Weird change - don't know what to think

[Honorable_Venerable]

The interesting thing about his posts is that he attributes 100% of the sexual problems to his spouse. But, if you look at how he replies to people who don't provide total agreement with him, he's extremely defensive and nasty.

Wrong. I get irritated when people say "If you do this it works every time, guaranteed, 100%" or "Man up and demand your conjugal rights, be like Grunk the Barbarian" or w.h.y.

 

So far you've told me my previous approaches didn't work. Buy that man a ceegar;)! At the moment, I'm waiting for her to make progress on dealing with wider-ranging issues than the fact that I'm not getting any.

 

What's your solution?

[Honorable_Venerable]

Why is it so important for you to keep insisting that "the problem" is ALL your wife's? Why are you so nasty all the time with people who have different viewpoints? Not helpful.

 

 

 

 

 

You "help" your wife by refusing to participate in her therapy, when "the issue" involves her marital relationship with you?

How do I participate in one to one sessions with a psychotherapist? WHEN and IF my W or her psyc. ask me to do something, I will. Until that time I support her going and try to make life tolerable for her.

[PorkRinds]

PTSD arising from childhood abuse. Hence it isn't a sex problem, in the same way that malaria isn't a fever problem - the fever's a symptom, not the cause. Hence, me browbeating her into having sex doesn't solve the underlying disorder.

 

Abstinence is not a cure for PTSD.

 

 

TBH, and maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not seeing you bringing very much by way of help. So far, you've picked a few holes and been sacastic. What's your solution to PTSD?

 

It's not abstinence, that's for sure.

[PorkRinds]

At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, people go with sex for vastly longer without undue severe medical problems. Explain why my need for a shag trumps her dealing with PTSD?

 

What about her need for a shag?

[PorkRinds]

Wrong. I get irritated when people say "If you do this it works every time, guaranteed, 100%" or "Man up and demand your conjugal rights, be like Grunk the Barbarian" or w.h.y.

 

There are no guarantees. Sorry.

 

 

So far you've told me my previous approaches didn't work.

 

I think that's a fair statement.

 

 

Buy that man a ceegar;)! At the moment, I'm waiting for her to make progress on dealing with wider-ranging issues than the fact that I'm not getting any.

 

What's your solution?

 

 

You need therapy.

[PorkRinds]

How do I participate in one to one sessions with a psychotherapist? WHEN and IF my W or her psyc. ask me to do something, I will. Until that time I support her going and try to make life tolerable for her.

 

Why do you support a situation which is tantamount to your castration by your wife?

[Honorable_Venerable]

What about her need for a shag?

What need? She has far too many other things on her mind at the moment.

[Honorable_Venerable]

Why do you support a situation which is tantamount to your castration by your wife?

When *I* got married, part of the vows was something about "in sickness and in health", not "until I feel you place your health above by sex drive" or something like that. I don't fully understand why I should be expected to feel bad for keeping a promise I made.

[PorkRinds]

What need? She has far too many other things on her mind at the moment.

 

Such as?

 

....................

[PorkRinds]

When *I* got married, part of the vows was something about "in sickness and in health", not "until I feel you place your health above by sex drive" or something like that. I don't fully understand why I should be expected to feel bad for keeping a promise I made.

 

It doesn't sound like you want to have sex with your wife at all.

[Honorable_Venerable]

Such as?

 

....................

Dealing with PTSD arising from childhood abuse:rolleyes:

[LittleTiger]

HV, I just wanted to chip in and offer my support.

 

PorkRinds is, I believe, a troll, so just stop feeding him and he'll go away.

 

Mem and TDP, I think you're both out of order. When you've walked a mile in HVs shoes then you can criticise how he chooses to live his life.

 

Until you have experienced being in a LTR with a partner with serious mental health issues you have no idea what it's like to cope with that. I had PTSD for several years and it's no picnic. My own marriage is now dead and buried but my exH stood by me for seven years whilst I was recovering and I will love him forever for his loyalty.

 

HV may not be getting any sex, but there are actually worse things in life. He came on LS to talk about his sex life before he knew about his wife's abusive history (if I'm recalling correctly?). He wasn't aware then that she had PTSD. If things have gone downhill in the sex department it is because HV is allowing his wife to deal with her issues and sex is no longer a part of their current life. Unfortunately when people become ill this often happens. Had she been physically injured and found sex painful would anybody here be judging so harshly.

 

HV, I may be in the minority, but I think you deserve credit for standing by your wife and I do hope that she starts to make a recovery soon. I don't know what sort of therapist she is seeing at the moment but, whatever it is, if it doesn't help try NLP or CBT. They are both solution focused, especially NLP, and don't drag up past traumas. They have both been found to be very effective in helping people with PTSD. I used both in my recovery and I'm as close to fully recovered as it's possible to be.

 

I think you should take comfort in your new found acceptance of the situation and I truly hope your wife gets better, although I suspect it will be a long, long road.

[PorkRinds]

HV, I just wanted to chip in and offer my support.

 

And then proceed to insult others?

 

PorkRinds is, I believe, a troll, so just stop feeding him and he'll go away.

Your belief is incorrect. Telling someone what you think they want to hear, is not "helping".

 

 

Mem and TDP, I think you're both out of order. When you've walked a mile in HVs shoes then you can criticise how he chooses to live his life.

The only opinion permitted is yours? Anyone with whom you disagree is a "troll" or "out of order"? HV's problem is that he is stuck in a marriage with a castrating, controlling woman who is just getting worse. You seem to relish playing a similar, controlling, castrating role in this thread, which is definitely NOT what HV needs to hear.

 

 

Until you have experienced being in a LTR with a partner with serious mental health issues you have no idea what it's like to cope with that. I had PTSD for several years and it's no picnic. My own marriage is now dead and buried but my exH stood by me for seven years whilst I was recovering and I will love him forever for his loyalty.

Like I said....HV doesn't need someone as damaged and disturbed as is his wife to give him "advice." All you're telling him is that his patience with his wife is a complete waste of time, as it was for your exH when he stood by you. Not very helpful IMO.

 

 

HV may not be getting any sex, but there are actually worse things in life. He came on LS to talk about his sex life before he knew about his wife's abusive history (if I'm recalling correctly?). He wasn't aware then that she had PTSD. If things have gone downhill in the sex department it is because HV is allowing his wife to deal with her issues and sex is no longer a part of their current life. Unfortunately when people become ill this often happens. Had she been physically injured and found sex painful would anybody here be judging so harshly.

Your marriage was a failure because of your PTSD which you did not successfully address (if success be measured, as it should in this thread, given HV's objectives, of saving your marriage).

 

 

 

HV, I may be in the minority, but I think you deserve credit for standing by your wife and I do hope that she starts to make a recovery soon. I don't know what sort of therapist she is seeing at the moment but, whatever it is, if it doesn't help try NLP or CBT. They are both solution focused, especially NLP, and don't drag up past traumas. They have both been found to be very effective in helping people with PTSD. I used both in my recovery and I'm as close to fully recovered as it's possible to be.

I would have suggested CBT but HV has made it clear he is not receptive to such advice and will NOT intervene in his wife's treatment UNLESS and UNTIL he is specifically asked to do so. That is why I suggested he go to therapy, for himself, so he can learn how to address the situation in a manner that is best for him, which possibly includes facing up to the fact that this marriage needs to end if his W doesn't get her act together, and soon, and he should not feel guilty if he reaches that conclusion.

 

Also, your therapy was a failure, as your marriage ended. Unless HV's objective for his wife's therapy is to end his marriage, which it clearly is not.

 

I think you should take comfort in your new found acceptance of the situation and I truly hope your wife gets better, although I suspect it will be a long, long road.

Don't shove "acceptance" down HV's throat, like you apparently did your exH! HV doesn't "accept" not having sex, he accomodates it because at this point he feels he has no alternative.

 

Edit: You are actually suggesting that HV "accept" remaining in a sexless, passionless marriage for seven years (or more, perhaps? indefinitely?) while his spouse "works through her issues," with the end result that the marriage ends anyway? I.e. once you decided that yes, you did want to have sex again, you were over your PTSD, you wanted to have sex with people other than your husband? But oh thank you kindly for your "loyalty"? You were a nice crying towel, but now I want to go off somewhere else to find sexual fulfillment?

 

No, that's not remotely close to helpful to HV, IMO.

Edited March 24, 2011 by PorkRinds

[Toodamnpragmatic]

except when she makes negative comments directed at me:p;).

 

HV should definitely be supported and commended for his patience and what steps he has and is willing to go for her.

 

The point though is in his earlier posts, when HV discussed his sex life prior to marriage and then his wife's views and comments after marriage and children it gos well well beyond PTSD in my opinion.

 

Yes I could say simply this was a case of "bait and switch", but obviously this is so much more.

 

Only HV knows his marriage and his wife and believe me when I say i am cheering for him, because even the sex he was having was so unappealing and just distatsteful I wouldn't want that either (and certainly couldn't do it).

 

The point is his wife's response and their conversations regarding sex were nonsensical, went no where and this HAS TO BE ADDRESSED WITH A PROFESSIONAL.

 

Now if that professional (and I'd say get a second and third opinion too) says that this is the absolute right course of treatment and HV has to just understand, be supportive and step back...... then and only then would I MAYBE begin to understand and follow HV's current path, but ALSO would insist on couple's therapy and do some on my own.

 

Right now he is being completely run roughshod over.

[mem11363]

HV,

That is a passive aggressive response. Either total passivity or extreme aggression. BTW - if you look WAY back to your original thread, that was your take on my "initial" post to you. That I was advocating extreme aggression/maybe physical aggression.

 

Not what I am saying at all.

 

If you don't think being sexless the rest of your life, will impact your health you should do some reading.

 

All this stuff about her childhood and control issues seems to center around how you and she interact sexually and maybe non-sexually. It isn't just about "her", it is about the "two" of you.

 

You seem to want to hold onto two completely contradictory models. Therapist as skilled emotional, surgeon who will repair all this like a "real" surgeon. And at the same time, this stuff is black magic you can't put any timeframe on it.

 

Your W seemingly "coerced/controlled" you with sex for a long time. Or alternatively you can say that you "let" her do that. Either way, you seem determined to stick with the view that your W is completely a victim of circumstance and is not responsible for some of the nastier things she has done to you. And that is a view she is very happy to agree.

 

Needing "space" is fine. Requesting/demanding space without any defined timeframe amplifies the message that therapy is black magic, and that your W as victim has no real control over the pace of progress in therapy.

 

Acceptance is fine. Unless the situation actually needs you to be assertive. And assertive is not anything like threatening to leave. Or being nasty. It is about asking some difficult but fair questions about progress, timing for including you and how anyone thinks they can solve a problem that is 50 percent you - without your direct participation.

 

 

 

Like I said to MEM, I'm not sure what my being in on the therapy and telling the psychotherapist:

"Look, I'm a man with needs, now get your finger out and fix my wife so I can get some screwing in" will bring to the party. I'm sure if I sit her down and sneer something like "Snap out of it and get back to having sex, all you need is a good seeing-to" it will solve everything:rolleyes:

 

This is a really easy two-solution problem:

I stay and help her (by for now giving her the distance she needs); or I leave. Stay or go. It's THAT simple, and I choose to stay.

[Honorable_Venerable]

The point is his wife's response and their conversations regarding sex were nonsensical, went no where and this HAS TO BE ADDRESSED WITH A PROFESSIONAL.

Which it is;)

 

Now if that professional (and I'd say get a second and third opinion too) says that this is the absolute right course of treatment and HV has to just understand, be supportive and step back...... then and only then would I MAYBE begin to understand and follow HV's current path, but ALSO would insist on couple's therapy and do some on my own.

 

Right now he is being completely run roughshod over.

 

The measure of quality of any course of treatment is whether or not it is effective for the patient. Not whether it works for the patient's spouse / parents / dog / whatever. If the method in use is working for her (she says it is, but there's a lot to unpick and she's only been attending for a few months now), then to a first estimate it's an effective course of treatment. I don't think given the circumstances that it would be fair for me to spit my dummy because she's spent years and years getting nowhere. We are talking about a timeframe of a a few months. It took longer than that for the repairs to my knee to get where they have! As I understand it, full resolution of her problems over the time involved thus far would practically constitute a recovery like Lazarus!

[Honorable_Venerable]

HV, I just wanted to chip in and offer my support.

 

 

 

HV may not be getting any sex, but there are actually worse things in life. He came on LS to talk about his sex life before he knew about his wife's abusive history (if I'm recalling correctly?).

Precisely so. That there were issues from her childhood didn't come up until the end of last year, therapy followed / is following.

 

HV, I may be in the minority, but I think you deserve credit for standing by your wife and I do hope that she starts to make a recovery soon. I don't know what sort of therapist she is seeing at the moment but, whatever it is, if it doesn't help try NLP or CBT.

The focus is CBT and EMDR(?) - I think the latter is correct, but the abbreviation / actual name used may vary in different localities. AIUI, both are deemed to have good efficacy and success rates, but neither has an "antibiotic-like" onset of effect...

[LittleTiger]

As TDP seems to think you're not a troll I'm going to respond to you PorkRinds, despite the fact that you have drawn some very odd conclusions about me and my marriage.

 

Your belief is incorrect. Telling someone what you think they want to hear, is not "helping".

 

The only opinion permitted is yours? Anyone with whom you disagree is a "troll" or "out of order"? HV's problem is that he is stuck in a marriage with a castrating, controlling woman who is just getting worse. You seem to relish playing a similar, controlling, castrating role in this thread, which is definitely NOT what HV needs to hear.

 

My opinion happens to differ from yours. I'm not telling HV what he wants to hear, I'm telling him what I think.....and I'm pretty sure I never said anywhere that my opinion was the only one permitted.

 

The tone and content of your posts on this thread led me to believe you're a troll. If not I apologise. I do happen to think that HV and TDP are out of order in what they said earlier - again JMO and I'm sure neither of them are quite as offended by it as you seem to be.

 

Like I said....HV doesn't need someone as damaged and disturbed as is his wife to give him "advice." All you're telling him is that his patience with his wife is a complete waste of time, as it was for your exH when he stood by you. Not very helpful IMO.

 

Your marriage was a failure because of your PTSD which you did not successfully address (if success be measured, as it should in this thread, given HV's objectives, of saving your marriage).

 

I can assure you that I am neither damaged nor disturbed. PTSD is not a lifelong illness and there are varying degrees of severity. I am considerably healthier, mentally and emotionally, than most people can ever hope to be.

 

I have no idea where you got the idea that my marriage was a failure because of PTSD. It wasn't actually a failure at all. In fact it was very successful for 14 years and I give my exH credit for part of that. He was, and still is a good man and we are still good friends. I'd say that's pretty successful as ex-marriages go! My marriage ended for a number of reasons but I can assure you it had nothing to do with PTSD.

 

I would have suggested CBT but HV has made it clear he is not receptive to such advice and will NOT intervene in his wife's treatment UNLESS and UNTIL he is specifically asked to do so. That is why I suggested he go to therapy, for himself, so he can learn how to address the situation in a manner that is best for him, which possibly includes facing up to the fact that this marriage needs to end if his W doesn't get her act together, and soon, and he should not feel guilty if he reaches that conclusion.

 

If you thought CBT was a good idea I'm sure you would have suggested it regardless of what HV says - you don't appear to be someone who holds back on your opinion. I will suggest anything I think might be helpful and HV can take my advice or not. It's not my life so I don't mind either way. HV loves his wife and obviously wants to help her so I'm sure he's happy to hear any possible suggestions for future consideration if the current therapy doesn't work. If you've bothered to read carefully through HVs entire posting history on this topic I'm sure you'll find somewhere that I also suggest that leaving may be his only option but it's his marriage and his choice. He seems pretty sure right now that he wants to stay put.

 

Also, your therapy was a failure, as your marriage ended. Unless HV's objective for his wife's therapy is to end his marriage, which it clearly is not.

 

My therapy was not a failure. I recovered from PTSD several years ago and several years before my marriage ended. As I said before you're making some rather wild assumptions.

 

Don't shove "acceptance" down HV's throat, like you apparently did your exH! HV doesn't "accept" not having sex, he accomodates it because at this point he feels he has no alternative.

 

Edit: You are actually suggesting that HV "accept" remaining in a sexless, passionless marriage for seven years (or more, perhaps? indefinitely?) while his spouse "works through her issues," with the end result that the marriage ends anyway? I.e. once you decided that yes, you did want to have sex again, you were over your PTSD, you wanted to have sex with people other than your husband? But oh thank you kindly for your "loyalty"? You were a nice crying towel, but now I want to go off somewhere else to find sexual fulfillment?

 

No, that's not remotely close to helpful to HV, IMO.

 

Ummm? Where exactly did I say that I stopped wanting sex with my husband?

 

You sure do read a lot between the lines don't you? I made only one comparison between HVs story and my own (PTSD) and that's where the similarity ends.

 

I would like to take you seriously but I find that rather difficult when most of what you say seems to be based on pure fantasy.

[LittleTiger]

We are talking about a timeframe of a a few months. It took longer than that for the repairs to my knee to get where they have! As I understand it, full resolution of her problems over the time involved thus far would practically constitute a recovery like Lazarus!

 

It sounds as though your wife is getting the right kind of help HV and that's half the battle. The other half depends on how much she actually wants to get well.

 

From what you've said in the past she clearly has difficulty communicating what's inside her head, but do you have any idea how committed she is to her own mental health? Her attitude will play a huge part in how quickly she recovers - if ever!

Edited March 24, 2011 by LittleTiger

[PorkRinds]

I have no idea where you got the idea that my marriage was a failure because of PTSD. It wasn't actually a failure at all.

Yet according to you it's "dead and buried."

 

Also thanks for clarifying that your PTSD has "NOTHING" to do with the failure of your marriage.

 

(So why did you inject it into this thread?)

 

Where exactly did I say that I stopped wanting sex with my husband?

He's your ex. I assume you stopped having sex with him when you got divorced, or possibly before that time. (I don't know: Are you still having sex with your ex???) But since you brought it up, if your PTSD didn't interfere with your sex life with your then-husband, why did you bring it up here at all??? It's completely irrelevant to HV's situation.

 

Edit: Actually Little Tiger's statement that she still had an active sex life with her then-husband even while in the depths of suffering through years of PTSD proves my earlier point that PTSD does NOT mean HV's wife cannot or should not have sex with him just because she is in treatment for it. In the context of this thread discussion, Little Tiger apparently injected her own PTSD situation in defense of HV's wife's not having sex with him. As it turns out, the opposite is the case.

Edited March 24, 2011 by PorkRinds

[LittleTiger]

Yet according to you it's "dead and buried."

 

Also thanks for clarifying that your PTSD has "NOTHING" to do with the failure of your marriage.

 

(So why did you inject it into this thread?)

 

He's your ex. I assume you stopped having sex with him when you got divorced, or possibly before that time. (I don't know: Are you still having sex with your ex???) But since you brought it up, if your PTSD didn't interfere with your sex life with your then-husband, why did you bring it up here at all??? It's completely irrelevant to HV's situation.

 

Yes my 'marriage' is 'dead and buried' but I still consider it a success when it was 'alive'. The friendship I had with my exH existed before our marriage, and remains after it. Not really any of your business, but we had sex right up until the end of our marriage, though not as often as I would have liked (he had a low libido) and no, we are divorced, live in different countries and both have new partners so we no longer have sex with each other.

 

My point, as you obviously missed it (though I can't say I'm surprised), was that Mem and TDP didn't understand what it was like to have a wife suffering from a serious mental health issue. As you know, I was telling them I thought they were out of order, and using my own experience of PTSD to illustrate why.

 

Whatever the symptoms of any particular mental problem (lack of interest in sex being only one possible symptom), whether it's PTSD, depression, anxiety, OCD or whatever, it is always difficult for the spouse to deal with - any spouse who stands by their partner under such circumstances deserves to be commended - IMO!

[PorkRinds]

My point, as you obviously missed it (though I can't say I'm surprised), was that Mem and TDP didn't understand what it was like to have a wife suffering from a serious mental health issue. As you know, I was telling them I thought they were out of order, and using my own experience of PTSD to illustrate why.

Your experience is not too relevant since your PTSD did not result in withholding of sex by you from your husband.

 

Mem and TDP's experience IS much more relevant since they both have had to deal with wives who withheld sex from them.

 

HV's issue with his wife is not that she has PTSD. It's that she won't have sex with him. She's dealing with the PTSD but not at all with the sexual issues in the marriage.

[LittleTiger]

Your experience is not too relevant since your PTSD did not result in withholding of sex by you from your husband.

 

Mem and TDP's experience IS much more relevant since they both have had to deal with wives who withheld sex from them.

 

HV's issue with his wife is not that she has PTSD. It's that she won't have sex with him. She's dealing with the PTSD but not at all with the sexual issues in the marriage.

 

I don't agree. I can empathise with HV because I know what PTSD is like to live with - from both sides. Lack of sex in the marriage is the symptom (in this case), which HV obviously recognises but Mem and TDP perhaps don't.

 

If I remember correctly, HVs wife's PTSD is about sex. It's not PTSD caused by an accident or living in a war zone, it was caused by something to do with her family and sex, so you can't deal with the two things separately. As she recovers from PTSD her attitude to sex will begin to change.

[PorkRinds]

I hope you are right and it all works out.