Marriage issues while trying to reboot

Sorry to hear there's been a setback. It's not easy to fight on two fronts, think you're doing great mate.

 

Sending you love and strength my friend. I feel your pain

 

Pia Melody wrote some amazing work on co-dependency. Most people with attachment disorders have some level of co-dependency, particularly if they are living with someone that is avoidant.

Don't give up hope.

 

Hey man.

My heart goes out to you.

I haven't started posting on this site until quite recently, but I have followed your reboot journal here for quite some time. I greatly admire your vulnerability and your candour, as well as the dignity you have shown when some people sometimes have criticized your opinions and/or actions. I would not have handled that as well as you have.

Regardless of how your wife's avoidance develops, I think the best course you can take is to become more securly attached yourself. Then you - if nothing else - will be better equipped to deal with her avoidance. Perhaps she will find it easier to become more secure herself, if you're already there, so to speak?

There have been some noticeable improvements, and some tough setbacks, but I pray that there is enough positives so that you'll pull through and prosper as a married couple.

 

Here's to hoping it goes well. I've been meaning to post here in the past few weeks to redrop a resource in case it helps. I started reading more of Dr. Stan Tatkin's work because I am really drawn to the work that comes out of attachment theory. I'm reading his work Wired for Love, which really digs into the attachment portion and creating a secure functioning relationship. His framing of the dyad being the most important thing and intentionally forming goals and agreements is so good. I also am listening to the In Each Other's Care that is a follow up and focuses on fixing the interactions that bring up the problems over and over again instead of trying to fix each other. Anyway, I just wanted to reput it here because I keep thinking about the two of you and how it might be something she might really consider. The work is so good that it's doing good things for my husband and I to get to a safer spot. His long sobriety is great (will be 5 years in summer) but I need more to get further healing from my trauma that has been in a rut.

 

I think it could be really really good for you two. Getting the connection and being on the same side that you really need in your recovery journey (and that I think she needs but is afraid of) but with an approach that doesn't make her feel attacked or defective. I am highlighting so much of it while I read.

 

I think that your wife is repulsed by you because you've been emasculated in the relationship. Both of you have contributed to this. Which makes your dead bedroom a symptom...

Of a symptom,

of a deeper rooted problem.

 

For me, I had to embrace the importance of polarization of masculinity and femininity in relationships. My journey had to take me to uncover what a real woman is as opposed to the pornographic picture that I view them as all of my life. But also this journey led me to look at myself to uncover the question,

What does it mean for me to be a man? What tangible steps did I need to do to embrace my own masculinity?

I realized that woman generally are attracted to men that exhibit strength, confidence, and ambition. They desire relationships with those men. They admire them. And lean upon them as spiritual leaders for their family. These are attributes in men that make women horny. But at the same time, they want their men to be sensitive, kind, and gentle to their emotional spirits. These actions make them happy.

 

One issue you have to consider and be careful about, is using a therapist that is addressing marriage issues in a marriage that is not scarred or impacted by an addiction. Especially sex addiction. Sex addiction taints how the man relates and treats his partners and sex, and how the partner relates and feels about sex and the sex addict. I have a hard time relating to anything this woman says because I don’t feel or believe much, if any of it. I have always had a high sex drive( except after hitting menopause last year) It did not matter how my husband treated me or acted, my drive remained intact even, when I was exhausted from doing it all. But, you take a sex addict unnaturally in overdrive sexually, add a partner who might have a lower libido, exhaustion from doing it all with kids, and there will be a massive disparity in acceptable “ sexual” dry spells. Personally, less than once a week to me was unacceptable but expecting more than 3x a week would be crazy with young kids and work. I loved it every day, but I didn’t expect it every day. Work, kids, hormonal changes, all influence our sex lives. How does she explain men who are shut down sexually? Who reject their partner? Totally not uncommon with sex addicts although it seems an oxymoron.

 

Oh ok , good to know. I read too many books telling me how to fix my marriage that ultimately has caused far more resentment and damage to the relationship than if I’d just not tried anything. Same with marriage counseling.

 

@Warfman ,

I really feel for you. I know I wouldn't be able to tolerate a bad relationship with bad sex. There's no way. My wife knows that. If she shut down sexually, for instance, I would disappear and run for the hills if she was resistant to change.

Then I would celebrate my escape to freedom and start the process of looking inward into myself uncovering the question of why I chose to co-created a bad relationship with bad sex.

I know I would do this because that's what I did in my first marriage. It had a lot of problems to which I was to blame. But dead bedroom was the symptom that was bothering me the most. While she was at work, I cleaned up our apartment, gathered up my stuff, and moved into another place I arranged behind her back. My ex came home that night, and I was gone! I left a "Goodbye" message on the answering machine. She was devastated; a complete wreck for months. I, on the other hand, was feeling on top of the world.

I was way happier to end up with no relationship, then to settle for a bad relationship with bad sex or no sex.

 

Awesome sex. Never experienced it in my life. Doubt I ever will. I can't even look at my wife with the lights on. I wish I were in your shoes, @Warfman. I know the grass seems greener on the other side of the fence. But it really does seem greener. My wife is obese, some 240 lbs I estimate (she wouldn't tell me). At least you are attracted to your wife. At least that seems a healthy foundation on which to pursue the repair of your relationship. I wish at least I had that. My wife's desire for me seems to be such a small thing when I don't desire her. I will not leave her. But there is a gaping hole in my heart that will never be filled. She can't fill it. At least not in respect to her appearance. And it kills me. And it will never change.

 

I'd rather have a 250 lb wife that would desire to be sexually, then a 150 lb one that finds me repulsive.

 

When I say that my wife desires me, I don't mean that sexually. I mean that she desires that I desire her. Anyway, what does it matter if your wife wants to be sexual when you have no sexual attraction towards your wife? And, what's more, to be positively repulsed by her appearance. To be frank, it would be easier to be single, to just know sex isn't on the table, rather than to keep the "flame" alive and never actually be satisfied.