Hi,

first of all, I'm not a native English speaker, so sorry for any mistakes I might make.

Also, this will be quite long, so I ask for your patience.

Well, where to begin?

I'm 27 and my wife is 30.

I met my wife in March 2004. We started dating a week after, and things were phenomenal. She was the nicest, sweetest person I had ever met. We got married in August 2005.

I guess the decline began as soon as I asked her to marry me. Sex became less frequent and less exciting as soon as we became engaged. She said that it was due to all the stress of preparing the wedding, and at the time it seemed to make sense.

So, we got married. During our 10 day honeymoon we had sex 3 times. Yes, during the entire honeymoon.
Sex in this marriage has become somewhat of a nuisance for both of us, I think. She doesn't seem to want nearly as much as I do, and when we do have sex (never more than once a week), 9 out of 10 times it's a "quickie". She points out stress, lack of sleep and her being tired as reasons for this.
She always rushes me to "finish the business", too.
Also, during foreplay I'm the one that does all the work. She just enjoys (apparently, at least).

Besides _ and call me paranoid for saying this _ I get the distinct feeling that when we have sex it's as if she's making me a favour.

I've got to a point that the matter upsets so much that I think my libido is slowly dying...

To make matters worse, she loves animals. I know, this is usually seen as a quality, right? Well, not in this case.Whenever she lears of an injured and/or abandoned animal, she focuses all her time and energy in helping said animal - sometimes taking it home, even against my will.
Last November she found a she dog on the road, and prontly took it home. Again, against my will and knowing that I'm against having dogs indoors. The dog is in my living room as I'm writing.

She belongs to a Animal Care association since last December. They have meetings every Thursday night, from 21h to around midnight. She has to go the association's dog pound every sunday morning, from 8h until 13th.

This association holds monthly adoption campaigns. When these occur, she leaves on saturday morning and only returns late at night. Same thing on sundays.

As you can see, we don't have a lot of spare time on our hands. Let me remind you that a great deal of time that she spends at home is used to take care of the dog I mentioned earlier.

I try to be a tender, loving husband, but I feel like she's moving to a distant place. Last Friday we had yet another talk about our relation. She said that her lack of sexual appetite was due to her being tired, which in turn was due to my not helping enough around the house.
Well, I make the beds, wash the dishes, vacuum clean every thursday night (when she's away for the meeting) and pay all the bills. Still, we mad a kind of a deal, and I promised that I'd try to help even more to see if it'll have any effect on our sex life.

Today is sunday, so she went to the pound, as usual. She also had a meeting, so she only got home at 15h30m. I had the house in much order as possible: the dishes ware washed, both our cats and the dog had food, water, etc. She still found something to complain about. As a matter of fact, she's complained about 4 times since she got home 2 hours ago.

Complaining seems to be one of her favourite hobbies, actually. She keeps complaining about her lousy job, but doesn't do anything to find a better one. She complains that she doesn't spend enough time with her family, when she lives 2 minutes away from her parents and sister, and I, a single child, live 180 kms (100 miles, maybe?) away from my home town and only see my parents once, max twice per month. She complains that she doesn't have enough time for herself, when most of her time is spent on activities that she chose voluntarily.

Every time we disagree on something we argue. She seems to have the notion that her opinions = facts.

90% of our conversations involve animals, which are, as she has said more than once, "her life". She doesn't try to show any sort of interest for my hobbies, though (even if she did when we were still single).

She's a great person, don't get me wrong. But most of the time I feel like she's a room mate I happen to share the bed with.

She keeps saying that she loves me and doesn't want to lose me, and I love her too. It'd be wonderful if things just worked right.

I could really use a word of advice here. I feel completely lost. I've thought of just leaving (we have no kids, btw), but I fear I might regret the decision.

Every single time we sat down and talked about this had no results whatsoever.

Thanks in advance.

Welcome to Marriage Builders. I'm sorry for the struggles that have brought you here.

I would suggest to you that starting to read the his needs/her needs book and love busters book might be a great place to start.

Perhaps you could ask your W to join you in reading them as a way to make your marriage better for you both.

There's a ton of great information in them, and they've helped many people with the types of problems you and your W are experiencing.

Remember, you cannot control what your W does, however, you can ask for what you would prefer.

Good luck and keep posting, and reading.

- TTM

Might also be helpful to move this topic to the emotional needs board, where you can get some more perspectives.

I agree with The Tall Man. Only I'd read the LoveBusters books first. The first step in saving a marraige is to avoid doing anything that will hurt your spouse's love for you.

I'm wondering if something may have happened that caused her to turn so much of her affection and attention to the dog. That something may have been a lovebuster.

Another thing you may want to do is go to these meetings with her. And show up for a least part of the adoption day programmes. There are two reasons: First, a healthy romantic relationship requires about 15 hours of undivided attention. You two aren't getting that. You're probably not even getting 15 hours together. So, by going, you'll be with her. The second reason is your wife is spending large amounts of time with people who are passionate about animals, just like she is. It's always a good idea to meet these people, be present, etc. Your presence will make it much more unlikely that your wife will bond with someone else over a dog or cat.