Her interest is gone ...

[loving hubby]

hi i'm 35 years old and have been married for sixteen years, i love my wife very much and believe she loves me . i'm not sure but i think she thinks sex is over rated to say the least . sometimes she takes the "get on me , get off , then get the hell off me" attitude . i sometimes think i'm no good anymore , i would go to any means to please her . i've asked her several times what would turn her on and she always says "you, you turn me on" well actions speak louder than words .i asked her friends what do they think and they say it's just she has alot on her . well in the past few months i've totaly assumed the cooking (she has cooked twice in the last two months . i have scrubbed the bathrooms , i pick the kids up from school and make sure the boys get their homework done .nothing seemed to change ,so, i thought maybe it was mental stress , i sugested she take time out for herself and go every saturday morning out with her best friend, no help. i asked myself was that i wasn't spending enough "family" time with them . we've been to the beach for a week (my request) to six flags , baseball games , races,and the lake .i don't believe in being controling or demanding because this may get the sex but no true satisfaction .i feel selfish when i try to tell her how i really feel .

i've not always considerate her feelings and have made to many bad mistakes to list but i really would like to have the lover that i had in our younger years . any considerate advice would be a blessing

[WallyLlama]

Well, a good start might be for you to seriously consider the possibility that the changes in her are not something you should be blaming yourself for. I'm not going to pretend to know why she seems to have lost interest in you, your relationship, and the family, but the harsh reality is that it might not have a thing to do with you.

On the other hand, you clearly are "training" her to believe that as long as she does not contribute and gives the appearance of being unhappy and uninterested you'll spoil her rotten and let her do whatever she wants while you take on her responsibilities.

Saying you feel selfish when you tell her how you feel tells the tale, I think. In a non-assertive way she is controlling you.

You have to get off your knees and out of the bathroom and let her know that you're supposed to be partners. If it helps, you might consider that she's not attracted to a wimp and she might actually like it if you "demanded" a little more... passion and caring comes in many forms, you know. You need to care enough about her and your relationship to have some expectations.

[Tessie]

I would have to agree with Wally in the "training" thing. We teach people how to treat us and you bending over backwards to try to make your wife happy doesn't seem to be getting you the desired results.

I have been with my husband for 16 years also and I know that maintaining a healthy and good sex life takes both of us putting forth effort. Your wife has a responsiblity to make sure that your needs are met. In my opinion her not being in the mood or her "just do me and get off" attitude is unacceptable.

You need to sit down and tell her that you expect to have a good sexual relationship and its up to her to find out what is the problem. You seem willing to go above and beyond trying to find out what you can do to make her happy. Perhaps she should see a doctor and have her homone levels checked. If they are fine then its time for her to step it up.

I would if I was you not ask so much but tell her that you are going to have sex and its going to be good. Try a little thinking outside the box. There are tons of ways to spice things up.

To continue in the way you are is only going to promote the problem and make you even more resentful in the end.

Good luck

[loving hubby]

thank you both for your response, they are both very heart felt . see i have reasons for blaming me , i lost for years to drug abuse. iwas totaly emotionaly and physicaly unavailable for two of thse years . as my addiction to prescription meds progressed her heart hardened . at the end i was a ticking time bomb , never physicaly abusive but i was very harsh with the way i spoke to her and the kids . now i know i can't ever take back what i said and done but that was a year and 7 months ago . the tails i still get from her and my wonderful boys break my heart . i went through long HARD withdrawls just to try to rebuild what i had destroyed . i've learned alot about myself , the main thing is i really do have feelings and life is very enjoyable when you don't spend your time trying to escap from reality . does it sound like i'm winning? i am not wanting pitty seriously i want to recapture the youthful loving wife i had in the previous years . i know cheating is wrong and it would destroy things i have worked so hard for . i work with the public , and sometimes attractive women come on to me and i have to work really hard not to respond the wrong way . i wish i could get my wife to pay me this kind of attention . thanks again .

[Tessie]

First let me say congrats on being drug free now. Your explanation explains a lot more about why she is now distant towards you.

But you know what? She is still with you and that must mean she does love you. I would say you have to fogive yourself for the years you screwed up and she needs to forgive you too. Its time to let the past die and begin again.

[experimenter]

I know sometimes if a person has been treated poorly, (I'm not trying to rag on you or anything, I'm just going by what you said about your drug problems and the way you said you behaved in the past) it can take a while for them to feel like they can open up again. I don't know what the situation was or what exactly she did have to deal with while you were getting off the drugs, but she may just be afraid to open up and be like she was, she might be afraid to do that thinking that she might get hurt again? Or maybe she is waiting to see if your behavior will last, meaning that you stay clean etc. Try talking to her. Tell her how much you love her and how much it hurts you to think about the things that happened in the past. Ask her to forgive you, and ask her what she believes needs to happen before she can feel safe or attracted to you the way she used to be. If nothing else, ask her if she would be willing to go to counseling. I think the fact that she is still with says that she doesnt' want to give up on your marriage. That's a good sign. A year and 7 months might seem like a long time to you, but maybe to her, it doesn't seem like it has been very long at all. I don't know if that makes any sense, I hope it does. Good luck.

[oberon]

It only takes one person to mess up a relationship, but it's going to take BOTH of you to fix it. *It sounds to me as if you are trying- and I know your wife may have been through a lot- but what is she doing to help keep your marriage together? * I would suggest some couple's counselling for the both of you. *You need to work on this problem together and sometimes an outside "referee" can help. *It should help you both work toward something instead of dwelling on the past.

Take care.

[loving hubby]

thanks again folks , ya'll are the greatest ! you all have very good points , i have lost alot but gained so much . life is hard and hard to understand sometimes , but it is still good . i think the worst thing for me was the neglect , see i had a very good career , good money security , etc then i ruptured the L4 , L5 disks in my back , had surgery then the meds begin to control every part of me . point being all i was concerned with was escaping from the big crap sandwich life wanted me to eat , well the short of it is i became very selfish. me being a servant at heart this totaly blew everyone who knew me before away . i am now trying a new , less physical career and is going well .

the forgiveness part is not the issue inside myself i know i can't make up for lost time ,or undo the past . i know i am not that person who lived strung out and in the bed ALL day of yesteryears .

she did give up and left me , she said she didn't date but who knows . i did i saw several nice ladies not lokking for anything serious . when she decide that she would like to get to know the person i was trying to be now the person i was seeing ask if i would just come by and perform oral sex on her twice a week . point being , some things i do well in the bedroom .
this is another thing that i have seen no desir from her for me to do . i can't tell you how much i love pleasing a woman this way .

i voluteer at a drug rehab program here in mmy city where i have access to all sorts of psycho doc family theropists etc . they give all kind of reasons for the change theories etc . but i think they try to make it to hard to understand .the points about teaching was brought up by one of them also he said not only did i teach her to be selfish and to neglect me i also taught her to neglect a part of her that she still truley needs.
he also said i did what i HAD to do to put my life back in order
now she has to take responsibility for correcting the things in her life in order for our marriage to survive .

i don't believe in demanding that things get better (no offense to the one who wrote that) because that has gotten me no where in the past , more wounds to heal .

i know time is the best healing tool in the world but it sometimes don't seem she wants to put forth the effort like i do .

thanks again

[loving hubby]

hey guys its not that i can't spell , but typing really sucks and spell check takes to long . forgive me .


........CAN YOU WORK WITH ME ON THIS OR DO I NEED TO CHANGE THIS TO ...........

[WallyLlama]

I'd like to throw one more thing into the mix, so to speak.

I have some years of intimate experience with someone who has a parallel story... years of alcohol abuse that messed up his relationships and his head.

When he decided to "go straight" I decided to "stick with him" and have the wonderful experience of knowing a lot of what happened along the way as well as some of his deepest thoughts and feelings. One of his great "aha's" was the realization that his drinking was largely about his need for approval. Oddly, that realization came some time after he stopped drinking.

As a reasonably well-balanced person now he would tell you that the problem wasn't the booze; it was that it took him a while to figure out that he could control his self-image; it wasn't dependent upon what others thought of him.

That's when he stopped apologizing for being a drunk for a lot of years and he started living. He had to stop seeing himself as a "former alcoholic" before other people stopped seeing him that way.

In other words, it's easy to go from being an addict to being a former addict where your life is all about proving you're not the person you were... at some point you have to break into being the person you are.

He would also tell you that he found it necessary to get away from all his "recovered" alcoholic buddies because they couldn't seem to get where he was going... he also has very little contact with the "professionals" for pretty much the same reason. That may not be right for everybody, but it really worked for him - and I've seen several cases where therapists and professionals have, perhaps unintentionally, kept people locked in an unhealthy identity.

I'm probably over-simplifying this... but it sounds like you wish your wife would see you differently, the way she saw you before your addiction. I'm not suggesting you (or her) deny what happened, but until you move past seeing yourself as a "former addict," it's going to be equally hard for her to see you differently.

My immediate challenge to you is to write a few paragraphs about who you are (or who you are becoming)... leave out any references to drugs or the past... post it here if you'd like (just remember it's a public forum and not everyone will necessarily treat it maturely). Give a copy to your wife.

And while you're at it, stop apologizing for your typing and spelling! You're a "loving hubby" not a former addict or lousy speller!