HoldHerHand:

I never complain about my wifes lack of desire. I am probably TO nice to her.

Cemar, it's easy. Make her feel beautiful. Find out from her how. No matter what you do to make things better, you can't unless you talk to her. Find out her likes and dislikes.

What you might be perceiving as showing love and affection is actually disrespectful to her. I remember having to explain to my H years and years ago that his idea of showing affection was disrespectful to me (groping and such).

Physical affection can be anything. In our relationship, affection is not sexual. It's loving touches. One of my favorite "affections" is stroking his face when it's gritty with a new beard. It's not sexual at all but he loves it, he even delays shaving to have the grit there

You need to sit with her, tell her you want to improve your marriage and ask her to fill out the emotional needs questions. Once you have that, you can start meeting those needs. Don't interpret them into your own ideas, though! Meet them in the way SHE needs them.

Do this for a while, make her feel confident and loved.

There is a song my kids listen to. The lyrics are something like,"I want you to make me feel like I'm the only girl in the world, like I'm the only one you'll ever love"...and something about, I'm the only one who can make you feel like a man.

When I hear that I think wow!....I get a little turned on just thinking of someone making me feel that way.

I quit.

HoldHerHand:

What I meant to say was I do not complain to HER. I complain HERE, but I know that commeting to her would get no where. So I am not so horrible monster that you all seem to think. In fact, if anything, my wife considers me TOO nice.

So, has complaining here (while taking absolutely NO action in your actual life) gotten you anywhere?

writer1:

No. But lets say that I do my part to to create romantic love for my wife. Now what? I have no interest in affection or sex that is done FOR me. Why on earth kiss someone when you know that they really don't WANT to. In order to saolve these problems, you have to CHANGE the womans sex drive (and yes it can be done without hormone therapy).

Or are we hoping that if you build the romantic love marriage, that we can get the guy to give up on feeling wanted, and settle for love only?

No, we're hoping that building the romantic love in the marriage will actually increase the woman's desire for SF.

But then, you've been told that at least 100 times and you've never listened to it before, so I don't know why I think this time will be any different.

UGH! It's so frustrating reading this thread!!

Cemar, I believe the point is that if you consentrate on meeting your wife's needs, and creating romantic love on your side, then perhaps your wife will actually have romantic love AND desire for you.

Before I found MB, I never really understood that my H needed me to desire him, to truly want him sexually, in order to feel my love for him.

Whereas with me, I couldn't feel sexual desire or real romantic love towards my H unless my needs for affection were being met.

It is a circle that can work with you or against you, depending on your level of understanding.

Since finding MB, I truly DESIRE my H, because he makes me feel loved!

And our SF has increased ONE MILLION PERCENT!!!

Does this make sense to you?

You're not following marriage builders at all. You're not remotely interested in marriage builders advice. You are not following the policy of radical honesty, you are not following the policy of joint agreement, you are not interested in meeting her emotional needs (indeed you don't seem to have any idea what they even are!)

I'm really not sure how you expect us to help you. You argue against anything anybody says.

Look at what's red above.

How to do this???? MAKE HER HAPPY. Remember when I said women mix emotions and sex? The sex drive changes with emotions. I can't say it any plainer.

Sad, unhappy, feeling bad = NO sex drive
Happy, loved, confident = A sex drive

Why didn't I specifically put HD or LD or whatever? Because it depends on how strong those emotions are.

Now for the blue:

She will WANT to when she feels: Happy, loved, confident

Cemar, you keep telling everyone she's changed. She became a mother and everything changed. What about you?

You say you're too nice to your wife. What does that mean? Does that mean instead of taking any initiative to fix anything in the marriage, you walk away and pout? Do you "Yes, Dear" her all day? Do you not assert yourself at all? Do you not have any opinions? Do you do whatever she wants of you with "Yes, Dear"?

I'm going to tell you, THAT could also be a contributing factor. A lot of women (me!) need our men to be strong, confident. If you're bending over for everything, she's mourning the loss of her H.

That doesn't mean start being a nasty a$$, and making demands. That won't help and will make things worse. But, how are you different than when you were first married?

Do you have date nights?

cemar,

I haven't read much of your thread the past couple of weeks and yes I negatively commented to you a couple of weeks ago.

Point is cemar anyone can have sex w/o love, but I doubt anyone can have ROMANTIC love without desiring sex! Both for men and women. Your's seems to be an infantile and immature attitude in regard to your wife.

Maybe instead of prolonging this debate of your's, you should really consult your priest, minister, counselor, etc. Or, even find legitimate articles on this and read about romantic love and sex. The two are inseparatable in a healthy mariage!

I get the impression that you wonder if you have to be a Clint Eastwood (actor of your choice) or a well-known pro athelete (of your choice) every day to be assured that she Both loves and desires you! It doesn't work that way in real life. None of us are Clints or whoever. We're just average guys who drag our butts out of bed in the morning, get to our jobs, provide for our families, and hope that when we come home our wives will not have left us a brief note explaining that they ran off with Clint, or whoever....*s*! For us we can only be caring and loving and faithful guys, but when we get home and are home we might feel a little tired, a little dilapitated, and a little conscious that we might not be the most desirable guy on the block, and maybe we're a little disappointed that our women don't bring us the old proverbial slippers and beer, give us a few moments to relax, and then suddenly appear in a Victoria Secrets thing and throw themselves at us. Again, that represents a Separation of love and desire, and you cannot separate them.

Cemar, the way I understand romantic love and desire is this: love is the caring for, admiration for, and respect for another person, which LEADS to the desire (need if you will) to express that love in physically and emotionally pleasing that person, and even expressing to that person you want your expression to consume that person.

The person you need to debate this with is your wife, and really hope you are able to get a grip on this.

Tom

writer1:

You can make a woman happy, loved, and confident, and guess what, I still went 10 years without any feeling of desire from her. I will also say that if emotions can determine if you are HD or LD, then you are really LD. As a HD male, my emotions have no impact on my desire. I have also known HD woman that are having huge problems with their husbands, and they never lost their HD. Have I changed? Not really. As my wife has said many times, men DON"T change as they age and women do nothing BUT change. I am trying to change my "Nice Guy" tendancies.

So how does a woman increase her testosterone? 1) Exercise, virtually every marriage therapy out there gets the woman into an exercise routine immediately. 2) REmove stress from your life. 3) Have sex virtually everyday. Sex actually INCREASES the woman's testosterone. Women are the OPPOSITE of men, the more sex a woman has, the MORE she will want it. Low desire actually causes MORE low desire. 4) Change your diet, many things in the modern diet actually casue LOSS of desire (see Dr. Ament).

Do I have date nights? Not anymore. Used to do that a lot years ago, and guess what, it had no effect.

Even the LD women that are on here admit that even after all the romantic love stuff, they are STILL LD. What you are all considering DESIRE is actually LOVE. Willingness to have sex with your spouse is NOT DESIRE IN ANYWAY. You still have the desire issue, and even Dr. Harely admits that this is STILL going to be a problem.

Cemar, I give up. Life if too short to run around in these circles with you any longer.

Though I do have one question. You seem to know an awful lot about what HD women feel and want, and I must question how you come by this knowledge. Do you routinely talk to other women about their sex lives? I see no other way that you could be privy to the problems they are having with their husbands, which you claim to know.

You say you made your wife feel happy, loved, and confident all those years, and she still had no desire for sex. How do you know she felt that way? It's obviously your perception that she did, but since you seem to display no actual knowledge of (or interest in) your wife's EN's, I would have to question just how well you were able to meet them all those years.

Good luck to you, and my others have more success breaking through that impossibly thick shell you seem to have constructed around yourself that has no desire to let any further understanding inside.

I didn't say that, but I will say, that scratching an itch is not desire either, but if someone scratchs it for me, and desires to, that could be love.

You are wanting her to have sex because shes got the itch. Well good luck on that one, even HD women want more than that. I really don't think you are ready to see the difference between being married and casual dating, but you can work with what you have, and appreciate it, if you choose.

I am confused. It seems as though you just answered your own question. You said your wife was willing to have sex with you just not desirious of it. So she should do what you said above. I'm sure you can put up with a few weeks of gratitious sex to increase her desire right?

Tom2010:

If you had your choice between a Passionate Marriage and a Romantic Love Marriage, which would you prefer? Passionate marriages include EVERYTHING that is in the romantic marriages except the woman WANTS you for sex, she has absolutely no sexual hangups, she is HD.

The question isn't really whether you want a marriage to an HD or LD person. You are already married, so the *real* question is, "Do you want YOUR marriage?"

If you do, then you should apply MB principles and work on it. Chances are good that you'll benefit and see some improvements. (It might also influence your W to try some of the things you are sure would increase her testosterone, if that's what you want.)

Okay, I know I said I was done, but here's an interesting excerpt from a Mayo Clinic article about testosterone treatment for women:

"Although testosterone contributes to healthy sexual function in women, other factors play a larger role in postmenopausal sexual dysfunction. These factors include decreased estrogen levels, vaginal dryness, medication side effects, chronic health conditions, loss of a spouse or partner, lack of emotional intimacy, conflict, stress, or mood concerns."

Here's a link to the entire article:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/testosterone-therapy/AN01390

The Mayo Clinic clearly states that testosterone levels are only ONE factor that affects a woman's post-menopausal sex drive. It's the one that Cemar seems obsessively focused on, but it may not be the main issue for his wife at all.

Cemar, there are many reasons your wife may not be interested in sex: estrogen problems, health problems, LACK OF EMOTIONAL INTIMACY, CONFLICT, STRESS.

Why do you continue to fixate on ONE possible problem when it may not even be the cause of your wife's issues?

From what I've read here, several other factors that can contribute to low sexual drive in women are probably at play, and they are things you can actually do something about. YOU can actually do something about, like working on the emotional intimacy in your M, and reducing conflict and stress.

I give up, too. I have one final question for Cemar, though. It's been bouncing around my head for a while, maybe I'm biased.

Cemar, are you having an affair/contemplating an affair? Are you trying to justify it by complaining about things your wife has no control over since you're unwilling to help?