Husband Regressed Sexually
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Anonymous
| I stopped reading OP because she stopped using paragraphs. Jeesh. |
Anonymous
Thank you so much. I appreciate your post as it expresses what I've been trying but unable to get across. Also, I took my own advice & went back to re-read the posts. To the one that said most had been understanding, yes, you're correct and thank you for mentioning it. After I thought about it, I considered that maybe I'd missed something. Why would you say that if it wasn't the way it seemed to you? Several of the posts I missed, b/c it appears they posted while I was creating my post, and a few others were on a new page that I missed. In addition, looking back through, even some of those that I initially took to be criticizing actually weren't, so that's my mistake. This is a really touchy subject for me, and when the early responses came, there were some ugly ones. I immediately went on the defense & that mixed with the high level of emotion this incites for me clouded my perception. So to all of you who did try to offer helpful advice, thank you & to you I apologize. I got too distracted by the ones that were judgmental and mean. I think I just need to clear my head & calm down. It's emotional & letting that get the better of me certainly won't help either. I'll just try to talk to him again from the "what can I do to help" stance vs. "what happened". I can see how that might sound like I'm putting him at some kind of fault, which I've been trying to avoid. Thanks again to the ones that tried to help. I appreciate you taking the time to put some suggestions out there. There were several that gave a different perspective, which helps a lot. Maybe now, with those things in mind, I can reach out to him in a way that's easier for him to respond to. |
Anonymous
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Imagine you are a runner. You run an 8 minute mile. When you meet your husband he is running a 12 minute mile. You each enjoy and naturally gravitate towards your own pace.
When you get together, husband, who would love to keep up with you and has fantasized about being faster, works to improve his pace. When he improves, you two can happily run together. But, it is always a much bigger effort for him, even though he enjoys it, because this is not his normal rate. It takes tremendous effort and determination for him to keep a pace that you run at effortlessly. When he is unable to give his full attention to training, it is easy to slip back to the pace that suits him better. Then, it takes a lot of hard work to get back up to your speed. Getting back up there is made even harder by the fact that he is perfectly satisfied running at his own pace, other than the fact that it bores you. You underestimate the amount if energy it takes to keep up with you even though he is happy when he gets there. He can be just as happy with less effort doing it his own way. tl;dr: you have a compatibility problem, even though he was able to be what you needed for a time. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
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+2
Good analogy. Exactly what I was thinking, but couldn't summon up the energy to explain. Kind of like her H cannot summon up the energy to have sex with her in the manner she wants, but that to him probably feels like quite a production. OP, I think you should try to negotiate with him a sort of schedule so that every now and then he puts in the effort to have sex the way you like (which you've been very vague about, but that's okay, since this is posted on non-explicit). Maybe one Saturday a month you make it "special sex" day. The rest of the time, you can have sex the way it comes naturally for him. If he knows he only has to put on the show on certain specific occasions, it may feel like less of a production for him and maybe eventually it will become easier and you can up the frequency a bit. But I think you have to accept that you can't expect him to run an 8-minute mile all the time. |
Anonymous
| I actually have not been vague at all. I said originally & in a post on (I believe it was) the last page that all I'm talking about is dirty talk & fantasizing. I did mention also in my OP that he said in the begging that he had some "freak" in him, which he did say. That isn't what I was asking for though, I did specify. If he were actually a "freak", why would it take 2yrs before he was comfortable talking & fantasizing? Obviously he wasn't really "freaky" then, but he did get to a place where he was comfortable with & even initiating it himself. While I guess I can understand it might take effort for him to think about, it's not an "8min mile" he's being asked to keep up with... |
Anonymous
| "It" = dirty talk & fantasizing. |
Anonymous
| OP, what kind of dirty talk are we talking about? is it the mild kind of "oh yeah, that feels good" or the "I want to %^&* your *&^% till you scream" kind of talk? I've tried to get my wife to be more vocal (it is a turn on for me), and she is not comfortable with more than just one or two phrases (that are pretty mild). Some women have been taught that dirty talk is whorish, whereas, I think most men find it a huge turn on (I do). Most men want a "lady on the street who is freak in sheets"! |
Anonymous
You do yourself no favors by minimizing what you are asking for in relation to his true capacity. You are not asking for too much, and for some other men, you would not be asking for enough. But you have to accept the effort it takes him to get to what is your comfort zone (even if he wishes it were his comfort zone or tries to make it his comfort zone too). This will help you communicate with him in a way that keeps him from becoming defensive or losing confidence in his ability to please you. In the throes of early love, he was optimistic about his own freakiness, perhaps overly so. I am sure he was happy to build up to a freakier level. But maintaining this is obviously harder for him. If this were really about running, you would find a running group or a running buddy that ran your pace, or maybe even pushed you further. Your hubby might join in occasionally when he was feeling up to it. Unfortunately, for 99% of people sex doesn't work this way. |
Anonymous
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I'm talking about more than mild talk and also talk about fantasies. If he ever just didn't know what to say (and that happened in the beginning) I could tell & just left it open with yes or no stuff or cut it out altogether if he was just not ready yet. Baby steps, which was fine with me b/c as I've mentioned many times now I didn't/don't want him to feel pressured. But he often initiated it himself once he was able to loosen up. He just had hang ups about it. I know some of it was trust issues, and some a fear I'd feel disrespect.
To the last poster, I wasn't minimizing, I was clarifying again b/c someone said I had been vague & I don't believe I was. Since others also had been referencing "kink" & using other descriptors that aren't accurate I thought maybe I needed to state it again. Also, I don't act or discuss this issue with him in a way that I could see would make him feel inadequate. I tell him he's hot & how much he turns me on, & how much I want him both in & out of the bedroom. He does know that I sometimes need more, but he also knows I'm not bitching at him. I'm trying to understand what changed. A lot of ppl keep saying it's just how he is but it's not. Believe it or don't, but I know him. Something was hindering him before and I helped him work it out by showing him, not just telling him he could trust me, creating a safe environment & assuring him I didn't feel disrespected by that stuff. Once he got comfortable with that & felt safe in trusting he let loose. Something is just in the way again. |
Anonymous
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Lots of people are offering you suggestions and also suggesting that, realistically, you guys just have very different styles and levels of comfort. You seem to reject all of it. But I think you may not be doing your husband justice to chalk this all up to his shame/feeling of repression.
As someone who has never liked dirty talk, I will go along for fun on occasion but really doubt I'd be interested in that as a regular thing. Not a prude, not repressed, that just feels too forced to me/not enjoyable long term. |
Anonymous
| For some it could be a turn on but for some the dirty talk could be a distraction from being turned on, especially if it feels like an act. |
Anonymous
| I understand what both of you are saying, and I know that a lot of ppl are just saying what they believe to be the issue. The reason I keep saying that it isn't that he's naturally that way isn't just me being stubborn or unwilling to hear different perspectives, I can understand the point being made, but it's being made based on the assumption that I tried to change him and/or he was just trying to please me. I get how that would be the first thought, but it's not what happened. We've both always been very open & honest with each other. He talked to me back when this all first came up & a lot of times he'd say he just wasn't sure how to explain why he feared I'd feel disrespected even though I said I wouldn't, or why it was hard to trust with this even though any previous undesirable results didn't involve me. The point is that we've always talked about everything openly but suddenly he was shutting me out of this area. So then I wonder why he's doing that, why he won't talk to me anymore. I was the one who experienced him in bed before and after and the difference was that he wasn't holding back anymore. When you know someone so intimately you know when they're holding back. He let go of his inhibitions. It wasn't in the beginning, so it can't have just been being caught up in something new, and if I hadn't complained, withheld sex, or left after two years he had no reason to feel threatened or pressured. I am looking for advice or suggestions of what might have caused the change, aside from any attempt from me to change him or pressure him since I keep telling (general) you that isn't what's happening. People seem bent on believing it is though and basing their feedback on that. |
Anonymous
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OP -
I see both sides of this. If I put myself in your husband's shoes, I'd feel pressured, and lesser-than. And that doesn't necessarily mean you are the one applying the pressure, but it's how I'd feel. That you picked me for who you "thought I could be" instead of who I actually was. Like someone who marries thinking that their spouse may be working a crap job now, but is in law school, and is upset when they flunk the bar. I want to reiterate that none of this is blaming you - relationships are built around expectations for the future. When I put myself in your shoes, in my example, it would be reasonable to assume that the person you marry in law school will in fact wind up practicing law. Likewise, if you marry someone who tells you they want children, and they later announce that they don't, well, that's a bait and switch. First of all, you need to admit that You DO want him to change - his behaviour. He has behaved that way in the past, and you'd like him to behave that way again. There is nothing inherently wrong with that - wanting him to exhibit a behaviour you know he's capable of. There's also nothing inherently wrong with him wishing you were happy with him as he was when you met him. After all, that was the guy you started dating, fell for, etc. At any point during that process, did you state or imply that if he didn't up his 'kink' that you would have second thoughts about the relationship? If you did it also may be the reason he stepped it up - fear of losing you. Of course, if you did say so, and it was a condition of you committing to him, you do now have the right to say "hey - this isn't the deal we agreed to." Lastly I think you're not putting enough emphasis in your thought process on the fact you just had a child. From your timeline, it sounds like right around the time he got comfortable in his new position (when you thought the 'kink' would come back) - you got pregnant. This is a huge huge change mentally for a lot of people. Your husband might be one of them. |
Anonymous
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Maybe he never liked the kinky stuff to begin with.
I was like that. I met a guy who forced it out of me ugh. I really hate it and we are doing nothing crazy but it's still awful. I wish I could regress but he won't let me. |