Why is it so hard for me to be willing to meet my husband's emotional need for sex? I just don't want to do it. I'm just not in to him enough to give him the emotional part of sex that he needs! He says he needs this in order to help him in recovery.

Welcome to MB, feuillecouler.

I think that you only you know why it is so hard for you to be willing to meet your H's emotional need for sex. I don't think that people here can tell you your reasons. Why don't you begin by being honest about those reasons?

We can help with the wider marital issues, though. In what way are you "in recovery"? Have you had an affair?

Could you tell us the circumstances of this? When did it start and end? Do you have any contact with your affair partner? Who was he - a colleague at work, an old boyfriend? Is he married? Does his wife know? How long have you been married and how many kids do you have? Have did your H find out about the affair?

This is my wife. I asked her to post here as well even though I know she doesn't really want to. So please be nice. We are trying to work through this together.

Thanks for coming here!

Edited to add: I hope having her perspective on things here as well will help. I know things can get one sided when only one person is posting.

The reason you don't want to make love with your husband is because you are not in love with him. Once you are in love with him, this will become effortless.

Your husband has been encouraged to spend 15 hours of UA time with you every week. Actually, that's the minimum to maintain romantic love. A marriage in crisis needs at least 20 - 25 hours.

These hours need to be spent together with no one else around to intrude, and they need to be the most enjoyable hours of your week. During this time, you both should be enjoying intimate conversation and recreational companionship. He should be affectionate with you in a way that you would enjoy. Ideally, you would also be making love, but during this time of recovering your marriage, this part may take some time, because everything needs to be done with enthusiastic agreement between the two of you. If you spend this kind of time together enjoying each others company, you will be in love again.

The other very important thing to do is that both of you should avoid all love busters. Follow the Policy of Joint Agreement and be radically honest.

Once your husband has all the truth of your affair, then you should never speak of it again.

Are you letting your husband meet your most intimate emotional needs? You really CAN fall in love with him again if you follow the MB program.

I listened to the radio show where you and your husband spoke with the Harleys. Aren't they great? It's really important that you completely close your love bank to all and any other men out there. The most logical choice for your love relationship is with your husband and father of your child. So that's where all your interest should be directed. Be very careful in your interactions with men that you speak with them only very professionally and only minimally when necessary. You agreed with Dr. Harley that you are a flirt, and that will need to end, of course.

It would be a great idea for you both to sign up for the Online Seminar. That's what we did, and it was a great help to us. We attribute the great state of our current marriage to their program. Having an accountability coach and the private forum was very valuable.

If you can't afford the program at this time, then read the books together and get Five Steps to Romantic Love to work through together. We read aloud just a few pages every night and discussed.

Well now that I know he's on here, I feel like I can't say what I want to say bc I don't want to hurt him any more than I already have.

That's a very weak excuse to avoid an honest approach to a very important problem.

It will hurt him more if you do not seek help with this.

Can he commit to staying off your thread completely for a while?

Are there things you would like help with that you haven't already told him?

Stay OFF your wife's thread.
Thank you.

That's a copout.

The point of this forum is for both of you to get advice on how to apply the MB principles to your M. Your advice is for you, and his advice is for him. Yes, it is hard not to read each others' threads, but avoid posting on each others' threads. The MB forum members are good at directing input, help and advice to both (former) waywards and betrayed spouses of either gender.

Do you know how fortunate you are that your BH even wants to try and recover your M? He NEEDS you to be honest so that you can recover and create a wonderful, new marriage together. You need to be here so that you can get the guidance (and sometimes the kick in the rear that all of us FWS's need upon occasion) to provide the gas for the recovery bus.

As LWFM said, you will easily want to meet your BH's need for SF when you are in love with him. And trust me, you can fall back in love with him again if he meets your needs.

The other side of the equation is that you want HIM to be in love with YOU, and that requires you to meet his needs...or the alternative is that you never refill his love bank he had for you that you torpedoed with your affair. Every time you make a withdrawal from his love bank (LB$), you are lovebusting him (LB). Think of it as you having a cupful of water, and there is a huge hole in it, so the water is draining out. You have to add water - meet his needs - to fill that cup back up. But if you keep poking holes in it by flirting, refusal to meet needs, etc, you can see how much faster that water is going to drain out. Over time, if you are successful, you'll be able to "patch" that hole so it won't drain your deposits so quickly...but it takes time and patience, and perserverance.

Like I said, you are so fortunate he is here and he seems to want to recover. The alternative sucks.

I don't mean for it to be a cop out. I've just hurt him so much and I try not to withdraw any love units by giving him sex most of the time when he wants it but he says he doesn't want "pity sex". If I can't even stand to be around him, how can I make love to him?? I don't want to spend time with him. The best part of my day is when he's not here. Yes, I'm stuck at home with the kids all day but at least I'm not uptight like when he's around. I don't go anywhere. I don't do anything. There's no excitement or life in my life.

That was actually me. I didn't realize he was still signed in on the lap top!

Are you both following the recovery plan in Surviving the Affair? Sounds like you both are not doing the program as stated in the book. Might be a good idea to email Dr. H directly and go on the radio show. If your willing to recover your marriage. Still sound kind of foggy to me.

Most men want sex to be mutually fulfilling.

You and your H need to start planning out your hours and doing things you both enjoy. Even little things like going for walks, playing games, going out to eat or on a picnic can be very enjoyable.

What exactly is he doing that makes you repulsed by his company? Does he commit love busters? Have you read the basic concepts on this site? Here

Could you describe for us how your life came to look like that? Was it like this before the affair, or is this the result of having the affair excitement withdrawn?

Could you also please answer my questions from above? Thank you.

Clearly you are not familiar with MB principles. PORH would mean that your BH, FTF should already know how you feel about issues, so you shouldn't be worried about him finding out about it here. What steps are YOU taking to try to recover the marriage?

Well the first rule is the rule of protection where you avoid being the cause of your spouse's unhappiness. Sometimes he still lectures me but I don't know how to talk to him about it when he does it. Obviously we should be talking about this and it should not be a surprise to him when he reads this thread, as I know he does.

Could you tell us the circumstances of this? When did it start and end?

The affair started in Dec 2010 and ended in Sept 2011.

Do you have any contact with your affair partner?

No, I wrote a NC letter and haven't talked to him or seen him since Dec. 2011 when I left my job as we worked together.

Is he married? Does his wife know?

Yes, he is married and yes, his wife knows.

How long have you been married and how many kids do you have?

I have been married for almost 13 years and have 2 children- 2 and 6.

Have did your H find out about the affair?

He saw a text msg that my friend wrote bc I talked to her about it.

Can you share some specifics? Maybe we can pass on some ideas on how to respond to him based on our own experiences.

Can you share some specifics? Maybe we can pass on some ideas on how to respond to him based on our own experiences. [/quote]

Ok, for example, the other night he said I should post on this forum but I've tried doing this before on the talk about marriage forum. He likes to talk on forums but it's not really my thing. I prefer face to face and I felt like he was being disrespectful and not listening bc we've had this conversation before!

Are you following the recovery plan in Surviving an Affair?