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July 6, 2020 6:56 pm  #1


Please help before I go crazy???

Hi everyone. I'm new here but a long time lurker.  Ok i have been with my partner 14 years.  Since the start of the relationship intimacy has been very difficult.  He will not kiss and oral sex is out of the question.  I don't ask for oral sex but the kissing really bothers me. Sex can be frequent but I find it very mechanical. No kissing, just straight to the act.  I also never touch him, never give him oral sex etc as he doesnt want it ever.  The thing is that i'm fine for awhile with life and then bam! it hits me.  I ask him what is wrong with me?  Why don't you kiss me, touch me etc.  He says its all in my head and then basically thats that.  Lately as the years are going by I find i'm getting very very angry every few months. The loneliness of all of this is slowly driving me mad. Tonight I exploded and said what is your problem, why can't you ever have intimacy with me?  Why can't you kiss me?  Am i that disgusting.  He then said I was angry and expect men to fall all over me and am a narcissist and have been since the day he met me. This is so so hurtful to me.  I think i'm a very caring person. I have gone out of my way to be there with him through everything.  I am questioning my own sanity at this stage. Has anyone been through something similar?

 

July 6, 2020 10:13 pm  #2


Re: Please help before I go crazy???

I think this is a red flag. Even if he was straight. And lack of intimacy is very common with GID types. The first time this happened to me he didn't kiss me for about two years! I was inexperienced so I thought maybe he was being respectful. No handholding. One hug at the end of each date. It was odd and hurtful too. If I brought it up I was pressuring him. Or he wasn't sure about me. Or he picked a fight and we'd break up only for him to come around again if it seemed like I'd move on to someone else or not pressure him so he'd stick around. It was just weirdly stagnant and somehow it was always my fault. You don't mention if you have kids or not, but I would consider leaving this guy behind. He doesn't seem like a very good partner and he's sending up all sorts of familiar red flags. Ultimately you have to ask yourself if how he treats you is acceptable to you. Sorry. I am familiar with that type of rejection and deflection. I'd find someone else if it were me but I know it's not that easy. Good luck.

Last edited by Whirligig (July 6, 2020 10:14 pm)

 

July 7, 2020 1:18 am  #3


Re: Please help before I go crazy???

It made me exasperated, angry and frustrated. Before marriage it was fine, not great. 

A year after our wedding, it was like pulling teeth.  Suddenly, he hated French kissing - not his thing. He refused to give me oral sex - I was dirty or tasted like soap. He'd soil his underwear to prevent me from giving him oral sex or even sex. He pooped a lot. (I believe that means he used that area to be sexual with a guy. Didn't know it at the time.) He looked like he was getting a root canal when I forced him to take a shower with me or kiss me when wearing lingerie. It was my fault - didn't look or dress the right way, or his past - childhood trauma that never resolved after ten years of seeing an expensive psychiatrist.  It still makes me livid almost four years after the divorce.  I wish I left the GIDXH years ago.

This person is manipulating you to think you're unattractive so you'll be under his thumb.   He verbally and emotionally abuse you when you assert your sexual needs as part of the contract you have as a straight couple. You are the one who has to swallow your emotions to bring peace to the relationship.

Do you love him? Do you love how he's treating you?  What percentage of love and devotion are you receiving in return from what you are giving him?  Isn't sex and intimacy supposed to be easy and joyous?

Maybe take a break as a couple and think things through so you make the best decision for yourself. Starting over after 14 years is easier than starting over after 20 years. That's how long I was married.

Take care and hope you can work things out for your happiness.

Last edited by MJM017 (July 7, 2020 1:19 am)


No - It's not too late. It's not hopeless. Even there, there's something I can do. I just have to find the will. Ikiru (1952), film directed by Akira Kurosawa 
 

July 7, 2020 5:50 am  #4


Re: Please help before I go crazy???

MJM017 wrote:
"This person is manipulating you to think you're unattractive so you'll be under his thumb.   He verbally and emotionally abuse you when you assert your sexual needs as part of the contract you have as a straight couple. You are the one who has to swallow your emotions to bring peace to the relationship."

I am emphasizing this because it is also what happened to me.  My now-ex manipulated me until I was trained to consider everything my fault, either in my behavior or my personality, and to question my own judgment until I had no confidence that my perceptions were accurate, which aided in my becoming more and more quiescent.

  This is what your partner is doing.  He claims your anger is misplaced (behavior) or that you are a narcissist (personality).  He invalidates your feelings (your anger) and blameshifts (it's not what he refuses to do but your reaction to it) by both projecting onto you his own personality trait and hitting you with an accusation he knows will wound (that you are not caring but selfish).  

I'd also like to point out that he has gotten away with his behavior for fourteen years.  He's doing it because you've communicated to him that there are no consequences for his lack of sexual passion other than an occasional outburst.  You tell him what is unsatisfactory and what you want; he refuses to give it to you and attacks you; you back off for a while; rinse and repeat. 

It seems that your relationship is very one-sided (which is not an unusual story on these boards).  You have "gone out of your way to be there through everything" and his response to your need to be treated lovingly by your partner is to get angry at you.  The situation you describe of your intimate life is not normal; his behavior is not normal.  What you are asking for, on the other hand, could not be more normal or inoffensive: you're asking for your partner to KISS you; you very reasonably expect that your partner would convey his love and attachment in sex through caring what pleases you.  

 You clearly are reaching the point that "the loneliness" is increasingly unacceptable to you, and so the frequency of your outbursts is increasing.  This pattern of speaking out in anger, being blamed and attacked, retreating into silence, the pressure building up until you speak out again, is a classic pattern and a sign that you are being manipulated.  

The good thing is that you are still advocating for yourself, and that you are here seeking validation for your perceptions and your position.  I second Whirligig, who says that "ultimately you have to ask yourself if how he treats you is acceptable to you," but I'd add, "and if it's not, what you are going to do in response."  You have ample evidence that the situation is not going away and that he's unwilling to change; you have ample evidence that your repeated expressions of anger over the situation do not work; you have ample evidence that you can't just stuff your feelings. 

I don't know if you're here to ask for validation that this situation is not acceptable as a way to seek permission to call it quits and walk away.  Here's the thing: you don't need permission from anyone else.  All you need is to know inside that the situation is unacceptable to you, and your partner is unwilling to change,  and even hostile to your request and to you for requesting it.  You don't need anyone else's permission to end it, but I will say that from what you describe reciprocity is absent from your relationship, and you don't have anything to work with in your partner..  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (July 7, 2020 6:00 am)

 

July 7, 2020 11:12 am  #5


Re: Please help before I go crazy???

Sooocute,
Your husband sounds just like mine. We haven't french kissed in forever. I don't even remember. Him calling you narcissistic is just him projecting his issues onto you. Nothing is wrong with you-it's him. My husband hadn't perform oral on me in 20 years nor did he want me to do it to him. This past year he has started giving me oral but only because I have asked him if he is gay and why doesn't he want to do that to me? But when he does, I swear its like asking a kid to eat brussel sprouts. He does not enjoy it. He says he does but I feel like its all a lie-my intuition tells me he is lying.

Does your husband always walk in front of you? That is something I have noticed my husband does a lot. He walks faster and in front of me all the time and then gets mad at me for not walking beside him. I was just curious if anyone else had experienced this.

 

July 7, 2020 11:31 am  #6


Re: Please help before I go crazy???

Karis, 
My now-ex used to walk in front of me.  More than once I stopped walking just to see how far ahead of me he'd get before he realized I wasn't there.  It was a revealing exercise.  I always thought it was just like what teen-agers do when they're the age of wanting to pretend they aren't with you.  

 

July 7, 2020 11:54 am  #7


Re: Please help before I go crazy???

Its exactly like that, OOHC! We were on a walk the other day and he was walking out in front of me, and then was saying things like "Can you not walk with me? Why are you walking so slow?" He blames it on me but it is always him that does it. He also would-this is prob a strange thing to get upset about....but say we are at a restaurant, and we are sitting beside each other in a booth (because we have 2 kids on the other side of the booth) when it is time to leave the restaurant, he would never wait on me to scoot out of the booth. He would get out and be halfway out the door of the restaurant by the time I had scooted out of my seat and grabbed my purse. He doesnt think of me at all.

 

July 7, 2020 1:20 pm  #8


Re: Please help before I go crazy???

Yeah.  Whether they do it on purpose or not it really does say something about what is and isn't on their radar.  And what is and isn't important to them.  For the longest time I also used to make excuses for my now-ex, because he's a foot taller than I am: "oh, he's just got longer legs so his stride is longer."  I made so many excuses for him in so many areas of life, all so I could pretend that he wasn't really as uncaring as he seemed be.  Turned out my unvarnished and initial feelings--my intuition--was right.

 

July 7, 2020 2:31 pm  #9


Re: Please help before I go crazy???

Hi, I havent been posting in a long time. I just logged in to read the new posts and this post jumped out to me. 
My GIDH didnt want to give me oral and didnt let me give him oral. Thats the biggest red flag. 
Also another thing he did was when we would walk in to a room full of people, like a party, he would walk in front of me and wouldnt even walk aside to let me introduce myself. I had to go around him to introduce myself. He would always stand with his back to me in circles. I always wondered what that was about. 
Even if its not on purpose it says a lot.. My GIDH always thought lingerie is cheesy.  Believe your gut. 

 

July 8, 2020 10:26 am  #10


Re: Please help before I go crazy???

Longwayhome,
I know your response wasn't directed to me but this is what I needed to hear. Thank you.
-Karis

 

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