Making wife feel guilty?
My wife and I have been married for 8 years. The intimacy has dropped off considerably, down to once a month on average (for the past 3-4 years). She has anxiety so I do the cooking, cleaning, wash, and other housework in order to lessen her anxiety and worries associated with work. I thought that perhaps lessening her worries would benefit our sex life. She is grateful and always says I am the best husband.
Oddly, as this has occurred, sex and intimacy have declined significantly. I have brought my concerns to her before (maybe once a year) and her behavior might change for a few days but she falls back into a rut. She never starts sex-related conversations so I started one about 6 months ago. She exploded and told me that I only bring up sex to her in order to make her feel guilty. That blew me away and hurt me tremendously. Needless to say, I have not mentioned sex once since then but I still suffer (inside). Any thoughts on the guilt comment?
This is clearly a sensitive topic for her, and the decline in sexual desire could be due to any number of factors: age, lifestyle, boredom, depression, anger, you name it. And yes of course anxiety, and it's great that you've tried to eliminate some of her anxiety by helping out with chores, etc. For some people, this sort of anxiety might inhibit desire, but it's also possible that something much deeper is going on. I guess beyond doing chores and talking, I would ask you if you're doing anything to make sex sexy, to make it exciting. Another way of putting it, does your wife feel sexy?
I can relate, having similarities in my marriage that you describe about yours. I have found that sometimes, talk is cheap, and you have to act. Your wife has anxiety, so maybe it would help her enjoy sex if you took control and became more dominant. I'm not advocating springing a BDSM session on her out of the blue, but rather, you deciding to take a more domineering position. Sometimes, as my wife has told me, when the focus of sex becomes about her pleasure, and she feels my enjoyment is tied to whether she has an orgasm, it makes her feel anxious if it's just not happening at that particular time. And that can distract her in the moment, something I tend to notice and reflect upon myself as doing something wrong. Taking the responsibility for initiating sex can be daunting if you feel likely to be rejected, so talk about it once more, tell her you have thought about taking a more aggressive approach and see what she thinks. It may be what she wants but is afraid to ask for.
Good question - when has your wife been sexy. You say it dropped off dramatically - when did this start. If she was active sexually before you, do you know if she had issues previously? You might see a trend or point to something.
I might add something very Non PC. In the past it was the explanation that women felt less sexual because their men were cold, uncaring and did not contribute to things like child rearing and house work. My experience has been the opposite - that when men become house husbands (sensitive & major care takers) they end up getting less sex. Some times "too nice guy" finish last.
Do the two of you have any interest in or means to go to couples and/or individual therapy? Her anxiety, I imagine, isn't confined to the bedroom, and getting all of that straight may be huge.
What happens when you initiate sex?
@cactus - there are a couple of things that stand out from your question: Your wife has anxiety, which is a great inhibitor of sexual arousal. I love Ian's answer and I agree that something deeper is going on. These anxieties probably extend to ideas about herself, which keeps her from desiring sex and makes her defensive when you bring it up. She also feels guilty already - it's not that you are 'making' her feel guilty. But when you bring it up, she has a more difficult time being in denial to herself, so she is confronted with the guilt and can't hide from herself.
It seems that it would be beneficial to go to therapy at this point to have honest conversation about the things that are interfering with her happiness (b/c it cannot be comfortable to be anxious or avoidant) and how it ends up becoming this uncomfortable dynamic between the both of you. It would be helpful for her to understand that you are exploring not just for yourself, but for her happiness too.
I appreciate the replies and I do know something is going on. While she is nervous and anxious about a lot of things, now, a lot of the anxiety centers around (1) social situations and (2) germs. Any social situation means no intimacy for that day because it will make her anxious, which means migraine headache. Second, it is difficult to initiate sex because she wants both of us to have showers before any sexual activity so any attempt to have sex is also an attempt to have showers. That causes numerous other problems because a lot of things can happen in between attempts to initiate sex and when we finally get to that point (since it is now a multi-step process). That has also killed any spontaneity.
I understand that my job is to love her, not understand her but therapy is probably in order. But that simply brings me back to the original problem because if I say therapy for both of us, the guilt thing will be thrown at my feet again, I am afraid.
It may be that you just have to open up the therapy conversation. Couples' therapy is great because you have a mediator in the room with you--someone who [ideally] isn't going to take sides and is going to point out the ways that you communicate and ways to improve that. If you can bring up the conversation, deal with her saying you're trying to make her feel guilty, and ultimately end up in therapy, it should get better from there.
I particularly like Imago relationship therapy, as the goal of it is to get you in to learn the skills you need, then out back into your relationship without relying on therapy forever. There's also a great book and workbook that the creator of Imago wrote with his partner, designed to be used within your home.
Another issue may be mental health medications. While you don't specifically state that she takes medications, if she is, they often decrease the sex drive
I'm going to go from this from a totally different angle, one that occurs to me because of MY past. One in four women are raped before the age of 18. Many of us suppress memories because of the pain and guilt involved. When the memories begin needing to be dealt with, it often comes out first as lack of desire and guilt, followed by social anxiety. Many of us have germ issues because we feel that SA makes us "dirty". If it is a SA issue, couples counseling isn't going to help, but individual counseling for her would be a God send.
Getting counseling for yourself could help, especially if this is her issue. I'm pushing 60 and just now processing 40+ year old pain. I've been celibate for over a year and a half and that has helped. Unfortunately, my husband couldn't support me with my healing journey and now that I feel ready to restart my sex life, I have no available partners. Just finding one is hard. Rape survivors have longtime issues with trust.
Good luck to you.