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agonyaunt2020-03-23 08:14 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2020-03-23 08:14 pm
"I do the dishes and play with the kids. Why won’t my wife agree to more sex?"
Dear How to Do It,
My wife and I have been together for 15 years, and she’s been a great wife and mother to our three kids. But except for the very beginning, I’ve been dissatisfied with our love life. I told her early on that my ideal pattern is two activities a week. Doesn’t have to be full penetrative sex, although my preference is that we both finish. I like giving almost as much as receiving. I like variety and keeping it fresh. Three days after our last encounter, I want it and miss her. That feeling of missing her turns into anxiety in the days after that. We are nine days out right now, and it feels like a depression. We’ll hook up on Saturday and then the pattern will begin again. I don’t feel wanted. Her ideal pattern is once a week—on the weekend. Missionary only, and she groans but agrees to some foreplay. If we miss that once-a-week opportunity, there’s a small shot we’ll hook up on Monday. She has no interest in giving oral, manual stimulation, watching porn with me, or any physical contact when I take care of myself.
I try to be a good husband and father. I provide for the family, I’m supportive, I cook, clean, play with the kids, and my quirks are minor. What can I do?
—Completely Frustrated
Dear Completely Frustrated,
As much as you may think your domestic CV should qualify you for the kind of sex that you crave, it does not. Your responsibilities as a father and husband have nothing to do with your wife’s sexuality. Your reward for doing your job as a family man is a strong, healthy family. That is it. No further entitlement. I really hope that you aren’t explicitly as transactional with your wife as you come off in your letter. While I trust that the anxiety arising from your string of sexless days is real, it’s probably best not to lay on your horn there, lest you risk irritating your wife into being even less interested in sex.
As I see it, you have a few basic options for solving the desire disparity that vexes you. One is to talk to your wife about your desires explicitly and without accusation. This could very well come down to a mismatch of libidos, in which case it’s not her fault she wants sex less than you do, and it’s not your fault that you want it more. Look at it as the condition of your relationship, the climate of your bedroom. You could also suggest opening your relationship. Or, of course, you could leave her. Evoking those last two scenarios would certainly convey your seriousness and escalate the situation, but don’t wield them as ultimatums and don’t start there—talk first, and see where that leaves you. It sounds like she may have some issues about sex that it may serve you well to accommodate. So in addition to talking, listen. You seem so wrapped up in your own situation here that it makes me wonder if you’re doing all you can to honor hers. As it stands, there are no rights or wrongs, just some parts that aren’t fitting together. It’s your job to solve the puzzle, not break her pieces to fit yours.
My wife and I have been together for 15 years, and she’s been a great wife and mother to our three kids. But except for the very beginning, I’ve been dissatisfied with our love life. I told her early on that my ideal pattern is two activities a week. Doesn’t have to be full penetrative sex, although my preference is that we both finish. I like giving almost as much as receiving. I like variety and keeping it fresh. Three days after our last encounter, I want it and miss her. That feeling of missing her turns into anxiety in the days after that. We are nine days out right now, and it feels like a depression. We’ll hook up on Saturday and then the pattern will begin again. I don’t feel wanted. Her ideal pattern is once a week—on the weekend. Missionary only, and she groans but agrees to some foreplay. If we miss that once-a-week opportunity, there’s a small shot we’ll hook up on Monday. She has no interest in giving oral, manual stimulation, watching porn with me, or any physical contact when I take care of myself.
I try to be a good husband and father. I provide for the family, I’m supportive, I cook, clean, play with the kids, and my quirks are minor. What can I do?
—Completely Frustrated
Dear Completely Frustrated,
As much as you may think your domestic CV should qualify you for the kind of sex that you crave, it does not. Your responsibilities as a father and husband have nothing to do with your wife’s sexuality. Your reward for doing your job as a family man is a strong, healthy family. That is it. No further entitlement. I really hope that you aren’t explicitly as transactional with your wife as you come off in your letter. While I trust that the anxiety arising from your string of sexless days is real, it’s probably best not to lay on your horn there, lest you risk irritating your wife into being even less interested in sex.
As I see it, you have a few basic options for solving the desire disparity that vexes you. One is to talk to your wife about your desires explicitly and without accusation. This could very well come down to a mismatch of libidos, in which case it’s not her fault she wants sex less than you do, and it’s not your fault that you want it more. Look at it as the condition of your relationship, the climate of your bedroom. You could also suggest opening your relationship. Or, of course, you could leave her. Evoking those last two scenarios would certainly convey your seriousness and escalate the situation, but don’t wield them as ultimatums and don’t start there—talk first, and see where that leaves you. It sounds like she may have some issues about sex that it may serve you well to accommodate. So in addition to talking, listen. You seem so wrapped up in your own situation here that it makes me wonder if you’re doing all you can to honor hers. As it stands, there are no rights or wrongs, just some parts that aren’t fitting together. It’s your job to solve the puzzle, not break her pieces to fit yours.
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It sounds like he's the kind of person who really needs physical intimacy in a relationship (not just sexual release) which is a valid need, and it sounds like she's not enjoying the sex she's having with him, and also that neither of them are effectively communicating about what they actually need or want. This is one where therapy may actually be the right answer. If two people love each other, they should be able to have some kind of loving touch even if it isn't mutually sexual, and it doesn't seem like they've figured that out.
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"The sentence about cooking and cleaning was inappropriate, but responding only to that does the LW a disservice."
The discussion of cooking and cleaning, etc, ties into a VAST attitude in US (at least) society that women owe their male partners sex for X, Y, and/or Z action. I've heard enough jokes on that subject and heard enough warning tales of dates where a guy paying for dinner insisted that entitled him to sex that I really don't think we can detach that and disregard it from our evaluation of the LW as if it were an unfortunate and meaningless statement rather than yet one more instance of a really widespread and pernicious idea about how women exist to provide things for men rather than as people in our own right.
I totally agree that LW and his wife need to have some conversations and could probably use to have them with a trained facilitator, but I don't think LW will be able to have them until he sets aside the idea that sex is the rent his wife should be paying him and re-envisions it as something they can hopefully do together.
ETA I thought I should be explicit about something. My negative reaction here is entirely about the transactional attitude he has, and is not at all a condemnation of him for wanting a satisfying sex life. I would be talking about my sympathy for him for that if I could stop hearing echoes of every time I've heard or heard about a man saying he was owed sex because he did X, including the couple of terrifying times I was told so by a boy I was involved with back in my even stupider days.
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It just sounds to me as though she isn't particularly interested in sex. She isn't interested in variety, she will put up with foreplay (stimulation for him or stimulation for her, I wonder?) but she's not keen. Since he *is* interested, and wants a bit more spice in his life, the two of them are just mismatched.
They do need a conversation, certainly, but it's hard to see how to reconcile these differences. He doesn't feel wanted, she doesn't feel desire - what do they do?
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The thing is, the "I'm not the guy who doesn't take on any of the load yet still expects my wife to be receptive at all times" is another version of "I could be worse so you owe me for not being worse."
Also, they have three children -- if she was pregnant and gave birth, that could have changed her relationship with her body, and thus with sex. (It also might not have, but it can.) Which means maybe that relationship could continue to change, if the ability to change were seen as a possibility and the desire to change were present. Both would be needed and neithr would be sufficient, but those two concepts plus meaningful conversation could contribute to an actual path forwaards together for them.
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Oh they definitely could color my perspective -- that's why I brought them up in describing my perspective. Now am I putting this into place in a wider pattern or are you right that there's no wider pattern is one interesting question.
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