ThinnerTimes - Gastric Bypass and Lap Band® Forum - View Single Post - Warning-long...Me too, Suzie Q...marriage issues

LisaM · 07-01-2007, 06:59 AM

Right up front, I love my husband dearly. I've been married for 27 years, and I take full responsibility for marrying a man whose score on the passion meter was low. In fact, I married the ONLY man who turned me down when I was 19 and hot. It wasn't a matter of me "settling," it was me finding the exact opposite of my abusive father--not that I was actually aware of that at the time. Hindsight really is 20-20.

I am in Montana because I am running away from my marriage. My husband's lack of passion has become something I can no longer bear. He has not changed. He has always been this way. As our marriage wound its way through the years, I changed my body in order to deal with my own past and to try to build a future--I hid myself under a blanket of fat, both to stay safe from my father, and to keep from screwing around on my husband. I was very, very successful at being overweight. And it did exactly what I wanted it to do--kept me in my marriage and safe in my own estimation from my abuser.

Now that I'm down to my real weight, having a husband without visible passion for anything other than the Green Bay Packers is not just frustrating, it's devastating. Some of you may remember that I put a "wow" thread up a few weeks ago because he picked me up in his arms for the first time in decades. What I didn't add was that's where he stopped. He just put my feet back on the floor and went back to what he was doing.

So, I left. Ostensibly on vacation, but in reality to get some thinking time. You need to know that I have not been silent on this subject--I have complained to him over and over across the years about his lack of passion for me. The realizations above are pretty recent, don't forget. I assumed he was uninterested because I was fat--my weight gain began about three years into our marriage. It's really, really hard to be turned down serially without believing that it's personal, but he told me over and over that it wasn't me, it was him. It took me 25 years before I asked him if he was interested in anyone at all, and he told me that he isn't.

Confusing the issue for me is that he is capable of sex, he is just not interested most of the time, sometimes for up to three to six months at a time. When we do have sex, by the way, it's awesome. You need to know, too, that this is not a new thing, this is for the last 20 years or more. I have considered the possibility that he is gay and repressed to the nth degree, and the answer is that I just don't know. He is capable of self-gratification, but swears that is also very infrequent. He does look at porn, but the few times I've tripped over it, it seems to be hetero-porn. I believe (not absolutely sure) that he does this not because he wants to, but because he HAS to--his body demands that he get some release. And yes, we have tried Viagra, Cialis, etc. You have to have some desire in order for these to work. Without it, they are useless.

I ran because, not to put too fine a point on it, I'm not capable of hurting him when I am right in front of him. So I insisted over the phone from Texas, and now from Montana, that he get a physical assessment to see if there are hormonal issues, and that he see a counselor. I told him that, if he refuses to do so, I will not come home. I have gotten to this point before, given the ultimatum that I will leave him, but been unable to follow through on it when I can see how painful it is for him to address these topics. He is an utterly private man, and would be horribly humiliated if he knew that I was addressing this topic on a public forum. But, long-distance, I can stick to my guns, and I have. His doctor's appt. is next Friday, and he is supposedly researching how to see a shrink through our insurance. Not that I believe he would lie to me, but I have asked for a copy of his lab results, and plan to contact his counselor by phone, as well. Should I decide to go back to him, I will participate in counseling as well.

I don't know if my marriage will survive. If the basic answers from the doc and the shrink are that this is just who my husband is, that his ability to feel passion is very minimal and always will be, then I have a decision to make. Bluntly, I'd rather live alone right now than live with a man who cannot want me. It is much like having a cigarette in front of you, but it's behind bulletproof glass--and you promised that you would smoke only THAT cigarette and no other.

However, there are so many factors in this that my head is just spinning. I do love my husband, have never loved anyone else like this. He's part of my heart. He treats me like gold, I have not just his blessing but his urging to be and do anything I choose. He is genuinely a wonderful man, other than this. There is nothing else I would change about him but this one thing...so the questions I'm beating myself up with at this moment are:

Am I asking too much? If this is the only thing wrong with my marriage, should I just shut up and give up on passion in my marriage? Is this fair? I married him BECAUSE this was who he is, and I'm now requesting that a 51-year-old man change a basic facet of his personality, or lose his wife. Is this excessively cruel? What would you do if you were in my shoes?

Have to stop now, I'm tired of crying.