My wife and I have been married 6 years and together 10. We have two kids under the age of 5. The underlying issue currently in our marriage for me has been feeling like I am an unequal partner or that my wife decides to make a lot of decisions on her own, without discussing with me or acknowledging/considering my feelings or desires.
The most obvious place this comes up is in our sex life. She’s always been a bit uncomfortable with her sexuality, as weve talked a lot about societies expectations of women and how they are portrayed, I understand and so I’ve always tried to be sensitive to that and have taken on pretty much all of the responsibility in that domain (talking with her about sex, finding out what she likes, being aware of her desires/needs etc) and that has worked ok up to a point. I have a higher libido than her but we have sex 3-4 times month, which is not ideal but ok for me. When we have sex I enjoy it, without going into too much detail i know she enjoys it, but lately Ive been feeling like things are unfair. I’m always the one to initiate (like literally always, she’s never once initiated), we always have it in bed, always right before we go to sleep. I’ve expressed to her many times that I would enjoy spontaneity more when possible, i would like her to initiate once in a while, but things haven’t changed. I understand it’s difficult with kids, and she has expressed to me that she feels different since birthing our kids, but if I’m being honest a lot of these issues persisted before. I feel unwanted and unequal in the relationship as a result, but am trying to be sensitive to her feelings and don’t know how far to push it.
There are other factors at play that contribute to me feeling unequal or even like she cares. We moved to another country so we can be close to her family, we plan everything around her irregular work schedule which also means me doing most of the cooking, cleaning, kid stuff while working full time myself. I support her as she looks for another career and stops working, I went to individual and couples counseling when she raised a serious issue in the past and have made real progress in being a better partner and communicator.
Now whenever I bring up an issue, either the sex one or otherwise, I get met with a lot of defensiveness or excuses or things she thinks I did that are similar. She accuses me of being insensitive to her, which granted sometimes I can come off harsh, as I’m so very frusterated at this point. I want to work on that. But she makes me feel so invalid and less than. I just want her to show something that might not be her idea of comfort or desire, but she knows its mine and she’s willing to do it. Something that shows her desire to be close at least something pertaining to my idea of wants of closeness). Maybe that’s expecting too much, or my expectations are misplaced. I do love her and want to build a better marriage with her, and examine my role in it, but having a hard time getting over the feeling she doesn’t feel the same.
TLDR: feeling dynamics in relationships is unfair/one-sided and things are not getting better. Are my expectations reasonable?
1 comment
Defensiveness and walls are a hard thing to respond to when you’re looking for comfort. It sounds like she has some insecurity regarding these issues too, or for some other reason has a hard time understanding your perspective without a reactionary response. I don’t think your desires are unreasonable at all personally, but need to be communicated in a space you AND her feel respected. Don’t come at it from “you did this and I feel this”, as that will only push her to be more defensive. “I feel this because of this action, while it may not have been your intention” allows for room to explain how she feels and her reasons as well. If she doesn’t respond to your needs continuously though, it may be time to consider how much you’re putting in for how much support.