Married 20 years to Unavailable Husband

If anyone out there is in a marriage where their spouse has been unavailable to them I would appreciate your input. There are several things I do like about my husband and those are the reasons I have stayed and kept focus but at the same time there is a part of me that feels very alone and unloved. I do not see change possible after our 23 years together and just wonder how many people's lives tend to go their seperate ways with time. I guess I should have seen the warning signs right from the start. When I met my husband 23 years ago he was definately interested in looking at other women but he showed no desire to initiate intimacy or sex. I tried to hold his hand and he dropped it. I told him I loved him and he said he couldn't say it. I was the one initiating sex, or anything as far as that goes, well over 85% of the time. I asked him if he loved me and he said it had nothing to do with that and then at first he told me he promised himself he would never be hurt by another woman. So I thought it was trust issues and just stayed and contniued to be the seeker. This went itno all areas of our life, not just sex. He didn't ask me to dinner or out to a movie. He was content to stay home and watch TV and do crossword puzzles. I explained that normally when a person has interest in someone they show that by trying to spend time with them but I did not see this in him. He continued to say that he had never been the ideas person in a relationship and he had always been the one persued. The one thing I did like about this is he wasn't constantly hounded me or sufficating me. My first husband would threaten to go out and find someone to have sex with if I didn't give it to him. He was a very demanding selfish man. He wanted sex constantly and there was nothing that would quench his thirst for sex. It was nothing for him to have sex 10 times in one day. He was also a cheater which is why we divorced. So it was a nice change of pace to be able to seek and then not feel like I had these demands to submit. However, there was something very lacking at the same time (and still is) and that is his interest in me. In our first year of marriage I realized that if I did not come to him or anythng he would not come to me, whether that was sex, a vacation, dinner out, etc. I remained the planner and still am to some degree. What probably hurt the most in all of this is eventhough he showed no interest in me he was showing interest in other women. In that first year of marriage he was going out of his way to walk to this one lady's office, the walk would have been a good 10 minutes from one building to the next, just to chat with her and tell jokes. One day I watched as he and this lady headed off to lunch together. So I asked him if he was interested in her and he claimed he was not. Nothing changed at home. I told him I did not understand why he was seeking time with this other woman when he was not seeking time with me. He always has had some reason and in this case he said he had no idea I would be interested or available for lunch. Guess who didn't ask? We moved, this happened again with another lady. By then we had Internet and he was staying up late at night watching porn. I tried repeatedly to sneak in and catch him but I never could. One of our kids found files hidden on the computer which then made my thoughts reality. I am dead against pornography which of course he knew. I ahd asked hi to stop his Playboy subscription before we married which he did. We moved again and yet another lady. We then went to counseling for his porn addiction and all that has been mentioned above. The male counselor we had was very good. I think husband thought he woudl be compassionate towards him and help me understand the male mind but that is not how it turned out. The counselor told husband that he was not just hurting me and our marriage but he was hurting himself with his interests and habits. He explained to us that males in the teen years seek females to satisfy their interests in the opposite and that most times males will sex but in the case of my husband he saw this as unsafe, felt rejected without trying and sop he began fantasizing and sought out porn to satisfy his desires. He would a world of sex interest that was safe to him, one that did not involve one on one contact, it was all what he could make it for himself. Our counselor suggested that it coudl have been possible that he had been sexually abused and that is what created his unsafe world. he wanted to explore that with husabnd but husband refused. Husband did stop his porn habit and the 3rd woman was the last that I saw him interested in, this was all about 8 years ago. He FINALLY, after a good female friend of mine had an emotional affair, confessed that these were emotional affairs for him and that he had thought of them sexually but had not initiated. After years of him lying and then he finally admited that was one huge final straw for me. I stopped initiating sex. It seemed to me that these women were good enough to buy chocolates for and to go to lunch with and here I am not receiving this kind of treatment and yet I was the one trying to build my life with this man? I could not continue to keep pursuing him. Recently we had couple's counseling and we each had individual counseling. Counselor said husband was passive-aggressive and would never change. She said that I found a man who would never be avaialbale to me just like my relationship with my parents, I had found someone to pick up where they left off. I read a book which talked about 'love banks' and this made perfect sense to me. I realized why I have felt so alone and unloved, unwanted. He was not making deposits into the love bank, only withdrawls til I finally had nothing left. When I stopped initiating sex we went from once a month to once a year. Now I do not even want him to touch me. Having now a partnership rather than anykind of intimate relationship I asked him "why?" and he said that he has never been comfortable with intimacy. Oh, now 23 years later he can tell me this and oh he loves sex and he loves to look at the ladies, feels a good ego boost when someone laughs at his jokes but where am I in all this? Can anyone relate? I have read books and for the most part our situation seems a bit different. The only thing that matches is relationships with men who are unavailable. Not the best way to spend your life. I wish I could have seen this for what it was 23 years ago.

Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 2629979