Need help with husband

Hehe, blacksmiths, that's what I always tell my daughter: Your peers
are far more honest than your family

I've been reading along all this time.

I started out on windymindy's side, re whatever her experience was before marriage - what was all this harping about it about, talk about insecure and possessive.

Then I changed. I can only say I pick up a strong dissociation from the feelings of sensuality and love that happen with a good sexual attachment.
What really stopped me, though I'd altered my view already, was Mindy's displeasure with husband feeling her butt. Maybe he is particularly incompetent about butt-feeling...

I've not been in that situation with someone I loved..

on the other hand, I have felt icky, get away from me, about people I haven't loved.

Maybe it's more complicated - there is this power business going on, seemingly from the beginning of the relationship.
We also don't know how much effort and exhaustion (if any) M. has for her work around the house and the raising of the children, and any other work. Still...

Or there could be feelings of being trapped on Mindy's part, possibly related to post partum depression stuff, or just not liking .. everything in her life, so that sex is one possibility for control.

Or not.

I do agree that people have different needs for sex, and know the same person can vary in needs over decades... or even over a few years. But, to me, sex is so important for communication. Well, even if not sex, close holding and talking, or holding and not talking, which doesn't seem to be happening either.

I'll agree with all that WMindy seems very rigid, and can't guess where that comes from. Some kind of defense? Your family was that way, Mindy?

What can I say but the usual answer, not only couples therapy but personal therapy.

Still here, not mad, but thank you for thinking of me as a bitch.

If we worked out a deal, then how am I wrong? He is happy, I'm happy..........what else am I supposed to do?

Is he happy, though?

Are you, for that matter?

Reading the flipside of LuckyLad has been interesting.

Windymindy,

Please go back and read what I posted the other day. I thought that I had a wonderful marriage. Sure, the sex was great in the biginning but definitely slowed down a bit after kids. At night, I was tired from work and coming home to feed and bathe kids. I kept thinking if he would just help me in getting them to bed then we could have alone time. Eventually I felt that the sex was less than an intimate experience but more of an escape and pleasuring of him. I wish I had read the signs but I blew it off as a normal cycle that married couples go through. He left me with no warning. I found he was having an affair and he is still with her today! OUCH. He is a non-confrontational person so he had never expressed his feelings to me. He kept it all to himself so I was absolutely shocked that he no longer loved me.
Sex is an important part of a healthy relationship, communicate with your husband and see if you can come up with a true compromise where you are both satisfied.
The divorce was the most painful thing I've ever experience in my life. I was in this marriage for the long run, I thought our family would always be whole and now it's been ripped apart. I know we'd still be together if he were willing to seek help and talk about our issues. He definitely made a choice to emotionally disengage rather than work things out. He mentally left me years before I even knew he was unhappy.
Don't let this happen to you.

WM, don't be offended; it happens pretty frequently that new members to the site post a relationship question and then disappear, never to return, if people aren't taking the view they were hoping for.

It did seem like you were gone, and we've seen that happen here so often-- it's too easy to jump to a conclusion when you've seen a pattern play out numerous times. I really don't think anyone meant to imply they thought you were a bitch for leaving.

Personally, I felt bad, thinking that you'd felt picked on and decided to leave. I'm glad to see you're still around. There is no one posting on this thread who doesn't wish you the best in your marriage.

I'm not mad, just haven't posted because I'm reading and thinking and talking to husband. I'm also trying to look from the outside-in. Maybe I'm the one with the problem.

Husband did say something that caught me off guard a little bit. About 2 years ago he bought me Dr. Lauras book The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands. He listens to her often and agrees with her alot. I just read a little bit of the book and did not like it at all. She thinks it is all up to the woman, and if the marriage isn't working or isn't happy then it is the womans fault. I ordered some books for BOTH of us to read that will help our marriage, since counceling is out.

Has anyone else read her books? Listen to her? What do you think?

ehBeth wrote "Reading the flipside of LuckyLad has been interesting." I don't understand this. Inside joke or something? Are you from London? Are you saying my husband is not lucky? Just wondering.

Personally, I think Dr. Laura is a crackpot. I'd no more take advice from her about marriage than I would from my gardener. And HE doesn't speak English!

I was in a marriage which sounds much like yours and it takes two to make the situation. One to create it and one to tolerate it. Sadly, by the time I figured that one out, it was too late to save it.

windymindy, LuckyLad is/was a poster whose posts read like what I imagine your husband's posts would sound like.

I think blacksmithn's very right. Takes two to make a marriage, and two to break it.

Relationship maintenance can be hard work, and I think it needs/deserves a lot of attention.

Oh, I think Dr Laura is AWFUL. I'm not at all surprised by what you're saying about what her book is like, that's just what I'd have expected. I wouldn't go by her advice.

Really, don't take the view that it must be your problem, or it must be your husband's problem. I doubt there are very many troubled relationships where all the blame is on one partner or the other, unless one is abusive.

That reminds me of my parents' relationship too-- my mom tended to either completely blame my dad, or veer over to completely blaming herself. Neither view was productive; one way she was too mad at my dad to work things out, and the other way she felt so bad about herself that she couldn't work on things either. It took her a long time to work on realizing that both of them made mistakes (too late for their marriage by the time she did).

I think one of the best things you can do is just get a dialogue going between you and your husband, which it sounds like you're doing. Keep working on it, and keep posting here even just to talk if you need to.

Totally agree.

By the way, I forget if this came up before sorry, WHY is counselling not an option?

Dr Laura may be a crackpot but her advice has a little bit of truth to it.

A relationship takes work. The only person you can control in the relationship is yourself. From the wife's point of view she is the one that has to make the marriage happy and work. But from the husband's point of view HE is the one that has to make it happy and work. Relationships are about giving more than you get. If your job in the relationship isn't to try to make the other person happy then what is the relationship?

Paradox--

Very sensible. Love is a game for two to play at.

Windymindy, I have not read everything, but enough to get the point. I have listened to Dr. Laura and still do on average of twice/month. She is not a quack nor an idiot. I don't believe 100% of what she says, but close. You've got to really listen and you'll get her basic message, which I think is that if a woman gives a man a good time in bed he will give her a good time outside of the bedroom, IF he is a good MAN. You must have a man first.

Get some books from Harley about His needs/ Her needs. My wife & I are reading them now. Today we made a HUGE break through. I think I understand women now, not everything, but much closer. Keep an open mind and WANT to love your man. Talk, it will be slow at first, and keep talking as you both will open up.

Good luck, don't be stubborn, keep an open mind, and treat others as you would want them to treat you.

Are you serious that you think that is her basic message? Do you believe that??

I don't believe that it is one partners job to make sure to have a good time in bed. IMO it comes from both people in the relationship, so if one is lacking there may be potential for a problem.

Once or twice a month?
Something is wrong in ur relationship. Be careful, if ur man wants sex more often than u do and plus he does not trust u, he will end up having affair and u will be to blame.

I run across this forum post whilst searching for a way to improve the marriage between my wife and I.... And oh, God, it stopped me in my tracks!

The information within this post is better than gold, for those Husbands struggling with a near non-existant sex life with a long time partner. It has proved to me that one (Hubby) can take action to counteract, and that other Females would sympathise with the Husbands side.

Having read through this post, line by line, over and over, I am totally taken back by the simularites with the issues between my wife and I... My wife blames me 100% for all the problems and that I have to change, not her. I was really beginning to believe that this was the case... no more...

Windymindy, have a think about this and post an answer please...
What if your husband came home and said that he only 'felt' like going to work, once a day every month, because he felt like it... And then actually did it! Think about how you are going to feed & clothes your family. Wouldn't you be frustrated with your husband and think about how nasty he is to do this, several times everyday...

Comments?

WRONG! Maybe you do need to change. We could all be better people sometimes.

[quote="FrustratedHubby"]
Windymindy, have a think about this and post an answer please...
What if your husband came home and said that he only 'felt' like going to work, once a day every month, because he felt like it... And then actually did it! Think about how you are going to feed & clothes your family. Wouldn't you be frustrated with your husband and think about how nasty he is to do this, several times everyday...

Comments?[/quote]

Well, you seem to have one thing in common with windymindy:
For you, too, sex seems to be something to bargain with, something that HAS to be done.

I don't think windymindy should sleep with her husband more often than she feels like. The thought of sex as a duty is enough to put me quite off it...
However, if his and her expectations on this subject don't match, she might have to accept the consequences.
And this is not a threat, it's just the way relationships go.
If you cannot find a compromise that suits both partners (no matter what the problem is) it might be VERY difficult and painful to keep the relationship going.