# I know I'm the problem, and I don't know what to do



## Madrigal (Jan 2, 2012)

**Trigger Warning for abusive sexual past**

**LOOOOONG Post warning too, sorry I didn't mean to type so much. But I just wanted everyone to understand. If you read this whole thing... thank you. I can't tell you how much it means to me, in advance.**

Hello everyone, approaching 3 years with my husband (2 dating and 1 married), and we're entering the "sexless" danger zone. We're only 25 and 26 so that worries me. I feel a lot of it is my fault, but I can't help but feeling he's a trigger that just doesn't care if he is.

So I shall start at the beginning, my sexual history. At 14 I lost my virginity when I was raped by my boyfriend. I was too shy and timid at that age to get about and he raped and beat me for around a year and a half. I finally gathered enough strength to get away, then sex for me became a sense of empowerment. At that point I could have sex when *I* wanted and on *my* terms. It had little meaning for me aside from the feeling of control I had over my own sexuality when I got to choose it happening. 

Then at 17 I got pregnant, I found out a month after leaving for college. Upon telling my boyfriend the news he threatened me to have an abortion, or he'd "do it himself". I was too scared, yet again, and did what I was told. It was a horrifying experience (though I am grateful to not be tied to that sick man for the rest of my life), and when I dropped out of college due to suicidal tendencies, he was the only person I had to turn to. He berated my depression over what happened and made me miserable, but I was so ashamed of what happened that I felt I had no where else to go because I didn't want to tell anyone what happened. Finally I sucked it up and got away from that too.

A few crappy relationships later I met my ex-husband. We were married VERY briefly (dated on and off and decided "what the heck?" and he cheated on me with 9 women). 

After getting divorced I met the man who is now my husband. We had a fantastic relationship and went through a lot together. He was there for me during the final divorce stress and we went out on dates and had lots of fun. We moved in together and things were going great. However I was stressed a lot in my side job and he was a great source of comfort. Then as our communication started to die off I began to feel resented. He seemed to have no ambition in life. At one point when I asked him his goals for the future he replied with "I figure I'll just follow you in whatever you choose to do." That actually infuriated me. I felt a paradigm shift to now feeling like the "man" (in a 50's relationship sense) instead of being on the same playing field. I imagined he'd have his career, I'd have mine, and we'd enjoy all the time we had in between and talk about work and everything. But he seemed to lose all ambition and became very complacent in life and I grew very unhappy.

That's when my "best friend" set her sights on him. She practically forced my unhappiness to fester, putting me into situations involving flirtations on the push of "wanting to see me happy". I was so miserable and felt so defeated that people treating me special made me feel pretty great. Then the **** hit the fan when she got me very drunk (i actually remember almost nothing about this night) and I wound up in bed with a friend. During the "situation" she was actually in the room the whole time, and after he left i fell apart. She merely kept insisting that I had done the right thing. I tortured myself over that (and still do to this day). I had to work with him at the yearly side job project so I tried to play it cool and professional. All the while I had no idea what to do. I took a trip to my father's house for a week to try and figure out what to do. And that's when she struck. She came over and told him everything, and even a few embellishments she made up herself. She had him convinced I was sleeping with every man I had come in contact with (pretty much told him the story of my exhusband, only replacing the ex with me). And during that week I was gone, she moved him out of our home into hers.

When I came home, I came home to hell. He yanked the engagement ring off my finger, told me he knew everything. I didn't deny it, and apologized. I told him I only hadn't told him because I knew I had to tell him, but I was terrified to lose him and didn't think he'd believe me. He didn't listen and stormed out. It was only after he was gone, and i stopped crying long enough to look around that I noticed every single possession of his gone. He literally left no stone unturned. Then what followed with the most miserable two weeks of my life. I shut out the world, i stopped existing. My life disappeared in front of me on the lies of a cruel-hearted girl. He had not even attempted to ask me if any of what she said was true before he moved out (she was a known liar). But he went on her word and went about bashing me to his friends and my friends. He sent me horrifically cruel messages (turns out later, at the coaching of that girl). I was made out to be a **** and a monster, and I took it all. I publicly told exactly what happened, and took everything people had to throw at me. I have never once tried to lie or hide from responsibility of what happened. I did it, even if I was coaxed, and I deserved the pain for it.

Eventually we talked and he saw all the holes in her stories and how none of it was true, except the core event. He took me back and our relationship was better than ever. Though we got back together on the condition that I had to end my side job, get rid of it entirely. I accepted whole-heartedly, though later it really did break my heart to end it. The first time we had sex after getting back together I cried my eyes out just out of happiness. After my past, sex with him was special for me. It's the FIRST TIME sex has actually meant anything to me. For me it is an advanced connection between two people OR something you do for fun. Feeling the connection with him brought me to tears. Everything was amazing. 

After going through such hell because we DIDN'T communicate, communication became the biggest priority for us. Our relationship got so much better, and aside from financial stress of having to pay for a wedding almost entirely ourselves, it was all going swimmingly. I drew back from sex for a few months due to having giant work-related stress on me. I didn't feel in the mood and instead of either leaving me be, or trying to make me feel better, he just persisted in wanting sex. I began to feel like how I was feeling never mattered, only if I was up for sex. And when I wasn't he withdrew from me. I eventually pulled out of work stress and slowly began to have sex again, but i felt pressured into it at times. I worked hard to meet him in the middle and for a while we had a great middle ground.

On the honeymoon we decided "the heck with it" and thought we would begin 'trying' for a baby. I've been through a lot of PTSD therapy for what happened about the abortion in the past, so being able to make the decision to even TRY to have a baby was a big deal and we were thrilled. 

However, after 4 months of trying, and one miscarriage later, I was at my wit's end. I shocked myself at how much "at my wit's end" I was. I thought after all the therapy I could jump into this baby thing and have fun trying. Such is not the case. Each negative test I became more and more depressed and withdrawn. I couldn't control myself. The depression I had fought so many years to get over hit me like a tidal wave to the point it terrified me. So I stepped back from sex all together. I tried to explain how it was making me feel. Plus my job was about to have a grand opening, and with being optioned up for a promotion (and us needing the money) I wanted to make sure I could focus and be happy. During the miscarriage I missed 4 days of work because I was crippled with depression. So I asked him to back off so I could try to get to a more mentally stable place.

Well here we are... just hitting 4 months after I called off sex and I feel like a monster. I am still very affectionate and obviously very interested in him, but I feel at times he's lost interest in me outside of sex. We've had maybe 2 or 3 times where we've just laughed til we cried and had genuine fun together. Here's pretty much I guess my basic list of "complaints" to shorten this down.

1) He's shy but despite how often I have him around my friends, he makes little to no effort to socialize with them. He actually sits there, usually on his phone, not paying a single bit of attention. I spend entire evenings that are supposed to be having fun with friends constantly worrying and checking on him because he seems so bored and annoyed. He insists it's nothing and that he's having a great times, which is highly contrary to his body language and behavior.

2) He doesn't drink, which has now become WE don't drink. He never -told- me to do this, but he gave me dirty looks when I had a ****tail with friends or would tell a funny "this one time we had a little too much" story. Bear in mind I've never been an alcoholic, never truly misbehaved while drunk (the most wild I got was a plastic lightsaber fight with my longtime friend. It was funny), and I've never EVER pushed drinking onto him because I respect his choice. However I started declining a friend offering me a drink when we're having dinner, or a night out, not because I don't want it... but because I have this feeling of like "no i'll get in trouble if I do". When I tried to talk to him about this I wound up feeling like an alcoholic and now feel like I'm no longer allowed to drink. I'm a high-stress person. I like having a relaxing drink with friends. Now I just feel like a little kid whose daddy said no.

3) He has little interest in things I like, yet I am expected to have massive interest in what he likes. An example would be... lately our apartment complex have been real jerks. So I started looking for some small houses, well below our price range. This was half actually looking, and just half kind of cathartic because a)I'm girly like that, and b) It's nice to think about that we can do better than this, and we will someday. However upon asking him to come over and look at the houses I found online, after about 5 minutes he asks if we can just eat dinner; getting up and leaving. After dinner I'm a bit upset, and just go back to looking at houses by myself. He wants to know what's wrong, I told him not to worry about it (and unlike most women I mean that). I just wanted to look at them myself, and he asked why I was upset, so I finally told him because I felt like he didn't care that I was in the middle of trying to show him something. He got huffy and sat down and had me go through the rest of the houses, acting vaguely interested. Later that night when I had decided to turn on music on the computer and work on my writing he came in 5 different times to make me go to some website he wanted to show me. I obliged and when I wasn't 100% amused or interested he got annoyed with me. I asked him why he couldn't be interested in something i showed him that concerned us, but then got mad at me for not understanding enough to care about sports statistics.

4) It feels everything about me is an inconvenience. An example of this is earlier this night (which lead me to finding this site). I was at work, and I have low blood sugar. It was an hour and a half before I was going to get off, and I asked him to please come bring me something to eat because I forgot my debit card. He asked me to wait til I got off because there was a new place he wanted to try. I told him I was feeling extremely ill and really needed some food. After sighed at me and giving a huff he replied annoyed that he would and showed up to work to eat with me. We sat in almost dead silence, with me trying to make conversation and him just seeming annoyed at it all. In the car later he made sure to tell me that he was annoyed because he REALLY wanted to try that new place. It made me feel like me being sick annoyed him because it interfered with his plans. These kind of things happen all the times. I feel like I've gone from someone who once use to travel the world alone without fear... to now someone who apologizes for almost everything they do. I feel so weak. Even now I am writing this post in tears because he tried to make me go to sleep at the same time as him, and when I didn't want to just yet (because I was writing this), he stormed off very annoyed with me.

5) I've put on some weight and hate it. I'm trying to get active again, but I had a very slow desk job and am usually too tired by the time I get home. I try to dress up, but I still hate the me that I see in the mirror. I don't feel attractive or desirable. I've tried to convey to him that it's part of why i don't feel very "excited" at times, and he just pretty much tells me I should know I'm pretty and not let it stop me. I feel like my feelings on it are completely invalidated just because he wants some.

6) Sex seems like an obsession to him. I've genuinely contemplated him having an obsession. Because there's times where I'm trying to be sweet, have a nice cuddle on the couch and he tries to turn it sexual for absolutely ZERO reason. Or anytime I'm slightly idle while we do something he makes me scratch his back (i could refuse but then he'll pout). And then he tries to make it more. One day I complained at carrying something heavy at work hurt my shoulder. He offered to rub my shoulder so I laid down. Then he started trying to undress me and grinding on me. I've pretended to sleep before to see what he does and he touches me in my sleep, and when he thinks I'm asleep he moves to have his "junk" to a point where i think he would just go ahead and do it if he thought I would sleep through it. Despite making my depression regarding sex clear I feel like he's pressuring me at every turn. Everything becomes about sex, and now he's doing things apparently when I'm asleep. I've been in sexually abusive relationships, and despite me trying to convey that the pressure doesn't stop because he feels like no sex is an injustice to him... regardless of my feelings.

7) His anger bothers me. He is an extremely stoic person. He doesn't get overly happy. He's just kind of quiet, kind of passive, and when something's funny he laughs very little. But when he's mad? He's MAD. It's never abusive mad, it's like uncomfortable mad at seemingly pointless things. Last night while making some adjustments on the entertainment center he knocked off a stack of DVDs and very loudly yells "G** D***IT!!!" And when he plays video games in the order room (and thinks I can't hear him), I can hear him cussing loudly, hitting his leg with his fist, and pretty much having road rage at a game. And it's worse because he thinks I can't hear him. He seems to have pretty much only negative emotions ruling him recently. I tried to talk to him about it but he just denies it all and says that there's absolutely nothing wrong, and that he's totally happy. After being in abusive relationships that terrifies me, but when I try to talk about it... i get shot down.

I have never and will never feel that sex should be a form of "currency". If you help out around the house you deserve a big thank you, and perhaps your favorite food for dinner. Not sex. And you shouldn't help out on the expectation that doing so will get you sex. For me that takes the emotion out of sex completely. If I'm so THRILLED that he helped out that I want to have sex, that's one thing. But to be like "I cleaned the living room! Why can't we have sex?!" that puts a pressure and expectation on it that I don't think is fair and it drives any kind of romance out of it completely.

IF I'm going to be able to emotionally handle sex, i need him to respect it. But I feel like he'll only respect it if he's getting some, and I've tried to overcome it... i really have. I just can't seem to and every day I feel more and more like he's distancing himself away from me, and I'm starting to have less and less value unless I have sex. That kind of pressure is too much on me right now. I'm worried about making my marriage a great one while trying to heal, now i'm being expected to pretty much pour salt into a wound just because of what he wants.

I love my husband, but this feels wrong. What the heck do I do??


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## RECHTSANWALT (Oct 5, 2011)

Hello Madrigal
Welcome to this forum. There seem to be several differences between you, which you have described in detail, yet you conclude saying you love him. Why? Love means different things to different people, so what does it mean to you? Is there something you look forward to in your relationship? Are there any positives about your Husband you would like to tell us about? About the worst thing you could do is to delude yourself that you love him and push on to atleast maintain status quo. If there is nothing to look forward to, I am not sure why you should stay married.


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## Shaggy (Jul 17, 2011)

Madrigal,

Wow, you've been through a lot. Hopefully it fuel you being wise and great at giving advice in your old age. But, for now here's my offering to you.

I don't think your husband is obsessed with sex, but I do think that sex is a key part of his emotional connection to you. While, sex is obviously something different to you. 

When you get stressed, or depressed, or busy it's among the first distractions that you take off the table. It's how you re-balance yourself and your priorities.

But think about how your husband sees this. To him it's an essential part of how the two of you emotionally connect. He sees you re-balancing as withdrawing from the relationship.

It's not that he's obsessed with the sex, it's that he's obsessed with maintaining the connection and when it falters he is desperate to reestablish it.

btw - as for the alcohol, keep in mind that the one time you cheated was when you were drunk, and a big part of your explanation for that night is that you got drunk. So your drinking might be a trigger for him that brings back the hurt and pain from that event.

He doesn't see your value as only for sex - I seriously doubt that. He wouldn't have taken you back and worked passed your cheating if that was the case. But, he sees your withdrawing of sex - by your unilateral - decision as you withdrawing from the relationship. I suspect he also feels left out of the decision process because it's you deciding on your own without his input to end the sexual part of your relationship from time to time. 

True sex is a mutual coming to together - but you putting a stop to it - when that stop begins and when it ends - is completely out of his control or influence. This just further isolates him and his role in the relationship.


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## Madrigal (Jan 2, 2012)

RECHTSANWALT said:


> Hello Madrigal
> Welcome to this forum. There seem to be several differences between you, which you have described in detail, yet you conclude saying you love him. Why? Love means different things to different people, so what does it mean to you? Is there something you look forward to in your relationship? Are there any positives about your Husband you would like to tell us about? About the worst thing you could do is to delude yourself that you love him and push on to atleast maintain status quo. If there is nothing to look forward to, I am not sure why you should stay married.


Thing is there used to be. This has just been within the past few months. When I was emotionally stable things sexually were fine and dandy, and the relationship was fine and dandy (though small aggravating compromises, but every marriage has those). But I feel like I'm forcing myself unhealthily because he doesn't seem to understand, and has behaved very selfish lately.



Shaggy said:


> Madrigal,
> 
> Wow, you've been through a lot. Hopefully it fuel you being wise and great at giving advice in your old age. But, for now here's my offering to you.
> 
> I don't think your husband is obsessed with sex, but I do think that sex is a key part of his emotional connection to you. While, sex is obviously something different to you.


It feels like an obsession when he's doing things to me in my sleep. And he knows my past with sexual abuse. Doing things to me without my consent or knowledge crosses a severe line that I feel he should be aware of. He seems to have understood before.



> When you get stressed, or depressed, or busy it's among the first distractions that you take off the table. It's how you re-balance yourself and your priorities.
> 
> But think about how your husband sees this. To him it's an essential part of how the two of you emotionally connect. He sees you re-balancing as withdrawing from the relationship.


It's only when I'm stressed or upset. I'm a stressed person with high career ambitions. That's just a part of me being me. I have only taken it off the table twice, and once was when i felt like our relationship had died while dating. The communication was gone and I felt like we had nothing. Then again when I scared myself over feeling suicidal simply because we didn't get pregnant right away. It feels silly now of course, but that's one of those deep deep problems that I've talking with him about ad nauseum and he always seems to understand. By the end of our talks he understands fully and tells me he'll wait for me to come to him when I'm emotionally ready, then a few days later goes right back into the same behavior.

It hurts because it feels like I'm getting the answer I want to hear, but he'll just do what he wants anyway. I've tried to convey to him that I hate going without it too, and if he'd actually HELP ME through things then I could be in a better head space and it could be something we could progress back too. I'm going to need his help, I've communicated that. I need support. I get almost no support yet i'm always hounded for sex.



> It's not that he's obsessed with the sex, it's that he's obsessed with maintaining the connection and when it falters he is desperate to reestablish it.


But if he's desperate to reestablish it... why is he not helping in the ways I've asked him to? Why does he continue to pressure and push me when every time he does I cry and fall apart? It's a conversation that's happened more times than I can count. It's happened so much I began to lose faith that it was actually doing any good. It would get better for a couple days then he goes back to being selfish and pushing the issue and continuing to do things to me even when obviously he shouldn't. I came home from work upset about losing out on my promotion (due to identity theft when I was a teenager that I never knew about til the office ran my credit, not even my fault). I was on the verge of tears because we needed the money. I tried to cuddle up to him on the couch and he cuddled for a couple minutes then just tried to feel me up and take off my pants. I'm sitting there so upset I could just break out crying, and his concern was to get his hand into my shirt. 

Even times I've made it clear that I'm in no way in the mood, instead of asking he just does things to me like feeling me up, grinding on me, putting his hand in my pants... I would imagine if I knew my wife has been through sexual abuse, that kind of thing would CLEARLY be wrong in my mind.



> btw - as for the alcohol, keep in mind that the one time you cheated was when you were drunk, and a big part of your explanation for that night is that you got drunk. So your drinking might be a trigger for him that brings back the hurt and pain from that event.


I should have clarified that the alcohol problem existed since we'd gotten together. He's "straight edge" despite being a pot head as a teen, and our first fight (a couple months into dating) was because I had a bottle of vodka in the fridge. I wasn't downing it, just had some to recreate a drink I had while living in Tokyo to a friend. She wanted to try it so I picked some up, but he reamed me for hours for it. Finally it just because a "compromise" meaning I don't drink, I don't get made to feel guilty for it. I would've understood if this cropped up after the cheating, but it's always been there. I've made sure though since the issue that he goes with me on dinner stuff with friends (anytime I could be somewhere like a bar) and he just acts bored and annoyed and gives me silent grief until i'm toasting someone's new baby with a glass of water.

I hate having to defend it because at the end I feel like a alcoholic. I never have been, I'm not even really a "social drinker". I'm more of a "significant event" drinker. Someone just had a baby? Round of champagne for everyone. St. Patrick's Day? Go to the pub and have a green beer. Going to a large yearly event? Have a few ****tails with the famous people. That's just about all it is. I did drink a lot in Tokyo but that was my "Holy crap I'm living on my own in another country" wild phase. I got over that soon as I moved back. I hardly ever drink, but i'm 25 and I don't think it's fair to treat me like an alcoholic breaking sobriety to have a beer with friends while I play "Ring of Fire" (a game I had never heard of and wanted to try. It seems really fun.)



> He doesn't see your value as only for sex - I seriously doubt that. He wouldn't have taken you back and worked passed your cheating if that was the case. But, he sees your withdrawing of sex - by your unilateral - decision as you withdrawing from the relationship. I suspect he also feels left out of the decision process because it's you deciding on your own without his input to end the sexual part of your relationship from time to time.
> 
> True sex is a mutual coming to together - but you putting a stop to it - when that stop begins and when it ends - is completely out of his control or influence. This just further isolates him and his role in the relationship.


The thing is he had input. Before I stopped having sex I discussed it in great lengths with him, and he understood my feelings... or at least he said he did. He had control and influence. I've made sure he felt included, since withdrawing from sex the first time happened because we weren't communicating and things had gotten bad. I've done everything to keep him involved, talk to him about it, ask for his help. He just seems to blow it all off, focus on his needs now, and do things to me without asking. I feel like I'm harping on the fact I was sexually abused... but I would like to think that would matter to him a bit before he pushes it on me or just straight up does whatever he wants to me without asking, talking about it, or respecting when I say no.


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## Thor (Oct 31, 2011)

Madrigal, welcome aboard!

I am sorry for what you have been through. Have you had good individual therapy?

There is an excellent support forum at aftersilence.org for survivors of rape and abuse. The people over there can really help you cope.

You bring up a number of issues. I don't think you should blame yourself for all of the dysfunction in your marriage. The mistake you made needs to be dealt with, but in a constructive manner by your husband. I think marriage counseling would be helpful for that.

It is quite possible that he is not a good match for you. Try to be objective in assessing his behavior and how it meshes with your needs. You have the right to feel about things the way you do, and you have your own unique needs and wants. Do not blame yourself for his behavior.


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## janemilda (Dec 21, 2011)

I do tend to think that your past abuse needs to be addressed more deeply. Perhaps more intense counseling or some other type of therapy?

Aside from that, many of your differences actually sound standard in marriage: different interests, different approaches to sex, etc. You haven't been married long (compared to a 37-year-old geezer like myself lol), and some of these issues simply take time and communication to iron out. People do and will evolve as they age. My husband used to be much more stoic, and he has evolved into a more emotional person over the past 10 years.

I would suggest, however, that you look at the lack of sex from your husband's point of view. You say you don't view sex as "currency," but many men feel appreciated through sex. Women want sex WHEN they feel intimate, but men need sex TO FEEL intimate.

I am going to make a suggestion that is never popular with women, but personally, I think it works: Have sex with your husband when you don't feel like it. Initiate it even if you're not interested. Show him you love him (which you say you do) by acting like you want to have sex with him.

Sex actually IS a method of communication. It's a way of communicating your love and respect for someone. It's a way of showing your appreciation and your desire to make them happy.


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