According to the OP article, the husband shared his spreadsheet of alleged facts with his wife, it was the wife who shared it with the rest of the world. So I'm not sure why the husband is seen as apparently whining to the world "poor me, this is how my wife hurts me."
The husband may be "tacky", "keeping score", not maintaining only positive thoughts, and being "very damaging to the marriage" but if so, is the wife's airing of their dirty laundry to the rest of the world OK (or much different)?
Imo, as the "head" it is his responsibility to initiate the tone of the marriage. If keeping score and whining "poor me, this is how my wife hurts me" is met with her retaliation in putting it on the internet "here's WHY I don't want sex," then I am not surprised. The truth is, we don't know what's wrong with their marriage except that it's not working very well and these two do not treat each other the way they should be.
If one of our spouses expresses a complaint to us and we pull the "you're keeping score" card, or the "you're not thinking only positive thoughts" card, or the "you're being very damaging to our marriage" card, would that be OK, and honoring to God or our marriages? Shouldn't some accountability, integity, honesty, and genuine love and caring be part of the equation? In an objective mood, I think most of us would say yes.
"Expressing a complaint" is not "keeping score." Shouldn't love, caring, accountability and integrity be part of the equation? YES! That's why he should not have kept the record to start with. If he has the integrity to love his wife and honour her (part of traditional vows), then he will also honour her decisions, including declining sex....keeping a running record of it is not honouring it.
Correcting HIS behaviours has to start with HIM. And in this situation, HE is responsible for pulling out a running record to use as a weapon against her. Instead, he should discuss it with her as it happens, then reconcile the relationship (forgive and move on and do not ever bring it up again).
Correcting HER behaviour starts with HER. She should not have retaliated by putting it on the internet. What should she have done instead? There are a lot of private ways to deal with the hurt that a spouse causes you. Perhaps that is where the accountability comes in. She could have responded by saying that keeping a record like this is damaging to the marriage because it feeds his resentment toward her when he puts an entry into it, and it gave her just cause to respond in resentment. Resentment leads to contempt - one of the danger signs of impending divorce.
If this couple had come to us, keeping a record of wrongs, nurturing positive thoughts, and discussing ways BOTH contributed to the marital damage would have been discussed in our attempt to move toward setting some goals about how to improve marital satisfaction.
It's usually the men that complain about a lack of sex, but again, even when men mention they would like more of it, I don't hear sullen, angry, or resentful complaints about a lack of sex if other forms of intimacy and genuine love and caring are present. And of course, it takes two to tango, men often selfishly or unwittingly or unwisely neglect their relationship with their wives and substantially contribute to their wives "lower libido" or poor attitude, and both the pot and stove soon become black.
Actually, you would be surprised at the number of women who wish they had more frequent sex with their husband....they are just less inclined to discuss it. They are more inclined to discuss the lack of other forms of intimacy, and imo, that is a much greater problem than not enough sex.
Imo, in the OP, the husband resents her, which is probably a spillover from other things in their marriage, but he likely keeps the record of sex because he cares more about it than he does about emotional intimacy. She could have very valid reasons for not wanting it. Maybe she's in her third trimester of pregnancy (a lot of women don't want it during that time), maybe she is menopausal, maybe she is resentful towards him for not being there emotionally, maybe he hits her.....the truth is, we don't know. All we know is that she is not interested and he is only making matters worse by keeping a spreadsheet of it.
