Recurring Problem

OK Jeff said:

It's not a stereotype, or a generalization. It's a fact based on the 14 years I've known this particular woman. It's also the reason I gave up and quit initiating. I'm not saying that was the correct solution, but it never changed the frequency, not one bit.

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But if it were *only* hormonal.....then couldn't the two of you--during her "good weeks"-- have discussions about it? Not finger pointing talks....but some sort of effort towards an emotional/spiritual connection that could get you through the rough times.

Did you talk about your day-long outing? Did she appreciate you doing that? Does she want to do that more often? What week was that in the cycle you're seeing?

OK Jeff said:

But I honestly think it's physical on her part.

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I don't mean this as a judgement......just an observation: I wonder if that's because that may be all that's unique to your relationship/marriage as compared to other relationships of hers.

IOW.....the other stages/forms of intimacy have never really been important to you, so all that's left for her to be able to express her love to you is through sex. When the other forms aren't there.....it's [sexual expression] going to be hormone driven (does that make sense?).....because it can't be emotionally-driven when there's not much emotion being expressed by you.

This article also explains the "levels of intimacy" (like the book I'd recommended--and the video that describes it). I think this happens very often....that there's a false sense of intimacy due to the couple having sex prior to fully developing the other stages. This article presents it as being a problem that happens when the couple has sex prior to marriage---but I believe it can happen even if the couple had waited until marriage to have sex.

>>>Sex…A False Sense of Intimacy

When you look at the five levels, I’m sure you’d agree that the fifth or highest level is the healthiest, safest and most intimate place to have sex. When we feel loved unconditionally, and have the highest level of trust, we’ll be able to give ourselves completely to each other, increasing intimacy and the enjoyment of sex. We can have sex at the other levels, but without that same level of trust the vulnerability of sex may be associated with anxiety, fear and distrust. As I’ve led women through healing, I’ve discovered that they have the hardest time with sex if they’re not at this highest level with their partner, and if they’ve been wounded by sex with others in lower levels of intimacy, whether through abuse or their own choices.

When we have sex outside marriage before the highest level, we are creating a false sense of intimacy in our relationship. The sex makes us feel closer than we really are. Let’s say we’re at level three, where many couples start having sex outside marriage. We’re only sharing thoughts, opinions and beliefs at this level. Of course we may occasionally move up to the next level as we’re building trust, but until we’ve built enough needed, we’ll always gravitate back to where we feel the safest. The sex makes us feel close, but in reality we don’t know each other very well. We’re experiencing a false sense of intimacy. We’ll use sex to express our love, communicate and resolve conflict. And now it’s at this level of emotional intimacy that we’ll most likely stay.

In other words, emotional intimacy can get stalled at the level where we start having sex. Let me explain why. Emotional intimacy REQUIRES being able to risk conflict in order to move to the next level. Handling conflict in a healthy and safe way without being rejected is what allows us to build the trust needed to communicate at higher, more vulnerable levels. But now that we’re having sex, we feel close, and we won’t want to risk losing them. We also may feel that this is the one, and we won’t want anything to threaten this relationship. And so although we may occasionally move to higher levels,we’ll continue to fall back into that safe zone to communicate. We may sense that there’s something missing, but then with sex, we’ll feel that surge of closeness again, making us feel all is well…~The Five Levels of Intimacy - FamilyLife Canada

@mkgal1 YES!!! Sex =/= intimacy. For me, intimacy means being able to be completely open and vulnerable with someone else without fear of being shut down, ridiculed, etc. I don't think that's happening in this case with the OP, again because of his equating intimacy with sex. Nope...

Intimacy is giving your SO a sponge bath after surgery.
Intimacy is your SO holding you up in the shower after ACL surgery
Intimacy is sitting quietly watching TV and having that warm fuzzy feeling just because your SO is there.
Intimacy is arguing over whose car is going in the shop first.
Intimacy is cooking your SO's favorite meal even though you don't want to deal with it.
Intimacy is saying the phrase "get out of my head" many times a day because you know each other so well that you know what the other one is thinking.

Sex...not intimacy. That's just bumping uglies.

RedPonyDriver said:

YES!!! Sex =/= intimacy. For me, intimacy means being able to be completely open and vulnerable with someone else without fear of being shut down, ridiculed, etc

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That's it exactly! What a perfect way to word the definition of intimacy (nice and to-the-point). To be fair.....I don't think Jeff is alone in believing that intimacy means sex. It took me over 20 years of marriage to learn that what you just described is truly intimacy.

mkgal1 said:

That's it exactly! What a perfect way to word the definition of intimacy (nice and to-the-point). To be fair.....I don't think Jeff is alone in believing that intimacy means sex. It took me over 20 years of marriage to learn that what you just described is truly intimacy.

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The great advantage of getting married later in life and having years of crummy relationships behind it. Fortunately, for the hub and I, sex was never, ever the end all and be all of our relationship. We started out as friends...and hanging out as friends BEFORE the whole hormone/love/sex thing kicked in. That's another key to intimacy (IMO), being FRIENDS before lovers. Skipping that stage, friendship, messes things up and allows hormones to do all your thinking for you. It straight up doesn't work, as the trail of broken relationships before my husband tells.

Oh dear one, I read the entire thread...
If I was harsh, well...sometimes people need to be told to quit looking in a mirror of what THEY want. And, sometimes they really don't like it.

Endeavourer said:

The question of the ages: How can a husband receive the sex he needs in marriage? by Dr. Willard F. Harley, Jr.

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Oy. The first paragraph of that page shows his ignorance.



No - it is a COMMAND. And it was not so much for men to get theirs, but wives to get the sex they want and/or need. The famous phrase from that chapter "It is better to marry than to burn;" is NOT addressed to single men, but to widowed women. (genders in the Greek text)

I am not a fan of Harley.

Endeavourer said:

Jeff, you are getting A! LOT! of sex for a man who doesn't initiate. I'm actually surprised you're getting as much as you are.

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I do not see you have any thing to complain about at all.
Some of us have went years between sexual encounters.

Keep in your mind: In first century Judaism, sex was a wife's right and a husband's responsibility (and not the other way around).

Sex is an important emotional need.

Here is an interesting description of how marriages succeed if each spouse meets the other's emotional needs, and fail if they don't:

The Most Important Emotional Needs

No amount of "should"-ing someone can change the fact that it is an important need for them.

It is sad that many people feel that sex is a politically incorrect need. This feeling does not change the fact that it IS indeed a need.

That said, Jeff, your stereotyping about cycles and women is not really fair. I am a woman, have cycles, do not behave in the way you describe cycles to be and I have supported you with a plan to get your need met better.

Many women who have cycles still don't need the physical release of sex for months so your attribution of her need for sex as being part of her cycle is way off base. As you receive sex 2x per month at HER invitation, I believe her initiation of sex has nothing to do with her cycle. You have a lot to work with but are instead convincing yourself that these stereotypes are your problem when they are not.

I would also advise you to re-think your comment about you being the same every day and your wife not being. Only she is qualified to know whether you are actually the same person every day. You had confessed to a certain cycle of anger outbursts, so categorically it is not true that you are the same person every day. You are overlooking a very important possibility that you may have some misconceptions about her experience of your marriage. Her experience of your marriage consistutes 50% of its success.

Endeavourer said:

Many women who have cycles still don't need the physical release of sex for months so your attribution of her need for sex as being part of her cycle is way off base. As you receive sex 2x per month at HER invitation, I believe her initiation of sex has nothing to do with her cycle. You have a lot to work with but are instead convincing yourself that these stereotypes are your problem when they are not.

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I believe that is entirely cultural, not physical. Western medicine hads a 2000+ year belief that women had no sexual needs drives or feelings. (400 bc to 1900 ad)

Dave-W said:

Oy. The first paragraph of that page shows his ignorance.

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Dave-W said:

And it was not so much for men to get theirs, but wives to get the sex they want and/or need. The famous phrase from that chapter "It is better to marry than to burn;" is NOT addressed to single men, but to widowed women. (genders in the Greek text)

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Dave-W said:

I am not a fan of Harley.

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What empirical research have you done on women having the greater need for sex? I think most women would be ASTONISHED to learn that in their marriage, they have the greater need for sex because 90% or better of the marriages out there don't seem to work that way.

Here is Dr. Harley's research, which (not surprisingly) showed that sex showed up in 100's of men's top 5 emotional needs and not in their wives top 5:

My first goal when counseling a couple is to help them identify their most important emotional needs. Once those needs are identified, I help them learn to meet those needs for each other. I want them to make the largest deposits possible into each other's Love Banks. If all goes well, they begin making those large deposits and eventually they are in love with each other.

When I first began using this approach to saving marriages, I didn't know what made people the happiest in marriage -- I didn't know what emotional needs would be the most important. So I had to ask hundreds of men and women that question, "What could your spouse do for you that would make you the happiest?"

As spouses explained what they wanted most, I classified their desires into emotional need categories. And almost all those I interviewed described one or more of only ten emotional needs as being most important to them (admiration, affection, conversation, domestic support, family commitment, financial support, honesty and openness, physical attractiveness, recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment). Very few ever named a most important emotional need that was not included in this list of ten.

I also made a revolutionary discovery that helped me understand why husbands and wives tended not to meet each other's most important emotional needs. Whenever I asked couples to list their needs according to what they needed most, men would list them one way and women the opposite way. Of the 10 emotional needs, the five listed as most important by men were usually the five least important for women, and vice-versa.

What an insight! It is no wonder that husbands and wives have so much difficulty meeting each other's needs: They lack empathy. They are willing to do for each other what they appreciate the most, but it turns out that their efforts are misdirected. What they appreciate the most, their spouses appreciate the least!

Dave-W said:

I believe that is entirely cultural, not physical. Western medicine hads a 2000+ year belief that women had no sexual needs drives or feelings. (400 bc to 1900 ad)

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As a woman, I can tell you that the frequency of my desire for sex in my marriage has nothing to do with history or culture and has everything to do with how connected I feel with my husband on that day.

I can categorically tell you that it is the same for nearly 99% of the women out there.

Basing advice to a marriage that is hurting on this information is harmful at best.

Endeavourer said:

What empirical research have you done on women having the greater need for sex? I think most women would be ASTONISHED to learn that in their marriage, they have the greater need for sex because 90% or better of the marriages out there don't seem to work that way.

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There are many sociological studies of primitive peoples around the globe that show women have the higher drives. It is only in western civilization that held to the opposite position; IMO that was due to Hypocrates (the father of western medicine) writing circa 400 bc that women had no sexual drives or feelings whatsoever.

Endeavourer said:

I can categorically tell you that it is the same for nearly 99% of the women out there.

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In the western world who have bought into Hypocrates' position.

Endeavourer said:

Basing advice to a marriage that is hurting on this information is harmful at best.

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Historical data should never be hurtful.