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It does. Would any woman on here feel hurt if they were hugging their H and he said, "Are you done yet?" or talking to them, "Are you finished talking? Nascar's on."

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One more thing. "Making love" out of obligation does not add love units. It is condescending and insulting.

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Originally Posted by themud
Bubbles said to get her relaxed and rub her back shoulders, all of that. Don't think I haven't tried a million times. If you can think of it, I've done it. Beach vacations that ended up with her saying, are you done yet?

With Bubbles?

LOL.. Sorry... I know what you are trying to say. I just got a chuckle out of the way it was written and my first impression...

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Swanman: Whose definition of enjoyment are we talking about here? Does your W have to enjoy SF in the same way that you do? Can you accept that she might get another form of enjoyment from the experience?

I was in no way referring to the over-the-top description of fishnet stockings and wild multiple orgasms that you stated. I don't think many married people would have such unrealistic expectations.

Do you know for sure that your W is only giving you SF to get something in return? Have you actually asked her? Has she actually stated that she's only doing it to get you to clean the house, talk to her, whatever?


Me: BS/FWW: 48
BS/WH: 50
DS: 30, 27, 25
DD: 28
OC: 10
BH and I are raising my OC together.
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OH,

Yes that was very funny!!! LOL! No worries, I get it and have a great sense of humor and laugh at myself all the time. Many of times I've seen similar and wanted to write, but not sure it would be taken with a light heart! Have at it! (no pun intended)

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Writer, I guess I'm a simple guy. When someone says they would probably not miss an activity if they never engaged in it again, probably they are not obtaining much enjoyment from that activity. And no of course I don't expect her or anyone else to obtain enjoyment in the exact same way I do. But again, if there were some level of enjoyment she would not make the confession that she would not miss it. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

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Swanman: It could depend entirely upon the context in which she was asked.


Me: BS/FWW: 48
BS/WH: 50
DS: 30, 27, 25
DD: 28
OC: 10
BH and I are raising my OC together.
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Originally Posted by themud
Bubbles said to get her relaxed and rub her back shoulders, all of that. Don't think I haven't tried a million times. If you can think of it, I've done it. Beach vacations that ended up with her saying, are you done yet?

None of that would work with me, so I don't know why it would be assumed that what makes Bubbles hot would work for your wife. If I was not in love with my H, rubbing my back would irritate me. ["get your mitts off the merchandise!"] If I was in love with him, I would love it.

Themud, the basic problem is that you and your wife are not in love. Remember when you were in love and sex was mutually enjoyable? I remember how early in my last marriage sex was NEVER a problem becuase I was in love. My H had a very high sex drive and mine was low to moderate. However, none of that matters when you are IN LOVE. When I was in love I jumped at the chance to make love to him. When I was not in love, it was "get on, get it over and get off me."

If you and your wife are IN LOVE, the other problem goes away, the mud. But in order to fall in love, you have to meet each others needs - EFFECTIVELY, not by guesssing what they might be - avoid lovebusters, implement POJA, RH, and spend 15 hours a week of UA. You can't do a little here, a little of this, cut a corner here and then GUESS at what might turn her on or meet her needs. It has to be done right.

I fiddled around on this forum for YEARS doing this all half [censored] and I had a half [censored] marriage. We were not passionately in love, we got along well enough. The GOAL of this program is to FALL IN LOVE, though, not to just tolerate each other.

So, I go off to my first MB weekend in 2007, after having been on the board 6 years. The first day, a MAJOR lovebuster of mine was flushed out, Independent Behavior, that led to his AO, which led to, which led to... it hade a domino effect which prevented real romantic feelings of love. When my H was doing angry outbursts, Dr HArley told him to go to anger management and that was the end of that! Our marriage has been wonderful ever since.

themud, the program really does work if you work it. Dr Harley is very good with reluctant spouses. Why not try it?


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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The point is, she is who SHE is, and you are who YOU are. You are DJing her by wanting her to think and feel like you. By saying that her level of enjoyment or desire is defective because it isn't the same 'kind' as yours.

Women are biologically different from men when it comes to to this. I was thinking of this yesterday, after my H asked if he could turn off HGTV after a couple hours (I was working on a job on my laptop and he was putting away Christmas stuff). I handed him the remote, and he immediately went to 'Life After People' - a grotesque (IMO) series about what earth will be like after humans are eliminated - all kinds of scenarios of cities being destroyed by nature, etc. After 2 episodes, I had to leave the room; it made me feel disgusted, sad, hopeless, and bored, all at the same time. But truth be told, that's how he feels watching all the HGTV shows I love.

Then it hit me. Women are into building; men are into destroying (generally speaking - spare me the 2x4s). Women nurture; men protect. On and on. Which is why HGTV plays 99% 'female' commercials and his channel plays 99% 'male' commercials. They know who watches their shows.

Neither way is wrong, it just IS.

Your wife may be 100% content with her life. Like me, she may get great enjoyment out of SF, you may be wonderful, but if push came to shove, it simple doesn't register on her radar as an important desire. Because she's a typical female, whose hormones are put to use for other things. Yours are put to use to further the human race; hers are to take care of it once it's here.

Therefore, what YOU want her to WANT...isn't fair. Just as it wouldn't be fair for her to want YOU to care about getting all psyched out over finding a great deal on a Prada purse (or whatever she's into), and it wouldn't be fair for her to disparage you on a forum because you DON'T.

Slightly O/T, but do you watch a show called Tough Love? It's the most amazing show, where this matchmaker guy teaches women how to become more 'loveable' and find a mate. Just amazing things you can learn from that show about men and women. This week, they had a Price is Right deal where the women guessed how much everything cost. One woman knew the price of every designer purse and expensive car. Another woman guessed about $200 for each item, cos she never cared about getting 'pretty' stuff from men. The most expensive thing she owned was a set of pots and pans that she bought herself by working; the other, first, woman, her most expensive thing was her...uh...anatomical corrections, the surgery of which was given to her by the doctor (you can imagine how). At the end, the audience of men was asked to vote on which woman was most and least datable. Can you guess how it went? They picked the woman who had similar wants - i.e., not wasting $2000 on a purse.

Men want certain things. Women want certain things. They don't have to jibe. They just have to respectfully coexist.

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I think I know what Writer1 means about enjoyment. There are things I enjoy doing for my husband just because it makes him happy and I love seeinf that smile on his face. The actions in and of themselves are not all that exciting to me, but making my husband happy is. So while I would probably not miss frying chicken (it makes a big kitchen mess), I love when he realizes we are having fried chicken for supper and he gets that grin on his face. Sex might be like that for your wife, swan. The act itself might not be missed, but she still wants to make you happy. And that is a loving motive. Does that make sense? Understand that I empathize with your feelings; my H and I are the reverse of the typical couple. But I learned to appreciate that he would want me to feel good and to meet my need even if he wasn't all that "needy," if you get my drift. We aren't perfect. As much better as we are then we were 5 years ago in many ways, this is the single most stressful are of marriage for me. So I haven't figured it all out either.

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Mel is right. I am sorry I forgot what it was like to NOT BE IN LOVE WITH MY MAN.

I remember when I was NOT in love, with a boyfriend, sex was never good. I had to be almost drunk to do it. Even with a neck massage (which helped plus a few glasses of wine) I could not enjoy sex with him.

The bottom line: If a woman is not in love, I doubt she would ever enjoy sex much.

I am wondering if there are some women out there who do enjoy sex without being in love with the person. I know I surely do not.

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Originally Posted by catperson
I was thinking of this yesterday, after my H asked if he could turn off HGTV after a couple hours

You still get HGTV?!?! Our cable company just turned off HGTV and Food Network. I think Mrs. Hold and D12 are going to have to be admitted to detox facilities to overcome their withdrawal pangs!

And while I am not as addicted, I must confess (hopefully without having to forfeit my man-card) that without Food Network it probably would not have occurred to me that the bag of parmesan encrusted bread sticks that Mrs. Hold and the kids brought back from a bakery in NYC could be placed into the food processor and chopped into a delicious coating for the chicken cutlets I baked last night!

Last edited by holdingontoit; 01/04/10 05:12 PM. Reason: I don't make Mrs. Hold change channels

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Ladies, I sincerely appreciate your attempt to make me feel better about my situation, and maybe over time it can sink in and impact my views. Time has a way of seasoning new ideas. But right now I'm not buying it. Using Harley's five ENs for women, try this on for size and see if it fits.

"Honey, I am now going to show you affection. I know you love it when I rub your feet until you fall asleep. I can do this if you give me enough of what I want to be motivated to do it. But if you don't I'll have an aversion reaction to your feet. Even if you properly prepare me I will not enjoy it, but I will do it anyway."

"Sweetheart, I know conversation is important to you. So go ahead, you have 30 minutes. I'd rather be watching ESPN, but I'll listen and occasionally grunt to show I'm listening."

"Babycakes I know honesty and openness is important. Frankly I'd rather hide everything I possibly can from you, but this is just one of those things a guy has to do to stay in your good graces, so here are a couple things I thought of that I can be honest about without making me too angry."

"Hi there my little lover, I am off to work now to provide that regular paycheck in order to give you financial security. Sure could work less If I hadn't taken you on as an added financial burden. Live and learn. But here you go sweet pea, enjoy your allowance."

"I know how much you love it when I coach little Bobby's baseball team and generally enjoy the kids. And I do that because I know I'll never again see you naked if I don't do it. I'd rather be drinking beer with the guys, but that won't help anything here at home. So off I go to be super dad."

You see, this idea that we can adequately meet emotional needs by engaging in things we really don't want to do is absurd. Nobody would ever accept the nonsensical things I say in this post about meeting a woman's needs. But that line of thinking is supposed to work when it comes to sex. Insanity.

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Mel,

But what if she said she was in love and happy and content?

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I thought your issue was about her WANTING it the same way you do? Is this just about frequency?

fwiw, you sound a little self-absorbed about this. Do you give her a REASON to want to engage in great SF with you? How are you doing on eliminating all your LBs?

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MUD, if your wife says she is in love with you,

and she still does not want sex with you

You should ask her what the deal is? Tell her you heard that women in love like to have sex with thier men a few times a week.

Ask her why she does not want to do it?

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Cat,

It was all of the above until someone on here said, if she enjoys it, but is not into and is doing it for you out of love accept it graciously. I do now with that one. It's now more the inability to initiate or ask for it and that relates directly to frequency yes. Yes LB on both our parts we are still working on. It use to be easy for me not to say anything, and she is the one with diarreah of the mouth, so when she LB me I (for my part) stupidly do not put up with it anymore and blurt one out to her. Of course this isn't right, but she ABSOLUTELY does not think! If I tell her, that hurt or why would you say something mean like that or that was direspectful her narcissism gets in the way and she discounts my feelings, makes excuses around it that I'm being sensitive or I took it wrong, she didn't mean it that way... blah, blah, blah. Narcissism runs deep in her family.

I told her one time she was narcissistic and she thought about it and later asked me if I really thought that, so we broke out the wikipedia and went over it. She felt bad because it described her mom to a T and she recognized some of it. I guess we can all act that way, but a few days later she was back at it!

Bubbles,

I have asked and her response had to do with tired, if you did this or that.

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Yikes! New here and new to the program. I thought I would spend a little time reading some post topics to get my feet wet and I see there is a huge spectrum of folks in the process. I can see my wife and I will have an interesting journey.

I have heard for years she doesn't really enjoy SF much and that always has hurt me. I wanted to learn and make it as good for her but could not seem to ever find a combination. After reading here I am already getting a feel for these differences. I am glad I read this but be gentle on me as I learn.

One of my biggest concerns is I feel she is in total control of our intimacy. If I suggest making love she will always suggest another time or another day. She will not ever accept a time that I suggest. It is pretty much only a weekend, only in the late evening when we are tired, and only in the dark. Heaven forbid if I was to actually see her. She is not over weight and I wouldn't care if she was. Enjoyment for me is often squashed because essentially I feel I just get what I get and non of it is my decision nor do I have any accepted input. Maybe I should feel lucky there is some intimacy every few weeks.

Anyway, making sure there are no LB's and trying to meet EN's to the best of my ability.

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Are there 2 main posters here with the same issue? If so, sorry, it seems there is one mud and another swanman.

Anyway, I've read through this thread over the course of a few days (so forgive me if I forgot)..but have you all filled out the questionnaires? Have you had your spouses fill them out?
It seems like a lot of assumptions and just because something was true at one point it may not be the case now.

Speaking as a W with low desire, I can tell you that when I filled out the questionnaire i was "sure" I "just didn't want SF" but writing out all of his LB's, and my own EN's I saw things that I couldnt' see with all my thoughts swirling around in my head. It gave me lots of clarity. Even things I said to H over the years is so innaccurate. Writing it out really helped get it all out.

Perhaps she doesn't like the technique? or smthg else about it but can;t quite put her finger on it? Perhaps she has some presuppositions about how it's "supposed to be" or some fantasies that's she's too shy to dislose. etc etc etc


I reallly really really encourage you all to do the questionnaires and exchange them. You may be surprised by her responses, but you might even be surprised by your own!

Last edited by lanam; 01/04/10 06:26 PM.
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Uh, My W lied on the questionaire, then lied about lying on.

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