Does the Husband backing off and giving space help

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

As always

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
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.

NP - but this just seems unsustainable. My guess is that OP is stretched pretty thin as well. To expect that he can take his existing burdens, put all of this other stuff on his back indefinitely, and maybe, hopefully, at some point, have his wife regain a bit of her sex drive just seems a little ambitious. I'd have a hard time trusting that it would do any good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Well sure - if they admitted the truth (i.e., it ain’t coming back), they literally wouldn’t have any clients or books to sell. It’s in their interest to sell hope to both parties, and when it fails, blame one or both of the parties for not being committed enough.

[Anonymous]

For me to keep a high drive i NEED NEED NEED down time to myself. Not being a wife. Not being a mom. Not thinking about the needs of other people in my life. Just to be me. The brave, confident, sexual woman that i was when i was single that is still in there but is hidden by the many hats i have to wear everyday.
If my DH wasn't pulling his weight in our family (and that can mean different things for different people at different times of their lives); if he expected me to cook, clean, care for kids, take care of my mom, walk the dog and put them to be only to walk up to bed and then worry about his needs? Um nope. Non starter there.

With some down time to myself and me doing the things I enjoy i can tap into and wear the hat of 'woman' which is what I need to keep my drive up.

So many men want women to just keep giving without understanding that there may be nothing left to give. Or they wear so many hats on top of each other that she can't even see or find the 'sexual woman' hat if you don't allow her to do what she needs to find it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try a massage and a vibrator.

This.

I find it hard to believe that so many men have absolutely no idea how to get women to have sex with them. Don’t most men spend years working on this very skill?

You are missing the point. Like many men, he used to have much sex with his wife. So yeah, he used to know how to do this and was very good at it. But now she has stopped caring, and very likely there is nothing whatsoever he can do to get his wife to have sex with the frequency and enthusiasm he desires.

It would not be hard at all for him to have sex with other women. So again, he does know how to get women to have sex with him - just not this one particular one who he is married to.

He should draw his own conclusions from this.

Because a man used to have a lot of sex with his wife he must be good at it? Stupid comment. My husband was *never* good at sex. He’s uptight and only wants missionary, him on top. Not creative, basic boring foreplay. While I’m in my mid 30s and just generally want a lot of sex, it’s not because he’s doing anything to make it fun for me.

Nope, try again. He knew how to get his wife to have sex with him, which does not necessarily mean he was good at actually having sex.

Of course, if you were unable to communicate your needs effectively to your husband, you are in a poor position to call other people stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

NP - but this just seems unsustainable. My guess is that OP is stretched pretty thin as well. To expect that he can take his existing burdens, put all of this other stuff on his back indefinitely, and maybe, hopefully, at some point, have his wife regain a bit of her sex drive just seems a little ambitious. I'd have a hard time trusting that it would do any good.

Exactly. To begin this you have to concede that any chance for an acceptable sexual relationship will be 100% on you, 100% of the time, for the rest of your relationship. She is fine going without, genuinely believes there is no problem with the status quo, and thus will make no effort to change. Whether or not that’s something you are willing to take on is something only you can answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine is the most common of problems. I want to have better and more frequent sex and intimacy, she wants to be left alone. We used to schedule once a week, or so (worked out to 2-3x a month) but most of the time she clearly would have preferred to be left alone.

So after years of this dynamic, I have backed off. Going on 4 months, no sex. At first, it really, really sucked but now I really don't miss sex with her. Definitely less resentment, ironically. She has mentioned about scheduling it again, but I am skeptical this is anything but her feeling guilty about not doing something I used to push for.

Question - do women regain libido if they are left alone for a while? Meaning, can desire rebuild over time? Anyone successfully used a long sex break as a positive step?

I kind of feel like you answered your own question in your post. You backed off, and she came back asking to have sex again. The fact that you might not want to is not a great sign for the longevity of your marriage - if you take turns rejecting the other like this I'm not sure how it can be healthy - but you asked if backing off and giving space would make her come back and want sex again and ... it already did?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For me to keep a high drive i NEED NEED NEED down time to myself. Not being a wife. Not being a mom. Not thinking about the needs of other people in my life. Just to be me. The brave, confident, sexual woman that i was when i was single that is still in there but is hidden by the many hats i have to wear everyday.
If my DH wasn't pulling his weight in our family (and that can mean different things for different people at different times of their lives); if he expected me to cook, clean, care for kids, take care of my mom, walk the dog and put them to be only to walk up to bed and then worry about his needs? Um nope. Non starter there.

With some down time to myself and me doing the things I enjoy i can tap into and wear the hat of 'woman' which is what I need to keep my drive up.

So many men want women to just keep giving without understanding that there may be nothing left to give. Or they wear so many hats on top of each other that she can't even see or find the 'sexual woman' hat if you don't allow her to do what she needs to find it.

In my situation, it would not matter how much of the load I shouldered. There is no way my wife would set the kinds of boundaries she needed to maintain downtime that turned her into a sexual being. She's just not that interested in the subject. The world has an infinite number of things that could occupy her time. Even if I spent 24/7 doing things she wanted done, she'd find more things to fill her schedule with. Jumping my bones would not be anywhere on that list.

This is why "give her downtime" seems like such an unlikely fix to me. I know situations differ, but I'll bet there are lots of people in my situation.

[Anonymous]

How about you just ask her what she needs and listen to that? Without judgement or acting you like 'know' it won't work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

NP - but this just seems unsustainable. My guess is that OP is stretched pretty thin as well. To expect that he can take his existing burdens, put all of this other stuff on his back indefinitely, and maybe, hopefully, at some point, have his wife regain a bit of her sex drive just seems a little ambitious. I'd have a hard time trusting that it would do any good.

I’m am not the previous poster, but does this really seem unsustainable to you? Consider her perspective, take care of your kids on your own sometimes, think of your spouse as a teammate.
It just looks to me like someone advocating for a shift in perspective to treat your wife as an equal instead of as an employee who isn’t up to the task.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

NP - but this just seems unsustainable. My guess is that OP is stretched pretty thin as well. To expect that he can take his existing burdens, put all of this other stuff on his back indefinitely, and maybe, hopefully, at some point, have his wife regain a bit of her sex drive just seems a little ambitious. I'd have a hard time trusting that it would do any good.

I’m am not the previous poster, but does this really seem unsustainable to you? Consider her perspective, take care of your kids on your own sometimes, think of your spouse as a teammate.
It just looks to me like someone advocating for a shift in perspective to treat your wife as an equal instead of as an employee who isn’t up to the task.

Address her "ten million item to do list."
Give wife unspecified amounts of time to herself.
Shift the whole structures of their lives.
Hire someone to take the child's needs off her plate.
Take her other duties off her plate.
After all of that is done for a month or so, then he can talk to her.
At that point, it will be easier for her to open up and she can start to feel connected.
And, I guess at some point after that their sex lives will maybe improve somewhat.

Again, I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze on this recommendation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

NP - but this just seems unsustainable. My guess is that OP is stretched pretty thin as well. To expect that he can take his existing burdens, put all of this other stuff on his back indefinitely, and maybe, hopefully, at some point, have his wife regain a bit of her sex drive just seems a little ambitious. I'd have a hard time trusting that it would do any good.

I’m am not the previous poster, but does this really seem unsustainable to you? Consider her perspective, take care of your kids on your own sometimes, think of your spouse as a teammate.
It just looks to me like someone advocating for a shift in perspective to treat your wife as an equal instead of as an employee who isn’t up to the task.

Acknowledge her "ten million item to do list."
Give wife any time to herself.
Shift the whole structures of their lives if they're unbalanced to the point that she has no time for herself and you have no time for your marriage.
Hire someone to take some of the child's special needs off her plate.
Take her other duties off her plate if she still doesn't have any down time.
After all of that is done for a month or so, then he can talk to her.
At that point, it will be easier for her to open up and she can start to feel connected.
And, I guess at some point after that their sex lives will maybe improve somewhat.

Again, I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze on this recommendation.

FTFY. All the list is saying is, if your wife is drowning she will want the few moments her head is above water to breathe, not to blow you. And your response is "it's not really worth it to me to pull this one out of the water, I'll look for a dry one."

[Anonymous]

I guess this doesn’t seem crazy to me. We are projecting a lot here, and my guess is that OP
Is already doing a lot of these things. But calling this list unsustainable is ridiculous. Almost all of these things are things a decent person would do for any family member, even if you aren’t planning on sleeping with them.


If she has 10 million things to do, then find 1 million where you can help out or tell her that it just doesn’t need done and take it off the list. Maybe the kids don’t need to learn the piano, or if they do, they don’t have to do the recitals. Maybe all extended family gets flowers for Christmas this year, and you sit and order them right now and it’s done.

Changing the structure of your life also seems absolutely reasonable if you are miserable. Who doesn’t decide they are going to get up an hour earlier and work out every morning if they miss it? Or that they are going to look for a job closer to home if the commute is too long? In this case, maybe taking the kids to get groceries and wash the car every Sunday so she has time alone. Or taking your shower at night so she has a few minutes alone to unwind after kids are in bed, and then you can talk to her.

Hiring help if you feel overworked or overwhelmed also seems reasonable.

Taking other duties off her plate also just doesn’t seem crazy to me. The kids belong to both parents. Kids do well when they have an involved father in their lives. This is something OP should just do to be a good dad, not because he thinks it will result in sex.

[Anonymous]

Men don't realize that no woman (unless something happened, cheating etc) just wakes up one day and is like "you know what, I don't feel like sex with my DH"
What happens is little by little more and more and more are added to the plate, to the relationship, to her life and she is expected and demanded to still be the sexual, active wife she was when she was 24, no kids, fewer job responsibilities, few bills, no piano lessons, or late night nursing. No carpool and conferences, no aging parents or siblings getting married. No long hours at work or a family that needed to be fed. No piles of laundry or a leak in the roof. No dog that needed to be walked or homework to be helped with. No birthday parties to plan or field trips to chaperone or papers to sign. With date nights and nights home alone to binge watch Bravo. With nights to do her nails, hair, wax. With money to spend on take out. With trips with friends and travels abroad. With a younger body and lighter spirit. With concert tickets and spa weekends.

Then you WONDER. Are just shocked that after you take away the time to herself, the date nights, the spa days, the less stressful work environment and add kids, aging parents, pets, household stuff, school stuff, work stuff that she is just NOT into sex multiple times a week. Hell, she likely isnt' into anything she was into at the same intensity she was when you first met or got married.

Have YOU changed? Do you still take her on dates or on romantic trips or do you use kids as the excuse? Do you still surprise her with flowers or candy or do you use work as an excuse?
Do you still rub her shoulders after a long day or do you know expect any touch you provide her should lead to sex for you?
Do you still smile at her across from the table during a meal or do you blame lack of time?
Do you kiss her passionately when you get home because you are happy to see her or do you say you need to decompress first?

Think about what role YOU play in all of this and realize that it took time to get to where you are in your relationship. No one fix will change anything overnight but it will overtime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine is the most common of problems. I want to have better and more frequent sex and intimacy, she wants to be left alone. We used to schedule once a week, or so (worked out to 2-3x a month) but most of the time she clearly would have preferred to be left alone.

So after years of this dynamic, I have backed off. Going on 4 months, no sex. At first, it really, really sucked but now I really don't miss sex with her. Definitely less resentment, ironically. She has mentioned about scheduling it again, but I am skeptical this is anything but her feeling guilty about not doing something I used to push for.

Question - do women regain libido if they are left alone for a while? Meaning, can desire rebuild over time? Anyone successfully used a long sex break as a positive step?

I could have written this 20 years ago. “DW” suggested if I backed off a little maybe she’d be more inclined to have sex with me. So, I backed off. Our sex life went from infrequent to nonexistent. Like you, I found I didn’t muss sex with her, but that was only because I came to resent her, and us, intensely.
I ultimately left after almost 10 years of this and my youngest graduating from high school.
Looking back, perhaps if I handled things differently we could have saved our marriage. Who knows.