# I love him but right now struggle to want to make love.....not alone, am I?



## madimoff (Feb 17, 2010)

We're at a real low, maybe the end. I've tried explaining how VERY imporant emotional reassurance is to me, tried to let him know it's not me not wanting him, it's me doubting he REALLY wants me the way I want to be wanted - ie fulltime. 
Tried sending him some stuff about women needing emotional input, about sexual engine not starting if love tank empty.... all I got was him not wanting to 'make' me want to make love with him. apparently I either love him, like him or want to make love. If not he concludes none of those apply. Later text (I'd texted saying if he hadn't read the article he should have) said that in that case we should sleep apart at best and at worst split up. 
?????


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

There is an old Chinese saying: Man is fire, woman is water. The man's fire brings the woman's water to boiling. 

Women are not, as men are, immediately stimulated by sight. They need more time. They need the right atmosphere, some romance; sometimes candles and soft music can help. 

For a man to get a woman to desire him and want to have sex, he has to court her, so that she feels like an attractive woman, and not like a service provider. Men can often make up a quarrel by making love, but women need to feel that the relationship is good first, in order to feel desire. 

"Why don't you want to make love with me?" is a question that kills all desire. Say instead: "You are so beautiful, I cannot resist you!"


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

Your husband is being thick as a brick. He does not acknowledge that women are different than men.

If he wants someone who reacts to sex in the way a man does, then he should be seeing a man. 

If he wants a woman, then he needs to treat her the way women need to be treated.

How do you get him come around and realize this? You cannot change anyone but yourself. So change yourself.

Stop fighting with him about it, it's useless. It's not working.

You need to build your own confidence and start making him chase you.

Is your husband abusive? Does he put you down? How much time do the two of you spend together? Does he go out often without you?


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## heartsbeating (May 2, 2011)

Gosh, I don't know your backstory but right now I'm feeling thick as a brick reading your post. Forgive me. I read it three times. Maybe I need more caffeine?

You want to feel he's emotionally invested in you? He wants to feel that you want him for who he is (not because he's 'encouraged' that response from you?). Sorry if I'm completely off track but it sounds like you're actually both essentially saying/wanting something from similar from each other. No? This is how I interpreted your post:

you: I need to KNOW you love me, that you really want to be with me. I need to feel secure in your love so that I can open up to you sexually. 

him: I need to KNOW you want me, for who I am as your husband, for you to love/like/desire me. 


So who goes first?


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## madimoff (Feb 17, 2010)

heartsbeating said:


> Gosh, I don't know your backstory but right now I'm feeling thick as a brick reading your post. Forgive me. I read it three times. Maybe I need more caffeine?
> 
> You want to feel he's emotionally invested in you? He wants to feel that you want him for who he is (not because he's 'encouraged' that response from you?). Sorry if I'm completely off track but it sounds like you're actually both essentially saying/wanting something from similar from each other. No? This is how I interpreted your post:
> 
> ...


There's some truth in saying that we're seeking similar things. I guess I should concentrate on that. But you're right the backstory would help immensely...it's just SO long!
We've had emotional intensity (mine), tarring him with the same brush (me), and probably most importantly in this paraphrased version, one incident in which I masturbated in one room of our house while he was in another and/but subsequently lied about it. (we'd agreed not to m at all when alone, and he had a big thing about lying due to previous w's infidelity). That happened not long before I was due to move to another continent with our 8yo child. Much upset down the line, he'd said on the phone he'd never marry a woman like me (we were engaged at the time) and later, face to face, attempting to talk about it, he'd written some thoughts which didn't go down well with me and I essentially told him in no uncertain terms what to do with the ring. That was now three+ years ago and meanwhile he's bought a house in our home country where I'm not welcome because he's so stressed by upset and he was advised by a counsellor to make it his 'haven'. Ref the rings, I'd taken so many foul things being said and done over time that I honestly thought it was one of those situations we'd get over - but obviously in reverse. He didn't and has never returned them so in the intervening period, mostly because until VERY recently he wouldn't say out loud that he ever wanted to live with me fulltime, I've been running a rollercoaster of his making, not sure if we both wanted the same end game. 
Sorry this is getting long but I'll try to be brief... so now, in the past few months, he's actually said that not one but a few times. Trouble is (1) we're still trying to work through issues such as me not finding it easy to defer (ever, according to him), me micromanaging (I parent single-handed half the time or more and when we're both there I find it hard) and other similar traits. (2) I've been so insecure for so long about our future that I've found sex MEGA difficult to emotionally warm to... now we're theoretically so nearly 'there' and I've tried to explain in the following terms as I see it: A full-on, happy mix of sex and love-making needs to be preceded by a period of regular, intimate, emotionally close love making which needs to be built up by a first love-making session, which needs to be preceded by flirting which needs to be preceded by verbal intimacy which in all honesty just isn’t likely to happen without confidence which comes from emotional stability and reassurance from him.... 
So a bit of a catch 22. In all honesty I've been saying the same thing for ages, tried mentally to get over the 'leap of faith' to start things up but after a brief good patch we had a bit of a falling out (!) and he wouldn't reassure me for months afterwards, only repeating the nice message just before Xmas which wasn't in time to be sorted between us, if you see what I mean, because of family commitments. 
Now he's SUPPOSED to be with us this weekend, I'd emailed him my thoughts yesterday and it all went titsup again, ending with him saying he didn't want to speak to me for a few days, and wouldn't be coming, in virtually the same breath as telling me he'd taken the ring from the bank and had planned to bring it. 
My head is messed. 
Ok waffle over, sorry if it's indecipherable I've only had 5h sleep and now need to get 8yo up for school..... thanks for reading.


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## madimoff (Feb 17, 2010)

I'm in the usual 'he's stressed' vacuum - no communication since about 1am today, have emailed (brief, apologetic, expressing hope) texted (normal type stuff re weather/child) and texted ref him speaking to 8yo. No reply. That's worrying me because it's possible he doesn't want to hear son's voice & get upset if he's planning not to come this weekend. He hasn't changed the flight, though. I wish I could stop overthinking. Have written screeds to myself on Word, thought how to be when he arrives IF he arrives Friday, now just nothing but fretting to be done. And probably wine as usual to numb the pain (don't tell me, I know it doesn't work/help). 
Please anyone, any thoughts? 
specifically any thoughts about me taking the leap of faith and telling him yes I know he HAS said the reassuring stuff (though nowhere near as often as I'd hoped and CERTAINLY hasn't stopped the rollercoaster which undoes the good the reassurance does) and go ahead and agree we should show each other we love each other? I just wish my head didn't find it so hard. I blame my parents!!!!!! (only slightly a joke..)
:scratchhead:


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## accept (Dec 1, 2011)

You have given him 'instructions' of how to make love. Very precise ones. You seem to think its the same as baking a cake. It just doesnt work like that. A man cant work on 'instructions'. He also has to enjoy what he is doing.


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## madimoff (Feb 17, 2010)

accept said:


> You have given him 'instructions' of how to make love. Very precise ones. You seem to think its the same as baking a cake. It just doesnt work like that. A man cant work on 'instructions'. He also has to enjoy what he is doing.


I can see why you might read it that way but you've got me totally wrong. what I was trying to explain to him (and he understood that, even if not liking/'getting' etc) was that because of a protracted period of issues, I feel we need to absolutely go back to the basics of saying nice things, being pleasant, being romantic, being flirtatious, all OUTSIDE the bedroom, .............then once we've actually made love for the first time, or maybe a few times, we can look to getting back to the way we were/would have liked to be, namely a mix of slow sensuous and wild abandon. 
So not telling him how to make love, ffs he knows that, and knows it just fine. It's the preamble. what he sees as the hoops and hurdles.


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## accept (Dec 1, 2011)

What I dont understand from your post and many posts here is what exactly does your husband say that he wants. Surely he has told you. I get the feeling that you havent listened and has stopped telling you. You must go to him and tell him you will listen without interruption for as long as it takes to tell you.


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## madimoff (Feb 17, 2010)

accept said:


> What I dont understand from your post and many posts here is what exactly does your husband say that he wants. Surely he has told you. I get the feeling that you havent listened and has stopped telling you. You must go to him and tell him you will listen without interruption for as long as it takes to tell you.



I can't go to him and tell him, he's in another continent. We only spend 50-60% of the time together. 

At times he says he wants us all living together as a family. At other times he says he doesn't think he can live with me. At all times he says he wants more (any, at the moment) sex. Often he says he wants more affection. He's expressed a hope I can defer more, take control less. 
Flip side? He accepts he does not deal with stress/emotion at all well and when he gets upset he says things which make it appear he hasn't meant any of the nice things, or has re-thought them. 
I don't think I haven't listened, I maybe haven't seen just how much of an effect some of this has had on him. It's a two-way street, though, and some is kind of power play (both of us responsible) - he says I'm using our child as a weapon. I'm NOT and wouldn't. I feel he's holding out on even saying he wants us to be together fulltime, ever, because either he doesn't want to give false hope (hope that's not it) or he doesn't want to feel he 'has to' say something just to reassure me when he feels I should know he's committed to me. It's the difference between knowing he won't ever 'dump' me - ie wouldn't ever financially desert me even if we split up.... and knowing that he does or doesn't actually want us to be together. I feel that if one or other partner in a relationship needs reassurance, quite frankly if the other can give it, (ie honestly) they should. 
Sorry rather a longer answer than intended, but.............
On a side/end note, any thoughts about the leap of faith idea? I feel it would be the most obvious way I could bridge the divide even if I'd find it hard not to actually, out loud, seek encouragement that I hadn't got the wrong end of the stick.


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## accept (Dec 1, 2011)

You want reassurance he wont 'dump' you. Dont expect such a thing. You havent mentioned counselling. He has more or less told you what he wants. Unless you give it to him on his terms not yours you will just stay as you are. Maybe he is right maybe you are. At the moment you have to give in.


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## madimoff (Feb 17, 2010)

accept said:


> You want reassurance he wont 'dump' you. Dont expect such a thing. You havent mentioned counselling. He has more or less told you what he wants. Unless you give it to him on his terms not yours you will just stay as you are. Maybe he is right maybe you are. At the moment you have to give in.



I think you're probably right, I've been thinking along those lines hence talking about the Leap of Faith. Just to clarify, it's not I fear dumping -I know he won't. I just don't want to live the rest of my days never living together fulltime. 
Of course unless things get better he's never going to do that, but at least he's said it a few times, and it's the only thing I've got to cling on to at the moment. 
He's emailed within the past few minutes saying he's looking forward to hearing my thoughts (I'd said I had been doing some thinking). Now all I've got to do is figure how to express the idea without somehow c&cking the whole thing up again.


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