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Stressed out and confused about sex with wife

Discussion in 'Rebooting in a Relationship' started by JustADude, Feb 10, 2020.

  1. Faceplanter

    Faceplanter Fapstronaut

    Uhm, no.

    Use the opportunity to have a conversation about how important it is to be open regarding intimacy, yes.

    This is more about showing how important the topic is than denying his wife.

    Of course, this has zero chance of working if his wife doesn't have any interest of her own. I'd have tried this, except that it would leave me in a completely sexless marriage.
     
    Psalm27:1my light likes this.
  2. Nicko Stretch

    Nicko Stretch Fapstronaut

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    This should be an interesting experiment for you . If you wife never initiates sex then abstinence shouldn't be difficult. Keep an open mind if you do find yourself craving sex of some kind. It may be because you are using it to nimb ir self sooth. You.mihht also find your desire to kiss and cuddle goes up. Your wife might find this strange.I would be open if she queries this and say 'dont worry I am not after sex, just closeness. '
     
    Psalm27:1my light likes this.
  3. Brokenwife

    Brokenwife Fapstronaut

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    Great list.
    My husband proposed a hiatus from sex in our marriage. I wasn’t clever enough to realise he had only proposed that there was to be no sex between us. He continued to have sex with himself and that has led to his masturbation becoming out of his control, and eventually he has had an online affair (with another man).

    So I believe your heart is in the right place.
     
  4. Brokenwife

    Brokenwife Fapstronaut

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    I should have said it appears your heart is in the right place as I don’t know what I believe anymore :-/
     
  5. AfricanSunset

    AfricanSunset Fapstronaut

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    Seems like she is not ready to talk, and now he wants to fors her... I dont think this is good. We dobt know where she is in her prosess and how the years of PMO has effected her.
    This can break the marriage.
     
  6. Nicko Stretch

    Nicko Stretch Fapstronaut

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    It would be interesting to hear what your expectations will be once you start this regime. What are you expecting to happen and on what time scale. What do you think will be easy/hard and how do you think this will affect your relationship. I know personally I have tried things in the past which had expectations attached which were not met, making the process extremely frustrating.
    This time I made changes for my sake and didn't expect changes in my wife. As it happens the changes that have occurred in my wife(far less defensive, negative and far more affectionate and loving) have been a pleasant and unexpected surprise.
     
    AfricanSunset likes this.
  7. AfricanSunset

    AfricanSunset Fapstronaut

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    I have a very simple theory here.

    Any power you try to exersize over your wife will leave you emty. This will also as more destruction onto her and make her shy away from you.

    Although not without sacrifice. Any true unconditional love and adoration you exersize towards her will leave you forfilled on many levels. You might not understand how this will work, as you dont "understand" how a well nourached plant grows. But grow it will. This also have the power to heal her.

    Your choice
     
  8. JustADude

    JustADude Fapstronaut

    I can commiserate with you. Marital discord is so confusing. We get all wrapped up in our emotions and it becomes so hard to see the truth or the right path. Is it weird that I am feeling a lot of love and compassion for the people on nofap (both the PAs and the spouses) these days. So much pain and so much desire for healing and our stupid human conditions keep getting in the way.

    Both of your comments are related.

    @AfricanSunset, I am picking up on your concern that I am trying to force my wife to be a certain way and @Nicko Stretch, you seem to share the same concern, yet I think you see the possibility that I might be doing this in a healthy way.

    The truth is, that I am doing this to stop my urge to force a change in my wife. I needed a plan for that allows me to find healing, sanity, and clarity that does not require my wife's cooperation. The boundaries give me that power. My state of mind no longer needs to be tied to my wife's willingness to do some hard relationship work. My expectations: Well, I won't be sitting around expecting every hour of the day for my wife to call me and say she wants to talk. I won't be sitting around waiting for her to give me a hug. I expect that I will focus on myself and everything else in my life that is not related to sex or sexual intimacy. That would be my kids, my wife in non-sexual ways, my work, my extended family, my friends.

    This is the first time in my entire marriage where I don't feel like my happiness moving forward will be partially tied to whether or not I think my wife wants me in a sexual way. After sleeping on the idea and waking up with an even more clear mind about the whole situation, I feel really good about this path forward. I think it will be beneficial for both my wife and me.

    I am having some doubts about my decision to not come straight out and tell her how I am feeling and what I am doing. That is fine though, I'll stay flexible. I have a feeling I will tell her what is up in as gentle a way as possible when the time feels right.
     
    Nicko Stretch likes this.
  9. Brokenwife

    Brokenwife Fapstronaut

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    I wish my husband had tried harder to tell me how he was feeling. Instead he embarked on his own journey to try fix things and has made everything so much worse.
     
    AfricanSunset likes this.
  10. I'm kinda in my own journey to fix things too, but I'm stopping the pmo and only sex with my wife. Lots of things stopping us from having much of that at the moment, and I do miss that level of intimacy, but I've found I can live without the level of sex I felt I needed when on pmo.
     
  11. JustADude

    JustADude Fapstronaut

    Yesterday was a good day. Had a long and somewhat productive conversation with my wife. We need more of that. We still don't know how to proceed with working on our intimacy, but she understands me better now, and I think she is finally starting to open up to the possibility that...
    I don't just want more sex
    instead...
    I am hurting and have been hurting our entire marriage, struggling with strong feelings of loneliness and lack of closeness. These feelings seem to be illogical, but are very much real. We talked about how those feelings have a high likelihood of being caused by my porn addiction. We talked about how before sex I feel like our marriage is amazing and I feel very intimate and close, but after sex I feel like there is nothing there (that is the illogical part). She stated that she doesn't have the highs and lows that I have, that her feelings of closeness are more consistent, so she has a hard time relating to and understanding my roller coaster. She was finally able to appreciate the fact that even though my feelings have been illogical, that they are still a real problem for me, that I am finally now willing to and capable of focusing and working on.

    Her reading a book with me is not going to work... self help books are just not her thing. I mentioned maybe a podcast or youtube series that we watch once a week, she said that format might work better. So, do you all have any recommendations for a podcast or youtube series with episodes that are around 20 minutes long or less, that maybe have a progression from easy topics up to more advanced topics? or really, just any podcasts that work well for couples to process together?

    Also, I failed on my boundaries. @AfricanSunset, I think you will be relieved to know that my wife and I made love last night. See... things were going really well, so I thought I would just hold her tight. And so I did, while we watched tv, and when we went to bed. I can't remember ever cuddling that way... I mean, I was just holding her really close. Well.... she got all squirmy, more than she has ever in the past. I was pretty sure that she was really really in the mood and I didn't want to risk making her feel bad by trying to deescalate the tension. Well, yeah, so I crossed my boundaries.

    And now I know. I am going to have to talk to her about some sort of 90 day no sex challenge and get her on board before I can actually pull this off. The more I read 'Cupid's Poisoned Arrow' the more I want to abstain from orgasm for at least 3 weeks, probably longer. The book has thrown so many scientific studies at me about how I might be chemically unbalanced in ways I cannot comprehend, that I really want to see for myself if that is true.

    So, one more question. Do you all have any 'no sex challenge' type videos you can recommend? I think that would be a good way to start the conversation. I already found 2 videos from Terry Crews. But, I would like more... maybe some that explain what types of boundaries would be set and explain it in a not so awkward way (no sex can mean a lot of things)? I don't want to bring this up with my wife until I better understand myself how this would work. But... I want to bring it up soon, so I really need to get on the ball and figure out what I want.
     
    fadedfidelity likes this.
  12. fadedfidelity

    fadedfidelity Fapstronaut

    SO here. I am also thinking she has had some kind of sexual abuse or bad experience in the past that has negatively molded her beliefs about sex and intimacy. Unfortunately, this is something you have asked her about time and time again and she still has not agreed to discuss it nor fix it. That is something you need to be much more pointed about with her--sit down with her and talk, or write her a letter to really express how it hurts you and makes you feel rejected and not a priority to her. It seems she needs to talk with a female sex therapist, but she is unwilling. Perhaps if she knew just how important and hurtful this is to you it would make her understand? What is something she has to have in your relationship that you make sure she gets? What is her love language? How would it make her feel if you were to withhold these things from her? Ask her and explain it in a loving but serious way so that she understands it is not selfish to want intimacy and sex from your spouse. If you are not hurtful, abusive, currently addicted and getting the help you need and she is asking you to get, then I don't see what the problem is? She definitely is not showing normal, healthy, sexual behavior and that is concerning. If it started before marriage then it has nothing to do with you. I wish you the best, but if it isn't seriously address with a professional therapist then I am afraid it will never get better and you will just have to deal with it since you want to stay married.
    Keep up the good work and stay strong! You got this!
     
    JustADude and GID2020 like this.

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