How to Become Attracted to Him Again?

[The Blue Knight]

Hi Violet,

 

I've been following your post and saw what you wrote on my OP as well, and I waited till now to post to yours. I'm glad you read through my posting. I hope it was helpful. A lot of people contributed their thoughts and concerns and I appreciated it very much.

 

My wife's situation I've concluded after she finally got more honest with me as we hit a crisis this past summer had far more to do with some deeply profound self-esteem issues which I had no idea were as pronounced as I first thought. They went back to her early teen years long before I came along. But because I wasn't as "in the loop" about those things, I projected some of it back on me.

 

I'll correct one comment you made . . . not all men want that "want you to rip their clothes off" in their relationships. In fact, it's odd that there are so many women on this forum who are just as unhappy about their husband's lacking libido as there are men. Oddly, a lot of men have little to no libido.

 

I don't think there's an easy answer to your situation. If you love your husband and I think you do, I think you can regain what you lost, but it won't be the same as what you experienced in the early days of your relationship. It may take time and renewed thinking, and perhaps even some marriage counseling, but I think it's a reachable goal. Lot's of marriages reach where yours is at. The excitement is gone for one or both of you and you're asking yourself, is this all there is? Is this what I'm supposed to just settle for?

 

For a lot of women, sex in marriage moves from something they they enjoy passionately sharing with their spouse to "just another thing on the to do list" as you put it. Personally, my take on that is it's all about how you view it. Instead of treating it as one more thing to do to "please him" it would be better to try to find that sexual anticipation that you had at one time in your life. I do believe any of us can get it back, but I also think it's a process based largely on how we view things. If you view sex at this time in your life as a chore, it's going to feel like a chore. If you view it as something to be desired, shared, and looked forward too, it will feel more like something special.

 

I hit my wife with an email here or there during the day telling her how much she's on my mind and how much I look forward to having her alone after a long day where we can have "our time" together.

 

I do that because I know she's got a million things on her mind with her job and other issues that come up during the day, and I want her to know that I'm thinking of her and that I want to make her feel good later on by doing whatever I can for her sexually or otherwise. Even if it's just rubbing her back or her legs, I just want her to know I'm there for her to help her day end happily.

 

Depression and stress are issues plaguing you right now. My ex was very plagued by those feelings throughout most of our marriage. They strangled the life out of our marriage frankly. Sexually, we stayed very active and that part of our marriage was always good and always satisfying for both of us . . . probably because we both had mutually high level libidos. But she didn't know how to relax over the long term or how to be happy with what she had in the present. She was always anticipating what she wanted next out of life. She was on ADs for the last 6 or 7 years we were together. Personally, I don't like ADs and I think they often complicate the problems further. But for some, they won't go without them.

 

I think you have it in you to save what you have and to go back in time and find that love and passion you once had. You seem to be aware that you have to let go of the past issues and the resentment. Those are relationship KILLERS! Don't give up. You have the capacity to turn this around. You wouldn't have come here if you didn't.

[Lostinlife4now]

Oh Sad violet!

 

I feel your stress through the computer! Are you all things to all people and forgetting about sad violet? That's what it seems like...there is going to come a point and time where you will throw up your hands and say...ENOUGH!!!!

 

It seems like you are pulled in so many directions...can't you just come home at nite and lay in bed...FOR YOU!!! If I had a husband waiting for me and he needed to get laid and I could not handle anymore...Knowing me...I would ask him to LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE.....and kick his shoes out the door...Well that's just me. You have a lot of patience.. Stop and get off the merry go round before the horse throws you off. Something else on your list...having to have sex....doesn't seem like you just are not into it or him for right now!!!

 

Take time for you!!!!!!

[The Blue Knight]

It might never come back... I'm in a similar situation (fallen out of love with my wife - it's a long story) and things are much better but I don't seem to be able to turn the switch back on, as hard as I try.

 

I would say: try and think about your relationship, as it was at the beginning and the reasons why you loved this man and got married to him. It works with me sometimes...

 

Well put giotto. Let me add something. I pulled this from a web site because I think the guy who wrote it did a good job of breaking the concept down. It's a verse I've always tried to refer back too if the feelings aren't quite 100% at the moment. You don't have to accept Bible passages to see the wisdom in what's written here, and I'd guess the idea works for both genders:

_________________________

 

“Be intoxicated always in her love.” Proverbs 5:19

It’s a good translation. The verb is used elsewhere for a man staggering in drunkenness (Isaiah 28:7). Isaiah's point is that a man and wife should be crazy-in-love together. That is the good and wise will of God. And this comes from ancient times, when many marriages were arranged for economic or political purposes. But the Bible calls us married people to being head-over-heels in romantic love.

 

It’s not hard to start marriage that way. It can be hard to stay that way. One thing that helps is the wonderful phrase, “Rejoice in the wife of your youth” (Proverbs 5:18). We men can remember, “She will always be the wife of my youth. She will always be that girl I fell in love with, that girl who said ‘I do’ and gave herself completely to me. I am changing. She is changing. But this will never change — deep in my eyes, she alone will always be that girl to me.”