Does the Husband backing off and giving space help

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is your emotional connection? Do you guys fight? Talk? Have there been any periods of depression or disconnect due to kids, work, midlife, etc.?

Address the underlying intimacy issues. There may be some physical/health issues as well.

Emotionally, probably average. We don't fight a lot. She is super miserable at her job so when I come home, it's venting, then complaining, so I wouldn't dream of putting sex on the menu that night. We have a slightly special needs kid that wears us both out. The intimacy issue has been going on a decade plus, I am just over being the pursuer 100 percent of the time.

When I try to address it, its generally met with "this is because we haven't had sex in a while? Then just do it" i.e. checklist sex which I don't and won't have again. Would rather be celibate and open the marriage or divorce.

Why don't you show her this thread? I am positive that she doesn't know that this is how you feel: I mean she knows you want sex but doesn't know how you feel when she offers sex in a way you don't believe is enthusiastic. Also, it's not enough to identify a problem but to also think about a path to solutions which could be visit with sex therapist. A third party can listen to both of you and then suggest a solution which is not what is happening now. She probably feels that she's making an effort and you don't think it's the right type of effort.

The way I see it, she fundamentally wants to do something for you because she loves you and you are not able to communicate with her your viewpoint/help find a solution. Ball is in your court.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is your emotional connection? Do you guys fight? Talk? Have there been any periods of depression or disconnect due to kids, work, midlife, etc.?

Address the underlying intimacy issues. There may be some physical/health issues as well.

Emotionally, probably average. We don't fight a lot. She is super miserable at her job so when I come home, it's venting, then complaining, so I wouldn't dream of putting sex on the menu that night. We have a slightly special needs kid that wears us both out. The intimacy issue has been going on a decade plus, I am just over being the pursuer 100 percent of the time.

When I try to address it, its generally met with "this is because we haven't had sex in a while? Then just do it" i.e. checklist sex which I don't and won't have again. Would rather be celibate and open the marriage or divorce.

When she says that, do you say “I don’t want to have sex with you if you don’t want to do it?” Have you told her that’s not a kind of sex that you like or are ok with? I mean, it’s a very respectful and loving position to take, so I hope she knows that’s how you feel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is your emotional connection? Do you guys fight? Talk? Have there been any periods of depression or disconnect due to kids, work, midlife, etc.?

Address the underlying intimacy issues. There may be some physical/health issues as well.

Emotionally, probably average. We don't fight a lot. She is super miserable at her job so when I come home, it's venting, then complaining, so I wouldn't dream of putting sex on the menu that night. We have a slightly special needs kid that wears us both out. The intimacy issue has been going on a decade plus, I am just over being the pursuer 100 percent of the time.

When I try to address it, its generally met with "this is because we haven't had sex in a while? Then just do it" i.e. checklist sex which I don't and won't have again. Would rather be celibate and open the marriage or divorce.

She sounds super stressed. Tell her to quit her job. Is there anything that you are using her salary for that’s more important than a good sex life and a happy marriage?
I mean, obviously if you can’t afford food, then she needs to keep her miserable job. But if you are thinking that you have enough money to divorce and keep two separate households, then why not just tell her to quit?
Of course, the expectation is that she be pleasant and not exhausted when you come home from work. If she’s just as miserable without the miserable job, then she might as well as least earn the money. But she might be a very different woman. And she might even find something else that brings some money in that isn’t soul sucking.

[Anonymous]

How old are your kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How old are your kids?

11 and 13

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was married and the W lost interest in sex, I tried an experiment where I didn't even touch her or kiss her for one entire month to see if she even noticed. She didn't. It DOES NOT HELP to pull away but good luck with this problem.

I agree with this, but I also disagree with all the massage/making her feel desirable/wooing her crap. While there are exceptions to every rule, 95/100 when a wife loses sexual desire for her husband in a long-term marriage, it’s gone forever. Bottom line, she’s lost interest in sex with you, so can lose interest in monogamy with her.

that's BS.

Read things written by sex and relationship experts. It's normal for interest in sex to dwindle (for both parties) after a decade together. It takes intimacy, connection, communication and intent to keep an active sex life. And it being gone does not at all mean that you can't get it back again.

[Anonymous]

A few years back I got irritated that we are not having sex as much as we used. So I thought I would withhold sex and see how she would fare. Using all my will power, I was able to hold off sex for around 3 weeks. So I used to masturbate 1-2 times each day so as not succumb to temptation and initiate sex.

She did not notice even after 3 weeks. So I blurted out what I have been doing and how pissed off I am.

She did not say anything, went into the closet and changed into a very sexy lingerie. She had me begging for sex for the next I think 45 minutes to an hour. I really begged that day.

After she relented we have sex, we had a long talk about what would help us both have more sex.

As far as Sex is concerned, men and women are not equal. Not by a long shot. Better to accept that your wife is (to use a North Korean analogy), The Supreme Leader, as far as sex is concerned. You need sex far, far, far more than she does. And, she is in a position to bestow that on you when she wants to.

I came to the realization that to have more sex, it is better to actually be deserving of more sex.

While everyone would be different, for us it is

1. Helping out with a lot more of the chores.

2. Giving her some free time all by herself everyday while I take care of kids and chores.

3. Paying a lot of attention to her. When she speaks, especially later in the evening, listen as if the world does not exist except her.

4. You may argue or fight earlier in the day. But by 6 PM, make sure you made it up with her. After 6 PM, she must becomes the center of your universe and you should only be complimenting her until bedtime.

She did not notice even after 3 weeks. So I blurted out what I have been doing and how pissed off I am.

[Anonymous]

PP. Message cut off.

We have far more these days and both very happy.

[Anonymous]

^smart man. Actually found a solution instead of just silently getting upset.

I would add one more thing that helped: work her mind, even on the days you won’t have sex so that she
knows you find her attractive in general and not saying it only for sex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^what do you do to s t art the flame beforehand? It can start way in advance. It's getting her mind revved u p. It's teasing/flirting in between for example. It's finding ways that work for her and might require effort on your part.

Yep. Put that effort in with no expectations of anything to follow (can be a turnoff) and hope for the best, eventually!

This seems more like wishful thinking than a a plan with any realistic chance of success.

[Anonymous]

When these threads come up, people seem to be offering advice that they think ought to work. Very few people can tell you about what actually has worked for them -- i.e., long-term relationship, significant period of bad sex, x/y/z changed, and now good sex.

[Anonymous]

Didn’t work for us.
I was the wife who didn’t want sex.
When I started sort of coming around, he became a d-ck and later left.
I still don’t know who is to blame. I couldn’t give him more than the checkbox sex, he probably didn’t want anything after a few years like that.
I am better off alone, the kid is doing better, but he was never an involved dad. And he was not a good influence tbh.
If you are and your kids will miss you, try talking about opening up your marriage. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When these threads come up, people seem to be offering advice that they think ought to work. Very few people can tell you about what actually has worked for them -- i.e., long-term relationship, significant period of bad sex, x/y/z changed, and now good sex.

I think because it doesn't change all that often. I don't see that women find their libidos -- for their husbands -- after a prolonged drought. I might suggest having an affair and letting your wife find out and you might get that insane "marking my territory" sex for a while, but it is iffy. You might also get nothing. And a divorce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is your emotional connection? Do you guys fight? Talk? Have there been any periods of depression or disconnect due to kids, work, midlife, etc.?

Address the underlying intimacy issues. There may be some physical/health issues as well.

Emotionally, probably average. We don't fight a lot. She is super miserable at her job so when I come home, it's venting, then complaining, so I wouldn't dream of putting sex on the menu that night. We have a slightly special needs kid that wears us both out. The intimacy issue has been going on a decade plus, I am just over being the pursuer 100 percent of the time.

When I try to address it, its generally met with "this is because we haven't had sex in a while? Then just do it" i.e. checklist sex which I don't and won't have again. Would rather be celibate and open the marriage or divorce.

OK, and the kids are 11 and 13. So it sounds like this started around the time of the birth of the second child, which is very stressful for couples -- especially if they both WOH. Add special needs to that and a stressful job. Your wife has a lot on her plate. She sounds overwhelmed. She may feel unsupported in general.

Couple thoughts:
1) This is an overgeneralization, but it does tend to break down along gender lines: for men, sex is a stress reliever. For women, they need to be relaxed to get in the mood. Often culture and gender roles dictate that women should be the "pleaser." It does turn sex into just another job for women, another obligation -- to be a good wife, I have to provide X. That's hard when the To Do list is ten million items long and never going to shrink.
2) How much time does your wife get to herself, without work or family obligations? A woman who doesn't have time to work out, see friends, unwind and do nothing isn't going to have a lot of extra energy left to give. I think this is a common situation for women with multiple young children and work. No opportunity to replenish.
3) It sounds to me like the lifestyle issues have sucked the romance and intimacy out of your marriage. That's really tough. You have to work to shift the whole structure of your lives to put more of that back in -- time for herself and time for the marriage. This isn't going to be something that's solved over night with you taking a different approach to sex or just talking. Think of it as a simple fuel issue. The tank has been running on empty for a long time. Any additional activity that doesn't fill the tank but empties it isn't going to be very successful at this time.
4) I think you need to position yourself, for the long term, as a teammate. Can you hire help to take some of the special needs child's needs off your wife's plate? Can you figure out ways to take her other duties off? If a man were working a very stressful job in past decades, he would have expected to come home and be waited on hand and foot. He would never be in charge of anything that had to do with restocking the kids' clothes, school stuff, their health needs, family's social life, vacation planning, household . . . the list goes on and on. The situation now is that many women do that work and then come hoe and are faced with a second job.
5) If you do that for a month or two, you'll be in a different position to have a talk with her. Tell her how much you want to keep helping with all this, to make a more manageable and fun family life for everyone. Tell her you want her needs to be met. etc. If she finds that helper and friend in you, it'll be easier for her to open up and talk about her needs, hear your needs, start to feel connected again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t work for us.
I was the wife who didn’t want sex.
When I started sort of coming around, he became a d-ck and later left.
I still don’t know who is to blame. I couldn’t give him more than the checkbox sex, he probably didn’t want anything after a few years like that.

I used to frequent the forums at Married Man Sex Life when they were still a thing and becoming angry when things started to get better was pretty common and was surprising to me. My take is that it's not just about sex, but in any situation where you have a lot of resentment built up, it can kind of sit behind a wall as long as the status quo is maintained. But, when things shift, that resentment can just kind of come flooding out -- even if the shift is in a direction that ought to help resolve the cause of the resentment.

In the case of sex, when it starts to get better, I think the resentful spouse experiences a combination of "if you can do this now, you could have been doing it for all the years I've been hurting" along with "this isn't real or sustainable, it's is just going to hurt that much more when the sex goes away again."