Are There Signs?

Sooo many signs. And yet... I chose not to see.

This has been a really good one for me. Sometimes it is easy to get suckered into believing that i am the one that is stark raving mad. It is nice to hear other people confirm my sanity. Or we are all crazy. Either way, it is nice to be in the same nut house, anyways.

I don't think you can really protect against this. There are a great variety of patterns and some refusers at least are absolute masters of their trade.



What you can do though (and I take it you're thinking about having another go) is to change yourself and your own reactions:



a) zero tolerance for the refusals and other patterns which contribute. Of course, I don't mean that you'd react to times when it wasn't good, I'm talking about challenging bullshit and persistent playbook stuff. Or refusal to understand or negotiate.

b) listen to your feelings and act on them. Absolute honest required.

c) hold both of you accountable, and make sure they know you're 100% committed to finding a mutual solution to the problem or you WILL take other action

d) warn the dissembling refuser off with some kind of spoiler - "my last relationship didn't work out because I get very ornery and unpleasant to be with when I don't have sex enough" - and hope that they get the hint and pick on some other poor sap.

Didn't like being touched or touching. Only with regard to me, of course.

In retrospect, how did I think we'd ever manage proper sex given that scenario??

I've been on ep for quite a while now.



This story and comments has made me very sad. They are hideous ways to treat a spouse.



I was "lucky" I think. The sexual aspects of my marriage were really good when they were "on". But usually - for years at a time, they were "off". As in 'none / nada / zip'.



Then away it would go again full "on".



The situations you all so painfully describe, with the whittling away of what was once there until it vanished to never return is a dreadful thing. Must have been like suffocating.



Much much empathy. It reads like deliberate cruelty, whatever the "why" was that motivated it.



Tread your own path.

Sure -- this is from the draft of an unfinished story of my own on warning signs I ignored:



Early on her affections appear to have been calculated, and sex used as a tool. After the first few weeks of intimacy, she stopped regularly performing oral on me. Why? It’s certainly not because I stopped enjoying it. She stopped so she could save it for special occasions or bargaining, telling me that if I married her, she would give me oral sex every day. (I don’t want to calculate the backlog – that would be FAR too depressing!)



Weirdly, she also wanted me to stop performing oral on her sometime later – she said she wanted to “save” that because she didn’t want to rely on it for ******* (?!?). It’s as if my power to reliably bring her to ****** this way was somehow too much control she was ceding to me. I’d dismiss it as her loss, but it really was something I enjoyed, too.



Kissing (even kissing) came next on the verboten list with the absurd (and disproven) claim that she was certain I was an asymptomatic strep throat carrier. And so on and so forth, whittling away at intimacy month by month and year by year until sex became as romantic as inserting Tab A into Slot B for X number of seconds while she complained. The final goal, which she achieved, was to make me not even want to have sex with her.



The point is, I realize now sex was never for her a genuine expression of love, but a calculated tool for getting what she wanted in the first part of our relationship.

What about not dressing "sexy"? If you are not interested in attracting or turning on you clearly can't be interested in sex.

based on the recent and past testimony from refusers who cluelessly wander here to EP, nearly 99% of them clearly are a warped combination of neurotic liars and completely stupid or ignorant of what they are doing. That means there are no discernible signs coming from them before the refusal starts.



Coming from us, there is one sign: We stay in the marriage after the first refusal.











Instead of looking for non-existent signs, it would be wise to teach people to leave a marriage immediately after the first fist is raised.

For me, the warning signs (looking back!) were:

* never initiated sex

* never used passionate language (eg. "Do you love me?" - me in plaintive begging mode! Him: "you know I love you."

* did not like bodily fluids - kissing, etc. FAR preferred a dry grand-ma type kiss

* very private about himself - would never shower with me; did not like me to see him nude; always shut the bathroom door; never walked around in the nude . . . .

I think women are much more complicated about sex. There is a huge emotional component to a woman's pleasure, and many men find this difficult to maneuver.



The short answer is probably yes, there are warning signs. But what are they?



If everything else is good and when you initiate she responds, I don't think there's a problem. If you want her to initiate, she may not be the type of person who feels comfortable doing it. If she starts coming up with a myriad of excuses, then I imagine the warning lights will be flashing.



I think telling a woman how beautiful she is, how sexy she is and making time to be with her or help her in something that's important to her will go a long way on the emotional/sexual front. But that requires tuning into her in a way that might not be easy or natural for you.



I hope you have wonderful, hot sex tonight when you get home!

Looking back, I saw plenty of signs, and didn't listen to my gut. In the beginning she was always willing, but never initiated even if we hadn't had a date in 2 weeks. I just thought she was demure, and hey, she was never unwilling so who cares? Now i realize that wasnt normal behavior. A sign she wasn't thinking of me in a sexual manner while we were away. I mean, when you are in the first 3 months of dating, it is hard to keep from actually TEARING the clothes off, right?...

Other things... Hanging up after saying bye without saying i love you. Every relationship I've been in love in, that is a huge first step, and we were so happy for that revelation to be out in the open, we said every 15 seconds. Not her. She said she loved me one night then rarely said it after. Red light!

I'm pretty sure i could go on about this for quite a while. I am in the middle of a kicking my own *** stage. Shoulda coulda woulda...

Sex doesnt drive a marriage though. Come on be more positive here. Your partner does need you just ask her straight out and i'll bet you she'll say yes, oh and if its a girl its probably not u but her, u know menopause? yeap.