His and Her Health

I'm so glad I found this forum - have a lot going on in my 15 year marriage. No doubt this will be the first of many questions on my part.

Am in a sexless marriage right now. Physiology/"mechanics" work fine and can masturbate to orgasm on my own without the use of a vibrator.

I think my husband uses sex as a defense against emotional intimacy. It's hard to put out into words but I'll try. He says that sex and intimacy are the same thing but I say that intimacy is the same as emotional closeness and when we have that I feel sexual towards him. Years ago, he told me that I had to get my emotional life sorted out or we were headed for divorce (long story about parental abandonment - for another post). I've worked very hard in that regard and have done a great deal of counselling, most of which related to my family and how I was (or wasn't!) raised. I feel so good about myself now and have a sense of inner strength and peace I never had before. Now, I'm much more independent as a person and wanting to really share my life with my husband. It seems like he doesn't want to share his life with me; he just wants sex. He says that if we have sex everything else will be okay.

Anyhow, after listening to my therapist, I worked at just being together watching tv together, walking the dog, being around eachother, sorting our finances out together etc, to having sex. Kind of "learn to do by doing" sort of approach. It's been quite a long time since we had sex but I finally just tried to go with it. Quite honestly, it was pretty bad. Fast and painful. I felt like I had been kicked in the guts for almost a week. Before my therapy I never would have said anything but suffered in silence because at least he was getting sex therefore he was happy (and when he was happy so was I - I used to be so clueless *sigh*). But after a couple of days I told him how I felt and he said he was sorry and then laughed a little and said I should get used to it. I know he's just kidding around but I'm still upset about it. Now, I've just gone back to my corner and he to his. I really want us to share our lives and to trust him but I can't see how I can have that if he expects me to do it all by myself.

He has told me that a marriage without sex is not a true marriage and so I have been working so hard to get us sexually on track. He tells me it's all me, all my fault. I think it takes two and that he is using sex as a way of avoiding true intimacy. He won't go do any therapy because he's "not the one with the problem."

Sorry, I'm all over the place in this first post but there's so much to say, I hardly know where to start.

Thanks for listening.

Ask him to help you by going to counselling with you.If he loves you he should want to do whatever he can to solve the intimacy question.There are always two sides to a story the councelor needs to hear both in order to help

Thanks, Moderator. We tried that both together and then individually. The couples therapy sessions (we went twice) were very painful and not helpful at all. She talked to us like we were at war and throwing toasters at eachother (which we aren't - absolutely no violence). These sessions just seemed to make us both more frustrated. Then, he went to see a therapist on his own. I think he went 3 times. After the last session he came home and said he doesn’t have any problems, that he didn’t need to go back.

Maybe all I've done is unconsciously repeat a family pattern I swore I never would: I love someone who keeps threatening to leave me if I don't get all my ducks in a row. It's so hard because all of this makes him sound like some kind of brute but he really isn't.

I'm learning that sex is about sharing and feeling and being together with our physical sensations and reactions, that we should take our time and enjoy all aspects of it. For him it just seems physical and I feel like sometimes I could be anyone to him. Maybe I'm the stupid one because I refuse to believe he doesn't have those feelings, the yearning for a truly unconditional emotional bond (which to me is the definition of intimacy). I think if we came even close to having that even intermittently, our sex would be fantastic. He says I think too much.

I love him so much I would try pretty much anything to make this work. Right now, I just don't know what else to do.