Love? Maybe ... But No Sex

Mary wrote:

Thank you so much for helping us ... who do not understand. My question to you is my husband does not have sex with me because he feels pressure ... this has been going on for two years and last year we had sex (sex is all he knows) no love making he continues to use porn and last year we where together three times!

What pressure I ask you! before I would beg, even cry to be loved and now I look at him with pity and I am turned off by him ... he says things to me like" you don't want me anymore" "most of my past marriages left me by now" and what am I suppose to say ...

Everytime I asked I got turned down so I stopped asking ... oh we have been married for four years and we have a three year old.

What do I do?

Dear Mary

I suspect you have not told me anything like the whole story. Did this really start two years ago ... or is it really a continuation of how things were before you married? If things changed, what changed and when? Were you turned off when the baby was born, or was he turned off when the baby needed you?

It's hard to advise without really knowing what's happening.

But whatever brought us to where we are, you seem to be saying that you no longer feel a physical attraction, but do you care about him at all? He certainly seems to care about you, though it may be that he simply feels sorry for himself.

First, I think you need to have a real conversation with him, not about sex, but about your marriage. Do either of you really want to make it work? if so, then you need to either put some effort in (both of you!), or get outside help, such as counselling - and then put some effort in.

Nothing will change unless you both want to change it, and I suspect changing him won't be easy, even then. though if the porn thing is really as recent as you claim, then there may be hope.

It would be useful to think back to why you married in the first place. You don't say if it was your first marriage, but his whining suggests that he never saw marriage as 'for life', except maybe as a life sentence.

You have some serious talking to do if you want to save the marriage. And some serious thinking if you don't. Good Luck.