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 When we go two+ months without sex, I become withdrawn.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