# Always wrong... Unappreciated



## STLCPL (Mar 30, 2009)

Like many of you here. I feel very unappreciated. I am in Iraq right now. Not a military member but a contract firefighter for the DOD. I was a stay at home father for the first 1.5yrs of my sons life. He is now 29mths old. My wife is finishing up her Phd so I gave up my career for her to continue hers. I am a medic/ff so I figured that I could go back to my career easier then she would be able to with hers. She tells me that it is not that hard being a stay at home father. While taking care of my son during the week I managed to still work 64hrs/wk. I started a home health care business and stayed with a patient from Friday at 4pm getting off work on Monday between 6-8am. Now then I am in Iraq so I can triple my income. I am doing well for my family even though the economy sucks. Down side to it is I am away from my wife and son. Have to worry about getting blown up. Sex lets see here. Ever since the 3rd month of her pregnancy sex had to stop due to a high risk pregnancy. After my son was born it has been a chore to try and have an sort of intimacy with my wife. She thinks sex is just sex and has not intimacy. It is now maintenance or as I like to refer to it as pity sex. She mentioned today that I do not woo her more. I am not sure how I can woo her more. I sent her mother a picture of us kissing. One of those pictures where you can tell how much two people are in love and are jealous of how they look at each other. Well I had her mother get a print made and get it framed. I would normally do this stuff myself but 8800 miles away it is difficult to do. The first thing she said she noticed is how much fatter she is now. She also thought that all I wanted was sex from that picture. On the topic of wooing for sex. She say she wants me to try and hold her hand and kiss without expectation. I buy her flowers for no reason, bought a massage table for the house when I came home for 10 days of R&R from Iraq and she is the one that got the massage by me. I do not want to buy her candy as she feel she is fat. I have never said she is fat at all. She is 6ft and 165lbs. I really do not think she is fat. I have tried some little make out sessions 1/4 of the way we used to make out when we were hot and heavy. I truly wanted nothing more than to make out a little. Taste those luscious lips for a bit. She took it as I was trying to get laid again. She says that she does not want to have sex because she feel fat yet she does nothing about it. Eats like ****, smokes and will not workout with me when I try to do something as a supportive partner. There are a ton of morphing excuses as to why not to have sex. Since I am in Iraq I can afford for her to work only part time while finishing her Phd at at the cost of not getting as far ahead as we originally wanted to. She was supposed to have her dissertation completed before June that was while she was working full time. Now she said it might not be done until August. I really feel that she is not putting 100% into it. She said she wants to quit her Phd program and be a stay at home mom. This infuriates me as I was the one to quit my career for hers. I came to Iraq because we were poor and had a ton of debt. Anyway it is late and I am going to stop here. I will pick up tomorrow as I feel I am starting to ramble. :scratchhead:


----------



## sisters359 (Apr 9, 2009)

There is probably nothing harder than adding a child AND having one of you deployed, so to speak. As someone who completed PHD work while bearing and raising 2 kids, and had high risk pregnancies, I can tell you that I was furious at my husband for his sexual demands when i was tired. Lack of sleep is a form of torture for a reason: it really, really messes with your psychological health. So before you get too distressed, please try to consider whether this could be an issue. Many little kids rarely sleep through the night until they are older, say 3 or 4, and it is nearly always the mom who gets up. NOTHING replaces 6-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep and she may rarely get that. 

All this is to say is, hang in there. We women are always suspicious of men's motives IF affection has proven a prelude to sexual demands in the past. It takes a long time for us to believe you are just being affectionate, no strings attached. Until you have experienced what it is like to have demands made on your body when you don't want to comply but then do, it's hard to understand this. That's why i would say that women should NEVER have sex just to please a spouse, out of "love" rather than desire. If the desire isn't there, the sex will lead to resentment, esp. if it is cutting into that ever precious sleep. This doesn't mean you are wrong for wanting it and just means you may need to find a way to reduce her feelings of stress and fatigue so that she will WANT more sex. Hard to do when overseas and you have so much distance between you, but keep up the romantic gestures, try to engage in more intimate conversations (about fears, hopes, dreams, not about sex) while apart, and keep letting her know she is important to you even when you don't have access to her body. 

I'm sure you'll get other answers and I hope i have given you something to consider (and disregard, if it isn't helpful). best of luck, and stay safe.


----------

