My Wife is complicated, and I'm worried. Please help.

[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.

[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]

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]

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]

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.