Fight or Flight?

Dear Hoops

At what point do you give up on a 10 year marriage where almost everything is "fine" but you don't have sex any more? 

We get along ok most of the time, but due to a chronic health issue on his part, we've done the nasty exactly once since last Labor Day, and it was a shaken-out-of-a-dead-sleep 2-minute quickie. This is unacceptable.

I'm trying to be patient, but even when he's not in the midst of a flare up (he has IBS, for the record) he promises we will and but we never do. He claims to be as unhappy about this as I am, but he never brings it up unless I do and his actions contradict that. he makes zero effort and I've quit trying because I'm tired of being told no. 

He's able, physically, to perform, he just doesn't seem to want to. And no, he's not having an affair. 

Is this a valid reason to break up a family? I can't live the rest of my life as a nun and I find myself frequently depressed and/or crying myself to sleep (alone of course- he never come to bed) because of this. Am I crazy?

Signed,

Deprived or Depraved?

Dear Depraved,

Don’t be silly.  Of course you’re crazy!  I mean, who makes vows to love through sickness and in health, in good times and in bad and then wants to bail on a relationship and a family when almost everything is fine—with the exception of sex?  Don’t get me wrong, I feel for you.  I understand your dilemma and I KNOW it’s serious, but I also want to pick you up and shake you until your neck snaps or common sense shakes loose.  

The most telling statement in your letter to me is this one:  “I’ve quit trying because I’m tired of being told no.”  Divorce is the quitters option and it sounds like you are a quitter.  Well this is bigger than you sweetheart, so put on your big girl panties and refuse to quit on your FAMILY.  That’s right, this isn’t just about you and never-loved loins, this is about your family.  I’m assuming that means you have kids.  Do you really want to subject them to divorce just because you’re a) horny and b) tired of trying and ready to quit?

People like you bug me and I’ll tell you why.  You “try” and when “trying” doesn’t work it’s all woe me, pity me!  You know what Jedi-fucking-Master Yoda said about trying?  He said, “Do, or do not, there is no [motherfucking] try!”  Trying means that you’ve attempted to talk about and been put off.  Doing means you’ve made it absolutely clear to your husband just how deeply this affects you.  You’ve told him that if the sex doesn’t pick up—and drastically—that you would definitely think about cheating on him.  You’ve told him that if the sex doesn’t pick up that you’ve already considered divorce.

Doing means couples counseling and if he won’t go, it means going on your own.  Doing means divorce only even occurs to you after you have given every possible other solution a meaningful chance.  

Do you really think you’re alone here?  Do you really think you’re unique?  Do you really think that in the history of couples, you are the first to hit a rut in the sex department after 10 years of marriage and (I’m assuming) a kid or two?  If every couple who reached this challenge point just got tired of trying and got a divorce the divorce rates would be…well, what they are now.  So, do you want to be one of those fucktard quitters?  Do you want to subject your kids to the difficulties that divorce brings?  Do you want them to grow up with less self-esteem and greater trust issues as many children of divorce often have?  

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I truly only believe in divorce in the case of mental or physical abuse.  Everything else can be fixed.  The only exception to that is when one partner refused to help fix a situation but you’re a long way away from that point.  You’re nowhere near that point.  What you’ve done to “try” isn’t even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to this marriage, to this family and to yourself.  

The most commonly shared thing I’ve noticed about situations like yours is that the partner in your husband’s shoes, NEVER fully understands how serious this issue is to you.  The man routinely says it’s important to him too, routinely says that he wants more sex too, routinely says all those things and then doesn’t do a damn thing.  The most common thing I’ve noticed about women in your shoes is that you never TRULY make it clear just how serious this issue is until you start throwing around the D-word like a fucking ninny.  

My advice to you is to WAKE HIM UP.  You are teetering on the brink and he has no fucking clue.  I don’t care what you’ve told him—he has no fucking clue!  Everything else is fine.  He does not understand just how serious the issue of sex is to you.  All your trying has been for naught.  You haven’t even made a dent.  The bigger issue here is that this is a HUGE issue for you and it’s barely registered on his radar as more than a minor little thing.

You can’t even THINK about divorce until you’ve “tried” so hard that you are 100% certain that he fully understands the gravity of the issue.  He has to fully understand that the corner you feel backed into leaves you with only two options that you can see—cheating or divorcing him.  You never even bring cheating up in your letter so I’m going to assume that it’s not part of your plans—that’s good, because cheating is the other reason why I think divorce is a valid option.  That said, its worth putting on the table in your discussions with him.  Let him know that you’re not a cheater, but because of that, your only option to get sex—which is very important to you—is to end your marriage.  

You aren’t special.  You aren’t unique.  You are just like a many, many, many others.  Your issue is common.  Your problem is universal.  What will separate you, what can make you unique and special is how you deal with your problem.  It’s easy to quit.  It’s easy to “quit trying.”  If you respect your marriage, your kids, your family and yourself so little that you’re willing to quit trying at this stage of things then go ahead, this won’t make a dent.  But if you meant any of what you said when you vowed to be this man’s wife, then there should be no point at which you ever stop trying.  

Two or three years from now you’ll look back on this situation and it’ll be one of two things:  It’ll have been a blip on the radar, something that you fought and overcame and seems silly now as you look back, or it’ll be the thing that destroyed your family and forever affected the way you look at men and the way your children look at and understand relationships and love.  The difference will be whether or not you have truly quit trying, or whether you understand, as the only person who truly understands the weight of things as they stand, you have not yet even begun to fight.

I hope you’re a fighter.  I hope you said things in your letter born of frustration rather than them being what is truly in your heart.  I have a feeling that you’re more than your letter leads us to believe.  I have a feeling you’re stronger.  I have a feeling you can do this.  Prove me right.

Be a fighter,

hoops  

Don't know what you're missing until someone else gets it.

Dear Hoops, 

During a recent party, one of my mother's friends had a breakdown after she found out that her ex-husband is getting married. I see it like this: if he infuriated you enough that you stuffed his things into trash bags, threw them out onto the lawn, then legally dissolved your marriage, why cry over him moving on? He's *her* problem now! What's your take?

-Why Cry?

Dear Why,

We’re funny creatures, we humans.  We often hide things from ourselves or work very hard to make ourselves believe things that aren’t true.  We all have our defense mechanisms and we all protect ourselves from hurt.  The problem is that like all lies, the ones we tell ourselves blow up when they see the light of day.  

My guess is that is your mom’s friend wasn’t really crying over her ex moving on.  It may very well be that she was crying over her own failure to do the same.  There’s a good chance that his moving on shed light on what she considers her own failure to do so, or to do so in a truthful and real way.  Maybe she’s dating, maybe she’s remarried even, but I’m betting that underneath it all, no matter what her status may be, she is unfulfilled.

Think about it for a second.  She was unhappy.  She was so unhappy that she blamed her husband and she stuffed his things into trash bags and threw them on the lawn.  She legally dissolved their marriage.  She did all of that because she wanted to be happy.  So, she embarked out into this brand new world, ready to conquer it and get the happiness she deserved.  

Now, she’s confronted with the fact that this man—the supposed source of her unhappiness—has moved on and moved past her, he’s found someone new and he’s going to spend the rest of his life with her.  And here she is, still unhappy, still unfulfilled and maybe it starts to hit her that perhaps her unhappiness wasn’t just this man, perhaps it was something deeper, more profound and more personal.  Maybe part of the problem was her?  Maybe she was the whole problem?  I’m guessing those were some of the emotions at play that caused her to break down.

This is why divorce is the easy answer, not the right one in many cases.  It usually takes two people cause a divorce.  In fact, unless there is abuse of some kind going on, there are almost always two responsible parties for a relationship blowing up.  And those issues don’t just disappear.  We carry them on to the next relationship we have.  It’s like the old saying:  “Wherever you go, there you are.”

My all-time most favorite quote comes from one of my all-time most favorite movie characters, Obi-Wan Kenobi.  He says this:  “You’ll find that a great many of the truths we cling to, depend greatly upon our own point of view.”  And that is why its so important to talk to people that we trust.  It’s important to talk to people who we trust and people who are not just “yes-friends.”  If left to our own devices, we get stuck in a certain point of view and we accumulate evidence to support that view.  We dismiss all other evidence.  We entrench ourselves and before we know it, we stand directly opposed to the one we used to love.  We see an impasse.  We see no way around it.  We walk away.

I’m not taking shots at people who get divorces here.  In some cases, maybe even many cases, they are necessary.  One thing just about every divorce has in common though is that each side walks away thinking they are the good guy.  How can that be?  It’s because they only see things from their own point of view.

What happened to your mom’s friend is very likely that she was exposed to another point of view that her mind had been protecting her from.  It was like someone had thrown her into an ice cold swimming pool.  It’s a shock.  It may very well be that after a few days and some serious thinking and talking, she’ll realize that it was still all for the best and that she’s happier now, but she’ll also know that the tunnel she was looking down was a lie.

I hope your mom is a good friend.  I hope she realizes that there is more to this than meets the eye.  I hope she is there for this woman.  The truth hurts and it takes the love of real friends to heal.

-hoops