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While we are nearly headed for divorce and it is QUITE a long story. I am looking for suggestions on what to do to satisfy my husband TODAY since he is ready to call it quits unless I SHOW him I actually do love him.

A brief history.....he fell in love with me as he fixed my computer 5 years ago. Proposed and felt that since I am normally bland and careful at decisions I would "go for it". Married 1.5 years later and had a LOT of rocky situations along the way...I nearly didn't go through with it. He said I wasn't intimate enough and because his libido changed when meeting me he needs me to MATCH his because he feels his libido shouldn't have to go unsatisfied. I thought he was nuts, but after many heated arguments I agreed, but I just can't be filthy in language and really just never been the ditzy bouncy life of the party type. Says I should let go of my inhibitions....but I don't feel like I even have inhibitions...it just isn't natural. I will do things with him that I hadn't before....I do my very best at BJ's which he said he never loved anyone previously enough to allow them to do that and I suggested being the one and now it is part of the mundane boring stuff he says is not exciting. He also says because he clearly loves me more then I have to inititate EVERY night instead of him because then he has the feeling that I must want to do it if I am initiating...BUT he is telling me that this is what I should be doing EVERY NIGHT regardless of the time of month. Speaking of that...he says just because I am out of commission in one hole doesn't mean he should be left out....he should then be able to use the OTHER hole....again...is he INSANE...but all the articles and books he and I have read says that isn't something I SHOULDN'T do if done properly, but he says he will use a lot of lube and go easy, but in HIS excitement he forgets and just jams it in...sending me into the most unbelievable amount of pain ever. I have said the only way I could survive is with a vibrator to take my mind and focus off....but then he "forgets" to honor that as it is a hassle and he also feels that a vibrator means that HE isn't making me climax and he wants to be the one to do that for me...well, I tried...I can't climax without it. He has tons of porno's. In the beginning I thought it wasn't so bad, but he buys the stupid disgusting ones that do NOTHING for me but give me an attitude...he says he wants me to 'watch and learn'....whatever....like yeah, if I am getting paid I probably would have a better attitude and enjoy it more, but that ISN'T the case so pornos only piss me off now....

I will admit that i am most uncomfortable with anything that is loud, ronchy, and pornographic like. Not that I don't have an open mind because i tried, but he goes overboard with what he is willing to consider spicy. If we try it once then he wants to do something different....it isn't spicy enough for him.

To make matters worse he coerced me into swinging as a cool thing to try as a couple...as if it would bring us closer together doing the forbidden....after a year and a half of humility and then my parents finding out....we separated for 6 weeks and then I ask he come back (as I asked him to leave) and wanted to try again. But now I grew into disrespecting him every chance I get. He says that my disrespect and NOT compling with the intimacy level and excitment for the past two years has gone long enough. I have ignored his needs because I just can't fulfil them. If i do something ronchy I hate myself...never enjoyed it and just can't be intimate without an attitude which I can't fake either....I make it be known it was painful or that it sucked.....I can't seem to enjoy anythign with any kind of positive attitude and then when he says....SO what are you going to do tonight that is different....it is like...that isn't the only thing I do all day. I have two preschool children to care for, a home business that is so stressful and draining because I don't have enough space to work and we are trying to buy a home that we close on next week and my clients are complaining as my turn around time is MANY weeks later than it is supposed to. I feel like walking away from it all, but if I walk away from this marriage then not only will I have no place to live, but the stress on my 5 year olds AND no place to run my business so no livlihood and law suits that I would be subject to. We built a whole co-existing life together that I am not on the position right now to do if we are not together.

We both deserve happiness for all we both have gone through in life...and we both want it to be with each other, but we CAN NOT agree on ANYTHING and my mind is blank when thinking of things that he would find appealing that I am actually willing to do with the little decency I have left.....there isn't much we haven't tried...what else is there that could make both of us happy and satisfied?

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I read what you wrote and a lot of what your husband does matches closely with a sexual addiction. When someone is ignoring the pain of another in order to satisfy himself, and he is envolving you in swinging when you are uncomfortable with it, and ignores your desires for his own, then it sounds like addictive needs.

There is some information about sexual addiction at http://www.bethesdaworkshops.org and http://www.faithfulandtrueministries.com/


Art Romans 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. Married to my beautiful and gracious wife 26 years 1 son 1 daughter both grown In SA recovery since July 2003 Christian faith
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my problem is I have said that to him and he insists that is not the case. It is because I am so "rigid" and that he KNOWS I have what it takes to be exciting, but just choose NOT to do it. Regardless, I still don't know what else to try when what he likes just won't come out of me freely and genuinely. He won't believe any of the web sites like this and refuses counseling as he says my only goal in counseling is to gang up on him and find a psychologist to side with me to say how wrong of a person he is...he is convinced that because he sees people being this way on pornos or even in public when two people are madly in love and are groping each other than he gets upset and disappointed that his life isn't just like that....when he sees others like that.....even romantic movies will cause him to point out that I don't do that...or a sitcom even. But, in the heat of the moment he says to me...."talk dirty to me" or he'll say "what do you want".....the only thing that comes to my mind at that time is.....nothing....as far as talking dirty....and what do I want....uummmm....this to be over...so either I say just anything stupid and it doesn't sound real...or I just say nothing and then he is pissed.

I will follow those links, and see what they are all about, but I am still lost at what to do....there is NO way he will go to counseling. when we separated two years ago he went to anger management through his work....and he never blew up like he had ever again...so he IS showing effort on stopping things he used to do such as FORCING me to be in an argument LITERALLY till the next morning...pure torchure to stay up all night discussing, yelling etc about the same thing over and over. IT wasn't unitl two nights ago when that came back into our lives....because it got THAT bad....and I was ready to walk out...which of course he physically kept me from leaving...but then says our marriage is a lost cause because he knows the things he wants me to do are the SAME things I don't want him to want from me.

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The Bethesda Workshops for spouses of sexual addicts are really good. My wife attended one of the workshops and really appreciated it and that was after we had already been through a great deal of counseling.

It's tough convincing someone they have a problem when they believe they are normal. I was a sex addict for a long time and when you finally get it that you have a problem you say to yourself what the heck have I been thinking? It was like a lightbulb got turned on for me and everything got clear all of a sudden. So it might take tough love, or something really drastic to happen to him for a change to take place. I'll just say that swinging is considered level 2 sexual addiction. There are 3 levels and level 3 envolves criminal acts. And some sex addicts need more and more to sustain their sexual highs. So they move from one level to the next. Just something to be aware of.


Art Romans 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. Married to my beautiful and gracious wife 26 years 1 son 1 daughter both grown In SA recovery since July 2003 Christian faith
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the swinging stopped two years ago now....it hasn't been talked about until he just two weeks ago now feels me ignoring his needs (which is true) has gone on long enough. Because I know he is very needy to attention and continual showing of affection in and out of the bedroom and I am not accustomed to it (I feel like our roles are reversed...he needs a lot of love and support and when I do give it to him he goes over board and then is more touchy feely than before and I feel smothered by continual affection, complimenting, googly eyes etc....) He keeps saying that intimacy isn't the main issue, but when it comes down to it and when he "evaluates" me for whether my trying is considered trying or that I am thinking of HIS needs when I attempt at giving him what he is lacking he ends up going back to the lack of enough affection in bed...I know he is looking for the whole package deal. I am so overwhelmed with my business my mother keeps saying she feels sorry for me because she sees how overwhelmed I am with my business and 5 year old boys and three dogs not being able to keep up with them all at once....leaving me with an attitude ALL the time...and then because i have no energy left and certainly don't act happy he only considers that he is now last on my priority list. When I peel myself away from my projects in the evening...I do so because I can't see the screen anymore...I am still way behind and very strained...plus we have been tryign to buy a house and he doens't have good credit from his first marriage so I have been dealing with that and using my business funds to clear some of these debts so the loan will go through.....AND the same week it went through and I am finally near caught up with work and my son hasn't been throwing his temper tantrums (probably because he isn't getting enough attention from me either) I am pulled and stretched so thin I have nothing left and then my husband decides that he can't take it anymore.

We are supposed to close in a week, with the move means my work space is supposed to increase 3 fold allowing me the environment to hire someone to help. By the end of the summer and the boys start school they will both be in school full days...for the first time....I will be able to work all day without being pulled and torn to juggle, plus with hired help...oh how great it is supposed to be...and now my husband won't see how I am doing everything I possibly can to succeed with all this....I "planned" to fit him back into my life...I know....I would feel left out if he ignored me and my needs...his past of pushing the swinging made us separate for 6 weeks...he went to anger management and really DID "change", but I got worse and said I would never let him do this to me again...and then business grew and the boys got harder to mother and I have been putting my foot down saying I shouldn't have to have sex every night so I won't....and I haven't, but when I do it is a chore and I don't try to hide it...but I don't want to lose the marriage and we never have been able to find things we both can agree to enthusiastically......and it is ironic that before I found this website the other day I have been pushing for Joint Agreement all along without knowing it is an actual concept, but he says...anything that he says that would make him happy is going to be the thing that I say if we DON'T do would make me happy. I know there has to be something we can both enjoy that he won't shoot down and find boring while I work on praising him more and not completely ignoring him....our marriage has felt more like an arrangement because when we talked about each others feelings and what makes us happy it only makes us think of the past and it turns into an argument....if you didn't make me swing then I wouldn't be bitter today....if you would have bumped up your libido I wouldn't have made you swing blah blah blah.

I am not sure how to address the sexual addiction. It won't happen by being blunt....I have said he is addicted in the past and by FAR has refused to believe it. He DOES believe swinging was wrong and vowed never to want that....two years later...he has been true to that....but anything I try to do he says is boring....I feel he already has his mind made up as to what is exciting...and it could be as easy as me learning how to be more feminine, sexy, high on life....bottom line...happy...hard to be happy when I am overwhelmed in life.

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It's difficult, isn't it? How do you obtain the things in life you desire, which at is going to cost you at some level time and energy and then try to balance that on the other side with a happy family life.

I read the very last part where you said your husband already had his mind made up to what is exciting. He probably does. He probably has created a fantasy in his mind that is unachievable. You might want to remind him that once he has his fantasy, then the bubble is popped and its all over. A fantasy turned to reality, it's never the same. Then either a newer more exciting fantasy has to take it's place or you just cope, or you become depressed with life. You have to pick one of those options.

Most men dealing with these issues are dealing with emotional needs they don't even really understand. Men have a hard time pin pointing the problem and they think sex fixes everything. The emotional needs come usually come from some unmet childhood need and it just followed them right into adulthood. I can give a list and I bet you will find one that matches to your husband.

-A man raised by a single mother.
-A man who had a overly dominant father.
-A man who had an emotionally abesent father.
-A man from an abusive home or addictive home (alcohol, drugs, sex).
-A man from a home where the father was always absent.
-A man who molested by a family member.

If you notice a pattern above, most of it deals with a father. What happens men who grow up not understanding what it means to be a man in the right sense search for manhood in all the wrong ways. And the one that is the most attractive, the most alluring is sexual. Sex is what every guy says a man is about, so why shouldn't they think that is how they should act. But they forget there are more important parts of life they also need to focus on. Unfortunately they just never learned those parts from anyone who could teach them.


Art Romans 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. Married to my beautiful and gracious wife 26 years 1 son 1 daughter both grown In SA recovery since July 2003 Christian faith
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DME,

I am so sorry to hear what you have been going through with your husband. This needs to stop right away, and you need to be with people who will support you in saying "no" to this man who is dishonoring you in your own marriage. This is nothing short of sexual abuse, or at least manipulation of you, who seem like a nice person trying to honor his needs. BUT, these are not normal needs. Please find support and get away from this man. His treatment of you qualifies as abuse. As another man, I am appalled at the stories you tell of how he expects your body to be his constant outlet for sexual gratification.

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Last edited by fireandice; 09/25/05 10:50 PM.
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Sounds to me as though your H is addicted to sex and porn. This is VERY damaging to a M, trust me...I know.

My H and I also got involved in swinging. I'm so thankful to God that it was VERY short-lived. My H didn't "force" me into it. I think, in a way, he saw it as a last-ditch-effort to see me enjoying sex.

You H has perverted what sex in M is supposed to be. I can see why you wouldn't want to participate. Luckily my H never forced me to do something I didn't want to, and he's always understood the week that I'm "out of commission," though he's always kept track of when that week is, how long it lasts...he has even asked me daily how things are "going" with it. Bizzare.

My H and I are now talking very openly about sex. He's repented of his sexual sin, especially his addiction to porn. The problem with porn and sex that isn't part of God's plan for us is that it's just like a drug...the more you have, the more it takes to get your fix. He's been desensitized to sex at this point. I imagine that he'll need a good counselor to help him work this out.

You are NOT called to be his sex slave. I have a feeling you have a long, rocky road ahead of you. If he won't get help for his addiction, you may have no choice but to leave.
I also suggest that you get counseling yourself, as living this way has most likely distorted your views of sex too.

God Bless!
PHgirl


FWW: 34 (me) BH: 32 (BronzeGuy) M'd: ~13 years 3 DDs: 10, 8, 6 1/2 D-day: 6/28/05 NC: 7/31/05 "What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
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i could only read parts of the posts you typed in here. far too many paragraphs going tangentially that don't relate to the main topic. but i get the gist of it.

i too want excitement in bed and want it to be as kinky as possible. i think about sex 24/7. am i sex addict? probably but i am also a guy and that's what we guys do, think about sex.

i am about to go through this with my new wife. for whatever reason she has sex hang ups too. not that i want to swing because i don't but the fact remains that i crave dirty sex sometimes and she cannot let go of her inhabitions. it is not like i will think less of her in fact if she let her inhibitions go i would want more sex and then we can enjoy sex like we both like it. right now we only have sex like she likes it and that isn't fair. find me the passage in the bible saying a husband and wife can't have kinky dirty sex? show me the passage where it says the proper method of love making is missionary style at only a slow pace.

ladies, your husbands want jungle sex just like in them dirty porno movies you are offended by. it is just how we us men are wired. i assure you that if you threw down on him and told him in graphic vulgar detail what you want him to do to you and what you are going to do to him, you will own him in bed.

the best sex my new bride and i have had was when she very briefly told to do something dirty.

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First time poster here. Wow....saw a lot of things that hit home in these posts (and a lot of things that didn't).

I expect this conversation happens in millions of households, including mine. My situation - married 20+ years. We have co-raised some WONDERFUL children and are successful financially.

I simply have a much higher sex drive than my wife and I have always found her to be the most desirable woman on the planet. Those two elements alone are a recipe for frustration. I channel an immense amount of effort into romancing our life - sharing the household chores, buying gifts (I provide almost all the household income and have never regretted it), romantic e-mails from work, frequent hugs/kisses whenever we get within 5 feet of each other etc. 9 times out of 10 I am rejected. Not nastily, just a "not now I'm busy", "I want to vaccuum", "I'm tired" (One day she told me *I* looked too tired!). When we were dating/first married our sex life was wonderful. Now the only things we do are missionary and woman on top (sorry to be graphical but it's essential to the story). So, like DME's husband, a resounding "YES" answer to "would I like more excitement (and/or a higher frequency) in bed".

We have never watched a porn movie (I suggested it once when I we were much younger and it brought her to tears so obviously not a smart idea so will probably never go there again), never done the swinging thing, have (as far as I know) stayed faithful, and generally get along very well. As for the reference to Anal - I can't even IMAGINE broaching that subject. I DO believe she loves me as deeply as I love her and we are best friends.

My conclusions seem to be limited to (a) she isn't interested in sex or (b) she isn't interested sexually in me. I am tending to believe the latter - she of course denies that up and down but she never initiates anything. I HAVE encouraged her to talk openly about her fantasies (or I try to create one for her) - and when she opens herself to this it is really great. She gets turned on and our sex (albeit missionary) is pretty good. Half the time however she simply shies away and says it is silly to talk about. When she DOES go that route, she prefers to close her eyes and fantasize and not share anything with me, and asks me not to say anything to distract her. I DO enjoy when she has a good time but occasionally this makes me feel like, well (sorry again for the graphical nature), a dildo.
I realize that women want many things in a man and that one man cannot possibly provide all those things. I'm no Brad Pitt, but I keep myself in shape and am not a hygeinic disaster area or anything like that. I know I'm not perfect and I'm not naive/macho enough to believe that, so I have no problem with jealousy or anything. Frankly, I would even be willing to let her (I don't like the term "let" as it implies some sort of ownership) have an affair if it allowed her to re-awaken some of that spark. BTW she does have issues with jealousy and does not want me to share any of my fantasies with her.
So, am I a sexual addict? I don't know. I do think about it an awful lot, but then again a starving man thinks about food a lot, doesn't he?
Again, I don't believe my situation to be unique, or even unusual. If there is one thing I wish that she (and other woman in similar situations) could understand, it is that part of marriage is that the partners will (unless otherwise agreed) be the sole provider for the other's sexual needs. It thus seems a little unfair to say "I don't really want to, and by the way, you better not go elsewhere".

To analogize, if I were to instead write on this board "I don't really like talking to my wife so I only do it occasionally and I also demand that she talk to no one but me", I think most people would call that abusive. No one seems to see it that way when it comes to sex. Well, maybe guys do but we don't talk about it on Earth or Venus....just on Mars.

Last edited by WelcomeToMars; 09/30/05 01:32 PM.

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DME - I am a first time member - and after reading most of your story, but not all - I wonder if you've ever seeked professional counceling, for yourself? I agree with some of the other comments about your spouse, sounds like he has a sexual addiction - he is in his own world and meantime your life is passing you by - miserably - you deserve to have someone in your life that cares about you and is willing to find a happy medium that you are both comfortable with. It is appauling, as a woman, to read about the assault that is going on in your marriage - my heart goes out to you but I pray you will find strength to get counselling or get out. I know I should never encourage anyone to end a marriage but in my opinion this is not a marriage - you are being a toy in a world of a sick man. This is a case of "set it free - if it's yours it will come back (after intense therapy), if not it was never meant to be". Girl - My marriage is not the best and I came to this site to ask for some direction as well, but I have dignity and my husband would never ask me to do something that didn't feel right nor would he ever do anything that "hurt" me. I will pray for you.


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