I will never ask another question so long as I live.
I am sorry. Go scrub your brain, you’ll feel a lot better.
What does Dan Savage say about eyeball licking? Because I personally think its up there with furries and necrophiliacs (okay, not that far up, but pretty damn far)
Okay, I wanted to update you all.
I talked to him. He put the toys away because some people were coming over and he didn’t want them somewhere they could find them. Completely understandable.
I reminded him, once again, about what I need and why I need it and how long I haven’t been getting it. I asked him if he forgot about it.
He said he hadn’t forgotten. I said, “Well, if you didn’t forget about it, why haven’t you been doing it?” Then he said he was “aware of it on some level” but…
And I told him that I didn’t think he gave two shits about it. He said he did. We’ll see if he doesn’t get better.
I did talk to him about counseling. Unfortunately, he gets counseling services through his work, and they pay for it. They don’t counsel him at work – what they do is hook him up with a counselor outside of work. The bad thing about this is that HE has to talk to them about it and set up an appointment HIMSELF. I can’t call up his work, ask to talk to the office manager, and set up an appointment. This is a rather screwy system.
So this means that I have to sit around until he makes the appointment. Which is where the nagging comes in. I have to remind him every day that I want to go talk to someone about the problem we are having with our sex lives and ask him to make an appointment. I am a little unwilling to do this because it means that EVERY DAY I will be reminding him about the deficiencies with our sex lives, and I will be hurting him every day with the reminder that he’s just not good enough (note: I never actually say these things, it’s just what he feels). I am unhappy about hurting him every day, and I don’t want him to be mad at me every day.
I am dead set against leaving him because he is a wonderful, caring, loving, sweet, intelligent, funny, silly individual to spend the rest of my life with. I can talk to him for hours, I can joke with him and tell him everything. He is completely trustworthy and loyal. He is philosophical at times, irrepressibly goofy, teasing and romantic, and he fits me in every way EXCEPT sexually.
You guys are much too quick to dump a wonderful relationship when one thing is wrong. There is no perfect match anywhere. In every relationship there will be something to work on. That’s what a marriage is – work. You don’t get a marriage dropped into your lap, you know. You work to get a date, you work to get the next date, you work to have a steady, long-term relationship, you work to get married, and then afterwards you don’t get to sit around with your thumb up your butt, no matter how pleasant that may be.
I am aware every day at how lucky I am to have such a wonderful man to share my life with. I try every day to tell him how I feel about him and make him feel special. True, this sexual problem is something we have to work on. If he’s willing to work on it, my job will be a lot easier. If he isn’t, then there will be a lot of tension in our relationship until he is willing to. It’s going to take some time and attention, and I’m willing to do it, and by god, he’s going to be willing to do it too.
Oh, and thanks for bringing scat into this! Yerugh!!
I’m glad that you guys talked about it, at least a little. It’s a first step.
The people who were advocating that Elysian dump him were saying that he doesn’t care about pleasing her. I doubt very much that it’s so cut-and-dried. Sex is a complicated, emotional subject. He probably does care about her complaints, but he can’t deal with his feelings about them. I hate to go all Men-are-from-Mars, but many men have a hard time articulating their feelings. He can’t just come out and say, “The fact that you aren’t satisfied by intercourse makes me feel inadequate,” if that is indeed the problem. Maybe he can’t even bring himself to grapple with it internally. It might be too painful for him to even think about. So he’s avoiding the issue and hoping it will go away (even though rationally he probably knows it will not). It’s not that he doesn’t care; it’s just not as easy as him deciding, “Oh, she needs me to go down to come! Okey-dokey, then!”
Good luck to both of you.
Scat grosses you out, but necrophilia (during which human flesh is decaying into a substance more laden with noxious bacteria and other decomposition products than feces) doesn’t? Interesting dichotomy.
OK, that’s fine. As long as they don’t “disappear” again, that is. Perhaps you two could designate a “toy box” location, like a particular dresser drawer?
His “forgetting” behavior sounds a lot like depression, and I speak from experience. Stuff that you do that hurts other people causes a lot of pain and shame, and anything having to do with that does as well. So he doesn’t want to have sex because (not only might his sex drive be low overall) it also reminds him that he’s “no good” at pleasing you in the standard ways, and he doesn’t want to make an appointment because he has to think about his problems with you, and so on. Even you talking with him about it will bring up those feelings of shame and hurt. His mind is desperately trying to avoid dealing with it - because even though counseling will help, it will hurt more first, and a depressed person’s mind is often just seeking numbness.
If you can find any way, when you two talk, to reassure him that he’s not a bad husband/lover/person, that you speak out of concern for him too, etc., that can help, but it’s a tricky path to tread. I wish you two luck.
Wow, this is really great, Ferret Herder. Well, not that it’s great, but that you articulated it so well. It also highlights a little problem – he needs to talk to counselor. He won’t talk to a counselor because it reminds him of his supposed inadequacy. Unless he talks to a counselor he won’t be cured of his feelings of inadequacy. But he won’t talk to a counselor! I guess I must just be as supportive as I can.
I have been trying the tack of: “But honey, it’s not because I think just you need counseling, but because I need counseling. And if we go together it’s better than apart.” It’s not been working so far. Maybe I need to sweeten it up a little.
It’s funny that I started this thread thinking that it would go one direction and it’s ended up in another one, very useful all the same. I guess the underlying problems are very thinly disguised under the orgasmlessness. I hope anyone else, like Tiramisu, who might be having the same problem, is getting something out of this thread.
Elysian, this rang so many bells for me I thoguht I had swallowed a church; this situation sounds quite identical to a control freak I recently dumped. It would seem that he took your toys and hid them (lame excuse aside), because he wanted you to know that when HE felt it was fine for you to have an orgasmic sexual experience, it would be HIM controlling it.
Scenario: all weekend I work on my BF, trying to seduce w/ clothing and action and promises, and he responds partly but then pulls back over and over. I get sick of waiting and getting all worked up for naught, and masturbate. And since I spent my weekends at his house, I did so in his shower and he caught me. He was furious for two days. How could I do such a rude thing to him, in his own house?? My explanations fell on deaf ears; finally he said it was wrong for me to have an orgasm w/o him in his own house and that was final. This was a big red flag, and thinking on it led me to understand some of his other controlling behaviors, and to get him the hell out of my life. Of course, getting any of my things back from him was a challenge, as he would only release them when he was good and ready.
IMHO, your young man has control issues. No, I don’t hink they’re worth dumping over, but if you don’t go to counseling on your own, he’ll see you’re not serious about wanting him to change and he’ll never make his own arrangements. Why should he, you’re putting up w/ it, aren’t you? He’s even got you afraid to push him on it.
QtM, I’m going to respond to this as soon as I’m done taking a dump on this dead, underaged donkey!
I don’t have any advice, but best of luck to you, Elysian.
I really just popped in to point out that there is another kind of “scat” that doesn’t involve disgusting sex play with feces. “Scatting” is the name for the kind of half singing like “be-deep-bop-ooh-cha-be-deedidly-ooh-cha” that old-time Jazz singers sometimes do.
I just wanted y’all to know that so you don’t cringe in horror the next time “Scatman” Carothers comes up in conversation.
Well, everyone has dealt with shit up close and personal, pretty much. Not everyone has actually encountered a dead body, and even fewer have seen them in that putrid state.
Question-he has to go through work to get counseling, and tell them about it? WTF? Isn’t that a complete invasion of privacy?
Psychologist here. I’m not going to offer advice because I agree that seeing a counselor is a good idea, either alone or together. What I do want to say is that a counselor who’s been in practice for a while, and certainly one with a specialty in human sexuality, is not going to be shocked by this story or think less of your husband. The counselor will be trying to help the two of you and is likely to spend much more time thinking about your relationship and communication styles than on sex per se. Your problem is not uncommon. I understand that your husband may feel inadequate, but counselors hear about this stuff every day. If your husband wants to resolve this problem, perhaps he can try to shift his focus from feeling inadequate to thinking creatively about how he can participate in a solution.
Elysian, because it sounds like you do have a good relationship, except for the sex problem, I’d like to make a very simple-sounding suggestion.
Do you ever look into each others’ eyes as you have sex? Having the lights on/up, and spending a significant part of the time you’re actually in coitus looking straight (gazing lovingly - and maybe even expressing endearments) into your partner’s eyes can induce a much stronger feeling of intimacy for both partners than either could imagine before trying it. And that enhanced feeling of intimacy can lead to better and more frequent orgasms.
No guarantees, but it’s worth a try, especially in an otherwise good relationship. Oh. And don’t tell him that you think/hope it will help you achieve orgasm. Find some other explanation. 
Why? Because if it doesn’t work, he’ll be just that much more depressed, and consequently you’ll be even more frustrated. :smack:
Good luck, hon.
Anger problems and low sex drive sounds like stress and/or depression.
We tried this. It made us giggle. A lot.
This part doesn’t sound right to me. When this type of counseling is offered by an employer there is usually an 800# for a third-party company that provides referrals to counselors who participate in their program. Look on your health insurance card for Employee Assistance Program or mental health. If that doesn’t work, call the 800# for your regular health insurance, or call the office manager (better still, the Human Resources department, if they have one) and say you are the spouse of an employee and want to know if there is an employee assistance program and can you have the 800#.
I’m not sure if your husband is being manipulative about this or not. Many, many employees don’t understand how to use their insurance. But the way most employee assistance programs work, the employer does not know which employees are using the program. At some point you will provide your husbands social security number to a 3rd-party company to verify eligibility, but his employer will never know you or he used the service.
I hope I was able to help in some practical way.
I will ask about the specifics of his insurance policy.
This morning I got him excited, then lay back and looked at him expectantly. He didn’t do anything. He didn’t do anything for a WHILE. Then I asked him what he was sitting there for, and he said it was because I had stopped. WTF? Pissed, I went upstairs.
Up until now I have been trying to be very gentle and supportive, but if this happens again, I am going to yell at him. And it’s going to hurt his feelings and exasperate me more.
Staring at each other will likely make us giggle. Tantric anything makes us feel silly and giggle. So that’s not likely to help, although thank you for trying.
Thank you for the good wishes. I am going to solve this problem, I swear.
I really, really don’t think this issue will be solved with looking at him expectantly or yelling.
The latter is just going to add another issue/problem onto the one you’re dealing with now. I understand you’re frustrated and feel he’s being unresponsive, uncaring, and a bunch of other things, but I can’t believe the solution lies in hollering at the man you say you love.
As the the former, I recommned less passiveness and more verbal and physical communication. Getting him excited and then stopping suddenly comes across as abrupt and even a bit passive aggressive. Take his hands and ask him to touch you. Tell him what you want and ask him to give it to you. But, goodness, don’t just roll over and expect him to figure out what’s running through your head.
I agree. It would be good for him to know what you wanted, but then we wouldn’t be having this thread.
Ever think about writing a little story for the two of you to play out, with all of what you want included? Not very spontaneous, I know, but if you can get him interested in that, it might help.
Needless to say you go first in the story.