[WantingToBeWanted]

You are still judging her.
And she knows it at some level.

Just to be clear, I have NEVER brought that up for 7 years, except when I apologized for my behavior recently. I don't honestly think she still thinks I'm judging her to this day.

To be fair, I only brought those things up when you guys seemed to suggest that we didn't treat sex differently since before we even met. I simply explained that I felt their was a difference in our behaviors regarding sex before we even met.

[WildChild]

She had 10 intercourse partners, and others that were non intercourse. I had one intercourse partner, and a few more non intercourse partners. She was 22, I was 26 when we met.

She obtained all those partners in the span of 4 years. Do you really think she was carefully considering each of those encounters? I had many more opportunities during my 26 years, and I chose very carefully before engaging in any sort of sexuality with a girl. It wasn't something I just threw at anyone who was interested.

She insists that she's always been less affectionate than me, but the minute I hear that I of course immediately think "all those guys in college seemed to get plenty of affection", and that hurts. Of course I don't know how emotionally deep those relationships were, but it's still hard to think about.

You are still judging her.
And she knows it at some level.

[CHANDLERS WISH]

She's didn't say a word about how much it bothered her, or anything. She just said "It's ok".

What seriously does that tell you?

The other thing that has recently begun to hurt me deeply, is the realization that our sexual relationship is so shallow, and knowing that she experienced all these things with other men before she met me, and yet I've never even experienced these things with her and I've been married to her for more than 6 years.

but the minute I hear that I of course immediately think "all those guys in college

Like my ex-husband, you can not let it go... It's still there, it's not in the past and she knows it.

CW

[Hopeless Dork]

CW hit the nail on the head just now-- the guilt trip given at the beginning of the relationship would put her in a position of even if she WANTED to be naughty with you , she'd fear it would remind you of how naughty you thought she was before you.

So she would probably force herself to behave in a manner you thought acceptable, non sexual. Act that way long enough and you just become it.

Also to add, even the most CONFIDENT woman can be insecure about her lady parts, because of jokes and insults you hear on tv, in lunch rooms etc... you fear it being not smelling right, not looking right, not tasting right... its really up to the man that loves you to show you , not only is it right -- its beautiful. And when he does... it unlocks a sexual confidence that the man will reap the benifits of.

Being made to feel her parts are 'unnappealing' even if you just said the act was unnappealing to you, I would definitely take it as my womanhood was unnappealing to you. I'd want to hide it and cover it up with a blanket. I would never risk, even 7 years later, asking you to touch it, to make love to it with more than your penis... for fear of hearing how unnappealing I was ... again.

You say she never made a big deal out of you not doing it... but I don't know why she would. If I was told a guy didn't want to touch my body like that, I would not keep asking for him to do it and keep feeling worse and worse about myself.

Not trying to beat you up here. But I think you are blaming your wife for your lack of passion and yes, she is passionless from what you described -- but you need to take responsability for the role you played in created the bed you now lay in.

Its not unfixable though, you just have to be willing to do the work it takes to make her feel like the woman she should have been allowed to feel all along.

[WantingToBeWanted]

It took seven years to create this problem. It will not disappear overnight.
For seven years, you didn't apologize for being harsh on her for having sex. How many partners are you talking about here? 10? 20? 100? And who's to say that she didn't choose carefully? Or take it seriously? It may have been a VERY serious choice for her to experiment with sex. Did you ask her? Just because she didn't volunteer the information doesn't mean anything - if someone vilifies me for my sex life, I'm not about to share more about it.
For seven years, you never asked for more than what you had. You never indicated there was a problem. And for much of that time period, I'll assume you DIDN'T have a problem.
Have you had a sit-down talk about this? Have you said everything that is in your thread? Do you often talk to each other about deep subjects?
You might consider showing her this thread. Don't assume she doesn't want passion just because she's not giving it. It seems plausible that she's "punishing" you for your initial judgment and years of vanilla sex by withholding passion from you.
Don't throw away your loving wife because she's not turning into a temptress overnight. Maybe she needs to see a counselor to. Consider all the possibilities before you make a decision.

She had 10 intercourse partners, and others that were non intercourse. I had one intercourse partner, and a few more non intercourse partners. She was 22, I was 26 when we met.

She obtained all those partners in the span of 4 years. Do you really think she was carefully considering each of those encounters? I had many more opportunities during my 26 years, and I chose very carefully before engaging in any sort of sexuality with a girl. It wasn't something I just threw at anyone who was interested. Trust me, my days of judging her are over, but I do think it's worth nothing that even before we met we seemed to treat sex very differently from one another. I think that when you examine the various aspects of our current problems, it's worth noting those things. No? I think sex simply meant more to me than it did her, and it seems that I'm still seeing that today. Before I ever spoke a word to her, she was willing to get it on a lot more easily than I was.

Yes, as I went through a re-awakening if you will, last year, I began to realize how much more open we should be together. That started with me bringing up her sexual past for the first time in 7 years, and apologizing for how judgemental I was with her. She accepted the apology, but that was the end of that. She's didn't say a word about how much it bothered her, or anything. She just said "It's ok".

You've asked for help and I'm going to be blunt because tiptoeing around won't really help. I hope you take this as honesty or "tough love.

You largely created this. You took a sexual woman, laid a guilt trip on her, made her "wrong", and made her past pleasure into something "dirty". For what ever reason, probably based in her youth (she was what 22?) and childhood exposure to belief systems that uphold this kind of thinking, instead of telling you where to get off, she accepted your judgement of her. She shut her sexual self down and became a "good" woman. She went without sex until marriage, she dutifully "takes care of you", makes dinner, keeps a clean house. She's playing her part, fullfilling the role assigned her.

You told her bluntly that pleasuring her with oral sex was "unappealing". So, you never asked for it, but you would enjoy it? Why would she enjoy it? What possible motivation could she ever have in initiating it? Why would getting her nose and tongue into your privates be any more appealing to her than you getting your nose and tongue into hers is to you? You essentially told her "bluntly" that her most intimate self was "unappealing". You also made the sexual experience she had, which is where she would have already learned to do a blow job, completely shocking and displeasing. Why should you now benefit from what you made into a source of guilt and shame?

I fully acknowledge I may have played a part in this, and that is why I'm being so honest in my creating of this thread. But at the same time, I have begun to worry that she is simply not wired the same as me in terms of deep affection, and loving behavior. It's about more than just SEX here. That is what I've tried to make clear. Even away from the bedroom she is hardly what I would call a super affectionate wife.

I hope you can at least acknowledge that I am being very open about this, and I'm truly willing to do anything to have the open, loving, passionate relationship I want. If she expressed a true desire to get oral sex, I'd definitely give it a try. Years ago I would have never considered it. Now I would.

Just to clarify a bit more. I didn't tell her "you will have no sex until we are married". It was just a mutually agreed upon idea, to save that act for marriage, because we both felt we were going to get married early on. She never once during that year before marriage said to me she wished we could have sex. Not to mention, you make it sound like I was somehow having all this wild sex, and she wasn't. It was an agreed upon thing, and we still messed around during that year regularly.

You may not get this, but you made her a HO. You had sexual experience too (not that it would be any different if you had had none). The fact that you had less, didn't make you any cleaner or better, anymore than her experience made her unclean or worse than you. But you made her sexuality wrong. Not bringing it up again hasn't made it OK, hasn't healed what you did to her emotionally. Now you are resenting her lack of sexual initiation and responsiveness. You want your own sexuallity? After you crushed hers? Appologising isn't enough. Her healing depends on how deeply in herself she accepted this judgement. You played upon religious and cultural messages that she already had ingrained, you hit the switch and turned her off. You can't just turn her back on. The wires may be fused now.

Now you think you may have married a woman who doesn't want the passion and sex you do. It sounds like you may have had one. You didn't want her as she was, she wasn't acceptable.She made a huge change for you before you married. Now you've changed, she hasn't. You'll never really know what she was sexually and emotionally, because you tried and condemed her without knowing. It's not surprising you feel she responds to you like a father, you treated her as if you had a right to judge, restrict her priviliges (no sex) and then forgave her. You set yourself in a parent-like role.

This is a variation of what I called the virgin Ho, before I heard the term Madonna complex. The idea that the woman is supposed to be this "pure", untouched, innocent creature - until she marries. Then she is supposed to magically turn into a sexual dynamo. It rarely works that way.

I don't know what to tell you about healing this. This isn't something you "fix", it will be a healing process. A lot will depend on whether she is willing to trust that you really love her and will accept her. It may require counseling, a non-religious counselor would probably be best, she doesn't need any more blame or disapproval. You need to accept that at the very least you contributed significantly to this situation. You couldn't have created it entirely unless the groundwork was already there but you have to own your role and quit making her wrong. I wish you both success in resolving this. It will take time, patience, love and trust.

As I said earlier, I never denied her sex. It was a mutual agreement. Never did she request it, or even hint that she would rather not wait til marriage.

I have accepted that I caused a problem, and I behaved poorly in those early days of getting to know her. The biggest question for me now, is simply how much of it is due to my actions, and how do I fix it.



The other thing that has recently begun to hurt me deeply, is the realization that our sexual relationship is so shallow, and knowing that she experienced all these things with other men before she met me, and yet I've never even experienced these things with her and I've been married to her for more than 6 years.


I've recently begun this discussion. I've even said "I worry that my judging comments of the past have affected your behavior today", and she says that is not the case. She insists that she's always been less affectionate than me, but the minute I hear that I of course immediately think "all those guys in college seemed to get plenty of affection", and that hurts. Of course I don't know how emotionally deep those relationships were, but it's still hard to think about.

I've opened the doors of communication, and made it clear I want more passion in our relationship, but so far it seems to be met with a very muted response.

[CHANDLERS WISH]

but I'm a person who loves passionate love. I want to tell her I love her often, and I want to hear it back often, and I want her to just up and tell me that often. I want her to initiate sex. I want her to want me sexually. I want to have a wife who says naughty things to me. I want a wife that wants me. I want to be wanted.

I would say you have "become a person who wants passion, seuxality, dirty talk, etc"

Look, as a woman, these women have it spot on in their replies, whether you like to hear it or not, if not all of us, most of us have had a situation that we can somewhat relate to how she is thinking, physcologically.

It doesn't matter that it was 7 years ago. Yes, I hear you that you quit bringing it up and quit talking about her past, that past is past, but the fact that your the same man she was with when that all occured, where she felt like obviously that "dirty" person for her past, with you, it's still foremost in her mind and always will be until you un-leash it somehow.

Put yourself in her shoes. Her boyfriend made her feel as if she did wrong, that she couldn't be FREE sexually, and therefore, she's never been FREE sexually with you, for fear you will think that "did she do those things in College?" and lose her now, husband.

My ex-husband constantly would look at magazines and call "all women" tarts, so same problem, how could I let him see the naughty side of me, the inner child that wanted to come out to play? He also was married once before me, a virgin before that marriage at 31. Yet off course by that age I was definately way past that, so same thing, I had to hide my true sensuality, for fear of him seeing past, that's so un-fair.

The reality is it's not a dirty thing at all. Our bodies are ours and this old school of being a virgin, or a "nice girl", at 25 years of age, (7 and a half years ago), unless that is what a person "wanted" to be, do, or if she was nieve and those boys made her feel special, theirs but once done, left. So maybe even a few mistakes, it's called growing, learning and the fact that she had partners would have mean't she wasn't shy to sex. Seems she is now, and it seems she has been for a long time, and it seems to be to me because of fear of being able to be herself. How do you expect her now to come out and play?

She's hidden inside herself.

I hid inside myself, now I don't but now I am no longer with my ex-husband... Don't go down that path.

There is a lot of work to do and I'm sorry, your the one that has to do it, to make her feel sexy, alive, beautiful, that you've grown, and that IT'S OKAY, to be promiscuous with you, it's OKAY, to give you bj's, and you have to learn to be OKAY, with touching her there as well, you can't have it one sided and you can't ask her to be the instigator...

If you make someone fear, then you have to take that away.... and if you now want a lady at home, and a tart in bed, then you have to make her feel loved and that it's OKAY for her to finally be her.

Sorry but that's just the way it is, in my opinion.

CW

[Hopeless Dork]

Women are not robots with an on and off switch. It sounds like you basically decided you wanted her to be asexual when it suited you, and now that you are growing and becoming more comfortable with sex you want her to turn it on again ... and its going to take more than expecting it to happen.

To be honest, I could take or leave my boyfriend going down on me... I'd be fine in a relationship without it - HOWEVER... if he flat out told me doing that was unnappealing to him... I would feel undesirable, unsexy. And let me tell you, no good sex comes out of a woman feeling undeserable and unsexy.

Lucky for me, my guy embraces my body, every scent and taste... and actually thats lucky for him too -- because he makes me feel so good about myself I take great pleasure in making him feel good in more ways than I can count.

There is no going back and changing what you have said that may have hurt. Although I do think you owe her an appology. That alone won't make her sexual again, but its going to plant a seed.

Next you need to spend time making her feel beautiful and not just when you are ready to have sex.

You might want to work on yourself as well and find out what it is that makes you unnappealed by an act that gets you the closest you will ever be to the center of her sex.

Once you are willing to be more open yourself, it will encourage her to be open.... It won't happen overnight I am sure, but you have layed the groundwork that lead to a sexually repressive relationship... now its time to lay the groundwork for a sexually EXPRESSIVE one

[PJhavinfunagain]

WC you put everything I was thinking into words much better than I could. I have been thinking about this for a few hours and was feeling a bit exasperated for this wife.

So sorry WTBW if you are not getting the answers you were hoping for.

[WildChild]

You've asked for help and I'm going to be blunt because tiptoeing around won't really help. I hope you take this as honesty or "tough love.

You largely created this. You took a sexual woman, laid a guilt trip on her, made her "wrong", and made her past pleasure into something "dirty". For what ever reason, probably based in her youth (she was what 22?) and childhood exposure to belief systems that uphold this kind of thinking, instead of telling you where to get off, she accepted your judgement of her. She shut her sexual self down and became a "good" woman. She went without sex until marriage, she dutifully "takes care of you", makes dinner, keeps a clean house. She's playing her part, fullfilling the role assigned her.

You told her bluntly that pleasuring her with oral sex was "unappealing". So, you never asked for it, but you would enjoy it? Why would she enjoy it? What possible motivation could she ever have in initiating it? Why would getting her nose and tongue into your privates be any more appealing to her than you getting your nose and tongue into hers is to you? You essentially told her "bluntly" that her most intimate self was "unappealing". You also made the sexual experience she had, which is where she would have already learned to do a blow job, completely shocking and displeasing. Why should you now benefit from what you made into a source of guilt and shame?

You may not get this, but you made her a HO. You had sexual experience too (not that it would be any different if you had had none). The fact that you had less, didn't make you any cleaner or better, anymore than her experience made her unclean or worse than you. But you made her sexuality wrong. Not bringing it up again hasn't made it OK, hasn't healed what you did to her emotionally. Now you are resenting her lack of sexual initiation and responsiveness. You want your own sexuallity? After you crushed hers? Appologising isn't enough. Her healing depends on how deeply in herself she accepted this judgement. You played upon religious and cultural messages that she already had ingrained, you hit the switch and turned her off. You can't just turn her back on. The wires may be fused now.

Now you think you may have married a woman who doesn't want the passion and sex you do. It sounds like you may have had one. You didn't want her as she was, she wasn't acceptable.She made a huge change for you before you married. Now you've changed, she hasn't. You'll never really know what she was sexually and emotionally, because you tried and condemed her without knowing. It's not surprising you feel she responds to you like a father, you treated her as if you had a right to judge, restrict her priviliges (no sex) and then forgave her. You set yourself in a parent-like role.

This is a variation of what I called the virgin Ho, before I heard the term Madonna complex. The idea that the woman is supposed to be this "pure", untouched, innocent creature - until she marries. Then she is supposed to magically turn into a sexual dynamo. It rarely works that way.

I don't know what to tell you about healing this. This isn't something you "fix", it will be a healing process. A lot will depend on whether she is willing to trust that you really love her and will accept her. It may require counseling, a non-religious counselor would probably be best, she doesn't need any more blame or disapproval. You need to accept that at the very least you contributed significantly to this situation. You couldn't have created it entirely unless the groundwork was already there but you have to own your role and quit making her wrong. I wish you both success in resolving this. It will take time, patience, love and trust.

[Little]

It took seven years to create this problem. It will not disappear overnight.
For seven years, you didn't apologize for being harsh on her for having sex. How many partners are you talking about here? 10? 20? 100? And who's to say that she didn't choose carefully? Or take it seriously? It may have been a VERY serious choice for her to experiment with sex. Did you ask her? Just because she didn't volunteer the information doesn't mean anything - if someone vilifies me for my sex life, I'm not about to share more about it.
For seven years, you never asked for more than what you had. You never indicated there was a problem. And for much of that time period, I'll assume you DIDN'T have a problem.
Have you had a sit-down talk about this? Have you said everything that is in your thread? Do you often talk to each other about deep subjects?
You might consider showing her this thread. Don't assume she doesn't want passion just because she's not giving it. It seems plausible that she's "punishing" you for your initial judgment and years of vanilla sex by withholding passion from you.
Don't throw away your loving wife because she's not turning into a temptress overnight. Maybe she needs to see a counselor to. Consider all the possibilities before you make a decision.