Saturday, October 20, 2012

Random walks...regaining intamacy.




Passion.....intimacy
 Lately (for the last 1+ years) I have been dissatisfied with the direction my marriage has taken. Let me back track, I have been in a magnanimous relationship for the last 13 years and married for nearly 7 years and for the most part very happily.  I love my husband very much, he's cute, he is a great guy, smart, talented, funny, and an overall nice human. We generally see eye to eye or at least have similar views of the world and how it should work. We have differences in our schedules, I work days, he works nights (which can be very hard), and are not clones of each other.


We have successfully worked out all the differences in our relationship to the satisfaction of both parties, these differences include, kids/parents, schedules, habits, my husbands sleeping disorder, my periodic bitchiness, food, who gets the bathroom when, etc...  but a little less than two years ago we hit a bump. A big bump. He started getting heavily into his work as a web designer and I started to feel neglected. Our sex life also took a back seat, seems that since my husband is a analytical worker, when he works he doesn't think about sex, apparently those two things don't mesh. When he is in his analytical brain (the brain he uses for work), he is not in his animal brain (the brain he uses for sex). His sleep issues also played a part in the mix, as his lack of sleep left him exhausted and if your exhausted you have little reserves for sex. He let me know that he felt his work was a "now or never" rush for success and that all other actives (including our marriage) would be taking a back seat to these efforts, that this was his main focus for now, for better or worse. I felt like I was socked in the gut and wanted to run away, far, far, away. I was wondering why things couldn't be a bit more balanced.

To compensate for these issues we decided to take separate sleeping quarters with the theory that he wouldn't be waking me up all night and I could have solace away from him while he is working out the issues surrounding his sleeping disorder. We happily agreed that we would come together on weekends when I didn't need to wake up early and could handle wake ups from him much easier. Sex too, we were to work on and agreed that we would up the frequency with key words that indicated the need of the partner, such as "I really "need" you" for well, a quickie, and " let's hook up" for a more casual date and potential sexual exploits at the end of the evening. "Let's mess around" for a" how 'bout now" session, etc....
These tag phrases worked pretty well but of course not perfect, but it felt like we were at least working on it together with the potential for improvement of our sex life, which I'd like to add was always very fulfilling prior to this "bump".

As time progressed I felt things were slowly taking a back seat again in a way similar to his initial announcement that work would be the greatest focus of his life, this was coupled with the fact that his testosterone level was also taking a serious plunge.
I started to write on the calendar the frequency of our love making, just so I could see for myself how things looked. I want to say that the love making we were having was very good when it happened.
Turns out we were having sex about 4x a month. Which I equated to once a week, this was something i could live with, however, after months of tracking this, the numbers have been going down, but who's counting right?

I have always been one to take the initiative to fix things or be proactive if I can. so I got online to see if there was any information on "regaining intimacy" and so beings my Random walk..... 
I have been all over the internet looking for information about this subject. I found a number of sites that deal with these types of problems and their root causes such as pregnancy and post pregnancy, physical challenges such as arthritis, low hormone levels, separation, etc...

 I always take  a little away from all the information I gather on these random walks.
So here is a wonderful little site that deals with arthritis pain and how it can affect a sexual life. 5-ways-to-regain-your-intimacy-when-you-have-arthritis. This can be a valuable resource when the physical limitations of your body become a barrier for you and your partner.
Another site suggests you abstain from sex for a period of time (approximately 2 weeks, something that we were already doing) and slowly re-introduce intimacy into your life but doing little things such as kissing, complimenting each other, and trying to reconnect with why you got together in the first place. experience project, stories of life in a sexless marriage
Some of the suggestions for me and other commenters was similar, in that, what if the other partner doesn't want to do the suggested things, like kissing, telling a stoies of how and why they got together, etc...
Like many of them, I wasn't sure my husband would go for it.
Some sites I encountered tried to explain the difference between passion (something alot of couples feel is missing in the relationship) and intimacy, which are completely different things. This site did a good job of explaining the differences, seems that when you know the difference you can fix it or at least know what it is that you need to work on. How-to-increase-passion-and-intimacy-between-couples
The last site I encountered on this random walk was the one I think I took the most away from. Marriage intimacy.com/emotional-conflict-intimacy  This is a christian site and though I myself am not christian (I am spiritual) I was able to really relate to this site and it's information the most. It provided interesting scenarios about why intimacy is lost, what happens when it's lost and what to do to get it back, ie: "When a  husband seems to reserve all his attention on his work and shows no attention to his wife, she feels unloved". My scenario in a nut shell. It talked about the walls that can develop between couples and the retreating and isolation that can follow. All things I am guilty of. The surprising thing that happened after reading and gleaning information form these wonderful sites is that, even though I understood what happened to my husband and I, and was offered loads of ways to help mend the loss, I still felt lost. :(
As I was doing this research I received a call from my hubby letting me know that he would be working all night on these very important web sites that had to be done ASAP, well, because they just had too.
This was possibly poor timing for me as that just really took the wind out of my sails, as to a fix for the loss of intimacy in our relationship. My hubby could feel the "chill" from me last evening as I had put another brick in the wall I am building to protect myself from hurt, and then never saw me again as I isolated myself in my little room and fell into a depressed sleep of disrepair, wondering if we will ever really work this out.
us on our 6th anniversary 2012
Sometimes a random walk comes up flat....enlightening at times and at other times, stuff you already knew and a endless path with no real solutions. Tomorrow is a new day and a new path with exciting possibilities to learn and heal. You gotta try right.?   
I love you flowers from the hubby....

****Addendum (Next Day): My hubby bought me flowers and champagne, when I asked "Why?", "What are we celebrating?" He said "You and the fact that you're under appreciated". He also had romance on his mind. I, however, was still angry in my heart about things. He was so sweet and persistent that his charms won over, and we had a wonderful night....let's just say one for the calendar!  He still seems to know when I need something and he somehow convinces me that he has the something I need. Married life goes on, fixed it is not.. work in progress, I think so.
 

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