Hi. My husband suffers from chronic pain. The last few years have very hard on him and on our marriage. He has had four doctors tell him there is nothing they can do for him since he has not responded to other treatments. He is on two different pain meds and relies heavily on distraction therapy to ease his remaining pain. No matter what ra we do, he continually distracts himself. He will study the menus at restaurants, he tries to name all the trees we pass on a walk, etc. I never get his undivided attention. My heart aches for him. Being with me seems to make his pain worse since I interrupt his distraction therapy. As a result, my needs are not being met and I am reluctant to even ask my husband to meet them. Should I look into joining a social group and relieve theburden of my needs from my husband?

Welcome to B, ew9. I am sorry to hear about your H's chronic pain. I hope that he and his doctors will continue to search for medical solutions to this problem.

You should never look outside your marriage to get your intimate emotional needs met. The intimate needs of intimate conversation, affection and sexual fulfilment should never be met by anybody else. The ENs of recreational companionship and admiration should not be met by a member of the opposite sex.

That will mean that, at some times such as during illness or after permanent disability, one spouse's emotional needs cannot be met, but that still doesn't give the other spouse carte blanche to have those needs met by other people. Those situations were what the vows "forsaking all others, in sickness and in health" were meant to cover.

He can go on walks together? So can't you discuss the trees together? Have you asked him what he needs from you? What does he say? Can't you be his favorite distraction?

Joining a social group to get your needs met by others? What kind of social group? With men? This is very dangerous to your marriage and shouldn't be done.

Why can't YOU be his favorite distraction? I can't think of anything more distracting than a romantic relationship.

Please read.
What to Do with an Emotionally or Physically Disabled Spouse #1
What to Do with an Emotionally or Physically Disabled Spouse #2

I would love to be my husbands favorite distraction. However even the slightest move in the "wrong way" can cause intense pain. Getting in or out of the car can make his entire back muscles spasm. Sex always causes charley horses in his thighs, calves, and or feet,often with multiple muscle groups at one time. Fore play is often paused for a half hour as he tries to calm down his cramps. The doctors have said that this is typical for his disease. I can't compete with his pain. Somehow by focusing on me he ends up experiencing more pain.

BrainHurts, the second letter did sound like us. I agree that my husband will never be healthier than right now. But I feel like he has shut me out of most of his life. I do resent that and I have distanced myself from him. Most of his days off work are spent doing yard work or working in our woods while he is listening to his ipod. He comes in only after sundown. We have tried gardening together, but he always plugs himself into his ipod. His pain is severe a lot of the time. I want him to get relief, but it always comes at my expense. I am tired of fighting it.

But there are other ways you can distract him, such as conversation, affection, etc....

When you suggested getting your needs met outside of marriage, what need did you specifically mean?

I want to meet with a group of people where I can relax and have fun, card parties, Bible studies, games of tennis, etc. Laugh. It would be fun to laugh again. I want to sit and talk comfortably with other people. If my husbands pain increases while we are on a date, he gets snappy. I have wished I could walk home more than once after an AO. As far as romance goes, his pain and his distractions always interrupt any romance I have tried to initiate . I have failed at seducing my own husband several times. My sense of my womanhood has taken quite a beating. Many of our conversations end with him saying "we should look that up on the computer ". At that point I just go to bed alone.

One of the sayings that the Harleys will say on the radio all the time is "it is our job to protect our Love Bank from having the wrong person making LB deposits".

Have you and your DH brainstormed UA activities?

So by enjoying the company of others, who may be male, I am taking a risk. sigh...

We did fill out the RA questionaire, but we never acted on it.

I think you and your husband could create a happy, romantic marriage if you had the right guidance. Your husband has to work on completely eliminating ANY angry outburst and other lovebusters, though. You could both learn how to make each other happy. There is no reason you can't. You just don't know HOW to do it.

Have the two of you pursued this desire together?

Your husband can LEARN to be pleasant.

You're right. I don't know how to make our marriage work. I will ask my husband if he will study His Needs Her Needs. Thank you for your help.

The first sentence here suggests that you are looking of opportunities to socialise in harmless ways. It's fine for a married person to socialise with other people in activities like Bible study and games of tennis, as long as they are spending at least 15 hours per week in undivided attention with their spouse. It would also be crucial for the social activities to be spent in single-sex settings. There is no faster way to develop an attraction for a member of the opposite sex and to end up in an affair than for a spouse to spend time working closely, or sharing a hobby or interest, with a person of the opposite sex - even in a group setting.

Please read Dr Harley and Dr Chalmers' book Surviving an Affair, which contains a case study of couple Dr Harley worked with. The wife joined a committee, without her husband, to fund-raise for the restoration of the lake where they lived. She had an affair with a man on the committee, because they shared a common interest and spent a lot of enjoyable time together. She was not looking to have an affair at all, but it was easy to have one once she developed feelings for the man who shared her interest.

There would be nothing wrong with your joining an all-women Bible study group, or playing tennis with women friends, as long as you first, spent at least 15 hours' enjoyable time with your H, and second, kept away from other men - and this includes the pastor within whose church the Bible study group meets, and the coach or membership secretary at the tennis club. And you can talk comfortably to girlfriends over lunch, but stay away from gyms and bars. You do not have to go without any interaction with friends just because you are married, but it is up to you to read more here and learn about dangerous places for affairs to start, and it is up to you to guard against our normal human weaknesses for the opposite sex and to protect your boundaries.

However, there are sentences in your post that make me think that you are not just talking about card games, Bible study and tennis:

"If my husbands pain increases while we are on a date, he gets snappy. I have wished I could walk home more than once after an AO. As far as romance goes, his pain and his distractions always interrupt any romance I have tried to initiate . I have failed at seducing my own husband several times. My sense of my womanhood has taken quite a beating. Many of our conversations end with him saying "we should look that up on the computer ". At that point I just go to bed alone".

Here you have moved away from tennis games to talking about dating, romance and seduction. You gave these examples in answer to the question about what ENs you are looking to meet outside your marriage.

Are you saying that you miss successful and happy dating, romance and seduction, and that it is these things you want to search for outside your marriage?

If so, I go back to my first post; marriage means "forsaking all others" with respect to intimate ENs. There may be ways, as BrainHurts and MelodyLane suggest, of rebuilding the romance in your marriage, even with your H's chronic pain. I do hope so. But even if your H were to become severely disabled and unable to meet your needs at all, you would not get support from Marriage Builders for looking elsewhere to get those needs met.

I would start with Lovebusters. His lovebusters are ruining any chance at happiness. He needs to eliminate the lovebusters FIRST. Another thing you can do is write Dr Harley on the radio show and get his advice. He is genius about coming up with creative ideas to solve problems.

Are you honest with your husband about how unpleasant he is at times? My DH used to have angry outbursts and once I told him to just take me home because he was so unpleasant. NOW, we both try SO HARD to be pleasant on our dates. At the end of our date, one of us will usually say "was I very pleasant tonight??" We COMPETE to see who can be the MOST pleasant!

Have you looked into physical activities that might reduce his spasms and cramps? Are there therapeutic exercises that he could do - physiotherapy or occupational therapy? If so, could you learn how to help him with those, so that you can exercise together as a recreational activity? If you could do, say, an hour morning and evening, that would count towards your UA time and be beneficial for the marriage.

I don't know anything about your H's condition, but could relaxation and meditation exercises help to control the pain and relax the spams? If so, these are more things you can do together. I can envisage relaxation being effective for control of the muscles or as distraction from pain in other circumstances. I've done relaxation exercises as part of an ante-natal group, in preparation for the onslaught of labour. The group setting was fine. I imagine it would be very pleasant to do this twice a day (or more) with your H.

He knows that I am afraid of him sometimes. I don't think he would ever physically harm me, but I hate it when he yells at me, I retreat inward and that makes him even madder. He has threatened to leave me several times. I am a stay at home mom with five kids at home. How would I survive? He asks A LOT of reflective questions when we talk. That bugs me. Do I have to repeat everything I say? Can't he listen to me the first time???? Sometimes it feels like a chore to talk to him.