Be Careful What you wish for - You might get it. And it might not be what you wanted at all.

Haven’t posted in a quite a while.  Like I’ve said before, this time of the year is ESPECIALLY busy for me.  Normally I’m hard pressed during Summer months to find time to cut the grass. But I digress.

I’ve been running the MAP, but I’ve also changed up some other things just to see how my wife would react.  On the positive side – I’m getting sex a lot more than I was before.  I’m confident I could get it 2-3 times a week without much fuss at all.  Now here comes the detractors telling me NOT getting sex, when I obviously could, is not Alpha.  Yes, you are right.  However there is a rub to all this. The MAP, the self-improvements, the pulling your head out of your ass and actually taking stock of your life and what’s going on around you. 

So for all those wishing for more sex – be careful.  You might just get want you THINK you want now – but this new self-awareness, this new ability to think and analyze before you act or react?  It can come with some rather sobering side-effects.

I’ve been married more than 15 years.  It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing by any means.  But I’ve come to a rather shocking conclusion in the last few months.  A conclusion I think I came to a rather long time ago, but refused to acknowledge it.

First a little history.  I’ve covered some of it before in my blog – but I need to make this clear.

In my wife’s past, she was sexually abused my male members of her extended family.  To EXACTLY what extent, she’s never shared. Bits and pieces have come out, but whenever we get rather deep into this subject, she tried to make the point that she’s not a victim, it doesn’t affect her now – and the subject is changed.

She’s never received counseling for it.  We received marriage counseling at one point in our marriage and the counselor asked to see her alone.  After two visits, she decided she was done with counseling.  I think the counselor had put two and two together and my wife was definitely not comfortable with talking about her past.

I highly doubt this abuse consisted of penetration or sexual intercourse.  Not that it matters, abuse is abuse. However I do think that the abuse has caused her to be pushed away from physically touching and engaging the male sex organ.  Trust me on this one.  Once in a blue moon this has come out in conversation, but she will never expound on it.  It seems to be off limits.

My wife is very closed off to sex outside of HER norms (missionary, occasionally – on request – her being on top) and oral sex (giving) and even receiving can make her uncomfortable at times.  Personally I have come to the conclusion, until she gets counseling or hands-on therapy to deal with her aversions, caused from events in her past, she will never progress on this front.  And to be honest I wasn’t a help in this area.  I simply tried to ignore it and keep on keeping on.  Stupid move on my part.  It just enabled her behavior.

Add to this her being not comfortable with her body. Granted she has gained weight over the years, but I still find her very physically attractive.  Problem is – the reality is – it doesn’t matter what I, or anyone else thinks, it’s HER perception that matters.  She’s admitted this. She talks about losing weight and getting in shape, but she’s never moved much beyond words.  She’ll make half-hearted attempts to exercise and watch her diet, but she is easily derailed from this path by using easy excuses. 

The next part I will talk about came as a shock to me, but it makes sense.

My wife WAS VERY physically affectionate when we dated, after we moved in together and even after we married. It wasn’t until after our child was born that this tapered off. This coincided with her being treated for depression – which she never acknowledged. 

With more sex happening – Good thing right? I’ve realized that affection from her is still sorely lacking.  I’ve realized that is a BIG thing for me.  Always has been. You’d be shocked at what you can suppress and gloss over when you put your mind to it.  Kissing only happens when someone leaves the house, leading up and during sex. 

Touching, even non-sexual touch, is definitely lacking as well.

These are big things to me. I’m only now realizing again how much of a big thing.

The other issues that FINALLY dawned on me – in reality I finally had the balls to admit it to myself “out loud”.  We work different schedules.  I work days, Monday through Friday.  She works evenings on a rotating schedule.  In reality, we don’t spend much time together AT ALL.  It finally dawned on me how little we actually have in common and how little we actually interact directly with each other.

In the harsh light of reality – I truly doubt we’d still be married if we worked the same hours. 

Harsh, but unfortunately true I believe.

I’m not packing it in by any means. But this realization, me being able to finally admit this to myself, it means WE have a lot of work ahead of us. 

At some point – there will be NOTHING ELSE I can do to improve our marriage.  It will come down to HER action.  HER wanting to change / improve HER own life.

I know without a shadow of a doubt, she’d go on like it is now and just figure that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  I know there are doubters out there – that she’s ripe for an affair.  I know this sounds like me being a true asshole – but part of me wishes she would have an affair, but she is oblivious.

If she had an affair, at least there would be something that could spur a confrontation  - something different that could be used to spark some change and real conversation on our relationship. Weird and selfish sounding I’m sure.  But I think something that harsh and jarring would be needed to push her out of her routine she now calls her life.

On the flip side, an ultimatum could serve that purpose, hopefully ending up making our marriage better – and saving it in the process – but I’m a long way from being where I need to be to make an ultimatum.

Until then?  I’ll do my best to keep working the MAP, keeping improving ME (because that’s really ALL I can do) and who knows.