Stuck; What to Do?
My wife finally admitted that she was “stuck” with me, and I admitted that I was “stuck” with her.
We’ve been married 40 years and she and I both want something different, but because of religious background, divorce is NOT an option. Suggestions? (We’ve been to counseling, etc.)
There is so much you have left out it really is not possible to give you an effective answer, I'm sorry. I will assume you went to a GOOD counselor. If not find another.
Do you BOTH want the relationship to improve? And by want I mean are you willing to put in the work and set aside the selfishness? If not you better resign yourself to being stuck. What a sad future that would be.
Many here can and likely will give advice but it will be general at best and my guess is you know the answers already.
My encouragement is that the work is so worth it.
Thanks for your input. At this point I don't know what we will do. I may just have to resign myself, as you mentioned.
I mentioned it but said it would be a shame. Please don't give up. As mentioned, the work is so worth it. May I suggest you consider selflessly loving your wife for the next 6 weeks. Forget about your needs/desires/wants and focus solely on what she needs/desires/wants. It might be conversation, romance, space, help around the house, etc. Love her like Christ loved the church and see what happens. And find a GOOD marriage counselor this time, or actually listen to the previous one.
This is obviously a tough question. Some married couples drift apart and stay married but are more like roommates. I don’t think either of you want that. My wife and I have been to a trio of different marriage counselors and we both have had individual therapy. Our marriage was never in major crisis but getting help with our individual and couple challenges certainly made our lives better… & improved our marriage.
We had sexual disagreements that we worked out. Two of our three marriage counselors helped me to be more satisfied with my wife and our sexual relationship. One of my therapists thought sex wasn’t important. After she expressed that I never went back to her.
I don’t know your issues in your marriage but I firmly believe that a good marriage counselor/therapist can help bring you two closer together.
One thing I will tell you that helped our marriage is setting a schedule for when we’d make love. Discussing it, being willing to compromise and setting a sex schedule may not sound romantic but it sure improved our marriage.
May God bless you both in your efforts to find more happiness in each other.
We are currently on a schedule, only I want/need more. We will continue to explore the situation. Thanks for your input though.
Unfortunately, it sounds like you both have lost your basic trust in what each wants for the other. It also sounds like you've fallen into the 'wishing' trap. Hope encourages and inspires us to seek and work for what we need or want, while 'wishing' causes us to focus on what we don't have. "I wish we had sex more often"; "I wish he wouldn't push so much for sex", etc. 'Wishing' leaves us drained and discouraged because it doesn't focus on what we need to do or strive to become, thus nothing changes. So, try not to 'wish' for things to be different. Hope for a better marriage and believe you can achieve it.
Hopefully one of your counselors has spoken to you about each other's 'love language'. These are the things we say or do that, to our spouse, says, "I love you." Husbands and wives almost always have different love languages and the task is to learn them and do them. One thing that really helped my wife and me was that EVERY DAY we would ask each other how full our 'love bank' was and what we could do to fill it. This regular communication and positive action helped establish trust and created a more loving atmosphere.
I've heard it said that when the marriage is going well, sex is 10% of the total. But, when the marriage is sour, sex is 90%. Most counselors seem to want to fix everything else and work on the sex issues last. However, some go on the above statement and try to get couples to re-establish a good sex life because it's considered a foundation that in itself will make other problems easier to fix.
You and your wife are going to have to sit down and figure out how to trust each other again. Far easier said than done, and hopefully, your counselors will direct you to that end.
Thanks for your input – sswriters. We'll try and do that.
So what would different look like to you?
What do you think different would look like to your wife?
Well…idk what different would look like to my wife, but different to me would be more sex and no excuses.
Just wondered what suggestions that you have tried that were made here or other changes that you have made. I know this is a painful situation, but I also know there is hope.
Sometimes at least for me as a woman there needs to be an emotional connection between us before sex becomes more than just “mechanical”. There may be other ways of connecting with your wife emotionally that may help encourage the physical connection.
King Arthur, We'd like to suggest you read Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas (available from Amazon in both hard copy and Audiobook). Much of the book may not apply, but the Thomas has a lot of good suggestions and information.