I've been married for 10 years and I have two kids. I just got home from a six day business trip and my family is not home this weekend and came to a very startling realization - I really don't like being around my wife. I feel like a complete failure when it comes to my marriage and I feel guilty for not wanting to be around my wife.

When I'm with my wife I don't feel relaxed. I'm always on guard to make sure I don't upset her and I do everything possible to avoid her looks of disapproval, frustration and her criticisms.

I love my job, because when I work with my co-workers, they make me feel good about myself and the work I do.

My wife and I recently read both Tim Keller and Gary Chapman's books on marriage. We both come from families with solid marriages. I understand my wife's love language and mine. Sometimes I feel like we just are a bad match.

We are in a vicious cycle because my wife's primary love language is quality time. We are always together because I work from home and she is a stay at home mom. But I struggle to spend quality time with her because I don't want to be around her and I usually just get depressed when I'm with her.

One of my primary love languages is physical touch. Actually I have a blend of 1) words of affirmation regarding sexual acts 2) Physical touch to express attraction to me and 3) a weird dialect of words of affirmation in the sense that I struggle with her getting frustrated with my behavior (meaning she doesn't have to use words of affirmation, but avoid disrespectful tones, sarcasm, criticism, etc.).

Being desired sexually by my partner is very important to me. My wife is really resistant to my advances.

It is heart breaking and frustrating to me because although I don't care for my wife's personality, I still find her to be as attractive as the day we met. Sometimes and I just look at her and I'm overcome by how beautiful she is. I have to stop myself from touching her because I know it annoys her when I touch her.

During good times, I get the obligatory sex once a month. But sometimes she will refuse my advances for months at a time. We've had sex twice in the last 7 months, but she has been pregnant most of those in her defense (she likes a flat stomach - not a big deal to me, in fact, she looked better than ever her first trimester).

During our first year of marriage I got so frustrated by her refusing me that I stopped pursuing her sexually, having grown tired of the rejection. We went 7 and 1/2 months without sex. Finally, I made the move one night and she allowed me for 5 mins. It seemed like it was an inconvenience for her. The rejection took its toll and I was embarrassed of my sex drive (like I was some type of animal).

The strange thing about those 7 months is we made dinner together and spent the evening together almost every night. We ran every errand together. We were always together. We would kiss and I would hold her, but she would roll her eyes or sigh in that annoyed tone if I tried to take it to the next step.

***EDIT*** If for some reason, intercourse doesn't bring her pleasure, she'll ask if I'm going to finish soon about 4 minutes into the act. It's humiliating.

She always talks during sex about how she doesn't have time for this or she talks about other thing during sex***EDIT***(All the meanwhile I'm commenting on how attractive she is).

***EDIT*** Usually after those moments I feel close to her for the rest of the day until her back-handed comments and frustration with me wears me down once we resume the daily grind of family and household management.

I do carry resentment toward my wife. I've tried to get past it. I feel like I was tricked when it comes to sex. I told her it was important before marriage. I had unrealistic expectations of sex being the last thing you do before going to sleep and the first thing you do to wake-up in the morning.

What led me to this expectation is we tried to not have sex before marriage, but failed early in our relationship. ***EDIT*** We had also just started a long distance relationship since I graduated from the college we me at.***EDIT***
But these indicators led me to the conclusion that we were a good marriage match when it came to her attraction level to me and her sense of adventure in the bedroom, which was important criteria.

She struggled with guilt due to our sex before marriage. I felt bad because she would cry sometimes and couldn't believe that she lost her virginity - but she loved me too much to leave me. Three months before we got married she said we needed to stop so our wedding night would be somewhat special. She never regained that level of sexual attraction to me from that point on. Could the guilt be impacting our sex life 12 years after the fact?

I feel terrible about the overall situation regarding our marriage because my wife loves me and she wants me to be around all the time. She always wants to talk to me.

I feel like I can only talk to her for so long before I feel hurt by her and I just want to get away from her. By Saturday morning, I'm counting down the hours until Monday AM when I can return to my home office and escape my wife. I think she is just very direct and I'm sensitive. Not a good mix.

I know one of the reasons why dating was great for us and marriage is not is we didn't work together when we were not married and we only saw each other on weekends for 3 years of our dating relationship.

If we have to work together or live in the same place, it is just bad. She gets very frustrated with me. I don't do things the right way.

She is a wonderful mom and I'm completely physically attracted to her.

But I feel guilty because really I only want to be around her if she'll express physical desire for me and if she restrains her frustration toward me.

We did go through 9 marriage counseling sessions three years ago. They didn't go well. She disagreed with the marriage counselor's advice. We recently did Gary Chapman's book. Our group leader asked us to write 5 things we want our spouse to do. She thought one of my five things were sweet, but dismissed the other bedroom related ones.

I fantasize about those pre-marriage days with my wife. But what is really terrifying is sometimes I think about how other women out there might find me sexually attractive and fulfilling. Then thoughts of justifying a mistress of sorts is perfectly reasonable since my wife isn't interested in having sex with me.

I pray that I never will act on it. It would crush my wife even though she has no desire for me and it is against my believes.

Help!

Thanks for reading this. Any suggestions and tips?

This business trip outcome really has me concerned about my feelings. Also, I feel guilty because this is a self serving outlook on marriage. I know that I'm called to love and serve my wife. But I'm acting like it is a hopeless marriage because my wife doesn't desire me sexually and I have thin skin when it comes to her remarks.

Hi Hopeless, welcome to Marriage Builders. Did you come here to get advice about Marriage Builders or did you come here to blog about Love Languages? Marriage Builders is a completely different program in that it has a PLAN to restore the love in your marriage. When Gary Chapman copied certain aspects of Marriage Builders, he didn't copy its plan to transform the marriage. If you want help with Marriage Builders we can help you with that, but if you want to utilize love languages, you are in the wrong place.

There are many reasons your marriage is not working and the first is that you spend the nights apart. That creates an emotional detachment and a lifestyle of independent behavior. So when you come home, you are the outsider and an irritant to her independent lifestyle. You can't sustain the romantic love in your marriage that way. It takes 20 hours of undivided attention per week to CREATE romantic love and 15 hours to SUSTAIN. You can't do that if you don't have integrated lifestyles.

The above paragraph explains why she has a sexual aversion to you. It is because you asked her to engage in sex acts "begrudgingly." Would you want to do something that you didn't LIKE to do? Well, that is what happened here. She just stopped doing it. Women need 2 things to desire sex: an emotional attachment and the prospect of enjoyment. She has never had the latter with you, and probably doesn't have the former anymore.

As a woman reading your sexual behavior, I know I would run the other way. It is not appealing in the least.

And lastly, we can transform your marriage if you will follow a plan. If you want to follow lurve languages, we can't help you there.

Please keep your posts free of graphic sexual detail.

Which she should do. A spouse should meet her spouses needs in a way that makes her happy. Otherwise, they develop sexual aversions, as you can see. Making sacrifices is a disaster for marriage, so if you want your wife to meet your needs, you should MAKE SURE she is doing it in a way she enjoys. Otherwise, she will stop doing it. As you can see...

Hi MelodyLane,

Thanks for reading and responding. Is it possible you misunderstood my post?

My wife and I live a completely integrated life. She is a stay at home mom and I work from home. She often works at the computer right beside me during my 9-5 work day. What inspired me to write this post was due to the fact that this is the first 6 consecutive days I've spent away from my wife in our ten years of marriage. And I've never felt so relaxed in 10 years. It is the first 6 days I feel like I've been able to let me guard down.

We live such integrated lives, that typically I couldn't get on a forum like this without her finding out.

Although sometimes I feel like an outsider in my own home, it isn't because I'm spending time outside the home. I'm ALWAYS home. Sometimes I go Monday through Friday without leaving the house.

Also, I don't "begrudgingly" ask her to have sex with me. It is her response to my request that is begrudging if she agrees to. I sense an attitude from my wife of "make it quick" and "I'm only doing this for you and because its been a while and I need to do it as a spousal obligation."

When I ask or suggest we have sex, I do so meekly. In the past, I used to build a case by pointing out that I haven't pressured her at all for two or three months and its been that long since we last did so. But several years ago I realized that actually backfires on me because she gets defensive to that approach because it highlights that we haven't had sex for months and implies she's done something wrong.

My wife doesn't like to talk about sex. I've asked her to do things they way she likes, but it seems to embarrass her and she shuts down completely and won't have sex at all. If I reminder her of what she liked before we got married, she gets upset with me because I'm implying she enjoyed pre-marital sex.

I'm actually not familiar with Marriage Builders and I don't advocate any specific system. I just wandered on the forum to ask for help.

Does my post make more sense now that I've clarified these two items?

I do agree making sacrifices can be disastrous for a marriage. At one point I thought I could suppress any desires and let sex be an annual or bi-annual event. But it has simply caused me to feel disconnected emotionally from my wife and I resent her for the low frequency levels.

And I don't really enjoy sex at all if she doesn't want it or like it. That's frustrating for both of us because after that happens, she feels like I should be happy, but she can tell I'm not satisfied because she didn't enjoy it at all.

If you re-read my post, does this change your feedback?

Thanks,

You should take time to read Dr. Harley's basic concepts. Then decide if you want to follow the program.

We can help but you have to be ready to do things differently.

Hopeless, thanks for the clarification on the travel. That is reassuring, because that is a disaster to marriage.


What I meant is that you asked her do things and SHE might do them "begrudgingly."
This is what I was referring to and worded it poorly. Hopefully you read my post because you did not respond to my comments about sexual aversion. Please read them and comment.

As far as being "integrated" because you are home all the time, how many dates a month do you get?

Also, can you please condense your posts? It is very hard to follow your story because they are so overly long.

You are asking your wife to sacrifice. That's what we were talking about.

This is quite enough to cause a sexual aversion but I suspect there is more to the story.

I would also check out this article: The question of the ages: How can a...age?

By Willard F. Harley, Jr., Ph.D.

Another one that applies: How to Overcome Sexual Aversion

Hi MelodyLane,

I do fully realize asking my wife to have sex with me is asking her to sacrifice, considering it is something she does not want to do. And when I request or attempt specific acts, it further causes sexual aversion.

I just read through Dr. Harley's concepts. The conflict that I'm causing in our marriage is when the "taker" in me is in control regarding sex. Once we go about a month without sex, I feel like she owes it to me. When she refuses and we go another month, the "taker" in me comes back again and asks "how about now? It has been two months."

Then when we hit three months+ without sex, I start to get resentful and then move into "The State of Withdrawal." Then I find myself on the internet reading about how to cope in a sexless marriage and trying to suppress my desire for my wife.

Earlier in our marriage, I was utterly confused by my wife's change in desire for me. I was perplexed by her intense chemistry for me prior to marriage and why it was nowhere to be found on our wedding night.

I've come to realize that we do change. I'm not the man my wife met 13+ years ago. She's not the woman I met 13+ years ago. Perhaps her hormone levels were causing increased libido when we met.

I am convinced there was a sexual dysfunctional element of our first year of marriage. I don't think it is typical for newlyweds to go over seven months without having sex during their first year of marriage. She experienced pain our first few times having sex after marriage and that caused her to avoid it at all costs.

We've never recovered from that completely. I carry resentment and she will not allow sex to return to pre-marital frequency levels.

I do take much ownership for the state of our marriage now.

My wife is fairly happy with our marriage. It is me that is dissatisfied. I devastated her about 3 years ago when I first told her I was unhappy in our marriage. She had no clue I had been struggling for the first seven years of our marriage. I didn't want to hurt her by telling her this.

She knew I was unhappy with our sex life, but she didn't realize it was devastating our marriage.

My wife's top category is "conversation." I was giving her LOTS of conversation our first year or two of marriage.

But eventually my "love bank" was completely empty due to two reasons 1) her admiration for me disappeared during our engagement period 2) her sexual desire for me was non-existent.

I kept the conversation rolling, meanwhile running on love bank fumes for about two years and eventually I checked out.

The other complex dynamic to our relationship is when "conversations" happen, I'm making deposit into the love tank, but at the same time, my wife is usually making withdraws from my love bank during those "conversations."

I'll be the first to admit I'm overly sensitive, but her tone, comments and body language screams "I don't admire you."

Dr. Harvey talked about this in the "his needs" segment.

Now she is fine during these conversations. She likes talking to me. I don't, because for me, it's just another conversation with what Dr. Harvey refers to as the "disrespectful judge."

Absolutely. But we can help you turn this around. First off, you have to accept how critical it is for her to enjoy it. To understand this dynamic, it is important to understand that women need 2 things to desire sex: an emotional attachment to the partner and the prospect of enjoyment.

Which leads me to my question: how many dates do you go on in a month? What do you do?

MelodyLane,

Thank you very much for sharing the sexual aversion article.

It aligns to a theory I developed regarding our sex life several years ago. I just didn't call it sexual aversion.

Again, three months prior to marriage, my wife often initiated sex and had a strong desire for it. We stop in preparation for our wedding night to make it as special as possible considering we didn't wait for marriage.

Our wedding night, she experienced pain. I don't believe she had developed an aversion at this point. Our second night of our honeymoon sex was painful again. The third and forth night of our honeymoon, my wife refused to have sex with me. I pressured her to have sex with me before our honeymoon was over and then again when we returned home.

I'm convinced that us stopping sex three months before marriage, and then the pain of our first three or four encounters after marriage is what caused the aversion.

By our second week of marriage, we were already in the cycle of dinner for two, walks and then making out on the sofa, but her rejecting any advances if I tried to take it to the next step. Eventually I would ask what's wrong and she didn't want to talk about it. We entered the phase of or marriage were sex happened anywhere from once a month to once ever 7 months. She often told me it would never be enough for me, so why should she even try.

Another thing happened. I found out my new bride had a temper I didn't see while dating. The first time she dressed me down in a fit of rage, I was terrified. I never saw my parents yell at on another like that. I pleaded with her that I didn't want this in our marriage. Once I acted like I was angry and yelled back at her to see if it would help. She almost got physical with me when I yelled back. That was the last time I tried that tactic.

At some point around the end of our first year of marriage, I had officially left the "state of intimacy." But I think she was still in it with me. She just had a hot temper and the sexual aversion, but we still did everything together from the moment we got off work. Never did we go "do our own thing."

Our first year of marriage was the hardest. We've gotten much better since then. Her temper isn't as bad as it was then either.

Sorry for the long post again.

We only go out on a date once a month. We always go to one of her favorite restaurants.

I realize this is a problem. I love my work and I'll admit I use it as an escape from my wife. But it also is very demanding as well.

Prospect of enjoyment is what put us on this downward spiral, but once my love bank was empty, I probably greatly reduced my deposits that resulted in lesser emotional attachment to me.

This is a hard thing to turn around for the following reasons:

1. I'm sensitive
2. She needs conversation, but I can only take so much conversation because they typically lead to talks about something I did wrong or something she doesn't want me to do again.
3. She always has a plan and goals. If something disrupts her plan, I typically want to run away and hide because it is not fun to be around her.
4. I'm not sure if she would take the time to do the overcoming sexual aversion activities. She has little patience for anything in life. And she has no interest in adding sex back into our marriage.

Really the only starting point I think I can have is setup more dates. If I get her out of the house, then she's less likely to be focused on managing the house and the kids and I disrupting her plans, which causes her to make withdraws from my love bank.

On a side note, something jumped out at me on the sexual aversion article. Dr. Harley writes: "...even a climax is also unpleasant."

My wife is usually not enjoying sex until she reaches this phase that seems like right before climax. She admits she enjoys sex in that "in-between" phase.

On another note...My wife does initiate sex and has no problem when she intentionally want to conceive. She did so for both my daughter and son. Both were planned on specific months and she was on that schedule. She new the exact days and she initiated. As soon as we conceived, she immediately went back to withholding sex.

This also has generated some resentment on my part because it seems like she can have sex for procreation, but she doesn't want to use it as a why to stay emotionally connected to me.

While sex is a release for me, since I'm a guy, I'm completely over a goal of trying to get a frequency for release. I'm just trying to get to once a week to maintain an emotional connection to my wife. When we go two+ months without sex, I become withdrawn. I don't even think of my wife as "my wife." More like an ex-girlfriend turned friend, but I'm still attracted to her...with no emotional bond. It just feel down right strange.

Have you considered that your wife doesn't want sex because 1 date per month isn't enough to feel connected? Did you read about the Policy of Undivided Attention? It sounds as if you and W spend a lot of time together but it is rarely focused on one another.

Well thank goodness! It would be incredibly poor judgement to put on her to do list 'have sex to become emotionally connected tonight' - Very unsexy and it wouldn't work anyway! Not for most women.

If that worked, prostitutes would fall in love with customers. Now I have heard of men falling in love with call girls, but sex doesn't do anything towards creating love in women. Usually quite the opposite if they are not emotionally bonded.

Women need to feel an emotional bond FIRST before lovemaking. It will require 15hours UA time a week meeting the needs of conversation, affection and fun recreation. There is no fuel in the female sex drive tank without that level of bonding.

She needs to be having regular dates and to be in love with you. If that were to happen she would be unable to keep her hands off you. fuel tank full!

This is why Dr H encourages men to be the ones who start the needs meeting exercise. Just like you would have done during courtship - not expecting any kind of sexual feeling or response until a real and true bond existed.

You dated her before marriage! These days the two of you don't leave the house.

You understand that this is not a fun, romantic or sexual environment for women right?

Women are whole brain thinkers who cannot close off the influences of their environment. It is much easier for men to pretend they are not in a child-rearing, work-related environment when they want sex.

Hopeless, in reading your posts I am getting a hopeless feeling because it seems like you are looking for reasons why your situation is not the same, rather than looking for solutions. I need you to focus on what I said before:

Women need 2 things to desire sex: the prospect of enjoyment and an emotional attachment to the partner.

She doesn't have either. She stopped having sex with you because she doesn't enjoy it. Additionally, you don't spend enough undivided attention time together to sustain a marriage. You go out alone 2 hours per month. No one could fall in love much less sustain romantic love on 2 hours per month. She has surely fallen out of love with you.

The GOAL of this program is to create romantic love. When women are in love, even if sex is not a top need, they do desire sex with their spouse.

This program can solve your marriage problems, but you need to sell it to her. I would start first by reading the articles and two of the books, Lovebusters and His Needs, Her Needs. It will give you a completely new paradigm of marriage and show you how to turn this around. Learn the program and then you can sell it to her.

Sex before bed and in the morning... um not really applicable in most marriages.



One date wouldn't be enough of course. And if a month goes by before date #2..she would lose the teeny tiny start of a bond completely in the interim.

Another alarming factor is that when she makes complaints, you seem to view this as some sort of problem to avoid rather than an opportunity to solve her problem, listen and bond with her. If you are ignoring her complaints then I can't see how you expect any sexual connection with her at all.

It's as though you think women have an internal desire for sex regulated by hormones - like you do. It's just not the case. It is regulated by environment and bonding - things you can control much more easily than her hormones!

Sex does not create an emotional attachment for women. yuck. You need to read the article I posted to understand how women are wired. [how a man can get the sex he needs]

You cannot expect your wife to respond to sexual stimulus like you do.

You do not even like your wife, but because of testosterone, and your PA need for her body, you can still conjure up desire.

How on earth do you expect her to do the same - when you do not even like her company?

Dates and doing fun things is the obvious answer to enjoying each others' company more.

As is actioning her complaints!

I am guessing that you are respected in your job because you respond quickly and efficiently (and cheerfully) to complaints?

Hopeless usually the first step in marriagebuilders is to eliminate the lovebusters. I take it you avoid your wife because of anger and disrespect? She is using very poor tactics to get your attention. Simply introducing her to this program could get her the attention she craves without having to beat you round the head.

It's linear, you see and sex is at the bottom of the list.

1. If the disrespect and anger were eliminated - you could talk to her respectfully about her complaints and you could CHOOSE to do something about them.
2. She would be able to sincerely admire you for choosing to help her with her problems.
3. You would enjoy spending time recreationally outside of the house with her.
4. The more time she spends bonding with you, the more her desire would increase.
5. She would not only submit to sex, but at this point she would have her own desire back and need release for her own purposes.

Think how you would sell her on this program and make it about wanting to be around her more on dates.

I am sure she judges you quite harshly for your lack of interest in her, while maintaining an interest in her body. Most women find that very offensive.

So choose your sales pitch carefully. I am sure she would also be horrified to hear you need the non-physical relationship to be better - but she needs to know.

I feel like I am being drowned out here with all these posts.

Hi MelodyLane,

You are not being drowned out by the other posts. I read everything you wrote. Also, I want you to know the time you invested on this thread is making a difference. I have read all the articles you suggested and I've now watched the his needs and both part I and II of her needs. Continuing to dig into the other resources. I'm liking Dr. Harley's stuff. It is both practical and supports the complexity of marriage.

I am exploring solutions. I made a lot of connections last night and during my travels today.

It might seem like I'm looking for reasons why your situation is not the same, but really I was explaining the back story for those following the forum to help folks have details to suggest solutions.

I believe the sex topic has distracted from solution and I still think there has been miscommunication surrounding it.

For example, in response to my comment regarding my resentment toward my wife for suddenly being able to have sex when she wants another child, but withholding it when we are not trying to conceive, Indiegirl said:



I realize my wife isn't using sex to become emotionally connected. But she knows it is how I stay emotionally connected to her. So my resentment is due to the fact that she withholds it, knowing it is driving us apart, but suddenly she is ready to hop into bed when it's time to make a baby. And this sex to have a baby didn't make much of a deposit in my bank because she did not express desire for me, rather a very matter of fact approach of it is time to have sex today because she is likely to conceive at that point in her cycle. If she could, she would probably rather take a pill to conceive vs. having sex.

Also, I think some on the thread think it is just the act of sex that draws me closer to my wife. It isn't. In fact, we've had sex and it has resulted in a withdraw from my bank when she says things like "are you almost done?" When that happens, it would have been better if we never had sex in the first place. The deposit I received from my pleasure, release of tension and enjoying her body is immediately and completely withdrawn from my account, plus an additional withdraw. It is devastating.

What makes a deposit in my love bank is my wife's sexual desire FOR ME. It is an off the chart deposit in my love bank when she tells me she has desire for me and initiates sex. And it is an even great deposit when she expresses during sex and after that I fulfilled her sexual need.

But I think I'm continuing to distract from working toward the solution because both of you comment most on the sex aspects of what I'm writing, when I was providing it as context.

I made a mistake in my original post of going on and on about the sex issue. Really I should have kept it to one or two lines. Implying that my wife's sexual desire for me is how I emotionally connect with her, and she won't meet me half way in building our marriage in that department. And left it at that.

Let's get back to the title of this thread "Help: I Don't Like Being Around My Wife."

I'll start a new post so we can move on from the sex focus, but you can reply to this if you feel like it needs to be addressed again.

Hopeless, you don't need to start a new post; you need to read the advice we are giving you. We are commenting on the sexual issue because it is the canary in the mine and is an important indicator of her emotional detachment and sexual aversion. This is what we have tried to explain to you.

I want you to read my posts and it doesn't seem like you have. I will repost them.

So let's leave sex out of this post completely. Like Indiegirl said, that comes way later once we rebuilding the emotional bond as outlined by MelodyLane.

So I started this thread because I felt guilt and stuck because I don't like being around my wife. But I love her and want to rebuild our marriage.

The cycle I'm stuck in is giving my wife my undivided attention and having conversation puts my love bank in the negative territory. Because both conversations and helping her lead to her making remarks that imply I'm doing things wrong or frustrating her.

But I need this 15 hours to have conversations to rebuild our marriage.

The good news is sometimes she really isn't angry or frustrated with me. I'm misinterpreting her tension as frustration with me, rather she is focused and simply tense that things are not going as planned or as quickly as she would like. She's either just trying to get things done or correct things in her environment that are out of place.

So any advice on how to manage a situation where I need to have conversations with my wife to rebuild our marriage, but as I'm making deposits during these conversations, she is making massive withdraws from my bank account.

MelodyLane, my next post will be my solution, but please feel free to offer alternatives. I had an epiphany last night.

Did you read this?

Let us lead the conversation.

Hopeless,

I see so much here that looks so familiar and I do have a few thoughts.

Firstly, I do think what you've gone through is difficult to appreciate if you're not a man in your shoes. My marriage was nearly the same at the outset. I don't think someone who hasn't been through that experience as a male understands how disappointing it is.

We had sex a handful of times before marriage (both of us initiating at different times) and could hardly keep our hands off each other...it was a real challenge for us because we felt it was morally wrong, but we tried hard. But something changed in my wife in the weeks leading up to the wedding and she seemed to become more detached. The wedding night, we tried but it was hurting her and so we promptly stopped. I was pretty crushed, but I was more concerned that I didn't ruin our wedding night for her, and so I just held her and we fell asleep, and next day went out and did recreational activities. I didn't ever pressure her into it though, because if she was hurting I could tell and I was not going to just hurt her. Blah, that's my story, we continued from there looking for medical solutions and of course that didn't work. She got upset and clammed up any time I would raise the issue and so I just avoided it and became resentful (which lead to serious lovebusters later on). Your story sounds very similar.

That is incredibly hard to deal with as a man. Though I didn't understand the concepts here at the time, even understanding them now I wonder why my ex wife followed through with the wedding if she wasn't in love with me or had already developed some sexual aversion to me. I certainly would not have been cruel enough to marry her anyways if I felt that way about her. I understand men create this issue but at some point if it's happening on the wedding night and you're already avoiding sex out of moral principle, a man can only feel deceived. We can't read minds and we certainly would not want to marry someone who felt that way about us because it would not make any sense.

NOW...feeling more validated about your hurt and history and such can't help you here. I sympathize with you but sympathy won't fix anything here. It's like Narcissus staring into the reflecting pool. It's self pity, and it's bottomless. I lived 7 years of it and that attitude made me a bad husband in a few important areas.

The people here have a track record of fixing situations with sexual aversions and I would advise you with the utmost urgency to throw away everything you "already know" about this subject and start from scratch with the MB principles and advice you've already received here.

My ex and I spent so much time on trying to fix this mechanically: reading articles on asexuality or boosting female sex drive, her trying all sorts of different supplements she found or books she had researched, me looking into massages and different popular turn-on's for women in Men's Health, etc...all thinking about this subject the way men do, from the standpoint of hormones and touch. It's popular thinking on this subject but it didn't work and the literature here makes a lot more sense to me.

The articles Melody linked are a great start, and from what I understand the 20 hours Undivided Attention and eliminating love busters are also things you must focus on like a laser to turn this around.

If you're looking for reasons why your wife is cruel/unusual/asexual which many male posters in this situation seem to come here looking for, you might as well file for divorce and not continue waiting. Because you'll never fix the issue that way.

I ended up divorced because of an affair, but I do truly wish I would have found the resources here first and given them a full throttled run for 6 months or so (just to know I had tried them), and I didn't even have any kids to fight for. You've already been waiting this long and the material on love busters and undivided attention will make you a much better partner no matter what happens here so there is no reason not to go all in and try it for 6 months.

If you give it an honest go and and nothing changes after 6 months, you can always divorce. A sexless marriage is not a Biblical marriage and if you have truly cleaned up your side of the street, I don't think anyone would hold it against you for checking out at that point. SF is going to be a very high EN for almost any man.

I can so very much relate to feeling puzzled or baffled at one time (as well as stuck) which you seem to indicated. I say get educated, there's so much to soak in here. I don't worry at all about this issue going forward because of what I've learned here. Once you identify the places where you know you are making mistakes (and how to stop making them), you'll feel the same way.

Posting again for emphasis:

I've always know my solution to rebuilding my marriage is "conversation" or "quality time/undivided attention to my wife."

That's what she needs. So I need to increase that, but doing so without causing massive withdraws for me, otherwise I just can't emotionally hold it together. Thus the title of this thread: Help - I don't like being around my wife.

I had an epiphany last night. Our relationship changed for the worse immediately after marriage. No joke, after a nearly four year good dating relationship, I thought I made a huge mistake marrying my wife by week 2 of our marriage.

What changed? Our environment.

No, Indiegirl, my wife and I were not doing romantic dates before we got married. We were boring and home bodies. But we were in love and having to do everything in our power to resist having sex. And most of our dating relationship we were failing at restraining from per-maritial sex. Many of our days consisted of, eating lunch and dinner with our family. And just hanging out and talking with our family or each other.

Then at night. We would sit in an upright position (maybe my arm would be around her) and watch TV and talk, waiting for our parents to go to bed. Once we thought our parents were asleep, we would have sex. Many times my wife made the first move.

I'm getting of topic with the sex, but again I'm giving you CONTEXT.

Here is my Epiphany. I honestly think she is just very focused on home making. Prior to marriage, her focus was on school and spending time with me and her family. That's it. The house was managed completely by our parents.

About a month ago I realized I love going to my in-laws for the weekend. I have a great time with my wife. Instead of her barking at me, we are usually having nice conversations with each other and her family. She is so much more relaxed. Not to bring up sex again, but it has a much higher likelihood of happening at my in-laws vs our own house (really gross if you think about it).

The most toxic environment for us is working on a home improvement project together in our house.

So solution #1 is look for opportunities to get my wife out of the house. She loves having a house and home making, but it is not the place to build our marriage. Ironic, huh? So you name it, dinners out, activities, dates, weekend get-a-ways and even hanging out at the in-laws. Our conversations are always much more pleasant when she isn't in Suzy homemaker on a mission mode.

Solution #2: I'm going to start studying all her projects in the home. Because when we go out and have conversation, it is always about her to-do list, what she is sewing, decorating, party planning, etc. All her self-imposed deadlines. I'm sure you are ready to propose me helping her. I assure you that is a bad idea. She has a very specific idea and way of doing things and when I try to help, it is not the right way and she lets me know and I feel inadequate. Big withdraw from my love bank. But I know I can talk to her about it.

Solution #3: I'll cut back on working from 9 PM until 11 PM. We have two kids, one of which is 6 weeks old. So we obviously have to spend a lot of time in the house. I think I'm going to ask the girl next door to baby sit after we put the kids to bed and go on walks outside. If we can't do that, I'll try and spend time around my wife and talk to her more.

Solution #4: I'm going to start recording every interaction with my wife that results in a withdraw from my love bank. We just had one last night. I think most of them are misunderstandings. Here in the recent situation. She called me and said to get Skype up so I could open my father's day present in front of my daughter. The Web cam wasn't working. While I was trying to fix it, she kept asking what was taking so long. She kept saying I needed to get it to work soon because she needed to put my daughter to bed. I switched to my other computer, I'm getting tense because my wife keeps asking what's taking so long and then started to say just forget it. I said I was sorry and that I knew she was frustrated with me, but I couldn't get it to work. She said, no, I'm not frustrated or upset with you. It's just late and I need to put our daughter to bed. There is just no more time for you to get the Camera working.

This whole episode took about 9 mins. I always feel rushed and like I can't do things fast enough for my wife. She's on a mission and I'm just too slow. But I'm finding she not upset with me, she's just moving on because I can deliver on her schedule.

So here are my solutions to help create positive conversations that I enjoy being around my wife when having:

#1 Get Her Out of the House More - The home is where withdraws from my bank happen.
#2 Show interest in her home making interest and talk with her about them. She likes to ask for my input and ideas, but usually says its a dumb idea and why after I offer it. That's okay. I need to toughen up and realize that's my wife. Just her personality.
#3 Conversations after the kids are in bed - getting a sitter to watch the kids while we go on short walks when possible.
#4 Record when I think she is upset with me or when I'm hurt by her interactions with me and start to figure out patterns of her really just being in a hurry or focused vs. upset with me.

Thoughts?

If you can step away from the blogging for a moment and read this article, we can get going on a solution: How to Create Your Own Plan to Resolve Conflicts and Restore Love to Your Marriage

THAT is the solution. We need you to put aside your own ideas, including blogging, and focus on this plan. How about it?


This idea is exactly on track and is one of the most important basic concepts. You seem to understand that time spent at home is very different from time spent out of the house and you are correct about that. As such, Dr. Harley recommends 4 - 4 hour dates outside of the house per week. It should be scheduled at a time when you are the most energetic, typically from 5-6 to 8-9. We sit down on Sunday afternoons and schedule our dates for the upcoming week using this worksheet:

UA time worksheet

Your dates should be the most enjoyable, pleasant time of your week. It should be spent meeting the 4 intimate emotional needs of affection, conversation, recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment.

While this is probably one of the most critical concepts of the program, because the program doesn't work without it, it is just one of the 10 basic concepts. The other concepts are important, such as eliminating love busters and creating enjoyable, pleasant conversation.

These articles describe the importance of undivided attention:

The Policy of Undivided Attention

Caring for Children Means Caring for Each Other

Honestly from a woman's perspective, the amount of times you talk about sex suggests she is likely repulsed at this point. Any single moment you do anything, she likely believes you are only doing it for sex. She must feel like a piece of meat. I would hate my own husband for that.

Can you learn to stop this?

Hopeless, my past can relate a lot to you and your wife's case. Me and my husband were best friends. We were never on romantic dates prior to marriage. We were best buddies who did a lot of homework together and got along real well. We abstained from pre-marital sex and then I had an awful first experience on marriage night, which went worse and worse. I did everything I could to avoid sex, so I understand what your wife is going through.
You said you work from home and she is a home stay mom, so you are together all day. That doesn't mean you are "emotionally together". I spent the first six years of my marriage ALL day with him, going to classes, doing homework, doing chores under the same roof. Guess what happened next? I shamefully started chatting with my ex, then actually tried to leave my husband, my husband went to get me back, but some years later he got revenge, then I did everything I could to rebuild us. Nothing worked. A woman can't win a husband back. You can read about that over in different posts. But a husband can. A husband can make his wife fall in love. We didn't move anywhere UNTIL he, the husband, started implementing MB concepts. That means two basic things... meeting my needs and not love busting me.

My husband many times said to me he wasn't a romantic person, that he wouldn't be, because that was not him. He said he would never say again he was in love with me. My husband started around a month ago bringing flowers, sending a card, telling me I am special, I look pretty, hugging me, taking me out on dates. He finally said I am in love with you. I tell you, I really thought I had a sexual problem. Guess how it ended? Today, SF=100% for both of us.

Summarize: Meet her needs. Affection is usually a woman's number 1 need. Be romantic. Buy her flowers, make a surprise for her, give her a just because I love you card, hug her, kiss her. Make her fall in love with you, as in romantically in love with you. Win your wife's heart. Start from there. Then, she can join you in MB, so she stops love busting you. Go, be romatic as creative as you can, and... go on many dates. Its expensive with the babysitting, I know, I have a 2 and a 4 year old, so I know, but its worth it.

Check the 175 romantic ideas on this site. Example: Put rose petals on the bed.
Have you read the love busters section? and the emotional needs section on this website? I get she is love busting you a lot, and you feel uneasy, but maybe after you start your romantic gestures kindly ask her to also read the love busters section and write down your love busters.

Can you post a link to the romantic ideas?

Hopeless...on your list of stuff:

#1: Read the list of 175 ideas posted and edit your own list to remove anything that's not JUST the two of you, out of the house, recreational activity. Spending time with your in-laws is not UA. It will not help make love bank deposits.

#2: Don't make assumptions about what people here are/aren't going to tell you. It's disrespectful. You've barely been here and I can tell by your list that you haven't spent much time yet soaking in the information here.

Here's where you should start on how to build pleasant conversation with her:

The friends and enemies of good conversation.

Also, conversation can be your enemy if you are lovebusting her with it. You need to read the book Lovebusters. Everyone finds at least a few things they are doing wrong without realizing it. It is crucial to what you're doing here.

#4: Ditch this idea and replace it with ordering and reading Lovebusters. The camera thing is very odd and I can't see how she wouldn't feel like a lab experiment with you doing that.

You probably have no idea how many different ways you are lovebusting your wife (very normal for men) and reading the book/learning about them will do you a lot more good than recording your own conversations with her. You need an outside perspective (like Dr. Harley's in his book) to effectively critique what is happening here.

Axslinger85,

I'm so sorry to hear about your divorce. Hope you heal quickly.

A few women on this thread really misunderstood me and were disturbed by how much I talked about sex. But as you mentioned, it is very confusing for a man when a woman that previously was all over him completely stops allowing sexual intimacy from occurring.

This has had a major impact on my life. 10 years into the marriage and it obviously still has a damaging effect. I've made huge improvements in my attitude.

At one point I though my wife simply played a cruel trick. I thought played up her physical attraction to me and was faking the "can't resist having sex behaviors" in our dating relationship. Then once we were married, on our honeymoon, she completely shut down.

I would replay this in my mind and started to think it was an intentional plan on her part.

I'm sure women reading this want to reply that her emotional needs were not being met by me, but I assure you this was not the case. She was having a blast on her honeymoon and we were so excited to draw our nearly 4 year long distance dating relationship to a close as a married couple.

It took me a long time to realize it was really two sexual encounters that went wrong on our honeymoon, that kicked started a sexual aversion...something we never experience in our relationship in the past. Knowing my wife, she probably wanted everything to be perfect in the bedroom on our honeymoon and got tense about performing vs. per-marriage, we were trying to refrain from sex, but couldn't fight the temptation.

Thanks for the ideas and pointers.

AlienGirl,

Thank you for sharing your story and congratulations on restoring your marriage.

Despite my screen name, I do believe the MB program can unlock this crazy mess in my marriage.

I have a few good things going in my marriage. One of which is my wife always me around. I know wives that love when their husbands get out of the house...the more they are away the better. I think that would be challenging to rebuild in that type of situation.

Before my wife and I got married, her favorite thing to do was to just be with me. I think being a mom and a home maker might have pushed me down a few spots, but it is still a high priority that I'm around. She even says she doesn't like how we need to split up to run errands now that we have kids and she wishes we could do everything together. Unfortunately, it just isn't practical. But I have a big problem. I love being able to run errands by myself without her.

Because when I'm around my wife, she's typically making withdraws from my love bank. When I get away from her, I feel like I can recover a bit and actually build up my love bank again just by being away from her.

This 8 day business trip has been wonderful. I feel like my love bank is fairly full and I could take a lot of hits from my wife right now. Which is perfect, because I need to engage in conversation to try turn things around.

Also, I'm going to go in with the attitude of "she's not frustrated or angry with me...she's just focused and direct...and I'm not helping in her mission of accomplishing her goals."

I beg your pardon? You were not misunderstood at all. You don't understand the dynamics behind sexual desire and you don't understand how to fix it. You do realize that myself and others have posted extensively on your thread and you seem to be ignoring it. Just so you know, I post here in my very valuable, limited time. I would appreciate a response to my post.


This happens in MOST marriages and we have a plan to overcome it, if you will listen.


Please stop with the arrogance and read our posts.You have no earthly idea what happened because you don't understand the dynamics of marriage. You especially don't understand how women think.

We have posted Dr. Harley's solutions to these very common problems, but if you won't listen, nothing will change.

How about taking the cotton out of your ears and putting it in your mouth? Put aside your own failed ideas about marriage and listen. Otherwise, I will have to conclude you are not serious and will move on.

I spent an enormous amount of time carefully posting a plan for you this morning and instead of reading the plan and responding, you arrogantly make a comment about women and say nothing about this post.

Can I remind you, in your blind arrogance, that I have a fantastic, loving marriage that is fully recovered .........AND YOU DON'T. You are the fat man who can't lose weight who asks the slim people for help and then arrogantly dismisses the advice. How smart is that?

I assure you that you are quite wrong.

Hi, Hopeless. I'm a man. Have you listened to the Marriage Builders Radio show?

Every man who shows up here thinks he's doing all he can do. Usually they are wrong about that. Listen closely to the advice because some people have been learning Dr. Harley's methods for five, ten, fifteen years here, and had the chance to apply it to thousands of couples. It works when followed!

Hopeless, listen to MelodyLane and follow instructions. Give it a shot. It'll work. She knows this plan backwards and forwards.

As long as you think you can possibly state that on your wife's behalf, you are not even close to understanding the program here.

For heaven's sake, again, you dismiss the screaming hint that you are not meeting her ENs and go back to detailing sexual problems.

Can't help you if you have all the answers and are always right. Which is it?

If you haven't noticed, there are not just women responding to you that are giving you information on how to turn this around. There is no good ol boy network here of men that will give you a head nod of understanding that wife just won't put out even though you apparently are doing everything perfectly. Ax is not going to tell you anything different than any of us women are. We ALL advise on Dr Harley's program.

For instance (and there are many more I could quote here), this entire paragraph is what Dr Harley refers to as a DJ - disrespectful judgement. You have single handedly solved the reason why your wife is having a sexual aversion, without any input from her. You are telling us how your wife wanted everything perfect in the bedroom...blah blah blah. You do not KNOW why her sexual aversion has occurred, nor do you know how she feels, only she knows that. You also do not know if her EN's are being met, only she can tell you that. This is a huge LB and probably one you commit often, based on your thread. You can learn to stop this, if you follow the program.

Oh, Hopeless, your case is not at all hopeless, you need to read what people are telling you and apply it. Melody is pretty much an expert poster, goes straight to the point. Listen to Ax too, he is talking from personal experience. And other people posting, are posting because they care to give their time to post because of what they have learned. Listen to what people are saying to you. I don't tend to post on other people's thread, but I was drawn to post here because of the way you both were 24/7 together, best buddies with no romantic predating background and her having sexual aversion.
1) How do you know her emotional needs are being met? With the busy life around, that is something we seldom consciously analyze about our own self, much less can you know about hers. Has she stopped to consciously analyze her needs, and has given you the results? How do you know you aren't love busting her. You have a lot of love busters that you are not even aware of, that can be seen in your writing. EN and love busters are two basic important factors to turn your marriage around and set a proper environment for SF for her.
2) Sexual aversion, I know about that. I really do. I too had a really bad experience during honeymoon, and believe me, I was too having a great time, enjoying the beach and dancing with my husband, my buddy and best friend. The sex got as bad as it being impossible, literally, involuntarily impossible, and if her sexual aversion is as bad as mine was, you understand what I mean by impossible. I tried, as in tried, felt that was my "duty", but it got to a point it simply wasn't possible. And you are right about one thing, when OM came along in my story, completed all my needs I still had a sexual aversion, I was hesitant about sex, although EN were being fulfilled, but I did start to desire sex. I got back with my husband, who was now completing my EN, I learned to relax, and be able to have sex the once a month duty part. But I wasn't enjoying sex. Completing emotional needs and eliminating love busters is a must do in your list before your wife overcomes sexual aversion. After my husband started completing my needs and starting to overcome love busters through a rigid program he learned here exactly, I then paid more attention to resolving this other topic. I came across this website a section on sexual fulfillment, check it out, it explains about sexual aversion describes a solution. Read it. I was on the radio show, I was sent the book LOVE BUSTERS, because actually of love busting problems we had, and I had read chapter 13 specifically. It talks about resolving conflicts over sex. It talks about a story of Grace and Ben, and how Grace was taught by her mother that sex had to be painful and didn�t enjoy sex. It references a book on woman�s orgasm. After I saw real changes (which are very recent by the way) in him, I decided to do a lot of reading on this subject. My husband did too. That was the second part of resolving SF issue. And that gave us the final boost in recovering a completely dysfunctional marriage, and we still have a lot to do. But SF didn�t start to even get close to resolving without point 1 (EN and love busters).
3) Woman and men are brain wired differently. Don�t forget that. Don't assume.
Hopeless, you have more that a lot of hope. There is a solution. Read it. There is a lot to read here, and in the books. Wish you best of luck with your case.

Hopeless - I'm fairly new here too, but I can tell you this stuff works pretty well. I've been tremendously busy at work the past week - (interview in 1 hour) during the day and with my fam during the evenings so I haven't updated in a few days, but you can see my thread in this forum.

DW and I have been working on this stuff for only two weeks, but have made tremendous progress. I'm talking to her a lot more, quit being controlling (mostly - still working on it), I'm more relaxed after work instead of bringing home the stress, trying to find ways to have more fun with her, and she is giving SF nearly every day. Last night she even woke me up at 3 am for it, which hasn't happened in over a year.

Hi MelodyLane,

It does appear that I ignored your last posts, but in reality, my wifi access package ran out in my hotel and my last post did not come through.

I did want to log in here again to express my deepest appreciation for all your assistance and the time you put into this. I do assure you it is making a difference. And I have listened.

When I get home, the 15 hours of undivided attention will start to happen. I'll continue to work through the love busters items. I'm not going to impose any of my needs on my wife, rather focus on her needs.

This will be blended into the other studies we are currently doing. My wife did promise a list of deposit and withdraw items a week or so ago. I might ask her again if she can deliver on those.

I'm traveling home right now. I probably won't be on the forum again for a while since many things in this post would probably hurt my wife if she read them. I've debated even deleting this account.

The remark on my part about being misunderstood by some on this thread was not directed at you.

I realize some people thought I'm wrong about my wife being in love with my on our honeymoon, but this is coming from people that read a post and made a judgement with no evidence. And I'm not bringing my wife into this discussion online to verify that she was in love with me on our honeymoon.

Again, thank you for everything. I might pop back on some day when my wife isn't around. But that is rare because we are ALWAYS together.

Keep on doing the good work here, MelodyLane. For some of you others, watch being combative with folks seeking help here. Regardless of how arrogant or misguided they are. It could drive folks away from the marriage builder forum.

Take care.

Not sure what you mean by "other studies" but if you plan on adding to, amending, or making up your own "plan," you are wasting your time here. We are here to help you follow the MB program, not to support you in your own plan.


And sometimes that is good thing, though. If someone comes here, is arrogant and misguided and won't listen, they are wasting valuable time that could be spent on others who are here to learn. The moderators typically lock those threads. Our goal is not to keep people here at all cost, but to help those that are serious about learning this program.


This misses the point entirely so I am not sure why it was brought up again. Like I mentioned previously [several times] women need TWO THINGS to desire sex: an emotional attachment and the prospect of enjoyment. If either ingredient is missing, she will not desire sex.

Any way, we are here to help you with Marriage Builders if you are serious. If you are here to blog about your own plan, you are in the wrong place. Best wishes......

The problem is not that people are "harsh", it is that you do not allow people to be honest. I strongly suspect your wife cannot not be honest with you, for fear of being DJd or LBd.

A wife cannot be in love when she is treated like this. Until you are willing to learn, people cannot help.

The comments about your honeymoon statements are about this:

It's a basic foundational principle in MB that you do not speak for how your spouse is feeling or felt about something. You let them speak for themselves, and you listen carefully. You do not make assumptions (no matter how reasonable) about those things either. IF you size up how well their emotional needs are being met/were met FOR them, you might as well hang it up because the program cannot work like that. You NEED their feedback exclusively in order to meet their needs. You are flying blind otherwise and certain to lovebust them by the truckload out of ignorance, not malice.

The level of alarm that was directed at you about this comment is due to how serious of a problem it is that you are effectively muting your wife in this way. We don't want you to destroy your marriage, which this attitude will. What if your wife simply concluded that you didn't want sex since you are sticking around and paying the bills despite only having it every 7 months? It would bother you, no? Same thing when you speak for her.

I said what I said specifically because it was a very easy way for me to tell you were not very far into your reading. It wasn't a comment about your honeymoon itself.

Hopeless, stay in MB. There is a treasure of information here. It WILL change your lives. You can't really delete your posts here unless the moderators do so for special reasons but go ahead, try out the plan, READ and apply and eventually do share this site with her, as in the info on website, the books, the links, not necessarily You need to post if you are being able to follow fine. If you both run into trouble following the plan, people here can guide you. If she has no idea how you feel, yes, I'd say this post would definitely hurt. There are more effective ways of communicating than by reading what you are writing about your feelings she is unaware of and won't take it good. i don't know what other posters might say about what I will say because I don't think you are allowed to open multiple accounts, but it wouldn't really be multiple accounts if you abandon this one and start a new one.... this AlienGirl display name is actually another account because first post name change because I was told to snoop and I didn't want him to know I was snooping and the next account I opened because we had an incident back then and I didn't want him to read the advises, but there is really no reason for you to hide future posts if you are careful on how you write to explain your point without being disrespectful.... create a MrX and MrsX and you can both post if you run into trouble and it will be actually a shared learning experience.
Anyone, please correct me if I am wrong what I just wrote.

It sounds to me like she married you out of guilt and shame, since she had sex with you and felt like she was "supposed" to marry you.

She is simply not, and very well may never have been attracted to you. She was probably very young at the time she first had sex with you, and felt compelled to commit to you due to her overwhelming feelings and the religious indoctrination she had gone through.

That just is what it is, and there's no way you can make her attracted to you, except via Machiavellian manipulation techniques which will only cause pain for all parties in the long run.

I think this case is a shining example of how religious "purity" culture guilts and shames people into making terrible decisions.

Also, you seem to be somewhat oblivious to human sexual communication and how women think. "My wife doesn't like to talk about sex. I've asked her to do things they way she likes, but it seems to embarrass her and she shuts down completely and won't have sex at all."

Women don't like to TALK about sex. They like to be turned on by a man, not talk about sex like some clinical biologist. The way you talk about sex using words like "intercourse" and "the act" makes you sound very clinical, and a clinical approach to sex is a huge turnoff for women.


I'm truly sorry for both of you.

Is there a Common Acronyms page or something on MB that defines these terms? What do they mean?

DJ = Disrespectful judgment
LB = Love buster

List of acronyms can be found here:
https://forum.marriagebuilders.com/.../acronyms-abbreviations.html#Post1984040