Why Is My Marriage Falling Apart?

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

I found you on Google and I had some questions:

1: why is it my husband always tells me I’m not attracted to him (even tho I’m always touching and loving on him and telling him he’s handsome and so on)

2: why does my husband constantly start a fight to try to get me to sleep with him like I don’t mean to but I always unintentionally forget to be intimate with him, like it literally slips my mind.

And 

3: why does the constant fighting and him accusing me of cheating even though I’m by his side all the time, make it easier to forget about our intimacy?

Center Cannot Hold

I have a lot of questions for you, CCH, because what starts out like an unfortunate but explicable conflict gets weird by the second question. But, as with many letters like yours, it’s best to roll it from the top. So to start with, why does your husband keep saying you’re not attracted to him? There’re a few possibilities here. One is simply that you two aren’t speaking the same language, as it were. The book “The 5 Love Languages” gets a lot of stick in circles for being… let’s be generous and say religion-focused, but there’re germs of truth to it. One of the things that is vital in any relationship – sexual, romantic or platonic – is clear and effective communication. And part of effective communication means speaking in the language that your partner actually understands.

One of the conflicts I see crop up fairly often is when two people are expressing love and affection for one another, but they’re doing it in ways that the other person doesn’t necessarily hear. Someone who expresses love and caring for others via nurturing behaviors – cooking and feeding them, for example – may get frustrated when their partner doesn’t recognize that this is what they’re doing. To them, this is just the division of household responsibilities, or just something their partner likes doing. On the other hand, someone who expresses love by giving gifts or providing opportunities for their loved ones may be confused when the recipient of their affections feels manipulated; the off-put partner may have issues surrounding financial independence and self-sufficiency, and feels like someone giving them gifts is creating a sense of obligation or is trying to show off.

So if you’re someone who expresses love or attraction via physical touch or though saying the words, and your husband isn’t someone who receives love that way, then there could be a disconnect between what you’re saying and what he’s hearing. You are shouting “love” at the top of your lungs, but that’s not what he’s hearing. To overcome this problem, you’d want to discuss precisely what ways you could express your attraction to him in ways that he would prefer or understand – does he need something that you’re not providing? Is there’s some way of expressing affection and attraction that he would see as being more ‘real’, rather than just standard husband/wife behavior?

Another potential cause is that it’s not you, it’s him. He may not feel like he’s attractive, and he has some deep core of anxiety or depression that’s acting like a sort of emotional desert. You can pour out all the love and affection you want, but it just soaks into the ground or evaporates into the air without ever nourishing life. It’s not that you aren’t showing him that you’re attracted in a real and measurable way, it’s that he can’t accept it. It’s sort of like feeling as though the person saying “of course I think you’re hot” or “I love you” is going through the motions, just saying words out of habit or a sense of obligation. Until he feels that he is attractive and desirable – or feels worthy of being desired – then it never soaks in.

In cases like these, then the matter’s pretty much out of your hands. You can’t love someone out of depression, no matter how hard you try. Nor for that matter, can you convince someone that they’re desirable if they aren’t feeling it; the brain’s just too good at creating reasons why your saying it just doesn’t “count”. And while validation from others, who presumably don’t have the supposed “obligation” you do can push that feeling back, the relief it brings is always temporary. The external validation won’t ever fill the hole at the center of his self-concept; the only person who can truly fill that hole is him. Solving this problem is a question of therapy and counseling. If he’s dealing with depression, he may need medication in addition to talk therapy. If he’s dealing with other issues involving his self-esteem or self-perception, then hey may need to drill deep into the underlying causes; the low self esteem tends to be a symptom, rather than a discrete problem.

But there’s a third potential cause that crops up in your second and third question: he seems to feel like he’s not getting enough sex. In some ways, this wraps back around to the first potential conflict; if sex and a sexual connection is a vital part of how he expresses and/or receives love, then verbal validation or physical (but not necessarily sexual) touch isn’t going to be the same. And to be fair to you, he seems to be going about expressing his frustration in the worst and least productive way possible.

However, this brings me back to my questions for you, starting with “what do you mean ‘you forget to have sex with him’?” That’s not a question asked out of disbelief. I’m literally unsure just what you mean. Did the two of you agree to a particular schedule (or have one imposed by him, for that matter) and you keep forgetting and ending up going to bed early or having scheduling conflicts? Do you have to plan out times to have sex in advance (something some couples do, either by choice or out of necessity) and then it slips your mind as though you forgot to enter it in your Google calendar? Or is sex simply not a priority for you, so you tend to not think about it and – as a result – don’t have as much sex with your husband? Are you someone who simply doesn’t have much of a sex drive? Or are you prone to just taking care of things yourself when you get the urge, rather than sleeping with your husband?

Your third question – about the fights and accusations – is easy to answer, in part because of how it ties into this: his behavior’s a turn-off to you. It’s kinda hard to get in a sexy mood when your partner’s constantly accusing you of cheating – even when there’s no actual way that infidelity could happen. If he was accusing you of trying to poison him when you made dinner, you’d quit wanting to cook at all than deal with the fights about it. Small wonder you’re “forgetting” to sleep with him; his behavior is the Anti-Sex Equation. Why would you want to sleep with someone who just keeps telling you that you’re doing something wrong, even when you’re trying to solve the very problem he was complaining about.

Incidentally, this leads to my next question for you: what do you mean by “starting a fight to get you to sleep with him”. Is he getting upset that you two aren’t having sex and he complains or starts haranguing you about it? Is he trying to have discussions about your lack of sexual intimacy and it just turns into arguments because he has a hard time understanding or believing that you just forgot – again, whatever that means in this case? Is he literally trying to badger you into bed – “You said that if I did X, you’d do Y” or “It’s been three weeks and I’m owed” or something equally anti-sexy?

Another question: is this conflict something that started recently, or has this been growing over months or even years? If the sexual connection you two have (or had) has decreased without warning or explanation (either gradually or all of the sudden), then it’s at least somewhat understandable that he leapt to “my wife is having an affair”. It’s not necessarily logical and has far more to do with insecurity than reality, but I can at least understand how his mind went there. It’s not helpful – in fact, his behavior is the definition of “counterproductive” under the best of circumstances – but I could understand the thought processes that lead there.

I’d also be curious as to what you’ve done as a couple to try to resolve this – if anything. It doesn’t sound like you have – I imagine you’d have mentioned things like couple’s counseling if you had. If it’s all been just the two of you (or just, y’know, you) trying to fix things amongst yourselves, then it may well be time to pull a trained third party in to help mediate things. I would strongly suggest you two go in for couple’s counseling with a sex-positive counselor to help facilitate the conversations that clearly need to happen here. If you don’t have a counselor already, the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists has a referral directory on their site that can help you find a sex-positive couple’s counselor in your area. Make an appointment and hie thyselves to the counselor’s office as quick as you can. If nothing else, having someone act as a translator and mediator can hopefully help the two of you hear and understand each other without the dialogue collapsing into more fights.

And while you’re there… consider scheduling some sessions on your own, either with that counselor or another one. This – to put it mildly – doesn’t sound like a healthy situation for you, and talking to a counselor on your own could help you determine if this is a solvable problem, or if it’s a “get the fuck out of Dodge” situation. It can be hard to see when a problem’s gone on for so long that it’s gone septic and needs to be drained and treated… or if the problem isn’t the relationship but the person. If you’ve been putting in good faith efforts to try to fix things and your husband’s response is to just pick fights and force the issue regarding sex… well, that’s not marriage that needs to be fixed, that’s a marriage that needs to end. Like, yesterday.

The sooner you figure these things out, the sooner you’ll come to a solution. It may just be a question as to whether there’s a failure to communicate, a difference of libidos that needs accommodations from everyone involved, or if this marriage is already over and someone (you, most likely) needs to put it out of its misery.

Good luck.

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

I read you a lot, and I think you have amazing advice for men and women alike. I especially appreciate the idea of a pre-date date as a vibe check before you invest a whole bunch of hours in someone who you’d rather just not…  

My question is more practical. I totally get the idea that, for a guy, a pair of well fitting jeans, swapping a ratty T shirt for a nice button down, and spending 5ish mins every morning on general grooming can really elevate a guys overall presentation. My issue is that, as a woman, getting ready for a date takes me 45min (and that’s as streamlined as I can make it). I have gorgeous long curly hair that’s just a bushy Jew fro if I don’t put all the effort (and product) into it. Same thing with makeup. I’m not one of those girls that looks like a different person with a full face of makeup, but I do look objectively better when I put that effort in. These are things I don’t do before I work a 12h shift at the hospital.

It just feels like a lot of work for 15min and a coffee. But the first in person impression is really important and I want to look my best. Do you have any advice? Or do I just have to suck it up and use the time & product?

Thanks!!!
The Price Of Beauty

Honestly, I’d say don’t underestimate the amount of effort guys put into their grooming, TPOB. We as a gender don’t have as many expectations put upon us, nor do most of us put on a full face, but a lot of men put in considerably more work than “a couple of spritz under the pits and out the door we go”. Especially if we’re going to be meeting up on a first date with someone we’re into.

But that’s us, not you. You have both a challenging schedule and more of a process of getting ready than most men, which, needless to say, can be a challenge. So how do you thread this needle – meeting someone to make sure a proper first date is in your future without spending oodles of time on what may end up being 15 minutes of “thanks, but we’re just not a match”?

Part of this is baked into the general concept of a pre-date date. The idea behind a “pre-date date” is that the meeting up is something you’re fitting into your otherwise busy schedule; the presumption is that you’re between engagements, on your lunch break or otherwise finding time in your busy day to see if you want to invest more time with this person. By setting up the idea that this is a pre-date, something you’re carving out time for, you’re making it clear that this isn’t necessarily your first-date look. You don’t want to look like you just rolled out of bed and into the least offensive clothes you’ve had, but you also don’t want to look like you went to Ulta right before you met up at Starbucks. So presumably someone would be able to understand that this is a mid-range look – more likely to be part of your workday appearance than night-on-the-town.

But as you say: your workday look is no makeup and natural hair. This is hardly a bad thing, but it’s understandable that this isn’t how you want to meet a potential partner. What to do?

There’re two obvious answers. The first is, as you say: just accept that you’re going to be investing the time (and product) on someone you’re planning on only talking with for 20 minutes. The second is, you go in au natural and let the chips fall where they may. You let the prospective beau know that they’re getting you at your frizzy, post-ER shift and hope they’re understanding or into that.

But there’re a few other possibilities to this as well.

One would be to schedule a pre-date date at a time when you’re going to have your hair and make-up on point already – a girl’s night out, meeting family or friends for dinner, whatever your social life may entail. This has both the benefit of not feeling like you may have put in all that effort for nothing – if you don’t click, you’re still going out – and you have a hard limit on how much time you can spend with him. It’s easy to peace-out at a pre-set time when you know you’re meeting up with your former classmates from med school for drinks and catching up.

Another would be to build in the possibility of upgrading the pre-date to an actual date; meet up after work for coffee and if things are clicking, blow off your “appointment” to get dinner, go for a walk or otherwise spend more time with him than you planned initially. If you’re someone who’s good at judging character quickly or who knows fairly rapidly whether or not you’re into a guy, this could work out well; you even have a moment of buttering up his ego by choosing to spend more time with him than whatever your other obligation was. But this still comes with the risk of getting there and realizing off the bat that he’s just not your type or you two just aren’t the match in person that you are on the app.

A third possibility would be to figure out a look that’s somewhere between “no makeup or product at all” and “full face and hair on point”. If, for example, you could get by with minimal make-up – possibly even down to tinted moisturizer and lip gloss – then that might work for you instead of having to do the works. That is, admittedly a big “if”, especially if your streamlined process takes 45 minutes.

At the end of the day, the best thing you can do is figure out what works and is actually feasible for you. You may find that 45 minute prep for a 15 minute meetup to be rewarding, or you may find that it’s a time sink that makes things harder and more frustrating. Or you may decide to  just skip the pre-date idea entirely. That’s absolutely cool too; everything I advocate is advice, not a contractual obligation or The One True Way. Whatever works for you is what works. As long as it makes you happy and helps you get the results you want, then it’s all good.

Good luck.