Committed couples who decided to live with sexual problems.

[ReadyOne]

{snip}
I guess my point is that there is no point to this thread. The topic itself is flawed, because we're talking about "coping," as opposed to "fixing" the underlying problems. If the whole thing is about "coping," then getting out is the best course. As I've said, you can still be great FRIENDS.

All due respect, freddyandeddy, there is a point to this thread, and many have seen it.

You might want to read What Ever Happened To Commitment by Edward R. Dayton. Unfortunately, I believe it's out of print., but Amazon.com has one for 99 cents.

Life is always compromises. There are times you can't just throw things away and start all over, let alone expect to come out better off.

If you'd like to work with the assumptions/conditions put at the beginning of the thread, I'd invite you to continue posting comments that offer help to those who aren't going to break up.

If you feel the thread is indeed pointless, I'd invite you to at least help those who want to discuss the topic as stated by lurking instead of muddying the waters.

Please don't take this wrong, Bobmi357, my words are not personal here. I'm just trying to get the conversation recentered.

 

[midwestyankee]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sad

Please don't take this wrong, Bobmi357, my words are not personal here. I'm just trying to get the conversation recentered.

Your comments here and in other threads have had a common theme that sex is a requirement for a good marriage.

RO, I beg to differ. I think you may have misread many of Bobmi's posts and this statement is a mis-characterization.

Bobmi made the point in numerous posts here and in other threads that what matters in marital difdiculties is communication, honest communication, between partners. Yes, he suffered from a more-or-less sexless first marriage but he also explained several times that in that relationship his wife was completely unwilling to enter into fruitful discussions about it. It was the lack of effort to resolve the difficulty that eroded the marriage.

Now, in his second marriage, he has run into a different kind of challenge, though a related one. But this time, he and his wife are making good efforts to communicate on the issue and try to find a solution that they can both try to achieve. I have confidence that they can do so. It may not be easy, but who said a good marriage was easy?

 

[ReadyOne]

{snip}
If you really care anything about your partner, then you'll pick option A. Perhaps you won't succeed, but at least you'll have tried. This isn't to say that you'll spend 10 years in the effort. Sooner or later even the most patient people will give up if no progress is made. But giving up, or not at least trying option one limits you to 2,3 and 4.

How about option 4 (b) (ii)?

4) b)You learn to live with it and
i) You're miserable
ii) You find adjustments and compensations which, while not perfect, give you more happiness than misery.

Yes, these exist. Scattered at wide intervals in the discussion are reports of a few successful adapters.

 

[ReadyOne]

A review of the solutions discussed:

Masturbation for vixenshe, ABN_Ranger (porn), CelticFrog (toys), "Mskey's SO" (porn), SexToyJenn. Works for some for a while. Porn can cause problems.

Other permission to take other partners helped catsr2wild, "Cat & Viper". Clubbing for "catsr2wild's SO".

"Cat & Viper" also do hand and mouth work.

Become a priest/nun suggested, no takers.

freddyandeddy's friends, in particular the wife, is happier being angry/resentful than she would be if she gave up her family/class/station. I can't consider this a positive successful adaptation, and it doesn't fit the criteria that they love each other.



Personally, I know a couple where they do a lot of sex play without him getting an erection. He uses a dildo/vibe, often with her laying in his embrace. Other times it's more "kinkier" She says it's masturbation with close intimacy, and she'll accept it. Plus, she's learned to play as well as make love, and playing is also intimacy. He says he will do what ever he can for her, and she can take a lover if she wants. She doesn't want to, saying that he is still her focus.

I also know some related couples who have "loaned out spouses" to each other to help out (the family really supports one another!)

I have a single gay female friend who says she has a regular female bi-lover who is married. Hubby encourages them because he can't begin to keep her happy by himself.

Finally, a guy I worked with said that when he went on blood pressure medication, his wife changed her antidepressant to one that killed her libido too.

 

[freddyandeddy]

We just got an e-mail from a couple (I'm not making this up), where the man admitted he is gay and the woman decided to accept it as she loves so much else about him. She just asks that he not tell her when he takes other lovers and that he use protection to protect against STD's. She says she's determined to stick it out and he's happy he gets to keep his best friend. If this aint "coping" in the extreme I don't know what is! But, as you are all blasting me for my contrarian views, I guess I'll just go along and say if it works for them...

 

[pplwatching]

It all depends on how you see it.

Hello World,

I assumed when I first read this thread that the author was talking about completely sexless couples, so I took a pass. Coming back to it I see a healthy discussion that I actually can contribute to.

When my wife and I were dating, she'd show up unexpectedly at my place at 10PM just to have sex before heading home to bed. We had a very active and exciting sex life. She was easily multi-orgasmic and would talk about seeing flashes of blue light after an absurd number of orgasms. Fast forward 9 & 1/2 years and two kids ... my wife's libido has declined to the point where she's really only raring to go about once, sometimes twice, a month. Other times she's willing to let me try to get her going, but she says that it takes incredible feats of concentration (on her part) to get things cooking. Sometimes that means that sex is a little one sided. Either way, after one orgasm she looses all interest in sex. If I had to guess I'd say we're having sex about 3 times a month on the average, and in fact some months we don't have sex at all. The nice thing about averages is that some months we get to make up the difference ;-)

I didn't marry my wife for purely sexual reasons, but it's certainly safe to say that I envisioned a fabulous sex life for many years to come. Looking back at the women that I dated before her, each was passionate about sex but the relationships fell apart for nonsexual reasons. My marriage stays together for nonsexual reasons. I can still tell you exactly why I married my wife. She was, and still is, my 2's complement. She shares my value system. She shares my work ethic. She shares my commitment to finishing what I start. She shares my interest in children. She shares my commitment to building a strong family, participating in our respective extended families, and raising our children in as stable and loving of an environment as we possibly can. A nontrivial portion of our income goes to the kids schooling, and she never complains about not having money for frills. She's a natural born bargain hunter and always buys her clothes on sale and/or out of season. She's a negotiator. She rarely complains about socks on the floor. She's always open to suggestions and always willing to look at problems from different angles. She's loaded with faults but doesn't focus on them. She never focuses on my equally abundant faults.

Going without sex, to put it bluntly, fucking sucks. There are times when it makes me angry. There are times when it makes me sulk. There are times when I look at other women and wonder what it would be like to bend them over the kitchen table and fuck them until the china rattles out of the cabinet. But there are also times when my wife cuddles up to me and tells me that she loves me. There are times when she teases my nipples and helps me masturbate. There are times when she tells me she video taped The Who live because she knows how much I like them. There are times when we look at our 401k and scratch our heads. There are times when she's washing the sheets at 2am because my son had an accident in bed.

To those who argue that sex is a deal breaker I suggest that you don't understand marriage, commitment, or settings goals as a couple and making sacrifices to meet them. We continue to work on the sex. She doesn't like the situation any more than I do. I have a very high sex drive and she has a very low one right now, but the fact of the matter is that sex is only one part of our marriage. When I'm old and grey and pissing my diapers, she'll be there to clean up the mess.

But we still work on the sex.

 

[freddyandeddy]

Going without sex, to put it bluntly, fucking sucks. There are times when it makes me angry. There are times when it makes me sulk. There are times when I look at other women and wonder what it would be like to bend them over the kitchen table and fuck them until the china rattles out of the cabinet. But there are also times when my wife cuddles up to me and tells me that she loves me. There are times when she teases my nipples and helps me masturbate. There are times when she tells me she video taped The Who live because she knows how much I like them. There are times when we look at our 401k and scratch our heads. There are times when she's washing the sheets at 2am because my son had an accident in bed.

First of all, beautiful post! It seems you cope by letting the good in your relationship outweigh the negative (no sex), but I also think your situation differs slightly in that you both are working on improving the sexual situation together (and that you hold out hope that it will improve). My question is, what if it never improves? Are you willing to live the rest of your life with this sexual frequency? I'm not judging you either way, just curious. And what advice can you offer for the two situations I outlined in previous posts (the Indian couple and the couple in which one is gay)?

 

[pplwatching]

The point is a simple one, you either recognize it as a problem and deal with it as a team, or fold up the tent and call it quits. If you can't work together to resolve this issue then you'll have problems working together to resolve other issues.

[snip]

How they cope is unique to each couple, but as long as they do it together, the odds are in favor of their relationship surviving.

I think that this post does a great job of summing things up. I also think that there's a point buried between the lines.

This is a borderline hijack, but ...

At some point people have to step up to the plate and take responsibility for making a bad choice in a partner. IHMO failed relationships don't just happen. You can't simply say "this person wasn't willing to make the effort to deal with the problem" and sulk.

I'll go so far as to put on my fireproof shorts and make a generalization : People don't focus on what traits they're looking for in a partner when they're shopping around. They tend to wade into relationships, splash around, and see how it goes without really paying attention to how that person really ticks. When the shit hits the fan, they wonder why their partner isn't trying to help them turn the fan off.

I am guilty as charged. I got lucky with my wife. I was a little naive going into marriage, but with 20/20 hindsight I can look back at her personality, her traits, and the way she handled the little (and sometimes not so little) things back then and say with confidence that those were great predictors of how she's handled herself in the marriage. (I'll have to ask her if she thinks the same is true for me ;-)

I once heard a radio talk show host claim that he would take personality tests with women before a 'relationship' got past the 3 month mark. If he really liked a woman after 3 months, he'd playfully suggest both of them getting a personality profile. He would cut off relationships with women who didn't have the traits that he was looking for in a long term relationship, no matter how much he liked them. He claimed that his wife was the first woman to pass. I thought he was an asshole, but now I think that he may have been on to something.

 

[pplwatching]

It seems you cope by letting the good in your relationship outweigh the negative (no sex), but I also think your situation differs slightly in that you both are working on improving the sexual situation together (and that you hold out hope that it will improve). My question is, what if it never improves? Are you willing to live the rest of your life with this sexual frequency? I'm not judging you either way, just curious. And what advice can you offer for the two situations I outlined in previous posts (the Indian couple and the couple in which one is gay)?

This is a complicated issue. I don't believe that I can say with certainty how I will burn that bridge when I get to it. I can only look at my philosphy for pointers.

First, I would argue that we are not 'coping'. People cope with diseases, fires, and other things that are out of their control.

Next, I would argue that I am responsible for my happiness. My wife only contributes to it. To say that my wife's sex drive is responsible for my happiness, aside from grossly oversimplifying things, takes control of that away from me and gives it over completely to her. She isn't capable of handling that power right now and I would never burden her with that in the first place. I enjoy living with my wife. I enjoy working through problems with her. I enjoy her attitude. I am married to her because this is how I choose to live my life. Sometime's when the thread topic is appropriate I'll talk about it, but I certainly don't focus on it or grouse about it.

I really don't like speculating about what other people 'should do'. But, in the spirit of this thread I'll throw my $.02 into the pot.

The couple with the gay husband is the easier of your two examples. If this woman chooses to live with this man because they mutually love and respect each other, more power to them. Who am I to tell them that they have to have sex with each other to be happy. I think that she's deluded if she thinks that he will never become emotionally attached with another man. Swingers & 3somes run into that problem on a pretty regular basis. I hope that situation doesn't cause them undue emotional hardship when it arises. Still, in the end it's a personal choice for them to make.

The Indian couple is harder. First of all it's an arranged marriage (if I read correctly). These can and do work if both people are comitted to making them work. One or both of them obviously isn't. Second there's a huge cultural devide between how us westerners (I'm assuming for you, of course) have been culturally programmed and how this couple has been culturally programmed. In some cases, arranged marriages really are still about ensuring a life without poverty. Life without sex sucks, but life without money (and no prospects of getting any money) *really* sucks. This woman defines her happiness either in terms of meeting her families obligations, in what others expect of her, or in not being impoverished (and still not getting any sex). She may very well be more miserable outside of her marriage. Is that a cop out?

 

[JoeJesus]

Re: It all depends on how you see it.

To those who argue that sex is a deal breaker I suggest that you don't understand marriage, commitment, or settings goals as a couple and making sacrifices to meet them. We continue to work on the sex. She doesn't like the situation any more than I do. I have a very high sex drive and she has a very low one right now, but the fact of the matter is that sex is only one part of our marriage. When I'm old and grey and pissing my diapers, she'll be there to clean up the mess.

Great posts, but you lost me here. For starters, it's arrogant to assume that you understand marriage better than other people because you've learned that sex isn't a deal breaker. Fine. It isn't for you, but it very well can be for others, and it's really up to them to decide that. Personal needs in a marriage are widely varied, and people have widely varied definitions of what marriage should be. So only the individual can decide what is and what isn't a deal breaker. Just because someone is willing to break up a relationship because of lousy sex doesn't mean that he or she doesn't understand marriage or commitment.

Personally, I'd love to agree with you. It'd be great to isolate the sex issue and treat it as one component that's not working right amidst a hundred firing on all cylinders. But you can't do it. Nobody can. A problem like this eventually grows to contaminate all the good things. It really is a cancer in a relationship. You either kill it off, or it grows, and stands a good chance of destroying all the healthy things around it. Even with your relationship, it's obvious that a lot of resentment is building. Do you really want to live with all this anger for the rest of your life?

Anyhow, great posts. Really enjoyed reading them. Thanks for sharing your insight and personal situation.

 

[shmily]

After being single for 14 years and raising a child on my own.(NO sex during that time other than occasional masterbation.) I became involved with a man with 2 small children (he was raising w/help of his mom) after a year of casual dating / while helping him take care of the kids and his mom who had gotten sick/ I moved in. from the begining he told me because of previous failed relationships he didn't feel he could give me what I was seeking in a relationship - he didn't feel capable of loving someone. I accepted that and gave him my unconditional love. Any normal person would have most likely walked away. I felt I had all I had really been seeking a decent man, more kids, and he would grow to love me. the sex was always good.
His mother passed away soon after I moved in, He was having trouble coping and started on anti-depressants, which killed his sex drive.
We managed, we communicated, but there were times when we didn't communicate and my feelings got hurt. We would talk and things would be better for awhile - it became a vicious cycle.
when he stopped taking the drug not becuase his issues where gone but he didn't seem to think they were working.
I thought our sex life would get better. It only got worse - and communication stopped. Now the intamacy is slipping away. Oh we can still talk about kids and life and such but mention sex and he won't go there.
Now 4 years later I am not sure where to go. He says he loves me but can't give me what I want. He is ready to throw it all away.
So here I sit at 4 am can't sleep - wondering where this will go. There are 3 children down the hall sleeping peacefully. He's at the station - sleeping?? who knows. I want this to work - I don't want to give up. The coping is becoming hard.

 

[freddyandeddy]

JoeJesus,

Am I hearing this correctly? You've just expounded on my original point (and improved greatly, I must say). The cancer analogy works well here.

Shmily,

I know you think you're doing your kids a favor by toughing this one out. You're not. I brought up the example of our Indian friends who live completely without intimacy. They have a young child (whom I teach at my elementary school) who comes to school and often breaks down crying that his mom and dad fight so much - and why does mommy not sleep in daddy's room anymore. Before the mom did this, they would fight so hard, their child would come into their room and crawl into bed with them and beg them to stop. When my wife and I mentioned this to them, they responsing with surprise! They told us they didn't fight in front of him!

What often happens in these cases is that the "coping" becomes so "normal" that the participants don't even see the hurt they're causing themselves and those around them. Our Indian friends do not see how their behavior affects even our son's birthday party, where they sniped at eachother and turned the whole place into a freezer. Amazingly, this whole situation began innocently with sexual issues (she wanted it, he didn't), which spread to infect the whole ball of wax.

Hang in as long as you can, Shmily, and we'll all support you as best we can and give you comforting words when you need them most. But, remember one thing (as one put it beautifully in a previous post) YOU are responsible for your own happiness and only YOU can decide what's best for all involved.

 

[catsr2wild]

JoeJesus,

Am I hearing this correctly? You've just expounded on my original point (and improved greatly, I must say). The cancer analogy works well here.

Shmily,

I know you think you're doing your kids a favor by toughing this one out. You're not. I brought up the example of our Indian friends who live completely without intimacy. They have a young child (whom I teach at my elementary school) who comes to school and often breaks down crying that his mom and dad fight so much - and why does mommy not sleep in daddy's room anymore. Before the mom did this, they would fight so hard, their child would come into their room and crawl into bed with them and beg them to stop. When my wife and I mentioned this to them, they responsing with surprise! They told us they didn't fight in front of him!

What often happens in these cases is that the "coping" becomes so "normal" that the participants don't even see the hurt they're causing themselves and those around them. Our Indian friends do not see how their behavior affects even our son's birthday party, where they sniped at eachother and turned the whole place into a freezer. Amazingly, this whole situation began innocently with sexual issues (she wanted it, he didn't), which spread to infect the whole ball of wax.

Hang in as long as you can, Shmily, and we'll all support you as best we can and give you comforting words when you need them most. But, remember one thing (as one put it beautifully in a previous post) YOU are responsible for your own happiness and only YOU can decide what's best for all involved.

You know F&E, I may have misjudged you a bit. I believe there was some misunderstanding because I think you are not as cold as you came across at the beginning of this thread. So I will apologize till you piss me off again....

 

[freddyandeddy]

Oh come on Cat, you know it's only a matter of time before I try your patience

At the core of everything, I really do want to help these folks. After the birth of our son, our sex life dipped to about 2 times per month and I had a really hard time with it. I'm someone with an EXTREMELY high sex drive (my wife, who will be joining these boards soon will vouch for this) and was caught off guard by the dropoff. It wasn't so much the physical part (masturbation can take care of that), but the fact that it was hard to fathom her not wanting me in a sexual way, especially as it dragged into a year. I tried getting her all sorts of bullshit libido-enhancing products, read every woman's magazine I could find, wrote to Playboy Advisor (who actually answered and told me to stop being such a prick), and finally gave up and went into a holding pattern of despair. I just figured if I took away intimacy from MY end, she'd finally wake up and change back to the way things were.

Now, I'd seen ways our friends dealt with this situation (which, in retrospect, seems more common than we think) in a variety of ways. One husband would actually blurt out at parties stabbing little comments belittling his wife's lack of heat, which I figured were actually meant to piss her off and get the subject 'on the table' afterward (using anger to spur communication). Others had simply put the subject on hold and figured it would work itself out as if by magic, and yes, others split up.

In our case, I did know that my wife (Eddy) had a great sex drive before the pregnancy and all the evidence I was reading pointed to it returning - but it wasn't and I was frustrated and miserable. We finally had a major blowup as we were getting to bed one evening about 3 and a half years ago and things looked pretty bad. As I said, I didn't really care about the physical part, just that she was there mentally and would promise to work on things. In my harsher posts, I have said one should leave if things don't improve rather than live without something as important as sex and intimacy. I would have lived by that word and given up (at the time) ten years of a fantastic marriage if I thought we had no hope of recapturing our spark.

Fast forward to now and we're now closer than ever, have an amazing sex life, and just celebrated our son's 5th birthday and our 15th year together. What happened? The oldest, most cliche' solution is still the best - communication. The willingness to communicate and go to those deep and dark places together (even if it means you won't come out the other side in one piece). Commincating without fear of what you may learn and what you may have to decide. This is the key.

You see, I have a problem with "coping" with things. To me, it means you're not really being honest with yourself or your partner and facing the true nature and depth of the underlying problems (that probably have very little to do with sex). It's living a lie to say that because someone will be there to change your sheets in old age that it's alright to forgive something vitally important to who and what you really are. If lack of sex is burning deep within you and and you look at someone you just want to bend over and fuck, this is worse than actually going over and doing it, because you're lying and keeping these things suppressed. The cancer spreads until it consumes everything else.

Anyway, I can already see the response from another person coming fast and furious at some point, so I'll just leave it at that.

 

[Mskey]

pplwatching...

thanks for your posts! IMO they said brilliantly what I wanted to but obviously butchered.


Celtic...

great responses as always!

 

[NaiveOne]

One thing I have learned from reading this thread is that the issue really isn't about sex at all. It's about couples being able to be open and honest, and willing to work together.

Let's be honest, the crappy stuff in life carries over to the bedroom. And generally, this is more true for women. The emotional and intimate connection needs to be there for someone to want to make love, or even fuck, and have it be meaningful. Or else all those meaning-less romps turn into a chore, something you eventually don't have a desire to do.

So when communication breaks down and one person or another is unwilling to talk it out and the other person isn't willing to compromise or be understanding, problems arise and walls are put up. And not only in the bedroom, am I right?

But it seems like this charachter trait, this communication problem, is there from the begining. I haven't had a long relationship or been married, but does that sound right? That the couples who are in a sexually dissatisfying marriage, or even cruddy marriage, just didn't notice that communication flaw? Chose to overlook it? Or do people change that drastically after the first few years?

I don't know.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that....

Don't tell someone to get out of the relationship because the sex life is bad. Tell them to get out of the marriage/relationship because one or both people do not want to fix the communication. And if this is the case, figure out if the problem was there in everyday life (i.e. money management, family values, basic decision making skills) and you just didn't notice it till it came to sex.

And I could be wrong, but I'm just trying to make wise choices in my own life.

 

[pplwatching]

Re: Re: It all depends on how you see it.

I tried pasting a couple quotes together but it ends up looking like misquotes, so I'll try to address things by name instead.

It's pretty clear that there are two camps; those that say it's a deal breaker and those that don't. I'm going to leave the folks like jasmine8316 who are struggling with the issue in the marriage camp (sue me). Those in the marriage camp have taken the time to put together a representation of how they treat relationships as a dynamic thing where physical intimacy is just one part of a healthy marriage .

At the very beginning of this thread, CelticFrog pointed out that this thread is going to require that people understand that no one can speak for others. What's interesting is that we're seeing a theme in the marriage camp where people appear to speak as different aspects of one voice. CelticFog, ABN_Ranger, Sheath, and catsr2wild spent most of the first page painting the inter-workings of sex and commitment. catsr2wild (I should use abbreviations) even goes so far as to touch on the power of unconditional love. Bobmi rounds out the discussion by repeatedly saying that communication plays a key part in healthy relationships (even tho we can see some skepticism in his and warrior queen's post).

... it's arrogant to assume that you understand marriage better than other people because you've learned that sex isn't a deal breaker.

This statement says that you've missed the point entirely. My wife and I are able to work through our sexual issues because we understand each other, and we understand what it means to be married, not the other way around.

only the individual can decide what is and what isn't a deal breaker.

I disagree. An individual can indeed decide if they want to commit themselves to a person given that there's a chance that sex is going to go poof. If you're not ready to say "yes", then don't lead the other person to believe that you are going to build a life with them. Otherwise, keep looking until you find a person who makes you want to take that chance just to be with her/him. When my wife and I exchanged vows I swore to her that I would do the love, honor, cherish thing till death do us part. My arrogance is knowing that by earning my wife's respect every day we are going to make it.

Just because someone is willing to break up a relationship because of lousy sex doesn't mean that he or she doesn't understand marriage or commitment.

Do you really believe that? I will debate that with you if you like.

It'd be great to isolate the sex issue and treat it as one component that's not working right amidst a hundred firing on all cylinders. But you can't do it. Nobody can.

You lack faith in yourself and in your partner. I do it. Lots of people do it. Engines are a bad analogy. Yes, all of the parts work together to move a car, but a bad cylinder means either living with it or tearing down the engine. Sex is more like a thread in a tapestry. Our marriage is made up of many threads of different colors. When the sex is golden, the tapestry has a little shimmer here and there. If I use that one thread to weave my entire marriage, then when it fades the tapestry seems dull and lifeless. If it breaks, our marriage would fall to pieces. One thread among many can become frayed, but it can still be repaired without catastrophic means.

A problem like this eventually grows to contaminate all the good things. It really is a cancer in a relationship. You either kill it off, or it grows, and stands a good chance of destroying all the healthy things around it.

Cancer grows because it's nourished by blood from the host. Lets use a better analogy here too (even if it's a silly one). Our marriage is a garden. It has weeds and it has flowers. We choose to nourish the flowers and not the weeds. Any gardener can tell you that you can take care of the weeds without destroying the garden.

Even with your relationship, it's obvious that a lot of resentment is building. Do you really want to live with all this anger for the rest of your life?

It's obvious that you missed the point of what I wrote. There are times when things are gloomy. There are times when things are cozy and sappy. There are hot, sweaty, and downright scintillating times too. There is not "resentment building". My wife and I make decisions as a couple and we work through problems as a couple. It's a part of the love and respect that we share for each other. I *like* having her love and respect. I *like* looking for the win-win with her. To unilaterally decide what's a deal breaker disregards everything that we have built together. It's discourteous, disrespectful, and downright rude. My wife has a right to expect more from me, and I have a right to expect that she won't check out on me.

I *want* to live with my wife for the rest of my life. I *want* this woman to be the one who's cleaning my sheets when I'm an old fart.

 

[pplwatching]

So when communication breaks down and one person or another is unwilling to talk it out and the other person isn't willing to compromise or be understanding, problems arise and walls are put up. And not only in the bedroom, am I right?

Exactly.

But it seems like this charachter trait, this communication problem, is there from the begining. That the couples who are in a sexually dissatisfying marriage, or even cruddy marriage, just didn't notice that communication flaw? Chose to overlook it? Or do people change that drastically after the first few years?

It's always dangerous to make generalizations. There are lots of times when something happens that makes a person check out of the communication. Most of us will never know what it's like to be in Ranger's shoes, or to lose a child. Life changing events change people.

My point earlier was that you can stack the deck in your favor by looking for someone who has certain characteristics and traits. Does that mean you won't be passionately in love with that person? I don't think so. Love is a verb. Loving a person and getting that love in return can sure make you feel in love.

Don't tell someone to get out of the relationship because the sex life is bad. Tell them to get out of the marriage/relationship because one or both people do not want to fix the communication. And if this is the case, figure out if the problem was there in everyday life (i.e. money management, family values, basic decision making skills) and you just didn't notice it till it came to sex.

Semantic issue here : I would't *tell* anyone to get out of a marriage. I might (humbly) suggest that they shit or get off the pot tho. There's a fundamental point in what you just said that's worth teasing out.

There are times when one partner doesn't value the other enough to really make an effort to work on problems. When that happens, it really tears people up because it says that this person doesn't see the same value in the relationship (or value in the person). I would argue that when sex is the deal breaker, someone is saying "my sexual satisfaction has more value than our relationship".

Other times, both people want to solve a problem but are frustrated because neither knows how to go about doing it.
The good news is that people can learn to communicate. People can learn to get themselves into habits that are the keys to working out issues. The trouble is that not only do you have a serious problem, but you have to admit to someone else that you have a problem. Humility and love are the keys to seeking outside help in the marriage.

There's a reason why people say that marriage is work. It is work. Sometimes the best thing you can take from a failed relationship is a better compass for your next one. There is no silver bullet.

 

[NaiveOne]

Golf clap for pplwatching....

There are times when one partner doesn't value the other enough to really make an effort to work on problems. When that happens, it really tears people up because it says that this person doesn't see the same value in the relationship (or value in the person). I would argue that when sex is the deal breaker, someone is saying "my sexual satisfaction has more value than our relationship".

pplwatching, thank you very much for your post. Personally, I think you hit the mark with the part about valuing your partner. I pity the person who lives thier life believing "my sexual satisfaction has more value than our relationship." Not feeling like you are worthy really hurts. I'm very happy to hear how much you like having/earning her trust, love, and respect. That gives me hope!

 

[catsr2wild]

Oh come on Cat, you know it's only a matter of time before I try your patience

At the core of everything, I really do want to help these folks. After the birth of our son, our sex life dipped to about 2 times per month and I had a really hard time with it. I'm someone with an EXTREMELY high sex drive (my wife, who will be joining these boards soon will vouch for this) and was caught off guard by the dropoff. It wasn't so much the physical part (masturbation can take care of that), but the fact that it was hard to fathom her not wanting me in a sexual way, especially as it dragged into a year. I tried getting her all sorts of bullshit libido-enhancing products, read every woman's magazine I could find, wrote to Playboy Advisor (who actually answered and told me to stop being such a prick), and finally gave up and went into a holding pattern of despair. I just figured if I took away intimacy from MY end, she'd finally wake up and change back to the way things were.

Now, I'd seen ways our friends dealt with this situation (which, in retrospect, seems more common than we think) in a variety of ways. One husband would actually blurt out at parties stabbing little comments belittling his wife's lack of heat, which I figured were actually meant to piss her off and get the subject 'on the table' afterward (using anger to spur communication). Others had simply put the subject on hold and figured it would work itself out as if by magic, and yes, others split up.

In our case, I did know that my wife (Eddy) had a great sex drive before the pregnancy and all the evidence I was reading pointed to it returning - but it wasn't and I was frustrated and miserable. We finally had a major blowup as we were getting to bed one evening about 3 and a half years ago and things looked pretty bad. As I said, I didn't really care about the physical part, just that she was there mentally and would promise to work on things. In my harsher posts, I have said one should leave if things don't improve rather than live without something as important as sex and intimacy. I would have lived by that word and given up (at the time) ten years of a fantastic marriage if I thought we had no hope of recapturing our spark.

Fast forward to now and we're now closer than ever, have an amazing sex life, and just celebrated our son's 5th birthday and our 15th year together. What happened? The oldest, most cliche' solution is still the best - communication. The willingness to communicate and go to those deep and dark places together (even if it means you won't come out the other side in one piece). Commincating without fear of what you may learn and what you may have to decide. This is the key.

You see, I have a problem with "coping" with things. To me, it means you're not really being honest with yourself or your partner and facing the true nature and depth of the underlying problems (that probably have very little to do with sex). It's living a lie to say that because someone will be there to change your sheets in old age that it's alright to forgive something vitally important to who and what you really are. If lack of sex is burning deep within you and and you look at someone you just want to bend over and fuck, this is worse than actually going over and doing it, because you're lying and keeping these things suppressed. The cancer spreads until it consumes everything else.

Anyway, I can already see the response from another person coming fast and furious at some point, so I'll just leave it at that.

At least you're not the prick I thought you were and just a note my husband joined here today. I will continue to keep an open mind where you are concerned if you will do the same for me. Deal?

 

[freddyandeddy]

Deal.

 

[JoeJesus]

Re: Re: Re: It all depends on how you see it.

It's obvious that you missed the point of what I wrote. There are times when things are gloomy. There are times when things are cozy and sappy. There are hot, sweaty, and downright scintillating times too. There is not "resentment building". My wife and I make decisions as a couple and we work through problems as a couple. It's a part of the love and respect that we share for each other. I *like* having her love and respect. I *like* looking for the win-win with her. To unilaterally decide what's a deal breaker disregards everything that we have built together. It's discourteous, disrespectful, and downright rude. My wife has a right to expect more from me, and I have a right to expect that she won't check out on me.

I get all that, and I know very well the emotions that you're describing. But a lot of what you're saying now contradicts your earlier words, as one of your initial posts talks about great anger and the desire to bend over some other woman and fuck her brains out. That's pretty negative, and is of course the ultimate betrayal in a marriage. So how am I misconstruing this? As negative as I am about this subject now, I have never even fantasized about cheating on my wife.

All due respect, but your earlier posts describe a quite different situation than you describe here. There certainly wasn't any talk about gardens and shimmering threads before. So before you accuse me of not getting your point, you'd better look at what you first wrote. If you'd written this sort of thing originally, and not the "I'm so pissed and horny I want to fuck somebody else" stuff, my response would have been a lot different.

Though I would still find you pretty arrogant in assuming that there is only one way to really look at a marriage. For some people, the sex can be a deal-breaker. It doesn't mean that they are somehow lesser beings, that they're incapable of the true love and understanding necessary in marriage. Just as I wouldn't say that someone who doesn't offer up frequent, mindblowing sex is incapable of these things. It's just a hurdle that they couldn't overcome.

That's sad, but it's their call and I don't think they failed some magic test. Thinking like that encourages people to stay in bad relationships, out of a sense that they will be a failure if they throw in the towel. Not that I want to encourage divorce or anything, but there is no shame in admitting that you simply aren't a good match with your partner. You said as much in that perceptive earlier post about people owning up to their choices in a relationship, I believe. In the end, this is something that can only be addressed by the people involved, and there as many answers to relationship problems as there are married people out there. Nobody has the magic solution to how much is too much, when you should try harder or realize that the relationship is a lost cause.

Anyhow, I really don't want to argue with you on this. I respect your well-articulated views, even if they don't accord with mine. At the very least, they've made me somewhat more optimistic about my own situation, and I thank you for that.

 

[freddyandeddy]

I must agree with Joe that PPL's initial posts threw me way off. Though I suspect these anger passages are more accurate to your real ongoing state of mind, I must take Joe's words that there's nothing wrong with someone who throws in the towel after seeing no possibility of improvement.

My only two-cents is that sex will ALWAYS be the deal breaker in the end. And you don't have to split up for the deal to be broken, either. Looking at other women and wanting to "bend them over and fuck them," means the anger has seem to become the stonger of your emotions. Emotional detachment is automatic and concurrent. I share the same experience as Joe, that is I've never once looked at another woman and wished to "fuck her brains out."

Maybe have that hot woman fuck my wife's brains out (while I watch passively), but that's a whole 'nuther story!

 

[pplwatching]

Joe & F&E,

You've presented the point that I'm not being honest with myself (and maybe even being hypocritical) because of what I wrote previously. I think that my posts are complementary, but I'll take responsibility for not working them through well enough to convey the points better. One of the key points in the first post is that sex is an important issue in my marriage. I talked about some of the symptoms that manifest themselves because of the problem. You've zeroed in on the fact that sometimes doubt rears its ugly head in the form of longing for good old spontaneous rough and tumble sex when I see a gal who has that certain gleam in her eye. I'll concede that the example effectively makes its point at the expense of misinterpretation without a drawn out explanation. I'd like to point to the other bits in that post where I tried to talk about what checks and balances work to keep my biological desire for sex from becoming a danger to my marriage. My wife helps me meet my physical need for sex by making masturbation a shared experience. My need for sex isn't purely physical, and she meets my psychological need for intimacy in that and other ways. There are other aspects of the marriage that temper and more than balance those moments by meeting my need to feel loved, desired, and whole as a couple. Little things like popping in a tape and recording something for me because she knows I'll enjoy watching it. We have other shared goals that give us satisfaction. Planning for retirement, her going after her MBA, saving for a nice vacation together, watching our kids learn and grow, building a business together. It's a complex relationship. I chose the tapestry example to try to clarify that, but I can see now that it does add a kind of fairy tale spin to it. Still, as a gear head with a history of tearing engines down, I like it better than the engine example.

I objected to comparing sex to cancer because cancer can't thrive without food. It's a horrible disease for people because you can't just take away its food. You have to cut it out or feed it poision to destroy it, which wreaks havoc on the host at the same time. The only valid peice of that analogy is that you don't know when the issue might pop up again. In my first post I make it pretty clear that the issue doesn't just go away. It's possible to focus on sex, to feed it anger and let the issue grow like cancer. My wife and I make a real effort not to let that happen. We focus on the the other aspects of our relationship, and it works for us.

The point that sometimes a relationship becomes unhealthy is well taken. I think that where JoeJesus and I differ is philosophy. Our views of the nature of the problem, the effects of the problem, and management of the problem differ. I think it's also possible that this may be more of an indication that this ad-hoc forum isn't the best place to have a discussion of this nature. I really am not sure what f&e's spin is, but antagonism seems to play a part.

With respect to our difference in philosophy, I am convinced that the relationship can thrive if both people have a strong desire to keep the relationship healthy and working in spite of the problem. That appears to be the topic author's intent and it happens to match my situation. You've picked up on the fact that I have strong opinions, and obviously I've gone the extra mile to staunchly defend the ideals of commitment and marriage. I am arguing my point from a firm conviction that the desires of the couple are the core of the relationship and that there are ways to work through problems if both people want the same things. My convictions were forged by some non-marriage related parts of my past that probably aren't relevant here, but they have a profound impact on how I approach my marriage.

Both Joe and F&E obviously understand that relationships are very complicated things, and I think it's great that you have a strong interest in keeping yours together. You (and others) have argued the point that having that desire isn't enough, and that over time things will become bad enough that the collateral damage outweighs the whatever value remains in the the relationship. It's not clear if you are arguing this point out of conviction, but I assume that you are. Is it fair to say that this is an accurate depiction of where we're coming from?

 

[pplwatching]

Looking at other women and wanting to "bend them over and fuck them," means the anger has seem to become the stonger of your emotions. Emotional detachment is automatic and concurrent. I share the same experience as Joe, that is I've never once looked at another woman and wished to "fuck her brains out."

I'm running out of lunch hour, but may I briefly point out that leaving a relationship for sexual satisfaction is an implied desire to have sex with other women?

Edited : I'll also point out that that the second quote is a misquote. A good indication that you missed the point.