I know how I love other people. I hug my kids, cuddle and have sex with my husband, talk to them about their feelings and try to understand their problems, do nice things for them that I think will make them happy. If you don’t do any of these things for people you love because touch, empathy, and money do not equal love, then what do you do? |
If 1 is missing you don’t stop loving them. Your kids will move out and you won’t hug them but you will still love them. |
Still not sex. Love actually doesn’t require all of those things. People have spouses who need to be gone, or are sick, or are having mental health issues. Does not stop love. |
Why are you married to a loser like that? Divorce him! That’s not a sexless marriage that’s a man baby ex husband. |
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Gaining weight is a sometimes stress symptom
It happens to women too. My ex spouse gained and then lost 50 lbs. Really, he looks great now. He took up running and yoga. He has a girlfriend. I am still bewildered but it happens. I ‘ve seen it. I had drive and fitness. But I was insufferable at times. S*x and intimacy became an issue when we lost the emotional bond. Guys know when you don’t respect them anyone. They sense it. It kills off the desire for sure. It’s all hard work (and I would say mostly in your head/attitude). |
What a weird thought? When a spouse is sick or some other unfortunate situation happens, you deal with it the best way you can. Spouse getting sick is not the same as spouse rejecting you. If you don’t have any drive, that’s fine but don’t expect others to be like you |
It’s common (but not intelligent) to think cancer is a sickness and a good reason but if you are on SSRI’s it’s not. |
Yes it does. Love requires at least some of those things. People who are away are often sending money to their spouse and family. They are also understanding when their spouse says they are lonely or having a difficult time. If they are away, shutting their spouse out emotionally, and not sending any money home, then they are not being a loving spouse. |
I know that a lot of people had crappy childhoods, but this isn’t true. If you tell your mom that you need a hug, and she won’t hug you, and then you tell her about something you are sad about, and she won’t try to understand, then she doesn’t love you. She may have had her own crappy childhood and not be able to bond with people in that way, and that’s sad and it’s not her fault or your fault, but that isn’t what love is. You cannot be a loving mother, spouse, friend, or anything if you cannot touch someone or empathize with them. |
NP here. I think one of the biggest problems with the sex conversation is that people cannot distinguish between sexual physical affection and nonsexual physical affection. Sexual physical rejection is very hurtful, but having no nonsexual physical affection ever can actually be psychologically damaging. Also, giving someone a hug is just not the level of physical giving as having sex. When someone doesn't want to have sex with their partner, it is often not a personal rejection, even if it feels that way. I know that when I didn't want to have sex with my partner I still wnted to be around them and hug them. I wouldnt' have felt that way if I was actually rejecting him. and I think a lot of the reason women start to not want sex is that they don't get the nonsexual physical affection they need. It always leads to having sex or an attempt at it. So one person's "need" is getting met, but not hers. |
I think it's totally valid to just not want sex anymore, but I do wonder what things would have been like had you never thought of having sex as upholding your part of the bargain. You seem to have thought about sex as a duty from the get-go, and thinking about sex as a duty is often the fast track to killing a libido. |
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Having someone not want to have sex with you is one thing but I get the feeling that OP is missing all the other stuff just as much. Having someone who wants to kiss you with more than a peck, missing someone who wants to feel your skin at night, missing someone that used to rest their head on your chest when you watched TV, where did that chick go that used to dance around me when I washed dishes?
Buddy I was in your position and in a fairly short amount of time I have turn things around. Oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin are severely lacking in your relationship and your wife is likely overloaded with cortisol from the neediness that you are blasting at her all day long. Your job is to find out which one of the above chemicals your wife thrives on, if she’s serotonin then you take her on adventures, if she’s oxytocin you become nothing but a world of love and support without ever asking for anything in return, if she’s dopamine you’re going to want to take her ask throwing or perhaps to the gym with you. Agreed about which activities far off hormones and then apply it to her. While you are figuring out the chemical formula your job is to drain the cortisol out of your world, once the stress is gone and she begins to associate you with joy, achievement, closeness and all the other good feelings her attitude towards you will begin to change and libido will follow shortly behind. You must never ask for it, never pester her again, don’t ever get mopey around her, I cannot stress this enough, comedians have a rule about going out on a laugh, you must leave your wife with a higher mood than you find her, make her laugh in the morning, turn on your heel and walk out the door! Raise your vibration, be upbeat, confident, happy and above all positive. She’s not the woman you fell in love with and you definitely aren’t the man she fell in love with so it’s time for you to go back and be the guy who flooded her with all those amazing chemicals. It’s going to take about a month of consistency to start seeing change but it will come if you are doing this from a truly noble place. I sense some contempt in your writing and that will poison everything so really sit and think if you want her, if the answer is yes then you have your direction, if you’re even a little bit on the fence then doing this work will make you angry and frustrated and it will blow up on your face. |
NP but sympathize with OP and I hear what you’re advising. It’s hard though. Really hard. You say it takes a month but what about when you think you’ve been consistently doing the right things and it has been a year? Give up? Maybe sometimes your partner doesn’t *want* to want to fix things. |
There is always the possibility of rejection and failure but wouldn’t you rather try and see what hard work brings you? By telling him not to try because it might not work only condemns him to more loneliness and the eventual dissolution of his marriage. Even if they don’t wind up happier together this undertaking will make him far more resilient, well-rounded, way more emotionally intelligent and far more attractive to a new partner if the union is indeed over. If the guy has been feeling like this for a long time he needs to build himself back up, start getting smarter, join a gym, quit drinking, take some night classes, stop doing the minimum. OP, this takes time but you will see gradual change and that gradual change will begin compounding as you start to figure out how to push the right buttons. Everything in your life will start working better until one day when you get a pic from your wife standing in front of the mirror in those little pink panties you love to see her in. They didn’t go down the drain overnight and he’s not gonna fix this overnight, success is the intentional progression of a worthy ideal and as long as he can get some really minor wins he can turn this around. |
This is really kind. Kudos to you. |