[WantingToBeWanted]

Hi everyone. Been reading this forum for a few days, and I'm coming to the full realization that my sexual relationship with my wife has very real problems.

When we first met 7+ years ago I placed a lot of guilt on her for her sexual past. We shared our experiences, mine being quite limited despite being 4 years older, and her's be quite vast during her college years when I didn't know her. I didn't say anything hateful about her past, but simply expressed shock and displeasure with the quantity of sexual partners she had during those college years. She had essentially experienced everything there was to experience sexually, while I had only experienced the basics few a few partners.


We both shared a semi religious background, and early on we made a pact of no intercourse before marriage, and I think we both kind of felt like that would be a sexual restart button for us, as we entered marriage. Of course we fooled around before getting married over the next year, but we did abstain from intercourse until our wedding night. I kind of made it a personal policy that I would never bring up her past again, after those initial few months of me laying the guilt on about her past. I held faithful to that and never uttered a word about it, and frankly didn't really think of it either. It was the past after all, but over time I did develop a guilt about the way I behaved early on.

From the time we got married, we had a very vanilla sex life. Not this was a problem for me, as I'm a rather simple guy. But when I say vanilla, I mean it. Before we got married I bluntly told her I really didn't find oral sex on a woman appealing, and for that reason I never requested oral sex on myself. Even though I certainly would enjoy it, I just never mentioned it, and my wife never did either.

Even from the early days of marriage our sex life was rather tamed. I would say we averaged about once a week, but as the years went on, especially the past few years, it probably got closer to 2 or 3 times a month. Early on she would occasionally initiate sex, but in recent years this has become far less common.

But over time I've come to realize an overall lack of general intimacy with my wife. She rarely initiates kissing, and when it happens it's kind of like I'm kissing my mom. Meaning it lacked any passion at all. Another interesting observation is that during sex she generally lacks any emotion. Again, kissing almost nonexistent, never initiates an "I love you". The most passionate it gets is her holding me close to her.

During the years I've come to realize I resent all of this. I may not be a sexual adventurist, wanting to try and do anything I can think of, 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 have no doubt she loves me. She makes that clear in the loving way she takes care of me. I have the ideal wife in the sense that she makes dinner every night, and is very orderly about taking care of the house. I do pitch in as well, but she kind of likes to own that role, of being the home caretaker.

Last year I went through a very rough patch of anxiety and some minor depression. I saw a counselor and never used medications, but through the help of a brilliant book I found I came out of it a stronger person. I realized the fragility of life, and how I want to live more passionately going forward. I even made a point of apologizing to my wife for the guilt I laid on her all those years ago for her past, and I hoped that would possibly begin to open the doors to her not being ashamed of her sexuality. Unfortunately this has not happened.

So, to sum this up, I'm just desperate to have a passionate love life with my wife, and quite frankly it's starting to occur to me that I may not have married a woman who wants the same thing. To her sex is essentially a dirty, planned out job, that occurs in 15 minutes and is over. Cuddling isn't a word in her vocabulary, at least after sex. See when I mean by complicated? She'll cuddle on the couch, but after sex? Never. Sex is possibly 5 minutes of foreplay, and then 5 minutes of sex, followed by 5 minutes of clean up. The End.

Please, help me figure this out. I'm 33 years old, and I've finally come to the conclusion that I want to own my sexuality. I want to talk openly about it, and share it with her, but I'm afraid there isn't a mutual desire to do the same. Feel free to ask questions. I'll answer whatever I have to if it means getting some good advice on my situation. Thank You.

[sourpuss]

I hate to say this, but it sounds like you may have contributed to this problem. This is why I think couples should never discuss their sexual past. (unless there is a possibility of STDs)

From a woman's perspective, you won't give her oral and you made her self-conscious about her sexual experiences and for years you only wanted to have plain 'vanilla' sex. Honestly, if I were her, I wouldn't be too interested in a lot of sex either.

A lot of what you are saying is describing a very one-way street in regards to what you want. Maybe she really likes oral and needs it to have passionate sex. Maybe she likes to sleep afterward and now lay together all sweaty in bed.

There seems to be a big lack of communication as to what you BOTH want and need from this relationship.

[WantingToBeWanted]

I hate to say this, but it sounds like you may have contributed to this problem. This is why I think couples should never discuss their sexual past. (unless there is a possibility of STDs)

From a woman's perspective, you won't give her oral and you made her self-conscious about her sexual experiences and for years you only wanted to have plain 'vanilla' sex. Honestly, if I were her, I wouldn't be too interested in a lot of sex either.

A lot of what you are saying is describing a very one-way street in regards to what you want. Maybe she really likes oral and needs it to have passionate sex. Maybe she likes to sleep afterward and now lay together all sweaty in bed.

There seems to be a big lack of communication as to what you BOTH want and need from this relationship.

Well, to be clear she never made it clear she liked getting oral. I just stated that to make it clear just how vanilla our sex life was. She's never once brought it up in 7 years, and asked me to do it. We just talked about it once long ago, and I said I wasn't interested. It's not like she begs to perform it on me, and then I refuse to return the favor. The lack of interest in giving oral seems to be very mutual.

Also, she is so rigid that sex almost never even occurs right before bed. Sex needs to be scheduled like a job that is getting done. We go upstairs at 7pm, do the act, and she is downstairs resuming her night by 7:20. I'll often try to even show that I'm interested in lingering in bed for a bit, but it's pointless. She's literally uninterested in any sort of post coital togetherness. I literally feel like the woman in this relationship at times. I want the loving, intimate tenderness, and she wants the quick and easy bop, and she's done with me. It's weirding me out the more I think about it.

To make matters worse, upon finding this forum, and reading other woman talking about how much desire they have for their men, the hurt really began to set in hard. I read such comments and long for such a feeling. Feeling like my wife just wants me sexually. It's not even that I want all these special things sexually. I just want LOVING sex. With loving contact, and talk, and cuddling afterwords.

I fully realize I may have played a part in this problem's genesis, but then again, I'm also beginning to worry that she's just wired differently in regards to sex. For example, when I was so shocked upon hearing about her sexual past, it was because I always took sex seriously. I didn't just have sex with anyone, and I was choosy about who I even got involved with. My shock about her past was grounded in the fact that she engaged in things with many men during those college years, with many of them being little flings. This was revolting to me because I'm not wired in a way that would generally allow that to happen, but I guess I never truly pondered that we might just be built differently in that way. In other words, from day one I took sex seriously, and she didn't. I guess I hoped that our loving relationship would morph her into a loving, delicate lover, but instead I'm beginning to fear that sex has always been a simple physical act for her, with love not even being a part of it.

[sourpuss]

Is she loving in the other aspects of your relationship?

In her defense (sorry, I'm not trying to beat up on you) if you made her feel bad about her past and then when you were asked for oral and told her no....well, it would be hard for anyone to be open about sex after that.

[WantingToBeWanted]

Is she loving in the other aspects of your relationship?

In her defense (sorry, I'm not trying to beat up on you) if you made her feel bad about her past and then when you were asked for oral and told her no....well, it would be hard for anyone to be open about sex after that.

Did you read my entire first post? Sorry, just had to ask.

I mentioned that she kisses me like I'm her father. No passion. Never really has been a passionate kisser during those 7 years. She tells me she loves me, but NEVER during sex unless I say it first.

I would call her quite loving outside of the bedroom though. She's a caretaker though, not a lover. That seems to be the best way to describe it. She's loving like a mother, but not like a lover. She's never once surprised me sexually, by just coming over to me and bluntly seducing me. She's never once said she wants me bad. Think of every aspect of our sexual relationship lacking passion, and that is her. Not that I'm Don Juan either, but I certainly show more passion than she does. She knows I find her attractive, she knows I want her sexually, etc.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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