Family Forum / Marriage / Marriage / February 2006

What exactly does that mean?  'professional strokings'?  A prostitute? Do
you live somewhere that this is legal?

But, I have more fundamental question. That is, assuming she has no physical
problems that would prevent her from engaging in sex, why are you remaining
in a sexless marriage?  There must be *something* that makes you feel that a
sexless marriage is worth hanging onto. What is it?

Confused,

Bo

Sorry to be using this like a blog, and I know that I have said it all
several times before,  It is just getting me down so much.  At least, I can
say that I know what these marital communication problems are like. In one
sense, that is all that it is, a communication problem.  But the result is
my private Hell, just as for so many other suffering couples.  And the
problem isn't a verbal one.  I can say to my wife: "I want sex."  The words
are clear and unambiguous.  But her need makes her say "No, you don't."
And that is basically where the misunderstandings between us have come
from, every time.  Not the sex issue, but the fact that one's emotional
outlook can produce a response that is quite illogical, or at least quote
puzzling to the other party

O.K., go to counselling.  But if she claims that I am the only one with a
problem, she isn't interested in counselling.

Separate?  She says that I need her to look after me.  And in all honesty, I
wouldn't last 5 minutes on my own.  My health isn't up to it.  I say that
she needs me to look after her in various business and handyman ways.  I
think that neither of us wants a separation.  We have been together 35
years next October. Whatever incompatibilities there are, something is
acting as a glue.  I have said that I was unaware of my physical needs, my
sensitivities, the "arty" side that made me feel almost that the dancers at
my brother's wedding were in a fertility rite - something primeval.  (It is
amazing what a bit of alcohol can do - but here it just relaxed my typical
male short-sightedness.)  The sensitivity when I tuned in so utterly to the
woman with the shingles - I have mentioned these incidents before.  But
realizing that I am like that doesn't make me feel less matched with my
wife, although perhaps I might have married someone different if I had
known back then.  But so many people have said the same thing - if they had
to re-live the years leading up to marriage, they probably would have
married somebody different.  And their marriages are perfectly sound.  That
doesn't mean anything.  If anything, it underlines that each person
contemplating marriage had several potentially satisfactory partners, and
we can marry only one of them.  The fact is, that we two have developed a
sense of belonging together that can carry us through everything - unless
we prevent it.  What worries me is that my wife is not really the same kind
of personality as this, even a bit tactless, and the incidents I have
described are to her rather like describing snow to a tropical Islander, as
I put it recently.  Her dress size is about the same as Ted's wife, but
although a slender wife would be nice to have, that doesn't really worry me
at all.  Basically, I believe in our marriage so much, that any seemingly
impassable obstacle worries me greatly.

I do get the SAD, but this is our summer.  Bill has a reason - it is the
worst time of the year for him, but not for me Down Under.  I do need to
open the curtains more often.  And I am feeling my age - hard not to say "I
am in a retirement village;  I won't be moving out of here except feet
first."

My youngest daughter announced her engagement today, but I can't even get
excited about that.

Hopefully somebody can identify with parts of this, and perhaps find comfort
that others can feel it as well.  That is the great thing about depression
support.  Depressed people think "Nobody could possibly know how I feel."
But get in a group, and everybody there does know how you feel.  They have
been through it.  The same must be true of people with marital
difficulties.  Whatever the precise problem, the emotions involved are what
someone else has felt before you. Yes, you are unique, and what helped
another person may not help you, but you are not alone.

(And to whoever told me last time to get my periods fixed up, I am a MALE.)

Doug L.

All language is a medium of shared experience.

As such, anyone expressing emotional states
you have seldom (if ever) experienced for
yourself are going to sound like nothing more
than gibberish.

But, then, there are experiences that men and
women *cannot* truly share given the hormonal
differences, so that kind of puts up a wall.

(sighs) I really need to stop philosophizing.

Not all of us are emotionally autonomous, you
see, and so some of us "incomplete" folks look
to the person we marry to provide some a sense
of emotional fulfillment.  I know it's unfair
and *not* particularly healthy, but I suspect
there are a lot of these "walking wounded" in
the world...

IMH a "nice selective plague" that took out
only the emotionally incomplete would likely
leave too few alive to bury the dead.

The hell of it is that I can understand Doug's
POV simply because some people are so *secure*
in their beliefs that they will NOT pay any
attention to how reality deviates from their
preferred perceptions.

He's just being a bit reflective ... and philosophical.     And it's a bit
depressing, but I can identify easily with that.    And, come to think of
it, (or so I thought), can you.

Sorry.  Let me try again.  You will have seen the posts from the anti-women
group. They don't seem to be as frequent now.  What they want is almost a
contradiction - a woman who is physical and a "turner-onner" but with a
logical, male mind.  Basically, they want a toy, and they complain at
length about the quality of American womanhood.

I would never be one of those.  A man in an unsuccessful relationship might
want never to be involved again.  I enjoy working with women, I like
chatting with women, although not all the time.  I don't ogle pretty women,
but they are part of a beautiful world.  I am quite happy living in a world
with two sexes who are what they are.  I  don't demand that women respond
to me in a particular way, and I try to look at every man or woman as an
individual, not a type.  I wonder what prompted a scientific journal to
publish an article on "Why two sexes aren't enough."  The world is what it
is.  Like many couples, I find closeness threatening.  My wife admits to
the same.

Doug L.