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Why can’t I just be satisfied?


Syen

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My gray-ace husband loves me. He’s taken me on vacation, just the two of us, and this is the first time I’ve been away from the kids in years. No cooking (it’s an all-inclusive resort), no dirty dishes, and no alarms. Just the two of us all day every day, eating and napping and watching TV and occasionally going for walks. 

 

He’s cuddling me lots more than usual and his naked body up against mine just makes me wish for things that I can’t have. We haven’t had sex in a month, and I tried to hook up with an acquaintance a few days before we left town so that I wouldn’t have to worry about this frustration (at least, not the physical part of it) - but I caught a stomach bug and had to cancel my date.

 

I’m just so sad, and I feel so guilty for feeling sad. Even just a quickie would lift my mood for the next couple weeks but I’m worried that if I indicate that I’m interested in having sex (or admit that I am sad that we have not had sex), he’s going to be upset that this vacation hasn’t removed the yearning I have for sexual connection. We had such a huge and terrible fight about sex at the beginning of the month and I just want this week to be nice and I’m afraid to ruin it. 

 

I’m just venting. He’s asleep and I haven’t been sleeping well the last several nights (because of this issue) and I am trying not to ruin our vacation by having these needs and feeling these feelings. 

 

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Oh, this sounds hard. ☹️

 

I'm imagining myself here and I'm pretty sure I'd break down and cry at my partner.

 

I can't even have sex these days unless it's just "giving", one would think my brain would call a hiatus. Yet I still want to do just that when he's next to me in bed. Which confuses him, but I guess it has been a weird proof to him that I really can't erase my yearning. I digress a little but it sounds bad that your partner seems to want that. :(

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12 minutes ago, anisotropic said:

Oh, this sounds hard. ☹️

 

I'm imagining myself here and I'm pretty sure I'd break down and cry at my partner.

 

I can't even have sex these days unless it's just "giving", one would think my brain would call a hiatus. Yet I still want to do just that when he's next to me in bed. Which confuses him, but I guess it has been a weird proof to him that I really can't erase my yearning. I digress a little but it sounds bad that your partner seems to want that. :(

I do feel like crying. 😞

 

He has asked me before why I can’t just be happy with what we have, and I’ve tried. I really have tried. I’ve been all over the place with this. I’ve tried turning off my sexuality and my libido, I’ve tried replacing sexual connection with other kinds of intimate connection, I’m fucking other people when I can find the time to do so (which he said would reduce the pressure on him and make him more likely to want to have sex more often - but I have not noticed a difference in frequency at all, and I don’t really want other people anyway - I want him). Am I just doomed to keep volleying back and forth between feeling good (which is how I feel for 1-2 weeks after any kind of sexual contact with him) and feeling depressed and hopeless?

 

I feel ungrateful and helpless and hopeless. Thank you for your response, it makes me feel a little less alone. 

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At some point my partner's therapist said something like "it sounds like your partner's mood is a lot happier after they've had sex with you". (I mean, an unconscious mood change.)

 

And I guess it was a light bulb moment: he started observing me, and it was true. I wasn't attributing it to the sexual intimacy events, but my behavior was then doing this thing.

 

Later he told me, and I became self conscious of it, but it remained true despite that.

 

I really don't mind having been an experiment. I'm glad & probably very lucky he was able to see for himself. It's hard to force someone to experience empathy.

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My husband noticed the same thing about me early in our relationship. We had TONS of sex in the beginning and he always remarked on how it put me in a good mood for days afterward. Like you, I also got self-conscious about it and later on in the relationship, as sex became more and more infrequent, he said that the fact that sex lifts my mood made him feel pressured. So then I started trying to hide how it made me feel because I didn’t want to pressure him. 

 

We’re 6 years into the relationship now and it’s become clear that my entire existence as a sexual perso  makes him feel pressured to have sex, regardless of my actions or words. Whether I leave it to him to initiate or I try to initiate, no matter how many times I tell him it’s okay to say no, whether I hide my depression or am open about it, whether I hide my happiness and joy over the connection I feel when we do have sex or am open about it...none of it really matters. He feels pressured regardless. From what I can tell he wants to forget that he married a sexual person only until he happens to be in the mood for sex, and then he wants to forget that he married a sexual person afterwards. 

 

My therapist is helping me learn to accept that my depression is not something I am choosing. But I still don’t know what to do about it. 

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That sounds like he feels guilty about the whole situation but isn’t able to come up with a solution.  I’m sorry!

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1 minute ago, ryn2 said:

That sounds like he feels guilty about the whole situation but isn’t able to come up with a solution.  I’m sorry!

He does. We both feel guilty and have been taking turns being miserable. He is not sex-repulsed, just mostly uninterested, and he does actually enjoy sex with me when we have it. And we are kinky and poly and I thought that we would be able to make things work because of all that but things are still out of wack. 

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Yeah, some people can do poly where they have a sexual connection with some partners and “just” an emotional connection with others... but others need a sexual connection of some sort with each partner.

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24 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

Yeah, some people can do poly where they have a sexual connection with some partners and “just” an emotional connection with others... but others need a sexual connection of some sort with each partner.

and some of us do poly where we only want nonsexual relationships with everyone.

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9 minutes ago, MakeLoveNotWar said:

and some of us do poly where we only want nonsexual relationships with everyone.

Also true, but that definitely won’t work for poor OP.

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It sounds to me like everyone's dancing round the obvious point here - you're subjugating your needs to his to the point where you're clinically depressed despite both his and your best efforts. At the most positive, you're fundamentally incompatible as a couple. That's not a good relationship to stay in.

 

You mention kids, which would make a divorce more complicated, but as someone who grew up with one seriously depressed (amongst other things) parent, I know I would've preferred them to divorce. It may well happen anyway, if the relationship gets intolerable, so considering it before it gets that intolerable might be better for everyone.

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20 minutes ago, kevinkedar said:

 You both should not separate from each other as it may have negative impact on your kids. 

That is pretty much a stereotype.  What has a negative impact on kids are parents who are frustrated in their relationship.  

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On 12/28/2018 at 6:22 AM, Syen said:

We both feel guilty and have been taking turns being miserable.

You're seeing a therapist, I wonder if this relationship is a goal of the therapy? And whether your partner also sees a therapist regarding the relationship issues, or if you see something jointly. Because if that's not been the case, it seems to me like maybe it shouldn't all be on you to seek therapy to figure it out.

 

It was actually the therapist I went to see about my gender issues that ended up suggesting asexuality (almost immediately 😓) and then dealing with the fallout... But I also asked my partner to find and see a therapist for himself (hence the story related earlier...). I think I felt a lot better seeing him putting in some effort.

 

My partner expresses a hope that I'll experience sexuality with others but I'm too busy & uninterested in it. (My "open" attempts in the past have been such desultory efforts...) I'm not sure how much such things help with a mixed relationship. Maybe a little, but rarely as much as one hopes.

 

Being married with kids probably biases me towards trying extra hard to work it out. It's fair to point out that it's not great for kids if parents stay together, but are miserable.

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Did OP go to have sex with an aquaintance? And did the husband know? Is it an open relationship or...? 

 

I remember the summer of 2017, where my wife suddenly turned into a very romantic/kissing/cuddling person. I loved it. She even initiated sex. But it was actually harder, as it stopped and it wasnt her new way of behaving. I know she tried and I love her for doing that.  I think she did it, trying to see if it could turn into a new habit.

Important to be true to yourself. Important to express how you feel. Important to allow your partner to know, what is going on inside of you.

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On 12/27/2018 at 8:33 PM, Syen said:

My gray-ace husband loves me. He’s taken me on vacation, just the two of us, and this is the first time I’ve been away from the kids in years. No cooking (it’s an all-inclusive resort), no dirty dishes, and no alarms. Just the two of us all day every day, eating and napping and watching TV and occasionally going for walks. 

 

He’s cuddling me lots more than usual and his naked body up against mine just makes me wish for things that I can’t have. We haven’t had sex in a month, and I tried to hook up with an acquaintance a few days before we left town so that I wouldn’t have to worry about this frustration (at least, not the physical part of it) - but I caught a stomach bug and had to cancel my date.

 

I’m just so sad, and I feel so guilty for feeling sad. Even just a quickie would lift my mood for the next couple weeks but I’m worried that if I indicate that I’m interested in having sex (or admit that I am sad that we have not had sex), he’s going to be upset that this vacation hasn’t removed the yearning I have for sexual connection. We had such a huge and terrible fight about sex at the beginning of the month and I just want this week to be nice and I’m afraid to ruin it. 

 

I’m just venting. He’s asleep and I haven’t been sleeping well the last several nights (because of this issue) and I am trying not to ruin our vacation by having these needs and feeling these feelings. 

 

Similar situation, genders reversed.  I can't seem to make my wife understand that small amounts of intimacy and romantic trips make things WORSE not better. That curling up naked next to me for a few minutes, then getting up is not helping, it just reminds me of what I am missing.   I sort of ruined our vacation by being so depressed.    

 

Nothing like waiting for the new year's fireworks in your hotel room after a romantic dinner, and having your partner decide its time to go on facebook, when you haven't had sex in 2 months. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
QueenOfTheRats

He is already giving a lot, and you are asking him to give even more. What do you have to offer?

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On 1/12/2019 at 12:52 AM, QueenOfTheRats said:

He is already giving a lot, and you are asking him to give even more. What do you have to offer?

He’s giving what he likes and nothing more from what I can see.

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