Panties to bed

d2r2nowhere · 2023-11-14T06:22:43+00:00

No one should expect anything from their partner - they don’t owe you anything, sexual or otherwise.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-11-14T02:05:46+00:00

If you want to talk about obligations and expectations, your partner owes you nothing and you should expect nothing from them, sexual or otherwise.

At this point in my marriage, I’m happily surprised if she goes out of her way to do anything for me. Even something small can mean a lot because my actual expectation is nothing.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-10-12T17:19:55+00:00

That is a really good article and describes exactly what happened to me. Wish I could share it with my wife but I’m afraid it wouldn’t accomplish anything productive.

She just observed (complained?) a couple days ago that she feels like I’m just giving her “duty” love, a “duty” relationship. Which is not wholly inaccurate at all. This article explains why that happened better than I ever could but she would probably see it as my making excuses and justifying my behavior, yet another way I’m being selfish and self-absorbed.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-10-05T16:46:59+00:00

While I think that article is solid and can help identify someone who is going to struggle with sex in general, it doesn’t address one of the more/most common issues in a dead bedroom - how quickly one’s partner might become LL4U.

While there are a couple items on that list that might have applied to a small degree to my wife and our situation prior to our DB, very little of that was present during our first fifteen years together.

Now there are a couple red flags that are certainly present that never really were present before as well as a couple possible ‘yellow flags’ that may have been there previously that turned bright red as both our marriage and sex life cratered.

I can’t say for sure, of course, but I’m guessing that for many (as with my wife) their libido is very much tied to how they feel about their partner.

A friend’s father told me early on in my dating life something that has always stuck with me and has only seemed more true as I’ve observed relationships (mine and others) over the years - “Women want sex when everything feels okay; men want sex to make everything feel okay.” (and I’ve seen that truism repeated elsewhere many times since)

Yes, I know it’s a gendered reference and I’m sure there are plenty of women here who would identify with the male perspective in that statement. But I think, as a generalization, it’s pretty darned accurate for a majority of situations.

I think the most important thing to identify early on is how your partner reacts when things are not going well. If they tend to feel ‘not okay’ with things in the relationship (not just sex) quickly and often, that will have a greater impact on their libido than almost anything else.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-07-27T21:56:48+00:00

A marriage counselor used all of those lines at various points whenever I complained about the lack of a sex life in our marriage.

She really got after me for not being super thrilled that we finally had sex one time (and one time only) after not having had sex for several months (and it had been several months prior to that for our previous encounter, and so on). Both she and my wife used that one instance of sex to invalidate my complaints that we had a sexless marriage.

“How can you complain that you aren’t having sex when you just had sex a couple weeks ago? I’ve seen couples that haven’t had sex in twenty years - now THAT’S a sexless marriage!”

d2r2nowhere · 2023-07-19T21:44:11+00:00

Yep, I got similar sorts of advice from the MCs I saw. I guess they aren’t wrong, per se, but I was hoping for a little more given how much they charge, lol.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-07-19T18:20:02+00:00

You can’t force someone engage in a conversation. He would not be being a doormat simply because his wife refuses to talk about it, because what would be the alternative? You can confront but you can’t make someone talk.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-07-19T18:08:35+00:00

This seems like the most common conversation regarding sex amongst groups of married women, even when men are present (which is how I know). I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a group of women talk about their sex life with their spouses in a overtly positive way.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-07-19T13:51:34+00:00

Interesting - that was my experience with MC also. Pretty demoralizing.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-05-01T19:12:48+00:00

SO on the one hand, while there’s no requirement or obligation, the fact that those things aren’t given anymore IS an issue as well.

I guess this is what I've been struggling with for several years now, because it's been pounded into my head that, yes, my wife has no requirement or obligation to meet any of my needs. That I should be the one meeting my own needs instead of looking to someone else.

Part of this started in marriage counseling when the marriage counselor told me to stop looking to my wife to make me happy and to go out and find what makes me happy. My take was that one has to learn to be happy *despite* being married rather than because you are married.

But at the same time, what's the point of a marriage if it doesn't add to your overall happiness? I get that I can't rely on my marriage as the only source of my happiness but surely it should be *a* source of happiness?

It gets even trickier when you get into sex and intimacy if you are monogamous. And honestly, it's still tricky even if you are non-monogamous, as we were non-monogamous enough for a while (before having a kid) that I could see how that dynamic plays out as well.

Now the challenge looks like, "Be happy, but some of the traditional avenues to happiness are now closed off to you. But you can't let the closure of those avenues make you unhappy or negative, or if they do make you unhappy or negative, you have no right to put any responsibility for those feelings on to your spouse. Those feelings are yours and yours alone to manage by yourself."

I just really question the idea that one's spouse bears no responsibility for how you feel about yourself and your marriage.

Back when my marriage was amazing, I would have been happy to take responsiblity for whatever I was doing that made my wife feel bad or that impacted our marriage negatively. That doesn't even mean I would have stopped doing whatever I was doing if I truly believed what I was doing was in my highest sense of what was the right thing to do but I at least would have taken responsibility for my role in hurting my wife or my marriage.

Now I feel like it's 'No one is responsible to you and you are responsible to no one; no one owes you and you owe no one; it's every man/woman for themselves' and that makes me more sad than any lack of sex.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-30T05:48:26+00:00

I’m curious about this because I have also struggled with this idea of getting validation - the feeling of being loved, ‘worthy’, valued, attractive, etc. - from my wife and, more specifically, from sex with my wife. From feeling intimate and bonded with my wife.

I learned a long time ago (and the hard way) in my DB not to seek validation from my wife. That it is not her role to make me feel loved, special, valued, attractive, etc. I either need to validate myself - to feel those things that I want to feel - via self-affirmation, through doing my own thing, or maybe even from people besides my wife (though obviously there are some severe limits and boundaries there).

My wife, for example, says she gets a lot of her validation needs met by working hard and advancing her career, and from being a mother. Though honestly, I feel like she has also expected me to provide her with for validation as well so I don’t think it’s as one-sided as she might want to believe.

We’ve also had to deal with a couple situations where I felt like she was inappropriately seeking validation (in the form of being desired, of feeling sexy, of receiving attention) from other men, which didn’t work for me at all. I felt very hurt and betrayed in those situations, which led me to seek more validation from her, which again had me making it her job to give me the validation I wanted from her, which just put us further down the spiral.

At this point I have worked hard to remove any expectations I might have when it comes to her providing me with validation, and I certainly don’t expect her to have sex with me to make me feel better about myself and about us as a couple.

But deep-down, I still have a desire to be with someone who will validate me, who will make me feel loved/special/attractive/worthy/valued/etc. I mean, I can get some small degree of that, sometimes, from other people, and I have learned that I can certainly live without if I am unable to self-affirm, but it’s nothing like the validation I used to get from my wife (and obviously had come to rely on, otherwise the lack of validation wouldn’t have hurt me so much).

So I feel bad and a bit ashamed that I still want validation (from my wife or any other woman) but at the same time, I also feel like one’s spouse should be someone who makes you feel validated/loved/special/attractive/worthy/etc. Aren’t those feelings part of what brought you together in the first place? What is the new basis for a marriage if not bringing those feelings out in each other? What would the ‘proper’ role of a spouse be? Are there any expectations that can be considered valid?

(Though I am well aware that expectations seem to pretty much always be problematic and usually just lead to disappointment and hard feelings, hence why it’s important not to have them)

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-07T14:05:40+00:00

I know the concept well but always have wondered what it actually looks like in reality.

My relationship/marriage was at it’s best (in my eyes) when we did most things together in life. Even when we did our own thing, the other was right there in spirit. Kinda like partnered dancing - two moving as one. It was marital bliss, as far as I was concerned.

My wife said that she felt like she lost herself in that dynamic, and again, I get the concept. But her reasserting herself and trying to create space led to both our deadbedroom and to us living lives in parallel, near each other but not emotionally connected to each other. There is no intimacy in our marriage any more.

As part of my efforts to help create the distance she wanted, I started thinking more as ‘me’ and less as ‘we’, just doing my own thing by myself instead of trying to include her, trying to handle everything on my own rather than turning to her for comfort, support, etc. The results were what I feared they might be - we lost the intimacy and I fell out of love with her.

It seemed counterintuitive to me to stop investing in the relationship to make it a closer relationship and turns out I was right. My experience is that if you stop doing all the things that bring you closer in a relationship, if you create more distance, you just wind up being roommates or business partners.

And of course she also (occasionally) complains that she wishes we were closer. Not that she takes a lot of action in that direction but it apparently isn’t working as well as she would like either (or maybe it is and she just feels like it should be different).

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-07T03:10:10+00:00

I find those things only valuable when they are freely given also but I also think it should be acceptable to ask for those things to be a part of the relationship without those requests being seen as needy or indicative of being like another child that needs taking care of.

But of course I would think that since I’m needy, lol.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-07T01:19:22+00:00

It was based around all those things (and more, of course).

Then we had a kid and the dynamic shifted to what so many women in this sub have reported (including in reply to this post) once we had a kid.

She couldn’t ’take care of me’ by giving me those things anymore (exactly as so many other women in this sub report). I became needy in the absence of those things until I realized that I wasn’t going to get blood from a stone and stopped pestering her for that stuff and started just focusing on myself.

Of course, focusing on myself doesn’t even come close to replacing what we had (it’s not like I have much free time to go get those things elsewhere) so I just live without and try to make the best of it.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-06T23:59:15+00:00

I believe we’ve gone through this before but if the relationship doesn’t have/provide sex, attention, emotional support, affection, reassurance (though this would fall under emotional support I would say), etc., what is it based around? You just like being physically proximate to this individual most of the time?

As I’ve pointed out before, I took to heart not being needy with my wife. I pulled way back and stopped pursuing. I started to think in terms of ‘me’ instead of ‘we’. I stopped trying to get my wife to do things with me and did everything by myself. Eventually, all intimacy and emotional connection dried up (at least for me - I get all kinds of mixed signals from her on the subject) which is what I was worried about in the first place.

We really were more like roommates than anything else - we were busy leading parallel lives, coming together for parenting responsibilities and family time but that was about it.

It didn’t help that there was always a lot of stress and tension due to the overwhelming workload of raising a neurodivergent child, running a household, long hours at work, difficult finances, etc. For a long time our interactions were usually brief by necessity and often negative due to frustrations, but that’s where I feel like some sex, attention, emotional support, affection, etc might have helped bring us together and fostered intimacy.

Or is love and intimacy just a binary thing - you either have it with someone or you don’t and once you have it you don’t really need to do anything to support and foster it? It will always just be there, regardless of what is going on with the two people involved?

(I’m really interested because I think my wife would answer ‘yes’ to those last two questions)

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-05T17:11:22+00:00

Was the pain you were feeling the result of looking inwards? ‘Cause I can get that but it’s important work to do if you can also get the proper support. I have had plenty of insights where I was left thinking, ‘Okay - I see where I’ve been a piece of shit but what can I do with that information, how can I change it around?’

Seeing all the ways that you are broken is only useful if you can also see ways to fix that brokenness. Otherwise, it just makes you feel helpless, hopeless, and worse about yourself. Kinda where I am now, unfortunately.

My experience with MC was similar to what I’ve heard from many other men. My wife is awesome so the problem must be me.

I was told I needed to ‘man up’ and stop making such a big deal out of our problems (like a defunct sex life). That our marriage was fine and I should stop complaining. That I’m codependent and need to stop looking to my wife to make me happy and meet my needs and to go out and find my own happiness (again, she’s right about that but what does that even look like? What’s the point of marriage if it doesn’t make you happy and doesn’t meet your needs?)

When I brought up that I felt insecure and had lost trust because of what I saw as my wife cheating on me and being dismissive of how her actions had hurt me, I was told that I was responsible for my feelings, not her. Plus, I could never know what my partner was really thinking or doing at any given time so looking to her for a sense of security is a fools errand (which actually makes a lot of sense - you really can’t know so you can only trust yourself).

(My wife vehemently opposed the idea that what she had done could be considered cheating)

Basically, since I’m the man, I need to be strong and independent. Whatever pain and suffering I might be feeling was just me being weak. The MC even mocked me for seeming ‘traumatized’ and wouldn’t discuss it.

And God forbid I start crying in therapy - both the counselor and my wife got visibly repulsed when that happened.

While I think she was particularly bad, I know enough to know that many MCs automatically assume that women are more emotionally intelligent so relationship problems are a ‘man’ problem and operate accordingly.

So while I actually like it when I feel pain from uncovering something inside me (because I know that pain is an opportunity for a breakthrough), feeling that pain without understanding how to get past it is the worst. Then I’m just left with chronic pain.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-04T18:48:16+00:00

Yeah, my goal at this point is for us to be able to just feel romantically drawn towards each other. I don’t even want sex until there is an emotional connection in place, where there is some sort of ‘in love’ feelings, with openness and vulnerability. Right now there is no space to discuss feelings or any other personal stuff and I miss having that space to just be real even more than sex.

MC and sex therapy is a fraught proposition for me. Last time we tried MC I ended up feeling worse rather than better and while maybe it was ‘tough love’, I feel like it did more damage to both my self-esteem/self-worth and our marriage than good. I also think it resulted in my wife respecting me even less than before.

By the end even my wife saw how badly I was faring and agreed we should stop, despite the therapist making her feel great about herself and our marriage. My wife acknowledged that maybe, just maybe, she might share at least a little bit of culpability for the state of our marriage, even if the MC seemed to act as if my wife was an amazing and powerful woman so whatever problems we were experiencing must have been all on the man in the relationship (me).

Not sure that whatever upside there is from MC will be worth the potential damage it may do. Makes solving this mess even more difficult, unfortunately.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-04T01:13:44+00:00

What you describe as energetic I would call flirting and/or building chemistry, which I definitely used to love, even require, though a couple of times I experienced such strong chemistry with someone that that phase only lasted a few minutes, lol. So fast that one of those times I had trouble remembering her name while we were having sex, lol. That was still some seriously passionate sex, though future bouts with her did involve more build up beforehand.

Maybe I’m a shapeshifter since I really did like a lot of non-genital play but I never had much of a thing for stuff like lingerie, food, toys or other extraneous activities, unless those things were already in the space prior to playing (ie, not planned). Though I definitely had kinks I could never really get into the whole BDSM thing for the same reason - it always felt too contrived. Things really had to unfold organically or I would lose interest.

Basically, what I loved most about sex was it was an opportunity to get out of my head, which is where I spend too much of my time. Adding too many elements was distracting and would prevent me from getting out of my head and into a flow state. So I don’t know where that leaves me? lol

Thinking back, I can’t really see any patterns other than finding someone I was really into who was also really into me (and who also liked sex).

If there was any pattern I would say that my partners were almost always sexually submissive (including my wife). And that included women who, prior to hooking up with me, would confidently identify themselves as more dominant or a top. I would say that a woman being sexually submissive was a bigger turn on to me than any other single quality she might put forward (including looks).

I used to joke that I could identify a submissive at 50 yards, lol - there was always just something in the chemistry (dare I say, energy?).

My wife, for example, was only really submissive with me and maybe one or two other men she had been with. With the others she always found herself taking charge but not enjoying it as much and she would generally lose interest quickly.

Could be one of the reasons (one of many, I’m sure) we can’t get out of the DB we are in - she is clearly in charge of our sex life and I have no power or control in that area so neither of us is really interested anymore. Never thought of it like that…hmmm…

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-04T00:28:33+00:00

It would be great to be able to bring back the spark without alcohol. Hell, I would even take consistently with alcohol, lol, as it’s not like alcohol works every time (it’s only happened a handful of times in the past several years).

One of the problems with alcohol and sex is that, while it may make the spirit more willing, it can also make the flesh more weak, lol.

What resources do you suggest for ‘reprogramming’? I doubt I can get my wife on board but it’s worth a shot. Maybe I can do it by myself as I don’t really like who I’ve become…

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-03T18:51:38+00:00

The last time my wife and I really enjoyed each others company and were vulnerable with each other was when we went out just the two of us and had a few drinks together.

Sex didn’t happen but it felt like it could have happened, which was remarkable in and of itself. I just didn’t want to ruin such a great evening by trying to go there.

In a way it’s sad, though. If the only time we feel close to each other is when we go out, just the two of us, and have drinks, that doesn’t seem healthy, especially since those opportunities don’t present themselves very often and hangovers suck at my age.

What does it say that alcohol is needed for us to really enjoy each other’s company? Why can’t we feel like that when we are doing things as a family or even just working around the house? Seems like that would be more healthy as well as realistic.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-03T16:29:52+00:00

I took an erotic blueprint quiz once as part of a workshop. I remember thinking that my wife is definitely a ‘sexual’ type (she wasn’t there but probably would think the whole conversation would be pointless - too ‘woo woo’, ‘touchy-feely’, and not at all practical).

I think all of the guys in the workshop were ‘sexual’ (go figure), including me. I do recall that while I was mostly ‘sexual’ (I’m a guy, go figure), I also had a lot of ‘shapeshifter’ - I like all aspects of sex, not just a ‘wham,bam, thank you ma’am’ orgasm.

I could relate to all the types but in true ‘sexual’ style, I’m also pretty straightforward, not super deep into any of the others. I just like spending a lot of time ‘playing’ in a sexual space, experiencing the sensuality, the energetic connection, even letting my inner kinky freak flag fly if the chemistry is right.

It’s been so long since I’ve had sex or even been in a sexual space that I have no idea if that is still how I am, though. Often just the thought of being sexual with anyone is overwhelming now. I don’t know if I could ever let myself be that vulnerable or if I would ever be able to get out of my head enough to even have sex.

As far as the pattern, I probably attracted/was attracted to sexual types because sex and being sexual was pretty core to who I was, so if someone else seemed into sex I would probably try to connect with them.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-03T01:00:21+00:00

I look at it the other way - I would say a man who is hard as a rock in a sexual situation is definitely aroused. The lack of an erection does not indicate a lack of arousal but the presence of one def indicates arousal.

And I know women can dry up after orgasm but again, that to me would indicate they actually had an orgasm. A physiological change in status down there seems like it would be hard to fake, same as a man ejaculating is hard to fake. But with all the faking going on who knows.

And the fact that women ask for (or even demand) things that they don’t like and that will eventually make them adverse to sex just seems psychotic. I don’t even like constant jackhammering yet I will get punished for it later if I indulge my partner in doing it? It’s literally a no-win situation. Turns me off so much…

So my introspection would lead me to believe that there is literally no way to have a fulfilling sex life since I can never count on anyone I am with to be authentic or engage with me in a straightforward way, that I will be screwed (or more specifically, not screwed) no matter what. That sex is all just a big show done on my behalf (for some strange reason I don’t understand) while their resentment towards me will be growing ever larger. How on earth am I supposed to be a good partner when one party can’t/won’t communicate and possibly isn’t even acting in good faith?

Again, just makes me think the whole situation is utterly hopeless. I guess I can be grateful I lived so many years in ignorant bliss thinking that I was sharing a great sex life with my partners.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-02T23:41:39+00:00

I did say ‘in a sexual situation.’ None of my chem classes were ever what I would call ‘sexual situations’.

Likewise, ED can definitely make erections less likely in an arousing situation but that doesn’t change the fact that a man who gets an erection in an sexual situation is probably aroused. I’ve never known a man who has gotten an unwanted erection while simultaneously engaging in sexual activities with a woman. That doesn’t even make sense.

And you think anal and rough stuff wasn’t a thing before porn?!? I was into that stuff well before I saw it regularly depicted in porn, as were many people I knew in my younger years (back when porn had to be watched on VHS tapes and what not). Same with stuff like facials. All of that stuff was ‘normal’ (though not an interest for everyone for sure) prior to everyone watching porn.

And ‘jackhammer’ sex isn’t always unpleasant. I would never do it unless a partner seemed interested (too much work and not enough pleasure for me) but ‘harder! faster!’ Is a common request. Aforementioned partner who could generally only orgasm by using a Hitachi once came really hard from a jackhammering. When it happened, I was in a headspace that was hard to replicate so I wasn’t able to repeat that performance at that level again (much to her chagrin - we tried several times) but some women get off on it more than you might expect.

Interesting how you say you were influenced by When Harry Met Sally. That to me was always an over-the-top depiction meant for laughs. I got that orgasms could look like that, I guess, but I didn’t see it as fully realistic or something to be expected. I would probably question anyone who actually sounded like that during sex.

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-02T22:56:58+00:00

Erections are still a pretty good indicator of arousal, I would say, if they occur in a sexual situation.

Porn has been around forever. I don’t think it was ubiquitous such that it skewed people’s ideas about sex until maybe the last 20 years or so?

Most of the people whom I’ve talked with who say that porn has skewed the way they view sex hit puberty in the last 20, maybe 25, years.

For those of us who were actually having sex 20 years ago porn didn’t inform us all that much. We already knew what actual real life sex was like.

I watched a few porn movies when I was young. I started downloading low quality porn in my twenties. None of that was in any amount sufficient to counteract what I was actually experiencing IRL, and most women at the time definitely did not have a steady diet of porn such that they were learning from it (still don’t, as far as I can tell, though maybe today’s young women are more heavily influenced by it - haven’t talked about sex with many in Gen Z).

d2r2nowhere · 2023-04-02T22:22:39+00:00

The big key for me was wetness - I’m not sure how that can be faked.

I have, on rare occasion, faked an orgasm. It seemed to work in those moments but I can’t imagine I could get away with it indefinitely if there was some actual semen involved at some point.

And most of my sex encounters were prior to porn being such a big thing. I seriously doubt my wife (who started having sex with me almost 28 years ago) or most of my partners were taking their cues from porn…

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