PDXguy
24th August 2004, 12:33 AM
First a bit of history. My wife was previously married to a verbally-abusive guy who cheated on her after about 5-6 years of marriage. They never had any children. They were married for a total of 7 years before they ended it in divorce. She casually dated a few guys for about 2 years before I met her. I thought she was absolutely beautiful and surprisingly healthy emotionally for having been through a rough marriage and divorce. Within a short time, I realized that she was a gift from heaven and asked her to marry me after about 2.5 months of dating. Fast forward to today. Our 6+ year marriage has had a few ups and downs, but we have been quick to work through the relatively minor issues that have come up. We rarely fight. We are both almost 40 and have not had any kids either, which has been a topic off and on. She wants them, or thinks she does. I do not. I say, "thinks she does" because she has changed her mind a few times over the course of our discussions, which have occurred rather infrequently the past couple of years. Regardless, I think kids are her big issue. My big issue is the lack of enthusiastic sex. For the first 2 years, I was quite content with the quality and the frequency of sex. When I began noticing a lack of interest, imagination and a, "hurry up and get it over with" attitude on her part, I mentioned it to her. I gently told her how important this is to a man. She said that she would try and do better, and for a very short time she did. I have discussed the issue with her over the past 4 years on many occasions with mixed results. Early on, she would admit it and agree to improve, and do nothing about it. More recently, she has become angry and defensive and says things like, "I'm not a whore". I'm not asking for her to become a whore, although, within the confines of our marriage and the bedroom, it would be fine with me if she showed some of the exhuberance of a whore. This is not to say that I wouldn't still respect her. I simply want the wonderful intimacy and seemingly endless pleasure that we both enjoyed when we first married. The freedom to selflessly give everything to the person that you are in love with. Why is that too much to ask? I love her very much and want to spend the rest of my life with her. I don't think this is unreasonable. She has also said that the decline is normal and happens to all couples. My argument is that I don't want to be like other couples, half of which split up. In other words, "normal" is subjective and not necessarily a good thing. Shouldn't we be striving for beyond normal? What about spectacular? I can't help but wonder if this is why her first husband cheated on her. Maybe he gave up trying and found someone who would provide what was missing at home. I'm not justifying what he did by any means, nor do I plan to cheat on her, I'm simply trying to understand why he did it. Anyway, recently our arguments and conflicts have become prolonged and generally have taken a drastic turn for the worse. I find it increasingly difficult to communicate with her because she is bitter, angry and easily frustrated over the simplest things. It's as if she is a completely different person and I'm not sure what to do about it. I've tried to be supportive and understanding. I've tried to listen to her and provide advice when she asks for it. We are currently in the middle of a long, drawn out argument and I'm having a hard time approaching her to talk about trying to resolve it. I can tell that she is angry because of the way she throws out little comments and jabs, intended to hurt me. Since we are approaching the 7 year mark soon, I can't help but think that her past marriage is somehow affecting her attitude toward me. Maybe she is unknowingly lashing out at me to get the jump on being hurt again. Any comments or insight out there? I could really use some input. Thank you for listening.