Why can't my H just leave this alone

I have followed this post from the beginning, and have until now refrained from putting my two cents in. I get that you would like your husband to separate marriage and sex. To understand that your desire not to have sex with him doesn't mean you don't love him, or that you don't want to be married to him. Would you be OK with the reverse? If he was having sex outside of your marriage, but assured you that it had nothing to do with you, that he still loved you and that it was nothing emotional just a physical thing so that he could better accommodate your desire to maintain the marriage without sex between the two of you.

I just see it as very difficult to separate sex and marriage, marriage without sex is very difficult at best, and sex with others while married is also a very difficult trick to pull off even if all parties are OK with the situation.

ummm, I want sex from no one. Not my husband or any other man. I am not going outside of our marriage and having sex. He is not going outside of our marriage and having sex. (at least I am pretty doggon sure he is not) So sex outside of marriage is not really an issues.

I have a lot to deal with abuse wise, some of that has come from him in the past. But mostly what I am talking about in abuse that inhibits the NOW is issues from a past rape and the very real likelihood of child sexual abuse and the affect it has on my life still yet.

He doesn't seem to understand that I can't just get over it and become some maniac in he bedroom. I am working on it in T, and with time this stuff will work it's self out. We have been threw alot of stuff together and his abusive ways in the past have not helped me with the sexual issues and relationship issues. We are at the point in this marriage that I am almost ready to walk away. I think I have been gone for some time mentally but have been here physically. I do have sex with him once every 2 weeks. Mainly because he is a man, and men do need sex sometimes. Women to for that matter, just not this woman. Not at this point in time.

I did explain to my H I may never want sex. At this point I can't guarantee I will. If we need to separate for that reason then so be it. I don't expect him to stay for minimal sex. I do know that right now sex is not something I really want and I haven't for a while. I finally got the nerve to tell him IDK it might never happen. I can't guarantee that and I understand if you have to walk because of it. I can't explain what sex does to me as a survivor of rape and abuse. Unless you have been there it is unexplainable. Efforts can be made, you can try to change your outlook, but you cannot change your bodies memories. As hard as it is to believe your body has it's own memories. I can defeat my own brain from time to time, but when my body rejects me and what I am trying to accomplish it is just impossible. I can clarify later if you need me to. I know that sounds a bit odd.

Something you can try is taking more control of the sex and how it's done so that it's more comfortable for you. If your sensitive to touch, you can try having him not touch you unless you are directing his hands yourself. If your uncomfortable with intercourse, you could try having him use something like a fleshlight on himself while you do other stuff .

Most people, both men and women, definitely need to feel wanted and valued sexually, so even small things like compliments about how he looks & foreplay/ small stuff helps make a difference. Something as small as you saying you "really want to screw his brains out" will make him feel more attractive in your eyes.

Also, has the therapist come up with ways to help with your husband's physical and emotional needs, or only said to wait? Are you okay with him masturbating and having porn, and if so does he know that?

You could give him some pictures or video of yourself for when your not feeling up for sex. You could also try giving him a pair of your panties or bra, give him a kiss on the cheek, blow a kiss, wink, smirk, and/ or saying "have fun honey!". Whatever would suit your personality best.

Cerebralgecko - Thank you for some good ideas. I am very sensitive to touch. I usually keep my socks on. I often keep my shirt on to. For some reason socks provide a since of safety. (like when you go to the ob/gyn and you leave your socks on) A shirt provides safety because it covers the vulnerable parts of me. The parts I can't stand to have touched.

I agree compliments and such are a huge help. More then I had realized.

The T has more or less said, you know he needs to figure out what to do with his own pent up sexual energy that doesn't involve me so much. Yes he masterbates and I have no issues with that. If I am not going to be availiable for him I know he has to do something. He has used pron on very rare ocessions. I have no problem with him using pron. He chooses not to and I am good with that to. He know that I am very open and accepting of his needs and how he deals with them.

We do have sex once every two weeks or so. Depending on hormonal issues and stuff that seems to get in the way. Some times it is more often then every two weeks becuase of the coming of hormonal changes and I know he will have to go another week with out sex. And I don't want to push him to the breaking point where the stress is to great.

That last paragraph.... INTERESTING Very interesting.

I had a bit of a symbolic breakthrough the other day with my boyfriend, we took the spare mattress out of his room that he had put on the floor because I started being afraid of sleeping next to someone and was having bad nightmares.

He is sex-obsessed and has made a few faux pas and triggered me but he makes sure to calm me down when he accidentally does so. He will often wake up in the night and service himself (or he will still be awake because he is so horny) and when I was starting to get back into bed with him he felt me wake up and was scared that he was freaking me out so paused to check on me (he had made sure that I was on the side closest to the spare mattress so I could flee anytime)

I have also had situations periodically where I can't even hug my partners, they have said that this upsets them but they know that I am not doing it on purpose and they hate the people who hurt me.

I guess my point is: he has a hand, 2 even and if he cares then he will suck it up.

I'm not sure what your stance on this is but I have found that letting them watch porn is a good idea. It redirects the attention and they can have time to take care of themselves, leaving them less stressed/sexually frustrated and more able to look after me.
(Note: I am not threatened by this, as most people in relationships seem to be, because it is a person on a screen. My partners love me for who I am as a person and no amount of looking at attractive people will change that. Just like looking at pictures of topless celebrities wouldn't make you want to leave him.)

^P.s to that: Do other things to show that you still love him. Cook him his favourite meal, watch a DVD with him on the couch, let him choose what to watch (I dunno, just throwing things out there) and just randomly say "I love you" for no reason other than to say it because it is true.

Ok, having now read through the comments, he is at fault too. Manipulation into sex is abuse so it's partly his fault that he can't touch you.

My partners have both accidentally had sex with me while I was dissociating because they didn't realise. They have both done it once and once only. They now look out for the signs because they never want to do that to me again and feel awful for it having happened.

I go to PTSD group on Monday and one of the facilitators recommended me a book which has activities that partners can do together to help with the healing from sexual abuse, I'll find out the name and get back to you.

I don't hug, I don't hold hands, I keep my socks and my shirt on during sex, I can't be held,and I can't snuggle. The T says I have the equivalent of combative PTSD. The sensation of touch fires something in my brain. Once when my H and I had an disagreement and he saw I was in tears he tried to hug me I managed to get away from him. Then he grabbed me and tried to hug me again. (I know he was trying to be nice and helpful because I was falling apart) At that moment I pushed him and told him I hated him. To leave me alone and don't touch me. I guess I was talking to my rapist. I hated what I said to my H and the look of shock on his face. That was 2 years ago, I still feel badly about that.

My H knows about my past abuse. He knows I was raped many times over as a 15yr old. He knows there was significant brain washing involved. No one (well almost no one) can know what that is like and what that does to your world. I'm not sure that ever goes away. My H knows that there was a great likelihood I was sexually abused as a small child, a 3-5 yr old. There is no solid evidence but some questionable relatives with proven past histories of petafile activities lived next door.

It took me 20 years to tell my husband about the things that happened. So he knows. Yet he still expects me to let it go and have unlimited amounts of sex and love it. He does the same thing my rapist did. He begs and pleads and coheres. I did learn a bad thing from my rapist It is soooo much easier to just give in. I remember having that very conversation with the guy who raped me. He told me "look here you are crying and putting up a fight and we have been at this 20 min now,(me trying to talk him out of hurting me) if you would just shut up and let me have it, it will only take 5 min and then it will be over." 5 min versus 20 min of arguing and him getting what he wants anyway. I just learned to dissociate. I am not going to go into it but that was the minimal of his tactics.

I do that with my H now. I don't want to have sex. I don't want to be something you take your sexual frustrations out on. I cannot stand when people touch me. Not my arm, not my back, not my breasts especially. Having someone near my face is the worst touch I can think of. My H knows these things yet for some reason he thinks that what he does doesn't matter.

We don't get along to well, he (my H) has been abusive in the past and controlling and just plain ole mean. I cannot forgive all that with my past and hop in the bed and love it.

I do not have a problem with him taking care of his own needs. I have no issue with him watching porn. He doesn't. He has before, but he feels it is wrong. So what ever. Meeting his sexual needs is something he can take care of.

HE is aware that I am trying to get over this stuff, and after being in T for almost 3 years working on this, I have come to the conclusion that I just don't love sex the way he does. I did tell him just a few weeks ago, that I was sorry if that was as deal breaker. I can't promise that i will ever be over this, I can't promise that I will ever love sex. He looked at me like I was from another planet and didn't say anything. At least now he knows.

So I really don't know what to do anymore. So here I am.

AS6855 - I love your quote by the way. That is so me. (minus the medication.)

Things to keep in mind when interacting with me:
1. Do not try to medicate me. I am not on medication for a very good reason.
2. I don't do hugs.
3. If I ask for help, it is because I am at the breaking point, otherwise I have a bad habit of keeping quiet. Please do not brush me off.

i'd love to know the name of that book.

This sounds like a living hell for both of you. I would advise a divorce so he can find a sexual woman that siuts his needs while you can heal from your painful past without the added stress of thinking about his needs. This atmosphere is not healthy for either of you and takes its toll on you both mentally and physically.

I do feel for you as woman to woman - who has also been through counselling for sexual abuse. You need your space to heal and it cannot be with him around, confusing you and making you feel guilty.

Good luck and I hope you both get the life you need and deserve very soon. I don't feel it will be possible while married to each other.

That sounds like a really horrible situation and, going just from what you have said, I would say that it is not worth it to stay. My alarm bells are ringing like crazy.

OMFG at the convo with rapist, TELL ME this guy got convicted. I feel sick.

My partner is the one who cops my abuse. He actually said to me the other night during an argument "can we just skip to the part where you call me a **** and say I don't understand?"....That stopped me lol. He has told me though that if I tell him that I hate him I better bloody mean it. I have only said it a couple of times.

I have a little bit of an advantage, as you may have guessed by my terms, I am poly (not everyone can do this but I just don't feel jealousy *shrugs*) so when my sex-obsessed boyfriend was having a hard time with my not being able to touch him, I let him have booty call with someone else (funnily enough he didn't even have sex with her, he just needed someone to hold which is kinda sweet =3)

Though if you want have one last try, I found this Barnes & Noble - Books, Textbooks, eBooks, Toys, Games, DVDs and More

thanks for info on that book. Right now I am re reading Haunted Marriage, overcoming the ghost of your spouses child abuse. It is a great book.

And no the guy who said that to me the first time , my rapist, he is still a free man .The time frame for him to be prosecuted has by far passed. That originally happened 25 years ago, some days it feels like it was yesterday.

From what you said earlier about your husband only masturbating to you, it is obvious that he seeks physical intimacy with you. That is a need that the average, person male or female has. It sounds like the therapist was almost exclusively addressing your needs and not his, and a relationship is about more than one person. I agree, It sounds like this has gone on so long that your husband has reached his boiling point. It sounds like he desperately wants to love you and be intimate with you, but that's something that you won't be able to reciprocate(at least physically) for some time.

Because his issues went largely unaddressed for so long, I find it doubtful that they can now be dealt with in time. My advice is to see a new therapist and probably a divorce. If you do get a divorce he will likely be very upset because all he's wanted to do was be close with you for all these years. So you should let him know at least how much you cared for him, because this man has spent 20 years feeling undervalued and unloved in the hopes that you would recover.

It will be very hard at first, but with the relationship over it will remove a great source of stress from your lives. Hopefully without that added stress it will be much easier for you to recover.

Very true cerebralgecko......My T was not so much concerned about my husbands needs being met just mine. My need to be left alone. I donlt think my H will ever go to see another T. He surely is not going to pay again for me to go see one.

As far as divorce goes you are exactly right he will be most angry becuase what he wanted all along was to be close to me and I rejected him for all that time, just like I would be even further rejecting him at the moment. I still don't know what to do about divorce. It is gonna have t be a wait and see kind of thing at the moment.

Maybe you should suggest that he see a counsellor because you know this is hard on him and he needs as much suport as you???

^ Very good advice.

I'm going to try to go back to individual therapy because I can't get any intimacy either and it's not going anywhere. So instead of a "we" problem it's become a problem I have to handle on my own. Mrs. Webgoji doesn't seem to want to change it.

So yeah, your husband needs to back off of you and go talk to a therapist on his own to start working through it. Tell him The Webgoji said so.

I will Webgoji. I agree... good advice AS6855.

Webgoji, I hope you find the answers you are looking for. I hope my H finds the answers he is looking for. If I may ask... What kind of T are you going to see about something like this.

My normal therapist. She does it all, family counseling, couples counseling, individual and sex therapy. So she's not a master at any of them by any means, but has a pretty broad range of knowledge.

For me sex is important because sex to me is about the emotional intimacy, not just getting off. It it was just about "getting off" my hand and I could handle it with far better efficiency. So I need to work through how to fill that gap of emotional closeness I'm not getting.

hummm, nice way to word what you are looking for and what I wish my H would look for. How to feel that gap of emotional closeness he is not getting, due to the lack of sex.

Got it, the book is "The Sexual Healing Journey" by Wendy Maltz Barnes & Noble - Books, Textbooks, eBooks, Toys, Games, DVDs and More