Please help me. I come to this board everyday to learn about A's and to get stronger. In the past it seems that I have created some "problems" here and for that, I am truly sorry. My credibility and character was challenged and my actions regarding it was questionable. For all this I have apologized and tried to right a wrong. I do believe that I am a person of good character and morals and have tried my very best to be a true friend and a good person to all involved. Please help me now. My life is hanging in the balance here, and I so need your excellent advice.

Things between WH and I have been going quite well since I do believe he stopped the A with OW around the time that I called her father and consequently was turned in to the police. For the above reasons I think, my WH or her, stopped the long term affair. He really has never confessed or acknowledged this and the truth not being given me has been a slow death. But... we have been trying and pretty much making a good go of it.

Never, from even the very beginning of the messy, strange relationship (we remarried this spring but never were really apart, physically anyway - any of this I will gladly explain if wanted) was my WH (H or FWH not sure which) ever sexually attracted to me. Not the case with me. My whole life I have had some issues with sex but not sure of the why for. Anyway, I always have been very sexually attracted to my WH. I lust him alot. It has not been a secret that he has never been lustful about me. Never has he really come out and said it, but it is plain to see. But.. I do know that he loves me very much. I have mentioned to him many times that he loves me like a sister but he disagrees with this. But, actions speak louder than words. Given all this.. probably a big reason for his long term A with a much younger woman.

Move up to last night -- He was telling me how much he loved me. I said that I loved him more.. he said no you don't. We go back and forth kindingly. Then I said that I lust you more. He said -- YES you do. Then he said -- it really hurts me that I do NOT lust you. And there it hung.... not sugar coated, not tippy toeing ... he flat out does not lust me at all.

I was hurt to the core. Just hearing it like that. I told him how much that really really hurt me. He could not deny it. And.. in our talk after that, he told me he is glad 2005 is over that it was the worst year of his life !!! I am seeing into this that this was the year that his big long term love affair was over and it pains him. Not much was said and he left for the road.... I was crying in the other room and he just said bye.

Is this possible ? I do believe that from the very beginning that he has not been sexually attracted to me. But why stay with me... why leave your girlfriend... why, why why ??? This hurts me so much. I feel that my whole life with him has been a huge lie. Granted the divorce, staying together as a married couple, the affair... getting remarried is confusing. But I can not change anything. And have tried to make this work. I am so confused and hurt and feel like a nobody. Please help me. I need someone with insight into this sexual problem. I need someone to help me figure out this mess. Please help me.

Since leaving last night, he has not called as he always does in the morning. I can not call him. I have nothing to say.

Thanks so much for listening - Carnation

Carnation,
It must be very confusing for a WH to understand why he did what he did, and a reasonable justification may be that you two were never meant to be because he never loved you in a romantic way. Set aside feelings for the moment and work on meeting emotional needs. Try to spend a lot of time together alone doing what you both enjoy.
Cherished

Cherished - Thank you so very much for replying. I do really need some insight into this mess that I have created.

To hear that my WH (oh what do I refer to him as ??) has never felt romance with me hurts so much. And, you are saddly probably right.

This is one of the main needs for me. I feel very romantic towards him. Is there a difference between romance and sex ? I do believe he loves me, alot. I think I have been his rock, in a good way and maybe in a bad way. I am very stable in many ways - he not. How can I over look his feelings towards me ? Will this "new" development shove him back to the OW ? Have I openned a can of worms here and there is no going back ?

Please help me. I have noticed that alot have viewed my post but you are the only one who has responded. Why is this ? This pains me so. I truly want/need to have a discussion about sex in a marraige and would so welcome any responses. I am very puzzled and hurt that many are not helping me. I am laying my whole life out here for help and discussion and feel very rejected.

Thanks so very much Cherished for replying.

Carnation

I'm not an expert about any of this, but don't want to let ignorance on a subject keep me from having an opinion. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> However, 2 things came to mind as I read your post: (1) If you've been (and remain) physically "together," as you describe it, it seems logical to assume that his alleged lack of lust for you is not preventing his body from doing that male-type, supposedly lust-related thing male bodies do. This appears to me to make his so-called problem with you located less in his genitals, and more in his head, at least if I understand you correctly. Unless he had a very odd family, it's hard to see that he could think of you in some sort of brotherly fashion, while continuing in a sexual relationship with you. So right off the bat, I'm very skeptical about this assertion that he has no "lust" for you. It's certainly not intellectual fulfillment that his erect member is seeking during these moments of conjugal bonding, nor is the Little Fella offering you selfless sympathy at its own expense. If you're having sex, he, personally, is getting something out of it, no matter what definition is assigned to the terminology. Which brings me to (2) Are you sure you're each using the same definition when you use the word "lust"? He might not be meaning exactly what you think he's saying. You could always consider asking him what he means by what he said, and if he tries to say he means that he has no desire for you, ask him to tell you just when his penis signed a Declaration of Independence from the rest of his body, so that it can operate repeatedly at complete odds with his "true" feelings. I can't promise you you'll like what you hear, but if he's genuinely conflicted and being truthful about it, at least you'll know where you stand and might be able to gain some clue on how and where you can find help. And if, as I think I suspect, this is a cop-out of some sort, you can at least have the satisfaction of watching him try to explain the unexplainable. And then you'll know where you stand there, too.

Good luck.

t&l

I think it's hard to know what to say, because none of us know enough about your situation. I'm sorry that you're so sad and upset about this. I think anyone would feel the same way. It does sound, from what you said, that this has been a bit of a white elephant in the room. Now that you guys have it out in the open, you can work with the situation.

The good news is that your H obviously really loves you. That is important to build on and he cares enough that he cut off his A and remarried you.

Why do you think there's lack of attraction? That's what you two need to address. Is it something about your physical appearance--does he like thin women and you are heavy, does he like shapely and you are thin? Is there something that you can work on that way? Is it something about how you dress or wear your hair?

Is it how you respond to him sexually? Does he like women to initiate and you don't? Or does he like to be in control and you're pursuing? Sometimes spouses hate the way the other one kisses or something that they're afraid to tell the other S for fear of hurting feelings. Find out if there's something along those lines.

This is something that can be addressed in counseling, I'd think. Don't give up. Use this bit of truth to move forward and make things better. You both knew it before, but wouldn't say it. It had to be affecting your relationship. Now, he's been loving and honest enough to state the truth that you both knew. Thank him for that and look for solutions. And try to find out why and see what you can do about it.

I know it must hurt more than you can express, but remember that it's been hurting you all along anyway. Now, you two can work on this.

Oh, one more thing... he's probably upset and embarrassed that he hurt you and he left while you were crying. He hasn't called, because he doesn't know what to say.

I really think you should get a hold of yourself and give him a call. Let him know that you were aware of his feelings all along and tell him that you're glad that it's out in the open where you can talk about it, and hopefully get things better. It's probably weighing him down and it's obviously bothering you. The longer you let this go on without talking to each other, the more damage. Nip it now, before it gets worse. Let him know that you're ok, or he's going to be feeling terrible about his slip up.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the responses. I know this is a tough subject sometimes, but I must ask for advice, none the less.

Thndrnlitng - Thank you so very much for replying. I do not believe that you have ever replyed to me before and I feel honored that you are ! Regarding our sex life (man, when one gets older, nothing is off limits !!) he never has really been romantic towards me sexually. Never, ever really making LOVE to me. A quickie now and then. Never ever going the extra mile, so to speak. I so yearn for more, but never really get it. Just enough to satisify him, barely.

I tell him that ANY sexual contact is conecting in some way. It will bond us like we need to be bonded. I think back over the years (yes years) that the A was going on and we went months without any sex at all. I would constantly ask him for some and his answer would be that he just has no sex drive anymore. But, I believe his affair with younger OW was in full swing. and me LB ing like crazy.
Thanks again for any help in my situation.

Grown Up - Thank you for replying. I seriously do not know what if anything I can do to correct this. It may be in his mind, probably is. Maybe it is the lack of responding on my part. Maybe I just don't "measure" up.

Now it seems the white elephant is walking all over us. He is not calling as he always does, his leaving abruptly last night instead of dealing with it. He knows how I feel and he just can't bring himself to deal with what he has disclosed. I know he does not want to hurt me, but a true marriage takes much more than that.

Thank you for responding. I really do need insight in figuring this (me, him) out. and where to go from here. Can this be fixed ? Is it too big for the both of us ? Should I call him and break down the wall that is rapidly going up ???

Thanks so very much - carnation

Carnation,
I think it is possible that he is giving a reason that will take the blame off him and put some of the blame on you. My husband gave all kinds of ridiculous excuses for why he had a PA. None were true. He admits it now. The real reasons don't always come out right away. I think his no "Lust" excuse is a diversion to get you to blame yourself instead of him. Don't let it work! It's not your fault. It's all his choices.

Can you just call to say I love you? You don't have to talk about sex. Just say I was thinking about how much I love you and wanted you to know.

I wish I could offer you more advice. I know there are a lot of books on the market, some secular some christian, that deal with sex within marriage. Maybe some of those would help. How about the book called Lght His Fire?

I hope the best for you.

carnation,

Your situation is somewhat like mine; I L my W, but still have no desire to ML to her. SF feels dirty, not holy.

IMO, this is MB 101 stuff. It's all about ENs. Let me explain why I believe this.

At the start of my EA, I was not physically attracted to OW. She was not as physically attractive as W. OW felt the same way, even told me once there was no way I would ever get "in her pants" if that's what I had in mind. It wasn't.

Over time though, we kept making LB deposits, and at height of A I wanted to ML to her more than breathing.

W and I have been making a lot of progress toward recovery, but I still have no desire for SF w/ her. (I stopped seeing a F IC because I WAS having fantasies about being w/ her. SHE was meeting ENs my W wans't.) At this point, W's LB account balance just isn't high enough for that desire to arise.

So, your challenge is to find out H's ENs and do what you can to meet them. Two possibilities may be a challenge for you: need for attractive S and SF. The first you can work on, but from my experience w/ OW it wasn't a deal breaker. Neither was SF.

I feel crass for even suggesting this, but if SF is likely one of his top needs (he is male, right?) you may have to, for now, just offer OS to meet his need for SF w/o requiring him to so anything. An expression of love that needs no response. My guess is that in time, paying attention to other ENs as well, he'll want to respond in spades!

JAWH

i'm just wondering...you said you "ask" him for sex

do you/have you just started ACTING instead of asking? Have you/do you SHOW his that you lust after him? What i mean is...do you take the iniatitve (however you spell it?) and kiss, caress etc.....(can't get more graphic here)....him to make him FEEL desire?

hey justanotherwh...great advice....i hope i get the chance to use your advice with my H-if he ever LETS me meet any of his needs again.

Dear Carnation,

Gonna let you know I polled 1 person about this subject and compared it with my POV.....here are my thoughts:

Lust vs Love

Lust for men c/b a very shallow feeling, one they are not always proud of. Men can lust after many women and stay faithful. It is more of a feeling of wonderment and c/b dangerous if left unchecked.

Some women lust in a much deeper sense. To men, what some women feel as lust is not even considered lust. So both use the same words with different meaning. Women tend to crave the man and for that you can blame Eve. Go back and read the Genesis account and you will find one of the punishment for their sin was Eve's craving for her H. Doesn't say Adam will do the same....his punishment was different.

IMHO, I believe the love is more important in a R but again you must both be on the same page as to it's meaning and application.

So often in the A the meanings are in opposite directions or so far apart that it c/b almost like speaking 2 different languages. So it is vital to get the definitions and applications sync'd before one starts to use them.

I suggest you have this needed discussion with your H in a comfortable environment, keeping it light and general. See how it goes. Keep the emotions at bay and you both ask each other questions. Yea, you both gotta answer the same questions but each gets to generate 1 question at a time. Kinda like a game but throw away the scorecard. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

L.

Thank you so much for the replies.

JAWH - That is what I needed to hear also. A man's POV. I do try, Lord knows I try. I can relate to many of things that you have said. Sometimes I feel the same too, I really don't want to, but feel that something must be done in that dept. so I go ahead and make the first move. Often he does not respond. Pretty much always does with OS, but why can't I have him ML to me ? I guess it is a very complex issue. Thanks again.

EAV - Oh yes, I do initiate. Sometimes he responds, sometimes no. Him just coming out and actually saying that he does not feel lust for me crushed me. I knew this, but hearing it just twisted the knife. Thank you for taking the time to help me out here.

Orchid - Thank you so much for the "poll" and your own thoughts. I so welcome your expertise. Yes, I suppose it is very complex issue and shallow on his end. Maybe men and women are different after all - lol. Your insigt helps me to see the bigger picture. It just hurts soooo much to know he actually feels or doesn't feel like this for me.
Thanks again. I so appreciate it.

I did call him and he is rewriting our marital history, surprise - surprise. He really did not sound that sincere when he told me everything is alright. No, everything is NOT alright as far as I am concerned. This really hurts and I do not think I am being thin skinned as he says.

Of course, bad timing on our part. He is gone for a while now and we must communicate over the phone. Hey... I have an idea... no he would never go for that !!! lol
Thanks again so much for replying. I just feel like a big nobody here. If we could communicate better alot of these problems could be solved. Wow, there is a revelation. I feel that I have made this whole thing worse and I do not think that is fair. The more I hear and read, the more I know that these WS all say pretty much the same thing.

Thanks again for taking the time to read and respond. I doubt that this let down feeling over this will go away any time soon. Thanks so much.


Carnation

At the beginning of my FWH's A, he felt zero desire for me. I pretty much had to throw him down and wrestle his man-parts into compromising positions.

The lack of desire didn't last very long, so I don't know as much what to do about a long-term problem except to be patient, follow the above suggestions, and just gear up to be very aggressive.

You can do it!

This may be surprising response to you, Carnation. BUT, it is better for him to LOVE you than to LUST you..

With LOVE, you can build into a PASSIONATE MARRIATGE with EMOTIONAL and PHYSICAL INTIMACY...

LUST is a short-term feeling of ECSTACY which occurs during an A...

So try not to feel HURT by this...

It is WORKABLE....

Mimi - Thank you so very much for taking the time to reply to me. Your kind words mean alot to me. Yes, you are absolutely right about love being more important than the lust. Wish I could have both, but of the two, I will agree that the love is better.

Now I wonder how he has felt all these years with me making such a big deal out of me lusting him. I guess you just can't keep second guessing them, I usually end up wrong every time. I just feel that the lack of lust on his part compiled with all the other problems we were having - I practically threw him into the OW.

But Mimi, thanks again for the wisdom. It really makes me feel much better. Your kind words mean alot to me.

NSUN - Thank you for replying. You would certainly think that at my age I would know how to seduce my WH. A willing partner would be nice... but I will have to work with what I have. Thanks again.

Best regards - Carnation

We ladies (and one or two of the men <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />) had lots of fun some months back compiling our favorite seduction ideas. Maybe some of these will be useful.

Seducing A Reluctant Husband

I don't know if you've read my story at all, but this was also the infamous thread where I changed my name in the middle of it, not realizing it would affect each and every post I had ever made. *shakes head at self*

Carnation (one of my favorite flowers, in case nobody knew [and why would you?]--growing up in Hawaii, at least in my circles, a triple carnation lei for a banquet was considered the ultimate floral gift to the girl being courted)--I almost never answer anybody on this board, for 2 reasons: (1) I'm certainly no MB principles resource person. I'm nothing but a FIMILNMOA (Formerly-Irate Mother-in-Law, Now Merely Occasionally Annoyed) who wandered onto the site to support my daughter in her attempt to save her marriage, and ended up roaming the feminine hygiene products aisle in search of some conversation. I generally feel that people who ask serious questions about marriage building are better served getting their answers from others who actually know what they're talking about. (2) By the time I finish visiting with the other shoppers on the aforementioned aisle, it's time for me to either go to bed or go to work, and so lack of time prevents me from entering discussions on other threads, even on those occasions when I think I might actually be able to contribute something valid.

However, during my long and mis-spent life, I have developed an excellent and very sensitive baloney detector, having been both giver and receiver of a lot of self-serving nonsense over the years...and my baloney detector tells me I don't think you've gotten the whole story from your husband yet. I'm not saying he doesn't have some kind of real difficulty that needs to be examined and worked out. I'm just saying that I think whatever it is that's festering in his brain (NOT his groin!) is more complicated than "I have no lust for you." Was your husband ever molested as a child? Victims of molestation have many difficulties as adults, and sexually the aftermath can range all the way from promiscuity to the other extreme, an inability to make genuine emotional connections in a personal relationship. They can be very distant, especially if sex, while it feels good to them, also stirs up bad memories. (It's hard to say this stuff delicately!) <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

I encourage you not to just automatically take what he said at face value, but, if you can, find out what's really behind the words, because I have a feeling there's a root cause that goes much deeper than anything that's been expressed to you so far...and that it really doesn't have as much to do with any real or imagined lack in you than it has to do with something in him.

t&l

I'm going to copy this and drag it over to the feminine hygiene products aisle, too, since your question and this thread provided a very funny moment for us this morning.

After I posted to you the first time, I needed to get to bed because it was long past my bedtime, so I called Neak on the phone so she could post also. She's got two phone lines. One of them has a lot of static, so when I called on that one she said she'd call me right back on the other line.

When the phone rang, I picked it up, but I couldn't clearly hear what the other person said. However, I jumped right in to my part of the conversation--like I said, I was in a hurry to get to sleep--and told her, "I want you to go on MB and post to 'I have a very serious question about sex', and I want you to answer it." Oddly enough, after I said that, it was very quiet on the other end of the line for 10 seconds or so. Then I heard Neak say, "Hello?"

I was confused. "Did you hear anything I said?"

"No," she replied, "you were talking to Mr. Computer." (her son, who is 8 years old.)

"Hm-m-m-m," I told her. "Ask him what I said."

"Mr. Computer, what did Noah say to you?" Neak asked.

In the background, I heard this little voice say, "She said, 'I have a very serious question I want you to answer.'"

Whoopsie-daisy."Ah, ask him what the question was about?"

"Mr. Computer, what was Noah's question about?"

Smaller voice..." <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> sex <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />."

Neak..."Well, that would explain why he came galloping in here so quickly and threw the phone at me." <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

I guess so. For some reason, it's apparently shocking to the average 8-year old boy to have your grandma consult you for advice on a serious question about sex!!! Let's hope he's not scarred for life! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

t&l