I will want to have sex with you and I just don't want to have sex." That is want LD looks like up close and personal. She knew that if aroused she would enjoy herself and want to have sex, but her desire not to have sex was far greater. 

Some folks who are LD even if they love their spouse, just don't want to have sex, no matter how good it would feel, no matter how much they know they would enjoy it once they get started and no matter how much it would help their partner emotionally bond to them. Some LD are labeled reactive desire, that is that they have no desire until aroused. Loving your spouse will not cause a person to go from LD to moderate desire for sex. An LD person, is just LD and that is that. They and their spouse have to learn to deal and cope with it.

As David Schnarch would say (Passionate Marriage & Crucible) there is no right or wrong amount of sex in a marriage, it is all about a negotiated compromise that both can live with. Schnarch further points out that every element of marriage contains an LD and HD component. How much ice cream is eaten for dessert each week is a compromise as there is no right amount. If you have salad with dinner each night is a compromise. There are no right and wrong amounts, just like there is no right and wrong amount of sex.


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## wantshelp (Mar 10, 2016)

Young at Heart said:


> ... was from Chapman's 5 Languages of Love. The lesson is that people are different, really different. For example, my primary love language is "touch" and secondary love language is "words of affirmation or praise." My wife's primary love languages are acts of service and quality time.


Wow, that's the exact same love language match up as my wife and I. You're describing my relationship almost exactly! It's heartening to see you reconciled and saved your marriage. My wife, like yours, did not do the intimacy exercises instructed by our therapist. I see your point on meeting in the middle, but we are so far apart (8x per year for her versus 4x per week for me) I think it's hopeless for me to ever be happy and fulfilled with her. At this point, meeting in the middle is her being HD for the next 15 years, since I went along with her LD for 15 years. And I can't see that happening. 

@Young at Heart, how far apart were y'all and how did you meet in the middle? What compromises were made?


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## WorkingWife (May 15, 2015)

Veeeery Interesting.

The issue I, and many women I know have with affection from men is that it's never actually affection. They may start with the intention to be affectionate, but it immediately turns to "grabbing" (IMO)

Maybe it is LD Reactionary.

For example, my H is pretty LD. He could easily go a month or two without thinking about sex. But if comes into talk to me while I'm taking a bath, or see's me dressing he will immediately want sex. It's very startling (and unwelcome) to me to go from changing my shirt to "Do you want to make love?" Then I hesitate or he sees irritation pass over my face before I can hide it and says "Nevermind!" I'm like "Wait a minute, give me 3 seconds to adjust to the idea..." 

As for the groping... It took a couple years but I have finally "trained" him to hug me without grabbing or thrusting at me. I did that by consistently telling him "I don't like that. Please don't do that." (And when that failed, groping at him which really freaked him out though I'm sure many men would love it.)

Now that I've read your post I think he might have truly had just affectionate intentions when he would go to hug me. But in the past, 100% of the time, when he started to hug me, within 1.5 seconds he'd slide his hands around to my breasts or start pushing his groin against me. He could sit there for a month and have no interest in sex even if I suggested it, but if I was walking up the stairs in front of him? He'd stick his hand in my crotch. (God he's lucky he never got a back kick to the face.) Ugggg, anyhow, I would just feel like a hunted animal in my own home.

But affection was never truly affection - he can pet the dogs without it turning sexual no problem! That is affection. As soon as he touched my body, it turned sexual. Something like spooning, or my just lying with my head on his chest and his arm around me - his hand always has to go for my breast and nipple. Uck and I have very sensitive nipples that do NOT like to be touched out of the blue, which just seems to make him want to mess with them more.

Maybe the problem is he's not affectionate that way - he doesn't really like cuddling (always hot and bad back) - so we don't do it often enough that he can do it without getting turned on. I think maybe he is LD overall, but maybe he reacts to visual stimulation or touching me.

*So my question is - in your sexless marriage days - when you put your hand on your wife's shoulder or complimented her, was that really the beginning and end of it? Or if she'd given any welcoming signals would you have definitely converted from affection to sex?*



Young at Heart said:


> As to your comment about grabbing breasts and crotch, I know few married men, who love their wives that would do something like that. That might be the way their wife feels, but it is probably not how the husband is really acting.
> 
> One of the interesting things I learned in my recovery from a Sex Starved Marriage, was from Chapman's 5 Languages of Love. The lesson is that people are different, really different. For example, my primary love language is "touch" and secondary love language is "words of affirmation or praise." My wife's primary love languages are acts of service and quality time.
> 
> ...


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## richardsharpe (Jul 8, 2014)

Good evening
Not an easy question to answer. As a HD person in a HD/LD marriage I would pretty much always be happy to have sex - it isn't something that I can turn off. 

So, If I give my wife a kiss on the neck as I walk by, or run my fingers through her hair, I'm not trying to initiate sex - but, if she responded in a way to increase the intimacy of the contact, I would respond in kind.

For me (and I think many other HDs) sex is not a separate thing, but a part of general intimacy. It clear that for my wife its different, there is "sex" and "not sex", and she doesn't want me to try to convert "not sex" (which can include intimate kissing and lying together naked in bed), to "sex". 




WorkingWife said:


> snip
> *So my question is - in your sexless marriage days - when you put your hand on your wife's shoulder or complimented her, was that really the beginning and end of it, or if she'd given any welcoming signals would you have definitely converted from affection to sex?*


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

WorkingWife said:


> ....As for the groping... It took a couple years but I have finally "trained" him to hug me without grabbing or thrusting at me. I did that by consistently telling him *"I don't like that. Please don't do that."* (And when that failed, groping at him which really freaked him out though I'm sure many men would love it.)
> 
> Now that I've read your post I think he might have truly had just affectionate intentions when he would go to hug me. *But in the past, 100% of the time, when he started to hug me, within 1.5 seconds he'd slide his hands around to my breasts or start pushing his groin against me. * He could sit there for a month and have no interest in sex even if I suggested it, but if I was walking up the stairs in front of him? He'd stick his hand in my crotch. (God he's lucky he never got a back kick to the face.) Ugggg, anyhow, I would just feel like a hunted animal in my own home.
> 
> ...


First of all, understand that we do "train/condition" each other. My wife would not touch me in any way, except when we had sex she would put her arms around me, touch my shoulder and and hug me. Never any other physical contact. Since to feel loved and cherished I needed to be touched, how do you think she trained me?

Of course I wanted sex with her, more than she wanted sex with me, because that is when I would be touched, which was my primary love language. If I needed to be touched, then that became conflated with sex. She taught me sex and touch were the same in her mind, even if they were not in mine. It is not surprising that she felt any form of touch was my pawing at her to get in her pants.

Congratulations, you understand that your husband is visual. Us that knowledge to get the sex you want.

Now back to conditioning. Many people sarcastically refer to giving people M&M's as a way of conditioning them in a Skinnerish way. 

Your example of B]"I don't like that. Please, don't do that."[/B] is negative conditioning. Maybe you should talk to him and try positive conditioning? How about "Darling, Saturday night I would like to have a passionate romantic night with lots of us playing with each other." Tell him that you are going to get your hair or nails done or go to a spa and when you get home you are going to cook him a great dinner and then..... 

When the time comes rather than telling him what you don't' want, tell him what you want before he acts. If you are a quality time person and act of service love language person, then tell him you want to drink a glass of wine with him and talk to him while he massages your feet and to keep his hands below your ankles and he will be well rewarded.

You can change his conditioning, if he wants to change. He is your husband, you know what his "hot buttons are." Use that knowledge to reshape your relationship. If he really is visual and you can handle it, tell him is he does a really good job, you have a new piece of lingerie that you will model for him. 

One of the things in MW Davis book the Sex Starved Marriage (and her book for women the Sex Starved Wife) is that one person in a Sex Starved Marriage can change the dynamic in a marriage and by making that change, their partner will likely have to act differently (possible for the better or worse) but that the status quo will change.

Good luck to you.


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

wantshelp said:


> Wow, that's the exact same love language match up as my wife and I. You're describing my relationship almost exactly! It's heartening to see you reconciled and saved your marriage. My wife, like yours, did not do the intimacy exercises instructed by our therapist. I see your point on meeting in the middle, but we are so far apart (8x per year for her versus 4x per week for me) I think it's hopeless for me to ever be happy and fulfilled with her. At this point, meeting in the middle is her being HD for the next 15 years, since I went along with her LD for 15 years. And I can't see that happening.
> 
> @Young at Heart, how far apart were y'all and how did you meet in the middle? What compromises were made?


For many, many years she was one a month to once every two months. When things came to a head, it was never again from her perspective.

I had unknowinglly hurt her emotionally. She was act of service and quality time. She was brought up in a house where her mother showed her father her love by having a hot, home-cooked meal read for dinner when the father got home from work. That was my wife's prime act of service to show her love for me. It fit well as she then expected us to sit at a table for dinner and talk about our days. This provided her with a double does of giving love (act of service meal cooking) and being loved and feeling cherished (talking at dinner quality time.) Well, sometimes advancing my career I would work late and forget to call her. The dinner was ruined (I had rejected her expression of love). I would come home and she would yell at me (opposite of words of affirmation and I would feel unloved and want to exit to the TV as quickly as possible), which when i pulled away would make her fee even more unloved as I was denying her her quality time). She was pissed and I was sitting in front of the TV wondering why I was busting my butt to try to advance my career so I could provide for my wife and family better?

It was a very bad downward cycle and I didn't even realize what was happening. When I discovered Chapman's 5 LL and recognized she needed acts of service to feel loved, I started doing more chores around the house. She didn't view those as acts of service, but as my doing my fair share of housework. That confused me, so in the worst kind of Glover (No More Mr. Nice Guy) Nice-guyism, I doubled down and did more housework and still no change in her attitude.

Luckily, I got up one morning went and made coffee and brought her a cup of coffee in bed and talked to her while we both woke up. BINGO---act of service PLUS quality time. She finally felt loved and cherished. She wanted that to continue. It is now a ritual where every morning I get up early and make coffee and bring it to her in bed and we drink coffee together and talk about our days and our plans.

Since I figured out her love languages, when she cooks dinner, I join her and become her helper or sous chief. I chop the vegetables, stir the pots as she makes the dinner. I pour her a glass of wine as she cooks. Then we sit and talk at dinner. Sometimes I will massage her feet while I watch TV as an act of service. She starts the day and ends the day feeling loved and cherished. That has allowed her to make huge changes in how she treats me.

Now back to frequency. During sex therapy, the ST asked my wife what she thought would be the outcome, if we never had sex again. After a lot of avoidance, my wife said we would probably divorce. The Sex Therapist asked me if we never had sex again, did I expect we would divorce. I said yes, that I had looked into the divorce laws in our state and made myself a promise that I was going to try to save our marriage, but that no matter what I was going to be in a loving and sexual relationship with a woman (my wife or someone else) by my next birthday.

Both women were stunned. The ST nodded and said that was reasonable and that there was sufficient time for my wife to decide what she wanted. She then told my wife that the choice of marriage or divorce was now totally within her control, but she would have to live with the consequences.

At another session, the ST asked me to tell her (in the next session) how frequently having sex would I need to be satisfied and stay married. My response the next session was 3 times a week. The ST asked me to explain why 3 times a week and not 3 times a day? I had good reasons why I felt that 3 times a week would make me very happy and more would be uncomfortable. (TMI, but after vigorous sex, I am kind of bruised and sore, down there for the next day) So every other day or about 3 times a week is my ideal if it is really toe curling vigorous sex.

The ST was impressed that I had really thought about this and had solid reasons. She then asked my wife, if in the history of our marriage we had ever had sex 3 times a week. My wife said yes. The ST then told my wife that she had satisfied me before so there was no reason she couldn't do it again, IF SHE WANTED TO. The choice of marriage or divorce was now totally up to my wife and she was capable of either.

After about a month of having sex 3 times a week, my wife begged the ST that it was just too much for her to deal with. The ST, looked to me and told me that my wife had tried, but it was beyond her. She then asked if when I had been having sex once a month or every other month if I would have traded anything to have sex with my wife twice a week. I confessed yes, I would have. The ST said, that marriage is about compromise, and I should accept twice a week. Then she told my wife that any more backsliding on her part would probably result in divorce so she expected my wife to understand how much her husband loved her and wanted to make the marriage work. She told my wife that I was a good man and many women would jump at the chance to provide me what I needed to be happy.

We have been having sex twice a week since then for about 5+ years. I make sure that my wife feels loved and cherished by meeting her acts of service and quality time needs. Life is much better.


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## jorgegene (May 26, 2012)

a happy story, i like that!

YAH; this could be a template for others to emulate.


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