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How to recover from wife feeling "used" for sex

My wife and I are in MC right now. My wife has stated repeatedly that she just can't get over our past sexual history, where she feels that, from the beginning of our relationship to the present, I have just "used" her for sex and that I continually press her to do things that she has told me she dislikes and now it's got to the point that she can't imaging even enjoying me touching her. She outwardly blames me, but also blames herself.

My wife was not religious when we met; she was 23 and I was 25. She had two previous sexual partners - both college boyfriends. The first one she met when she was 18 and dated for 2 years; the second she dated for 3 months and she describes him as a rebound relationship. She told me that she never had an orgasm with either. She has had several over the years with me, but none since our last child was born. She also told me she regretted having sex with the second boy friend because it happened too quickly and he became very clingy (talking about marriage, etc.) After that she dated several guys but did not have sex with anyone else until me who she met 3 years after the second boyfriend. I do not believe she has a history of sexual abuse.

In our previous MC, my wife informed me that she had regrets about how quickly into our relationship we had sex. We met and sparks flew very quickly and we dated several times a week. After the third week, we went to a party with friends. I drove her and her roommate back to her apartment at around 1 am. We had been very physically affectionate that night and she had been drinking (I had a little, but not as much as her). It's a little fuzzy to me on who brought up the subject, but it was soon agreed that she wanted to come back to my apartment. We then made out on my bed (as opposed to the couch where it previously happened). We both were groping each other very passionately. Even though I had sex with one other person (my ex-wife who I had dated since 18 and had been divorced from for 1.5 years), I was pretty sure we were going to have sex. While she was on top of me, I grabbed a condom out of my wallet (it had been there a while) and put it on. She apparently did not see me do this. We then started having sex - she said "I think we should wait. I responded it's ok" and we started with her on top. After about 30-60 seconds she asked about "protection." I said I was already wearing a condom. Sex then continued for a couple of hours (we both commented later that we had a lot of built up sexual energy). She basically moved in to my apartment within weeks of then and we had sex just about every night. I was 25 and had gone about 2 years without sex. I thought everything was awesome. We got engaged about 14 months into our relationship and married after about 2.5 years of dating. We moved in together before getting married, but her parents never "officially" knew.

My wife is starting EMDR therapy as part of our MC. I am too (too get over issues related mostly to me ex-wife). During this session she discussed her history. Much of this apparently dealt with our sexual history. My wife originally told me it went well, but the next day said that she realizes it is going to take a long time to recover from the severe trauma she has suffered in our sexual past. Her disclosing this "revelation" ultimately resulted in a huge fight after she discussed some of the details, but then refused to engage with me to hear my perspective. Now we are not talking and she's extremely mad at me for "minimizing and blaming her for her trauma."

I think a lot of this has to do with the guilt she has for us having sex quickly. She told me that she regrets having sex so soon, but after the first night, since she is a "people pleaser" she kept going to make me happy even though it made her uncomfortable. She also became a Christian after we had kids (we have 3 and her conversion started about 8-10 years ago).

I told her that I have a ton of respect for her and that I would pummel anyone who questioned her virtue. I also said it was pretty obvious to me that she really enjoyed having sex, especially in those early years because she orgasmed often (her first orgasm was a real screamer and it probably woke up everyone in the nearby apartments). She basically said she had only had orgasms when she had been drinking. She also said that other sex acts I am confident she enjoyed (e.g., anal - which she now refuses to even consider) she never enjoyed and only did it to please me or because she was drunk. I know that happened many times, but she also had a couple of orgasms during this as well.

She says that she was traumatized by our sex life because she felt pressure to engage in acts she felt uncomfortable doing but did so just to please me. If she didn't do them, I got passive aggressive and upset, so she gave in, which built resentment in her. This caused her to shut down a lot, which caused me to get upset when she was passionless in bed, which caused her to feel pain, which created a huge cycle of conflict.

She is going to continue in EMDR therapy to get over her trauma, but it's frustrating for me to deal with a complete lack of intimacy. (Sex has been off the table for about 7 weeks and now we are barely talking to each other).

I know I created this problem. Any suggestions on how to fix it?




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