'Honey, You Repel Me': Advice For Couples in a Sexless Marriage

Wall Street Journal ^ | Thursday, May 15, 2003 | SUE SHELLENBARGER

[luckystarmom]

I'll agree with that statement!!!!!!!!!!! While doing that, the woman can relax and gain some energy back.

[luckystarmom]

When my husband and I both worked, everything was great. We also worked at the same company which was lots of fun.

Things got hard once we had 3 little kids and 1 income, so I don't buy the 2 income thing.

[Reeses]

Women don't go into "heat" like female animals.

There's an evolutionary reason for that. Unlike less intelligent animals, humans can assess long term consequences for short term behavior. A cave man would lock up his daughter or keep an extra eye on his wife if he knew either were in heat. Because of that, women who had pronounced signs of heat bred much less than women who's heat was hidden. Nature has had to use trickery to get the human female pregnant, and has also given human females the reward of orgasm, something no other type of female animal has.

Before the invention of abortion and the pill, more than half the people born were accidents. The invention and widespread adoption of the pill happened too fast for nature to adapt new tricks. The result is having a profound impact on the gene pool. The smartest women do not have any kids, pretty much capping how smart women in general can be.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

Oh, cripes, get that damned dog off the bed!

Usually with us, it's a tiny voice coming in over the baby monitor at the most crucial moments.

"WAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! Mommy! Daddy! Bad dreams!"

[RMDupree]

Lack of female sex drive is almost always a result of fatigue.

That's why the sex life suffers (in most cases) after kids are born. We're just too durned tired!

[sauropod]

Interesting thread ping...

[sonserae]

Wow...you are full of opinions without any facts. Don't know where you are coming up with these philosophies...maybe in your cave or something.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Orgasms in women is another indication that sex is not strictly procreational in humans.

I don't believe smarter women don't have kids. Nor that that would cap the level of intelligence for them anymore than for their male offspring.

[Aeronaut]

Sex is nice, but love is the true experience.

Amen! I am lucky enough to feel I have married my best and most trusted friend.

[Interesting Times]

Although therapy can still help a marriage if only one spouse participates, it's best if both attend. If your spouse resists, try saying, "We need to talk more about our relationship, and I think a third party might help," suggests William Northey of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, Alexandria, Va.

Now there's an objective, disinterested opinion.

Try making a deal: "If you attend just one session, I'll get off your back."

"Tell me, what will it take for you to buy this fine previously-owned automobile today?"

Usually one session is enough to allow a good therapist to win over a reluctant spouse. Some are willing to call a resistant spouse to urge participation.

No surprise there.

She asks, "Is it worth it for me to go through some kind of therapy?"

"Absolutely," says Tony Jurich, a past president of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy...

Our motto: "Your dysfunction is our renumeration."

[ItsOurTimeNow]

Hey! Fancy seeing you here!

But, I agree with you completely.

Oftentimes, Jess and I will have the best intentions of getting in some "quality time", but come 9:30, we've both fallen asleep on the couch! LOL

[Ruth A.]

Just some thoughts:

Get rid of your debt and you'll get rid of a lot of the stress in a marriage. Maybe you'll even have time for each other and the family.

Procreation is one purpose of sex in marraige, but it is also a therapy for the husband and wife. Whether times are good or bad, sex and make it better by turning to each other and sharing what you share with no one else. Sex can create endorphins, which might just get some people of feel-good medications (which, interestingly, reduce a woman's sex drive) or booze.

If you aren't having sex, I think you tend to respond to each other more like brother and sister: you know how to push the buttons to irritate each other and the feelings of romantic love lessen.

Yes, women generally take longer. If you love your wife accept that and take the time to show your love. I would like to believe that the wife's response will be worthwhile.

Me, I'm waiting for my husand to come home from deployment. :)

[Luna]

All women need to know that quickest way to turn off a guy is to say these 5 words: "What are you thinking about?"

Why not ask what a man is thinking about? Why is it a turn off? Just trying to get inside the male psyche, here.

[whereasandsoforth]

Another reason why guys like you don't enjoy sex. You have an orgasm and then ask her to kick you out of bed? Get a Stairmaster or something. Too low esteem. Try whispering in her ear. No barking! Just whisper.

[dirtboy]

Try whispering in her ear. No barking! Just whisper.

But she says she likes it when I bark...

[AlbionGirl]

Numerous studies have shown that observant Jews, loyal Catholics, and church-going Protestants who avoid extramarital affairs and have traditional values have more and better sex than postmodernist yuppies and swingers.

It's probably in no small measure due to an appreciation for something you don't overuse. If you don't use anything but natural birth control methods that period of abstinence heightens desire.

And of course the opposite is true, if you've been doing it all since you were 18, your sensibilities are raped and pleasure has to be scouted out, and besides being pathetic, it's dreary.

[Delbert]

Others cited a spouse's failure to stay in shape. A Los Angeles-area electronics consultant, a fitness buff, complains that his wife's weight gain has left him cold. He's not alone: Overweight spouses are a common beef among men and women who work out at his gym, he says.
<---I work out regularly plus martial arts, love being in shape, cant say the same for my wife, tried repeatedly to get her involved. Causing big time problems. Any ideas? Hard for me to just come out and say it, she cries at the drop of a hat. : (

[RayBob]

"If men understood how sexy it is to help with housework without being asked, to change diapers, to call babysitters, to play with the kids ... they'd do more of it."

Hasn't worked for me....

[ItsOurTimeNow]

If your spouse resists, try saying, "We need to talk more about our relationship, and I think a third party might help,"

LMAO...that "suggestion" could TOTALLY be taken the wrong way!