hi all, this might be long, but i have to vent... encouragement is desperately needed...i'm hoping to get some advice or insight into the disaster that is my marriage. i have read a lot of articles on this site, and am familiar with all the basic concepts, but am at a loss at how/where to start in my particular situation... i feel like i am hanging on by a thread and am losing hope more and more everyday. i'm overwhelmed and don't know if it is even possible to save this relationship...

emotionally i feel like i've already left the marriage. we have been married for almost 7 years and the relationship has been deteriorating since the honeymoon. i have never had romantic feelings for my husband and have been holding on to hope that we could make it happen somehow because we were such good friends at the start, but i'm consistently and constantly disappointed by his poor relationship skills and misdirected efforts. i feel like we are a complete mismatch... i worry that the possiblity of romance was just a stupid fantasy that will never be realized.... our sex life is abismal... we had a lot of fun during our short courtship and engagement, but it was over as soon as we moved in together. we have always been good "friends" and i do not find it hard to get along with him in general (we have alway been pretty good at avoiding open conflict), but i loathe him touching me and dread having sex with him now. we do it maybe about once a month, and not until i've consumed at least a bottle of wine... this is followed by so much pain and guilt and shame in the morning... i'm going through a massive depression over this...

he is painfully aware of the danger our marriage is in and he is also extremely depressed over this... we care deeply for each other and we want to make this work for the sake of our son (almost 3 years old), but it's like there is a brick wall between us and neither of us can muster the strength required to break through... i have tried communicating my needs/desires and concepts i have learned on this site, but i'm running out of patience... he doesn't want to talk about our relationship until we are in an argument/bickering match over something trivial... the tension is mounting and we have been fighting a lot the past few days (in front of our son - which is something we never did before and i never want to do again)... i'm finding it extremely difficult to ignore the constant annoyances and frustrations anymore... i feel a lot of anger and a lot of guilt about this... i have never had an affair, but if the oportunity arose i might find the temptation too great to resist... i try to communicate my desperation to my husband, explaining that i just can't live this way forever, but he accuses me of being a coward and says i'll probably just leave him anyway... i know this is his pain talking, but i wonder if he is right...

what can i do? how do you fall in love with someone you've never really been in love with from the beginning?
is it even possible?

Were you in love when you got married?

Welcome to MB! Sorry you find yourself here .. but its the best place to be!

Have you read any of the site? If not .. start with the basic concepts and then the Q&A and then articles.

Get the book His Needs Her Needs and Fall in love Stay in love.

Do you get 15hours a week together? Without TV or kids?

There is a emotnional needs questionair that can help you identify what each of your needs are... I would print out x2 of each of them and fill them out and go over them together. If you get the books .. they make great UA time after kids are in bed if you can spend the time reading them together out loud.

YOu have tons of hope ...

Keep reading ... and remember this. FEELINGS FOLLOW ACTIONS. Do not make decisions based on your feelings becasue your feelings can lie to you.

MNG

i can say with all honesty, no i was not... i was a lot more in "like" with him than anything. our relationship actually started out stricly platonic and although we spent a lot of time together, there was never any sexual attraction for me... he is 12 years older than me and i never considered a serious relationship with him until i realized he was the best friend i ever had and for some reason i just couldn't imagine my life without him... i'm not proud of this, but i was young and lonely and was broken hearted when i met him... anyway, we spent almost all of our waking moments together anyway and i figured we might as well started dating... and sex followed, but there was almost always alcohol involved... i would really like to get into sex therapy maybe, but i have no insurance...

You probably dont need a sex therapist. Check out these articles. and follow them to the others that are related

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/ss/50-1.html - Willingness to desire

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5047_qa.html - Overcoming a sexual aversion

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5044a_qa.html - not enough time together

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5010_qa.html - how to meet the need for affection (for your hubby in the future)

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5069_qa.html - together when you are happiest

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5505_qa.html - How to overcome love busters. (which you both probably engage in which can dramaticly kill your love for each other FAST)

MNG

hi mr.niceguy! yeah i am familar with the website... actually have bookmarked several articles for my husband to read, but he keeps avoiding working on this with me... he's in a lot of pain i think and wants to stay busy distracting himself... which of course only makes things worse.... anyway i know what my needs are and i have an idea about his (of course an almost complete mismatch)... we have always had a strong "recreational compantionship", and i am trying to reinforce that since that is what brought us together in the first place... but i wonder if that will be enough to pull us through. lately it is becoming painful to do anything together because the accompanying conversation feels so vacuous and superficial and often ends in bickering...

he was layed off in january so we have been getting a lot of time "together" everyday, though not much time without our son... once he is in bed we stay up for a few hours together, but always end up watching a movie or something boring on tv where we aren't even interacting with each other... i'm so sick of this routine! i've tried to explain to him what "quality time" really means to me, but he persists in invalidating that need and makes no effort to fill it... there are some pretty severe "Love busters" going on in our relationship as well... it's so overwhelming... i understand the concepts but putting them into practice has so far proved extremely difficult as he shows no interest in changing anything about himself or his behavior...

i have read "his needs her needs", but i will check out "fall in love stay in love" i can use all the help i can get...

You are in the right place for your husband to learn some relationship skills, although I wouldn't put him to it that way because he is likely to perceive it as disrespectful. Lifelong romance in marriage is not a stupid fantasy and is quite achievable; the people who live it are the people who do the things this site teaches as Basic Concepts: spend fifteen hours alone together each week meeting the intimate emotional needs of conversation, affection, recreational companionship, and sexual fulfillment; protect each other from habits that destroy love; resolve conflicts in a way that sustains love and does not permit either of you to gain at the other's expense. Once the basic relationship issues are resolved the excitement usually comes right back into the sexual relationship.

Your great free resources to start are the articles on this website and Dr. Harley's radio show.

thank you for the links - i haven't seen all these articles yet! the sexual aversion article is really good... i will probably be reading it over and over...

Is this a first marriage for both of you?

I encourage you to read every single article on this site. I often find something very helpful to me in an article that isn't about a situation I'm personally facing.

Demands, disrespectful judgments, and angry outbursts are like nuclear bombs. Your instincts when your husband is demanding, disrespectful, or angry toward you may be to come back with the same thing -- but you will fill your whole lives with radioactive fallout.

The only way to win that game is not to play. Don't ever fight, under any circumstances, even if he tries to fight with you.


Four Guidelines
for Successful Negotiation

dm, welcome to MB. The article that pops to mind is the one on pain during intercourse. Did the pain start before or after childbirth? Are you going for your annual checkups? This may be an issue with an easy fix. I like how Dr. H has said things like even arranged marriages where the folks didn't know one another before they got married can be fixed.

Do you ever just watch him sleep? That helped me with my side of the bickering, just spending that peaceful time, remembering what I loved about him. Maybe think about where you do the least bickering, like that Friends of Good Conversation article, talk about things that are fun for you guys instead of contentious subjects all week. Where do you think would be a good place to start? (((Hugs))) and good wishes for you and your family!