VerySuperLost
Virgin
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2017
- Posts
- 2
Okay, this is really stupid, but I don’t really think I have a choice but to take this path. I’m really lost and I need to reach out to others and get their opinions on what I’m feeling. Really I need someone to help me to see if what I’m seeing and feeling is wrong. I know I shouldn’t really do this, and I will keep it as anonymous as possible to ensure that I’m not hurting anyone but really I feel like getting another opinion would help me…
Sad as it is to say, I really only have one friend, and while I know he would be supportive of this situation, he’s also friends with my wife and I really don’t want to make things awkward for him if all of this is in my head. I am also lucky enough to know that if he knew what I’m feeling right now he’d definitely take my side and it would destroy his relationship with my wife…
So here’s the history.
I had a really rough childhood. I know everyone says that, and most are looking for sympathy. I’m not doing that. I won’t go into details but it involved a ton of neglect, and emotional and physical abuse. I’m 35 now, and I realize that I never really processed a bunch of this. Recently however, I took the time to write about it, and I think I processed through a bunch of it. It wasn’t easy, and it was terrible to write, but I did it. My wife, who is a mental health professional told me what I’d done was write a trauma narrative. Apparently, this is a big part of mental health treatment and I managed to work through it.
Problem is, it seems to have opened a lot of doors for me emotionally and I really don’t know how to process what I was thinking…
I’ve been married for 14 years, and I’ve been together with my wife for more than 17. I met her when I was at a really low spot in my life at 18 when she was coming out of a really abusive relationship at 20. I loved the fact that I had someone to take care of, and for the first time in my life I felt like I had someone that really cared about me. Problem is, I don’t feel that way anymore…
See my marriage has been really unfulfilling for a very long time. I really don’t want to admit to myself that it is, but it is. My wife suffers from bipolar disorder. That sucks, but I’ve made peace with it. We have our ups and we have our downs. I’m okay with that. Honestly that feels like it’s the basic foundation that a relationship is built on. I want ups and downs and I expect them. I want someone that I can look out for and that is looking out for me. I don’t mind the downs and I firmly believe in the idea that without the bitter the sweet just isn’t as sweet.
When we were younger we were poor as dirt. I was homeless for a little over a year, squatting in a house that I basically stole as it was abandoned. I made a ton of financial decisions that I look back on and want to go back and slap the fuck out of myself for. There’s nothing I can do about that now besides make different decisions but there it is.
My wife and I worked through a lot of that together. She really struggled to make ends meet as it was hard for her to work and keep a stable job because of her mental illness. That made me the primary bread winner and that I think really helped me to mature as a person. It forced me to become responsible. We now make really good money and the financial struggles of our relationship have really gone away.
When we were younger, my wife was diagnosed with depression, and with that came the standard anti-depressant medication. For those who don’t know, giving a bipolar an anti-depressant is a really bad idea. It didn’t really help her emotionally and in many ways made her mental illness worse. It also killed her sex drive. The first probably two years we were together we had what I would describe as a healthy sex life. We were passionate, we did it a lot, usually at least 4 or 5 times a week. I was only 18 and she was my first so I drove the bulk of our sex life together, but there were times when she initiated and took charge and I really felt like she tried to care for my needs and wants in the bedroom.
With the anti-depressants this went to nothing overnight. I was still super young and this frustrated me. I was vocal about my frustration and I know that in many ways I drove her away from me sexually. Her lack of intimacy drove my desire for physical contact to almost nothing. I have always had a really tough time with physical contact with people, but with her it always felt right and I loved it. For the first time in my life I looked forward to someone touching me! As that turned into not ever having sex though it became frustrating, and I pulled away from most physical contact. Cuddling made me horny and her constant rejection made me feel like shit and frustrated the fuck out of me. It caused a lot of hellacious fights and a part of me pulled back from her physically just out of a desire to not fight. More honestly however I know I felt really betrayed by her lack of sexual interest in me and that drove me to withdraw from her physically (this is really hard right now… I’m sitting here writing this on my laptop and I want to cry… but she just got home from work and I need to get this off my chest without her seeing because I know it will cause a fight if I open up to her…) as a sort of punishment I guess. I know that makes me a piece of shit but it is what it is and I promised myself as I wrote this I would be honest with you and with myself.
These feelings, combined with my general discomfort with being touched caused a rift. For her I’m sure she felt crappy about the physical intimacy issue and I was pissed about the lack of sex. We would talk about it every so often, and the conclusion we usually came to on it was that we were both responsible. I was withholding physical intimacy and she was withholding sex and we would both agree to work on our parts of the issue. I can honestly say that I tried really hard. She would cuddle me and it felt like someone was raping me. My skin crawled and I felt like I was being suffocated but I responded by gutting it up and pushing through it, telling myself that I just needed to get used to it again. I really tried.
She didn’t. Our sex life never got any better. She never made any effort whatsoever to connect sexually with me. The best I got was that she reduced the number of times that she rejected me, which in turn made me feel worse as it made me feel like now I was forcing myself on her. She always seemed to enjoy having sex with me but I still felt like I was forcing myself on her and it left me feeling really shitty. This is a point that she and I have talked about and she even admits that this is true. She refused to initiate sex with me which made me feel really undesired…
To see how often I tried when she didn’t made the physical intimacy issue even harder. I knew that I felt like crap while I was working on my aspect of our relationship, but to see her not work made me feel really betrayed. It made it that much harder to keep trying and I’ll honestly admit considering how violated I felt every time she touched me it put me in a position where I would work at it for a couple weeks while she took from me what she wanted and eventually I would get angry and refuse to keep working at my side of it while she refused to work on her side of it. I’m not proud of that, but there it is.
Our sex life dropped to 4 to 5 times per year. I’ll be honest, I have an extremely high sex drive. I’m horny pretty constantly and this was not going to work for me. I turned to masturbation as it was either that or have an affair on my wife and that was something that I promised myself I would never do. I’ve held myself to that promise even working through times when the devil on my shoulder told me I was justified after six months of not getting laid, but I still held to my marriage vows…
Masturbation was difficult for me. My wife was extremely controlling about it. If I was found out, she would get angry at me and a huge fight would break out over it. I felt extremely trapped. I wasn’t getting laid, and I wasn’t allowed to masturbate, but I also know I was cornered with my sex drive. Maybe a stronger man could have gutted it up and become a sexual camel but I couldn’t. That meant me having to sneak off and beat it, feeling like shit the entire time but it became my pressure relief valve. Again, probably not the best solution but there it is all the same.
Over time I started to resent the fact that I had to steal even this small sexual outlet. She obviously didn’t want to have sex with me, she didn’t want me cheating, and she didn’t even want to allow me to masturbate. I honestly have to say that I feel like she is pushing me on this issue as it has become an issue where she gets off on the control she has over me.
This was how things settled into for pretty much a solid decade and a half. My only sexual outlet being masturbation, our sex life being a joke, having a wife that obviously didn’t feel attracted to me sexually, and feeling pretty much 24/7 like I was undesired. I made a commitment though, and I promised myself that I was going to keep sticking with it.
A couple times a year we would have a blowout fight, triggered by either me getting frustrated by her lack of sexual interest or her catching me masturbating (usually the later). We would remake out commitments to work on this issue together and then the whole cycle would start again. It has gotten to the point that I really feel like she is making a conscious choice to not work on this as it is uncomfortable for her and she is just too selfish to do anything that she does not want to do. I know I sound like a bitch or a mean-spirited person for even saying that but I really think she is making a commitment to me just to get me to shut the fuck up and she has no intention of keeping it. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m reading into it too much, but I also have to say that I feel like after 15 years of this problem it also isn’t unfair to feel like this is something that I should have seen at least a little movement on.
For my part, I let her do to me physically whatever she wants whenever she wants. If she wants me to hug her, I hide the fact that I feel like I’m being raped from her and give her what she wants. If she demands kisses from me I hide the fact that I hate it and resent it and give her what she wants…
About a month ago things came to a head. Like I said, I started working on my writing and that broke a lot of emotions lose in me. I started to get really sick of just giving other people what they wanted in my life. I’m tired of giving away pieces of myself just because someone feels like they are entitled to them. I corned her and basically told her our sexual problems need to go away and that I was losing patience, 15 years after the initial promise and waiting (god I feel so stupid writing that… fuck, how do you get so stupid that it takes you 15 years to realize that you’re being lied to?). I opened up to her, it wasn’t a fight, I tried really hard to make her understand that I was way more hurt than angry. It wasn’t just the lack of sex that is frustrating me, it is the lack of connection. I don’t feel like she has any desire for me whatsoever, and coming from a neglectful or emotionally and physically abusive home that is very hard on me. I feel like I’m 35 and I’ve spent 30 of those years completely alone…
I explained to her that I don’t feel like she loves or cares about me. She told me that is really unfair to her, and got really offended by it, but it is how I feel. She once again committed to me that she would work on it. She basically tried to tell me that she loved me and that she enjoyed having sex with me but that she was having difficulty due to her last relationship’s sexual issues. I’ll be honest. That makes me really angry. It has been 17 years, I should not be hearing about issues she had with an old boyfriend… but I sucked it up, and I sat there and was supportive telling her we could work through it together.
Once again, I carried my part. I went out and bought a bunch of sex toys for us to use, hoping that just helping her orgasm and have fun with our sex would lead to a natural inclination on her part to involve herself sexually with me. It was a complete bust. Nothing changed (I know, you’re screaming at your computer right now that I was a fool to have thought they would… but hey, I’m stupid cut me a break.). She continued to not initiate unless I got pissed at her. Even then she would make a half assed effort the next night, usually by masturbating herself and letting me watch until I got interested enough to join her. Fuck, I read that sentence and I really start to realize how desperate I look… I actually considered that progress…
A little over a week ago things started to go completely off the rails again and rather than wait until I was pissed, and hurt and frustrated I headed it off at the pass and brought it up. I told her how frustrated I was and reiterated once again how hurt I was by the constant rejection I felt at her showing no physical interest in me. I was starting to simply tell myself that maybe she was just completely asexual. The one bright point was that both of us were being more honest with each other about our habits and thinking. I talked with her about the possibility of her being asexual and she assured me that wasn’t the case. I pointed out to her that she didn’t masturbate and she dropped a bomb on me. She admitted to me that she had been masturbating with a dildo the entire time she was withholding sex from me, usually a few times a week while I was busy with a 60 to 80-hour work week to provide for our household…
I think I took it pretty well. I didn’t get pissed, though I really was. I looked at it like at least she was being honest with me now and that had to count as progress…
She committed to me that she was going to work on it again. I told her that I appreciated that, but I didn’t want her to make me any more promises. That I was starting to get a lot angrier at her by her continued betrayals (by making promises she failed to keep) than I was by the lack of sex. She still promised me that she was going to make sure she was initiating sex. I told her that I didn’t believe her. I told her that she would initiate sex with me the next night, and then once again it would fall back into the same pattern of excuse making and betrayal. She threw it in my face that she was busting her ass and I would see on Valentine’s day how much she was working at it…
She did at least break the habit and prove me wrong. She failed to initiate the next night, making an excuse that she was thinking about it but was too tired and wanted to go to sleep. She did initiate the next night, but again, it was a really half assed effort where I got to watch her masturbate… after that, nothing. I made sure to keep up my end of the bargain, making sure that I gave her a ton of cuddles (which I ensured that I was initiating) and if I did try to initiate sex I did it the way she would appreciate it rather than what I wanted.
Valentine’s day came. I put a ton of effort into it, I bought her some sexy toys, and ensured that I bought her a non-bedroom gift just to show her that she meant a lot to me. She… bought a bag of dildos. She literally gave me a bag that had nothing in it that was suited to me. The only items that she threw in, and it seemed like an afterthought, was a couple of nighties. I figured what the hell. Maybe it was an effort on her part and that I needed to give her a chance. I asked her to put on the sexy underwear for me… she did, and then she proceeded to bitch about it the entire time she wore it. I got about two minutes of stimulation out of her in a 90-minute session while she sat there and masturbated. I was not impressed.
I tried to have a, um, can we have a talk conversation and let her know that her efforts were not really what I had in mind when I complained about the lack of emotional connection. She in turn got pissed and turned my words on themselves and did everything she could to take offense and make me feel like a jerk.
I didn’t sleep most of the night. Not from the lack of sex, but instead from the raw emotional pain of knowing that my wife truly doesn’t seem to care about me.
I've spent a lot of time thinking today... and I have to admit, I don't like the way things are going in my mind. I had the opportunity on a long drive for work to really put some thought into where I am, and where she and I are in our relationship.
I really don't like what I’m seeing or what I’m thinking. I’ve been working things out and I realize a few things. First, I’m really hurt about the situation. I feel very alone. I don't feel like I have a partner in life, I feel like a have a really good friend that usually looks out for me. I don't feel like I’m special to her. I feel like I’m convenient to her.
Really thinking about it and digging into how I feel I can't tell if I’m just angry, or hurt, or feel neglected, or if I really feel like this relationship is not working for me. If I had to make a decision right now, this moment, I would say the latter. I know I am tired. I feel okay, and I don't feel like I am overly emotional about the situation (In all honesty I have some hormonal problems and do suffer the occasional bout of depression and it’s something I’m always careful of before I make a big decision) and I think that is part of what scares me so much about the situation. I feel like if I walked away right now, other than the pain in the ass it would be to untangle our finances and the general fit that she would throw about the situation I would not be losing much and that scares the shit out of me...
I don't think that is right. I feel guilty for considering leaving my wife, but I also realize that is a terrible reason to stay in a marriage, particularly if I’m unhappy. for the first time in my relationship with her I don't really look forward to sharing a future with her. The problems we have today, we had 15 years ago. I feel like I’ve talked to her, and I feel like I’ve communicated my needs to her, and I really don't see any movement on her part. I realize that I’m not perfect, I’m not an easy person to care for and I know that I’m not an easy person to love, but I also feel like she doesn't love me and as my wife that is the one thing I should at least be able to expect.
I feel like we got together when we were really young, and we grew and took care of each other; we looked out for each other's needs but things were always such a financial struggle that that always seemed to be the focus. It was something that always forced us together and because it was us against the world, it made it easy for it to feel like we were in love. Now, without that financial struggle it feels like I live with a really good roommate. Part of that is the lack of satisfying sex life, but a bigger part I think is my general feeling that I am little more than a friend to her. I think she thinks she loves me, but more than anything I think she is really just terrified of being alone.
I have to get this out there right now, because even as I write this it's bouncing around my skull. I can't remember the last thing that she did for me, that was really nice just for me. Not just sexually, though that is a big part of this, but even just in little things. I know last Friday I went out of my way to go and buy food for her that she would love, ribs, which I hate, just as a way to tell her she's important to me. I make sure every week to do something like that, usually in the form of going to the store and buying something she loves to eat and using the rest of the night to prepare it just how she likes it. I don't feel like she ever does that for me.
A good example. She makes these little pinwheel things and I love them. They take about 20 minutes to make and I love them and have told her time and again that I do. I know they're probably terrible for me, and I know that I shouldn't but I do love them. The thought popped into my head, she knows that I love that meal. She never makes it for me though. The last time she made my favorite meal was last year for my birthday. That was nine months ago! Even then, when she made it, she threw a fit about it. I had to basically guilt her into doing it for me.
I’m sure that there are things that I’m missing. Little things that she does maybe I don't see, or I am angry enough to have forgotten about but even as I write this, I know that. A part of me wants to look at myself and hate myself for not feeling more guilt about what I’m feeling. I want to blame myself for my marriage falling apart but I just feel hollow about it.
I have to ask myself if this is just me getting older, getting to middle age. This is the only woman I’ve ever been with, so maybe that is a part of it. I have to ask myself is it just the desire to have sexual conquests beyond her… but I really don't feel like it is. Honestly, a part of me looks forward to going out and finding another woman, but the terrifying part of it is the thing that I feel giddy for isn't the sex. it’s the making an emotional connection with someone. I want to be the person someone looks forward to. I want to be the center of just one person’s life. My wife says that’s the case for her, but I don’t see it.
I don’t want sympathy. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I just read back through this whole thing and really I have to say that I feel like it’s pretty obvious how I should feel, but I think I’m also writing this to have someone tell me that I should stop being a bitch and whining about not getting laid enough and go back to being a good husband… but I also have to say that if my next 17 years look like the last 17… I’m going to be very disappointed with myself. I feel foolish for believing she will change, but I also feel like I made a promise to this woman to stand by her side for the rest of my life. I’m very lost and I don’t know what to do.
I just feel really hollow. I had to ask myself today whether or not I still love her. I don’t think she loves me, and after all of this, the constant rejection, the feeling that she doesn’t care about me at all beyond the comforting presence I provide and the constant stream of giving her what she wants… I don’t know that I still do. That scares the shit out of me.
I’m very lost, and I feel very alone…
Thank you for reading all the way to the bottom... I know it sucked, but at least it tells me someone cares...
Sad as it is to say, I really only have one friend, and while I know he would be supportive of this situation, he’s also friends with my wife and I really don’t want to make things awkward for him if all of this is in my head. I am also lucky enough to know that if he knew what I’m feeling right now he’d definitely take my side and it would destroy his relationship with my wife…
So here’s the history.
I had a really rough childhood. I know everyone says that, and most are looking for sympathy. I’m not doing that. I won’t go into details but it involved a ton of neglect, and emotional and physical abuse. I’m 35 now, and I realize that I never really processed a bunch of this. Recently however, I took the time to write about it, and I think I processed through a bunch of it. It wasn’t easy, and it was terrible to write, but I did it. My wife, who is a mental health professional told me what I’d done was write a trauma narrative. Apparently, this is a big part of mental health treatment and I managed to work through it.
Problem is, it seems to have opened a lot of doors for me emotionally and I really don’t know how to process what I was thinking…
I’ve been married for 14 years, and I’ve been together with my wife for more than 17. I met her when I was at a really low spot in my life at 18 when she was coming out of a really abusive relationship at 20. I loved the fact that I had someone to take care of, and for the first time in my life I felt like I had someone that really cared about me. Problem is, I don’t feel that way anymore…
See my marriage has been really unfulfilling for a very long time. I really don’t want to admit to myself that it is, but it is. My wife suffers from bipolar disorder. That sucks, but I’ve made peace with it. We have our ups and we have our downs. I’m okay with that. Honestly that feels like it’s the basic foundation that a relationship is built on. I want ups and downs and I expect them. I want someone that I can look out for and that is looking out for me. I don’t mind the downs and I firmly believe in the idea that without the bitter the sweet just isn’t as sweet.
When we were younger we were poor as dirt. I was homeless for a little over a year, squatting in a house that I basically stole as it was abandoned. I made a ton of financial decisions that I look back on and want to go back and slap the fuck out of myself for. There’s nothing I can do about that now besides make different decisions but there it is.
My wife and I worked through a lot of that together. She really struggled to make ends meet as it was hard for her to work and keep a stable job because of her mental illness. That made me the primary bread winner and that I think really helped me to mature as a person. It forced me to become responsible. We now make really good money and the financial struggles of our relationship have really gone away.
When we were younger, my wife was diagnosed with depression, and with that came the standard anti-depressant medication. For those who don’t know, giving a bipolar an anti-depressant is a really bad idea. It didn’t really help her emotionally and in many ways made her mental illness worse. It also killed her sex drive. The first probably two years we were together we had what I would describe as a healthy sex life. We were passionate, we did it a lot, usually at least 4 or 5 times a week. I was only 18 and she was my first so I drove the bulk of our sex life together, but there were times when she initiated and took charge and I really felt like she tried to care for my needs and wants in the bedroom.
With the anti-depressants this went to nothing overnight. I was still super young and this frustrated me. I was vocal about my frustration and I know that in many ways I drove her away from me sexually. Her lack of intimacy drove my desire for physical contact to almost nothing. I have always had a really tough time with physical contact with people, but with her it always felt right and I loved it. For the first time in my life I looked forward to someone touching me! As that turned into not ever having sex though it became frustrating, and I pulled away from most physical contact. Cuddling made me horny and her constant rejection made me feel like shit and frustrated the fuck out of me. It caused a lot of hellacious fights and a part of me pulled back from her physically just out of a desire to not fight. More honestly however I know I felt really betrayed by her lack of sexual interest in me and that drove me to withdraw from her physically (this is really hard right now… I’m sitting here writing this on my laptop and I want to cry… but she just got home from work and I need to get this off my chest without her seeing because I know it will cause a fight if I open up to her…) as a sort of punishment I guess. I know that makes me a piece of shit but it is what it is and I promised myself as I wrote this I would be honest with you and with myself.
These feelings, combined with my general discomfort with being touched caused a rift. For her I’m sure she felt crappy about the physical intimacy issue and I was pissed about the lack of sex. We would talk about it every so often, and the conclusion we usually came to on it was that we were both responsible. I was withholding physical intimacy and she was withholding sex and we would both agree to work on our parts of the issue. I can honestly say that I tried really hard. She would cuddle me and it felt like someone was raping me. My skin crawled and I felt like I was being suffocated but I responded by gutting it up and pushing through it, telling myself that I just needed to get used to it again. I really tried.
She didn’t. Our sex life never got any better. She never made any effort whatsoever to connect sexually with me. The best I got was that she reduced the number of times that she rejected me, which in turn made me feel worse as it made me feel like now I was forcing myself on her. She always seemed to enjoy having sex with me but I still felt like I was forcing myself on her and it left me feeling really shitty. This is a point that she and I have talked about and she even admits that this is true. She refused to initiate sex with me which made me feel really undesired…
To see how often I tried when she didn’t made the physical intimacy issue even harder. I knew that I felt like crap while I was working on my aspect of our relationship, but to see her not work made me feel really betrayed. It made it that much harder to keep trying and I’ll honestly admit considering how violated I felt every time she touched me it put me in a position where I would work at it for a couple weeks while she took from me what she wanted and eventually I would get angry and refuse to keep working at my side of it while she refused to work on her side of it. I’m not proud of that, but there it is.
Our sex life dropped to 4 to 5 times per year. I’ll be honest, I have an extremely high sex drive. I’m horny pretty constantly and this was not going to work for me. I turned to masturbation as it was either that or have an affair on my wife and that was something that I promised myself I would never do. I’ve held myself to that promise even working through times when the devil on my shoulder told me I was justified after six months of not getting laid, but I still held to my marriage vows…
Masturbation was difficult for me. My wife was extremely controlling about it. If I was found out, she would get angry at me and a huge fight would break out over it. I felt extremely trapped. I wasn’t getting laid, and I wasn’t allowed to masturbate, but I also know I was cornered with my sex drive. Maybe a stronger man could have gutted it up and become a sexual camel but I couldn’t. That meant me having to sneak off and beat it, feeling like shit the entire time but it became my pressure relief valve. Again, probably not the best solution but there it is all the same.
Over time I started to resent the fact that I had to steal even this small sexual outlet. She obviously didn’t want to have sex with me, she didn’t want me cheating, and she didn’t even want to allow me to masturbate. I honestly have to say that I feel like she is pushing me on this issue as it has become an issue where she gets off on the control she has over me.
This was how things settled into for pretty much a solid decade and a half. My only sexual outlet being masturbation, our sex life being a joke, having a wife that obviously didn’t feel attracted to me sexually, and feeling pretty much 24/7 like I was undesired. I made a commitment though, and I promised myself that I was going to keep sticking with it.
A couple times a year we would have a blowout fight, triggered by either me getting frustrated by her lack of sexual interest or her catching me masturbating (usually the later). We would remake out commitments to work on this issue together and then the whole cycle would start again. It has gotten to the point that I really feel like she is making a conscious choice to not work on this as it is uncomfortable for her and she is just too selfish to do anything that she does not want to do. I know I sound like a bitch or a mean-spirited person for even saying that but I really think she is making a commitment to me just to get me to shut the fuck up and she has no intention of keeping it. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m reading into it too much, but I also have to say that I feel like after 15 years of this problem it also isn’t unfair to feel like this is something that I should have seen at least a little movement on.
For my part, I let her do to me physically whatever she wants whenever she wants. If she wants me to hug her, I hide the fact that I feel like I’m being raped from her and give her what she wants. If she demands kisses from me I hide the fact that I hate it and resent it and give her what she wants…
About a month ago things came to a head. Like I said, I started working on my writing and that broke a lot of emotions lose in me. I started to get really sick of just giving other people what they wanted in my life. I’m tired of giving away pieces of myself just because someone feels like they are entitled to them. I corned her and basically told her our sexual problems need to go away and that I was losing patience, 15 years after the initial promise and waiting (god I feel so stupid writing that… fuck, how do you get so stupid that it takes you 15 years to realize that you’re being lied to?). I opened up to her, it wasn’t a fight, I tried really hard to make her understand that I was way more hurt than angry. It wasn’t just the lack of sex that is frustrating me, it is the lack of connection. I don’t feel like she has any desire for me whatsoever, and coming from a neglectful or emotionally and physically abusive home that is very hard on me. I feel like I’m 35 and I’ve spent 30 of those years completely alone…
I explained to her that I don’t feel like she loves or cares about me. She told me that is really unfair to her, and got really offended by it, but it is how I feel. She once again committed to me that she would work on it. She basically tried to tell me that she loved me and that she enjoyed having sex with me but that she was having difficulty due to her last relationship’s sexual issues. I’ll be honest. That makes me really angry. It has been 17 years, I should not be hearing about issues she had with an old boyfriend… but I sucked it up, and I sat there and was supportive telling her we could work through it together.
Once again, I carried my part. I went out and bought a bunch of sex toys for us to use, hoping that just helping her orgasm and have fun with our sex would lead to a natural inclination on her part to involve herself sexually with me. It was a complete bust. Nothing changed (I know, you’re screaming at your computer right now that I was a fool to have thought they would… but hey, I’m stupid cut me a break.). She continued to not initiate unless I got pissed at her. Even then she would make a half assed effort the next night, usually by masturbating herself and letting me watch until I got interested enough to join her. Fuck, I read that sentence and I really start to realize how desperate I look… I actually considered that progress…
A little over a week ago things started to go completely off the rails again and rather than wait until I was pissed, and hurt and frustrated I headed it off at the pass and brought it up. I told her how frustrated I was and reiterated once again how hurt I was by the constant rejection I felt at her showing no physical interest in me. I was starting to simply tell myself that maybe she was just completely asexual. The one bright point was that both of us were being more honest with each other about our habits and thinking. I talked with her about the possibility of her being asexual and she assured me that wasn’t the case. I pointed out to her that she didn’t masturbate and she dropped a bomb on me. She admitted to me that she had been masturbating with a dildo the entire time she was withholding sex from me, usually a few times a week while I was busy with a 60 to 80-hour work week to provide for our household…
I think I took it pretty well. I didn’t get pissed, though I really was. I looked at it like at least she was being honest with me now and that had to count as progress…
She committed to me that she was going to work on it again. I told her that I appreciated that, but I didn’t want her to make me any more promises. That I was starting to get a lot angrier at her by her continued betrayals (by making promises she failed to keep) than I was by the lack of sex. She still promised me that she was going to make sure she was initiating sex. I told her that I didn’t believe her. I told her that she would initiate sex with me the next night, and then once again it would fall back into the same pattern of excuse making and betrayal. She threw it in my face that she was busting her ass and I would see on Valentine’s day how much she was working at it…
She did at least break the habit and prove me wrong. She failed to initiate the next night, making an excuse that she was thinking about it but was too tired and wanted to go to sleep. She did initiate the next night, but again, it was a really half assed effort where I got to watch her masturbate… after that, nothing. I made sure to keep up my end of the bargain, making sure that I gave her a ton of cuddles (which I ensured that I was initiating) and if I did try to initiate sex I did it the way she would appreciate it rather than what I wanted.
Valentine’s day came. I put a ton of effort into it, I bought her some sexy toys, and ensured that I bought her a non-bedroom gift just to show her that she meant a lot to me. She… bought a bag of dildos. She literally gave me a bag that had nothing in it that was suited to me. The only items that she threw in, and it seemed like an afterthought, was a couple of nighties. I figured what the hell. Maybe it was an effort on her part and that I needed to give her a chance. I asked her to put on the sexy underwear for me… she did, and then she proceeded to bitch about it the entire time she wore it. I got about two minutes of stimulation out of her in a 90-minute session while she sat there and masturbated. I was not impressed.
I tried to have a, um, can we have a talk conversation and let her know that her efforts were not really what I had in mind when I complained about the lack of emotional connection. She in turn got pissed and turned my words on themselves and did everything she could to take offense and make me feel like a jerk.
I didn’t sleep most of the night. Not from the lack of sex, but instead from the raw emotional pain of knowing that my wife truly doesn’t seem to care about me.
I've spent a lot of time thinking today... and I have to admit, I don't like the way things are going in my mind. I had the opportunity on a long drive for work to really put some thought into where I am, and where she and I are in our relationship.
I really don't like what I’m seeing or what I’m thinking. I’ve been working things out and I realize a few things. First, I’m really hurt about the situation. I feel very alone. I don't feel like I have a partner in life, I feel like a have a really good friend that usually looks out for me. I don't feel like I’m special to her. I feel like I’m convenient to her.
Really thinking about it and digging into how I feel I can't tell if I’m just angry, or hurt, or feel neglected, or if I really feel like this relationship is not working for me. If I had to make a decision right now, this moment, I would say the latter. I know I am tired. I feel okay, and I don't feel like I am overly emotional about the situation (In all honesty I have some hormonal problems and do suffer the occasional bout of depression and it’s something I’m always careful of before I make a big decision) and I think that is part of what scares me so much about the situation. I feel like if I walked away right now, other than the pain in the ass it would be to untangle our finances and the general fit that she would throw about the situation I would not be losing much and that scares the shit out of me...
I don't think that is right. I feel guilty for considering leaving my wife, but I also realize that is a terrible reason to stay in a marriage, particularly if I’m unhappy. for the first time in my relationship with her I don't really look forward to sharing a future with her. The problems we have today, we had 15 years ago. I feel like I’ve talked to her, and I feel like I’ve communicated my needs to her, and I really don't see any movement on her part. I realize that I’m not perfect, I’m not an easy person to care for and I know that I’m not an easy person to love, but I also feel like she doesn't love me and as my wife that is the one thing I should at least be able to expect.
I feel like we got together when we were really young, and we grew and took care of each other; we looked out for each other's needs but things were always such a financial struggle that that always seemed to be the focus. It was something that always forced us together and because it was us against the world, it made it easy for it to feel like we were in love. Now, without that financial struggle it feels like I live with a really good roommate. Part of that is the lack of satisfying sex life, but a bigger part I think is my general feeling that I am little more than a friend to her. I think she thinks she loves me, but more than anything I think she is really just terrified of being alone.
I have to get this out there right now, because even as I write this it's bouncing around my skull. I can't remember the last thing that she did for me, that was really nice just for me. Not just sexually, though that is a big part of this, but even just in little things. I know last Friday I went out of my way to go and buy food for her that she would love, ribs, which I hate, just as a way to tell her she's important to me. I make sure every week to do something like that, usually in the form of going to the store and buying something she loves to eat and using the rest of the night to prepare it just how she likes it. I don't feel like she ever does that for me.
A good example. She makes these little pinwheel things and I love them. They take about 20 minutes to make and I love them and have told her time and again that I do. I know they're probably terrible for me, and I know that I shouldn't but I do love them. The thought popped into my head, she knows that I love that meal. She never makes it for me though. The last time she made my favorite meal was last year for my birthday. That was nine months ago! Even then, when she made it, she threw a fit about it. I had to basically guilt her into doing it for me.
I’m sure that there are things that I’m missing. Little things that she does maybe I don't see, or I am angry enough to have forgotten about but even as I write this, I know that. A part of me wants to look at myself and hate myself for not feeling more guilt about what I’m feeling. I want to blame myself for my marriage falling apart but I just feel hollow about it.
I have to ask myself if this is just me getting older, getting to middle age. This is the only woman I’ve ever been with, so maybe that is a part of it. I have to ask myself is it just the desire to have sexual conquests beyond her… but I really don't feel like it is. Honestly, a part of me looks forward to going out and finding another woman, but the terrifying part of it is the thing that I feel giddy for isn't the sex. it’s the making an emotional connection with someone. I want to be the person someone looks forward to. I want to be the center of just one person’s life. My wife says that’s the case for her, but I don’t see it.
I don’t want sympathy. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I just read back through this whole thing and really I have to say that I feel like it’s pretty obvious how I should feel, but I think I’m also writing this to have someone tell me that I should stop being a bitch and whining about not getting laid enough and go back to being a good husband… but I also have to say that if my next 17 years look like the last 17… I’m going to be very disappointed with myself. I feel foolish for believing she will change, but I also feel like I made a promise to this woman to stand by her side for the rest of my life. I’m very lost and I don’t know what to do.
I just feel really hollow. I had to ask myself today whether or not I still love her. I don’t think she loves me, and after all of this, the constant rejection, the feeling that she doesn’t care about me at all beyond the comforting presence I provide and the constant stream of giving her what she wants… I don’t know that I still do. That scares the shit out of me.
I’m very lost, and I feel very alone…
Thank you for reading all the way to the bottom... I know it sucked, but at least it tells me someone cares...
