The material presented
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I am so very sorry that your relationship has devolved to this point The entire sexual experience that you describe has so many negative aspects that it is understandable that you cannot sleep after it. Trying to hold a marriage together at all costs including abandoning our own soul, self esteem and humanity are something I too tried to accomplish.
It is strange how living with the disease we begin to think that insanity is Ok and quite normal. My husband would join my son and myself for breakfast each morning. We had cereal, juice and milk or coffee he had a beer. I went along with this without blinking an eye until my dad stayed over one night and witnessed the breakfast scene. When hubby left for work Dad said" There is something terribly wrong with a man who has a beer for breakfast"!!!! That was my first lifting of denial for which I am very grateful.
You are beginning to see, own, and share on the unhealthy patterns that you are living in order to survive this insanity. It sounds as if sex is being used as a power play and he is being a bully. In order to validate yourself , you can keep the focus on yourself and keep your boundary regardless of the fear that he might be displeased.
You are a loving, beautiful desirable female child of God. Marriage is a partnership of equals. Sex does change after the children. That is why all the experts suggest that mom and dad have a weekend a month away to rekindle the flame.
Keep coming back work the steps with a sponsor and you will discover the powerful you.
-- Edited by hotrod on Wednesday 23rd of January 2013 08:49:15 PM
I know this topic has probably been started before, but I had a tough time the other night...my AH was drinking and yelling at the kids and on and on, the typical chaos on a worknight (a worknight for me at least), and I wound up putting both children to bed, usually if AH is not picking a fight with me, he helps me with one of them. Typically the kids sleep with us for part of the night because I nursed them for so long and they are used to being near us and also because they are insecure, due to the alcoholism in the house.
However, AH blames part of his drinking on me because I had the kids in our bedroom and that is why we have grown further and further apart and have less sex. In reality, that wasn't the case, he was still getting sex at least 3 nights a week, and even more when the kids were little, so quantity wasn't a factor. Was it good for me? No, it was all about him and he was usually drunk. He didn't even care if I was pleased in return or even if he was hurting me. In fact, one of our kids was conceived on a drunken night that I tried to prevent, because I knew it would produce a child. So yes, on drunken nights (that's usually when he is most interested), I am supposed to perform and give him something, otherwise I am not the "woman he married", or the good wife so to speak, and yes, back then I was clueless as to how the alcohol was playing a role with our lack of intimacy. Mechanical sex, in all different sorts of ways, was the reigning king. It still is. Sometimes I feel like a whore that is just being used.
So I set a boundary with sex several months ago that I would not have sex with him if he was drinking. Well, you know how well that went. When he is sober, he doesn't even ask for it and acts like he doesn't know me, and then later blames me for not making a move on him. Why?? After all the years of hurt, why would I show interest?? But of course he doesn't get that. And I have been afraid of him seeking women outside the marriage, so I do keep him mostly satisfied, even though the interest and in sex with him has been over for me for a long time. To me that is really sad.
So after this night of arguing and cursing and making the kids cry, I put the kids to bed and he was going to sleep downstairs because he was so angry. I said fine, and was glad to go in the other bedroom upstairs and sleep alone and finally get a good nights sleep. In reality, when I have to put both kids to bed, they now save me from having an "encounter" with him because I usually fall asleep from exhaustion with each of them sandwiched on either side of me. So when I am "exposed" in a bed alone, I get nervous. So the other night, he decided to not sleep on the couch and came upstairs and started bugging me. It was already late at night, and I had to get up at 6 a.m. the next day. This makes me so angry when he does this, and he does a good job of making me feel guilty about my obligation to him. He tries to fool me by saying he will just give me a backrub and lay with me and not ask for anything. That is never the case. In fact, he can never give anything to me without something being returned. And usually his "giving" lasts 2 minutes and is a lousy attempt at foreplay before he goes for the whole enchilada. It has become an ugly fact of my marriage. He insisted on rubbing my back without a return, so I relented, even though I tell him until I am blue in the face that sex this late usually keeps me awake, while it puts him to sleep (which is true, but why would he care?). Instead he eventually forced himself on me, and by the time it was over, it was 11:30 pm, and before he came upstairs, I was sleepy, and now I was wide awake, thinking of how the evening went and couldnt get back to sleep. Went to work the next day looking like hell (like I am the alcoholic) with about 2 hours sleep.
There have been a few times when he was in AA that we had a nice, intimate encounter when he was sober, but he has a lot to learn about how to please me anymore. It seems that this area gets "arrested" during the disease as well. My AH is still quite young (31), so he still has some energy, but most of the time if he drinks too much he just passes out. And part of our earlier "encounters" were spoiled (if there was anything left to be spoiled) by an affair he had this summer that he denies, but there is plenty of proof. And even though he has never honestly come clean and told me he is sorry, I can't bring the topic up about the other woman because it makes him mad. Besides, the lying is so enormous at this point that I don't even know if he is telling the truth about his family (he is from another country) and I haven't met anyone in his "broken" family, so I will never know what the truth is.
Hello minaret, I can relate to your post, I had to set the same boundary regarding sex because I realised it was enabling him and I also felt cheap, unattractive and unloved because he wouldn't come near me sober. I am no longer with my ex but when we lost the intimate part, it was just another loss, it's so sad. When you said your ah forced himself on you, I thought this is rape and i can only imagine how you feel. Do you have a sponsor? I think you should get some support to help you through this. Take care of yourself and you have the right to say no.x
Minaret, I'm so sorry this is happening. My thought is: if your daughter, when she's grown up, came to you with this situation, what would you advise her?
Intimacy with an ah....what a challenge. They , at least mine, doesnt connect that I withdraw from him emotionally due to his behavior which in turn dampens sexual desire. Mine has never forced himself on me but I certainly have felt like im just an object. Im not terribly needy in the sex department in the first case...which he thinks is me punishing him...so this is a HUGE problem. I struggle with itimacy issues everyday...either hes out..thetefore not avsilable, sleeping from being out or just maybe im tired and unavailable. Thing is all he remebers....is thst IM not available. This is a HUGE issue as my husb seems to NEED intimacy a whole lot more than I do...its all thst poor image stuff I assume. I have little help to offer accept to say "i know"....
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When all else fails...there is Faith, Hope and Prayer.
All I can say is WOW! Thank you so much for sharing. So many of the things you said relate to me and my situation. My youngest daughter nursed till she was 2. I couldn't get her to stop and now she is 5 and still a very clingy child. She slept between my AH and myself until he was sent to rehab. Now he is back from rehab and staying with his parents so now it's just me and my youngest in my bed. She tells me she will sleep in her own bed when she is 6...I will believe that when I see it. Lol. I can look back now and see that sharing our bed most probably affected our intimacy, but I wonder if I did that intentionally. It kept me from being as you said "exposed ". Really makes me think. Just know you are not alone. I feel your pain. Take care of you. Making love is not supposed to hurt emotionally or physically. You deserve much more. (((Hugs)))
At the end I set that same boundary and the result was no sex. In my mind - it was better than the alternative! Sending hugs to you as I can totally relate to how you are feeling.
You have alot going on. From my knowledge about alcoholism, addictions, and all that goes with the disease this really isn't about sex. It seems to be about power and control; many alcoholics have other addictions - maybe this is about sex addiction. they tell us to get out of the cycle. When he blames you that seems to be the disease talking.
I nursed my three sons for a long time, they slept in the family bed, and now that they are grown, we are awfully close. Take care of yourself and your kids.
Dear Minaret, I cannot tell you what to do as a help. Bu that I can is sharing what I lived in this issue. I am not surprised anymore of how many similarities and common pattern people describe here on this board about As. even if it's sad, your post just reminded me my own intimate life with the A. It was always about him, his satisfaction,...I had to perform like a world master. He didn't know how to take care of me in that issue, how to cherish a female body. It was mostly about power and control, i agree with nmike. After a while, I was spent emotionally, so sex got less and less intimate. he even left for the bathroom just like that, once when HE was done....letting me lie there, forgotten. like in every other field, it's all about them, they can't help it and they don't see it. The self-self-centerdness is amazingly blind in As. Plus, he was never 'satisfied' after all.. it was never enough, never wild enough, never long enough, never crazy enough, never passionate enough. Well, you can imagine , as a result of this, that I don't feel very attractive as a woman these days... i let myself being used. I'm just sharing this with you so you know you are not alone. It was a relief somehow reading your post I admit, not for the content of course, but for your courage and openness to share, and for some sort of feeling that it isn't simply us 'the women' who are completely crap, their behavior towards us is crap. Luckily also I had partners before him who validated me in that area. Sex is supposed to be fun, love making is supposed to be a demonstration of trust and well-being between two people. We tend to forget that when the A's image of sexual life is taking over. they only want their rules to be everybody's rule. I stopped letting this been done to myself, and left. First because sexual arousal stopped by itself due do that being pushed, second because i also want more out of my sex life, and I want to feel like a woman and be treated as such. A little bit of selfishness and self-esteem can bring us to sanity sometimes.
concerning his family in another country, I am in the same case. He also complains so much about them and their bad behavior with him as a child. some might be true, some might not. I never got to meet any of the family members, even if at some point he then again says, how much he loves his parents....whenever we talked about leaving this country to build up a life elsewhere. Today I believe, he like to give himself the victim role a lot, that excuses a lot of his behavior in a first place. If one is a victim, as I thought about it in my own case one day, well one can still change things and the future. we are not in a prison. and even then, some wise men said before, freedom is in the mind. If your mind tells you this is wrong, and you believe life to be something else, I can only encourage you to follow your own belief rather than the A's. I am still struggling of the consequences of that...change is scary. but i believe the day we give away the victim role, we are already a good step into the right direction. We owe it to ourselves to give ourselves more value and attention.
Wow, thanks to all of you for the great shares. It helps to know I am not alone. I have been validated by other relationships prior to the marriage to AH, so I know what a good sexual relationship is supposed to feel like...to make you feel cherished, truly loved, be able to look into each others eyes and have the desire to please each other because you care so much about how the other feels. What an amazing concept, but it is not there in my marriage.
I didn't marry until 40, I was afraid of commitment, mainly because I had heard so many stories from friends, how hard marriage was, and I'd only dated older men, who could cherish me, really put me on that pedestal, but in return I gave them my best as well. The romance was great and I truly felt loved and admired....but then something would happen...maybe I didn't want my to get hurt (I am the daughter of an alcoholic father), and I seemed to go after some men who were not available in some way or another. On the other hand, when I met my AH, he was much younger, I think I was merely going through a mid-life crisis and the clock was ticking also. I knew when I married him that he had issues, but my last relationship with an older man that I broke off...he told me I was really afraid of commitment, so I didn't want to hurt anyone else or myself anymore, so I made the plunge with the younger man, thinking that I could have kids with him and a nice happy family. Even with all the experienced I'd had and the friends I knew who gave me advice on relationships, I still took a swift dive down a place that was more scary to commit, than to analyze whether this person was right for me. I thought I had a character flaw by not wanting to be in a relationship with anyone for a long time, even though I was a kind, thoughtful and loving girlfriend (or so I thought...a few times I got called "selfish"). That selfishness really bothered me when I was single, and I think I wanted to prove it otherwise. I gave my marriage my "all" and became something completely different....no longer was I number one, but dead last, I was taking care of him and the kids and everything else, and somehow felt obligated to do so, almost comfortable with the role. Now the co-dependency is a hard thing to detach from, very hard.
Thanks for all the positive energy on here. I am getting closer and closer to a resolution. And my kids and I are really close and I think we will be into their adult years. Unfortunately now fullfillment in my marriage is not my goal, but having healthy happy kids (and me...although you see I still had to put myself second) is my future, I just have to not think I've made a mistake by leaving, that I could have done something to make it better.
He has me believing that his drinking is not all of it, that 50% is the way we've raised (or I've raised, as he likes to blame me) the kids, and how I stop him when he is being a bad example (which is almost every day) in front of the children and he hates it and he thinks the kids have no respect for him. Sometimes I doubt myself (because I can be controling and I do like to be "right", which are things I need to work on), so maybe half is my fault? Maybe I have contributed...but I need to ask myself the question, then, "would my kids still be ok and would our household be okay if he could yell and parent the way he wants and spank the kids, and still drink the way he does? Would they really listen to him if I did not interrupt his parenting technique, and this would somehow miraculously cause him to drink less? I think not....
As another attachment parent (yay!), I have to chime in on the bed-sharing and nursing.
Your sweet relationship with your children would not affect a healthy marriage. There are plenty of places to have sex besides the marriage bed, as lots of co-sleeping parents realize. Your dh is blaming you for something that isn't even real, except for the alcoholism and the deflecting blame.
And nursing them until they are done is a healthy way to be, with the children. I nursed mine forever, and he slept in my bed exclusively, until he was at least 7yo. Then he started out in my bed until he fell asleep, when I moved him to his own bed, where he slept the rest of the night. Even now, at almost 12, once in awhile he sleeps with me. We are very close. Which is how it should be, and I hope it always is.
I'm so sorry about the devolution of your marriage and your sex life. You deserve so much more. I don't blame you for sleeping with the kids (for less "exposure", but also you get more love there!).
You do what you gotta do, for YOU, mama. Hang in there. Hugs.
The ex A blamed me for everything. He blamed me for not having money, for not being able to bring his friends over for not being able to see his family, for not having a better business opportunity, for not getting certain jobs. He blamed me for having bad health (yes really I made his liver fail from using drugs) he blamed me for any issue he had with his friends(drinking buddies). He blamed me for my illnesses, he blamed me for not getting enough money (even when I spent so much of it on his fines, his truck (well it was "my" truct but of course anything that was "mine" was "his".
I do not take on blame anymore. I think no matter what the issue there is no reason to drink. Every relationship whatever kind it is friendship, work relationship, whatever is going to have issues.
I set a lot of limits around the ex A's using. I stopped going out with him socially. I stopped going to his family outings (where he would drink and use drugs to excess). I set plenty of them and he "saw" none of them as about his using.
Personally I would run far and wide if someone started blaming me for anything these days and I do. I know it is a real trait of alcoholism and addiciton and I pay close attention to it.
The ex A would also blame any issues we had with our pets on me too. When I left him he was supposed to care for our two dogs. He didn't. I had to take them on and he blamed me taking them on as something I did rather than anything he did.
They are really really good at passing the blame for every single thing on everyone else around them. When I met the ex A he blamed everyone for his problems, this ex girlfriend, his brother, the army, the navy whatever, whatever issue it was it had absoluely nothing to do with him!
. I went along with this without blinking an eye until my dad stayed over one night and witnessed the breakfast scene. When hubby left for work Dad said" There is something terribly wrong with a man who has a beer for breakfast"!!!! That was my first lifting of denial for which I am very grateful.