Originally posted by caveman at 24-4-2014 10:00
what can you do if you love your SO can't just break up because sex is lacking when there are so many other aspects of relationship that are great
I hear you bro
The basic issue you seem to be facing is one of respect - in this case lack of respect from her part ...
Really not sure what the solution is - punting is a short term fix, and the risk that you'll find a nice girl who puts out AND is good company at some point in your life is pretty much a dead cert. Then you'll face a much greater dilemma than the relatively fixable one you're facing right now.
One resource I can recommend is Dr Pat Love (yes, it's her real name, and yes she is a highly respected relationship therapist, I didn't invent it!)
What's interesting about Pat Love is that she herself has zero sex drive (clinically proven), and after one divorce she figured out that the key to making her marriage work is to accept that her man actually does need sex and to be available for him regardless of her own needs. That makes her a good authority to quote back to your SO, if you get the chance. No space for detail here, check out her work, buy her books and audios, and do your homework.
Another even better resource would be the work of Dr John Gottman. Again I have a strong hunch that you need to take URGENT AND EARLY ACTION to prevent a minor rift becoming a major breakdown, as you are forced to feed your hunger away from your wife. Your love for her is your greatest asset. But it's a depreciating asset, that will drift away under the relentless erosion of neglect and rejection.
If you start now, firmly but kindly, refusing to take her "my way or the highway" as the right way and insisting you also have a voice, you have the best chance.
Sorry I can't be much more specific than that at this stage. Gottman has done 30 years of groundbreaking research, and even made a mathematical model that can predict couples behaviour and model the impact of intervention strategies. He talks most about how his research into failing (and successful) marriages shows being responsive to your partner (in many ways, not just sex, but including sex of course) is essential to a long-lived happy marriage. Your wife is not being responsive, that's already clear, there may be other issues that need to be addressed.
Frankly I'd only go to a counsellor or therapist that is certified by John and Julie Gottman, and avoid all others like the plague. The failure rate of couples counselling is well in excess of 70% ... and that's the failure rate of respected clinical interventions, not counting the shylocks and well-intentioned do-gooders who are dishing out faulty advice in exchange for a lot of money.
To put that into context: the cost of counselling can reach the cost of a decent pre-owned car, and you definitely wouldn't spend that kind of money on a car with a 1 in 3 chance of the vehicle being usable!!! And, as we know, the cost of a divorce is even higher, so you don't really have a choice here, just a path you're going to have to walk either quickly or slowly, your choice.
So, google Pat Love and John Gottman, and start figuring out what your options are to open a more constructive dialogue with your wife
start now, since you can be sure it's going to be neither easy nor fast.
What's the alternative? Well, Gottman's research fairly early on showed there's no such thing as a long-lived unhappy marriage. He discovered that men in unhappy marriages die on average around 6 years younger than unmarried men ... and men in a happy marriage live (I can't remember the precise figure) 5 years longer ... that's 11 years difference in lifespan between a happy and unhappy marriage ... a whopping 30% difference in YOUR life (counting married life) ... which you will have to fight for if you want to live at all, let alone live happily.
nuff said?
it's time for you to get busy,
and you can no longer say nobody told you ..!