It’s been a year, and me (39M) and my wife (36F) have been intimate twice, separated by nearly six months apart.
I know our relationship has had issues, with financial stress and financial infidelity (5+ years ago, I withheld how bad our cash flow was, using debt to maintain our lifestyle). She has been stressed at her job of 3 years, and now she’s gotten a job that strictly is 8:30-5:30, with no carryover into her personal life.
She can’t let go of the pain I caused her. She feels she hasn’t had time to do so since she started working 5 years ago to help gain a foothold on finances.
This carries over to the bedroom. She has always had a lower libido, but it’s straight turned off. I don’t know how someone in a relationship can possibly handle that long (6+ months) without masturbation or intercourse.
At this point, it’s a huge pain point for us. She knows I desperately want to connect physically, but it feels like the path to her healing is a chicken or the egg dynamic. However, sex is unilaterally off if I’m trying to initiate.
Since I’m batting well below the Mendoza line, I told her I’ve had enough and I’m not pursuing her in bed going forward. The straw was my birthday. I spent the entire day trying to take her on a date and be romantic…not even a kiss or hug.
I just feel like I’m dying inside. I’m literally giving it six months or I’m filing for divorce. That will be her birthday present if we can’t find common ground. I would rather live in a shack, mired in debt and alone, seeing our four kids every now and then, then be this fucking miserable every night.
How the fuck do people cope with this?
Do you think she may find you not sexually attractive because of your attitude? You are both working at jobs now, right, not just her? I know from experience that being the only one working, with four kids, is stressful enough that it can kill the sex drive, and I run pretty hot generally. You say “only 8-530” but then she has to do the second shift at home? Or is the home workload balanced ok between y’all? A large family is a full time job. If you don’t feel overworked, she is.
I would like to say it’s not wrong to need sex with your spouse. It’s not a silly or frivolous thing to break up over. But sometimes guys (sorry but I think it’s usually guys) don’t see everything their partner does, especially when you have a lot of kids. If you aren’t pulling your weight she may have resentment. If she doesn’t have resentment, I would think this IS fixable, and you need to insist on counseling to air it out and fix it.
I just feel like I’m dying inside. I’m literally giving it six months or I’m filing for divorce. That will be her birthday present if we can’t find common ground. I would rather live in a shack, mired in debt and alone, seeing our four kids every now and then, then be this fucking miserable every night.
Have you told her this? Have you tried couple’s counseling?
She may think she needs to get her head down and work hard to sort out the finances, then she can work through the emotional stuff but that’s not working for you. Better she finds out now, when you can work on fixing it, rather than when you hand the papers over.
No. But she knows how frustrated I am as well.
I can’t change the past, and progress to right a wrong is way longer than it takes to lose trust. However, I don’t know how much longer I can take not feeling like I’m worth the effort, the same effort that gave us four awesome children.
I feel a huge gaping hole in my heart each and every day, and she knows this. So, I’m going to go to my therapy that I’ve gone to off and on for 8 years, get in the best physical shape I’ve ever been in, and find a way to find contentment in a shitty environment.
That will be her birthday present
Yikes.
Honestly, it sounds like you have checked out of the relationship.
If you actually want to rebuild, I strongly recommend finding a counsellor who works for both of you and can help you establish productive communication.
It’s cliche, but right now you are ‘Me’ focused. You need to be ‘We’ focused.
How would she tell the story?
How confident are you in that?
It feels like you’re trying to push for the romance thing when she’s still caught up in real-world issues. And like you need to work on the real-world issues first.
This might be difficult, when she doesn’t even want to go on a date, but presumably you need to frame it differently.
In particular, this:
She can’t let go of the pain I caused her. She feels she hasn’t had time to do so since she started working 5 years ago to help gain a foothold on finances.
…just sounds like she hasn’t forgiven you. Maybe she’s trying to forgive you, but can’t get over the trust issues. I really don’t feel like more time will kit this over. You need to talk about it. You need to show that you’ve learned the right lesson.
I do assume, you’ve talked about it already, but maybe you’ve only scratched the surface. Or you didn’t convince her.
If the situation is that dire, then getting counseling or even just a friend to come over and force you to talk about it, might be very necessary.How’s your communication? Is she aware of how you’ve been feeling? You state that you told her that you’re fed up but, have you actually talked to her about it?
How about the kids? Are you taking on responsibilities there? How about around the house?
Biggest suggestion would be that you two do couples therapy. Accept that it may not resolve everything but, it may help to repair civility, should divorce be in the future, you’ll need that for co-parenting.
There’s the whole ‘broken trust’ aspect, from the financial stuff. People don’t want to have sex with spmeone they can’t trust. Maybe she is also exhausted from working and taking care of your four children. Perhaps taking some load off of her by helping out more around the house would decrease the stress levels and make her more likely to be in the mood.
