Love and loss

TL;DR: my wife lost her mother and some other stupid life stuff happened to make life cruddy and stressful for her. Help me cope with waylaying my needs while still trying to eventually fix a dead bedroom that I helped create

Full (and long-winded) version:

I’ve been married to the love of my life for 5 years now in December. We are both in our mid-40s and on our second marriage and brought two kids to the marriage, 10 and 15. Our exes are both problematic but we always manage to get through our issues with them by working together. In short, we have a very good relationship and partnership.

Throughout our marriage, our sex life has been a running issue. We have different sleep schedules (she’s a night person, I’m a morning person) and I know I have been guilty of deprioritizing intimacy with her for long periods (sometimes months) in lieu of life’s other pressures. When we have sex, it’s beautiful and loving and I make sure mutually satisfying. We’ve just been lax (yes, she has her part in the dead bedroom scenario) and we’ve talked about it over the years. It’s not a huge issue in our marriage but more on that later. Just want to set the stage that we are in a loving and respectful partnership but, like all couples, we have things we could make better.

Things have been very hard for my wife recently. She lost her mom suddenly to pneumonia in December, she lost her horse to pneumonia last month (yes, not a typo, pneumonia twice), and most recently her ex has been threatening to file a motion for parenting time even though he lives 4 states away and never visits our daughter. And, to top that off, he has been emotionally abusive to our daughter on the phone and over text and he is now forcing her to spend spring break with him rather than attend her grandmother’s memorial service. It’s a lot to put someone grieving a loss through.

I have been by her side through all of it. Planning, support, giving space, , meditation, commiseration, positive vibes, and whatever else I think she needs or she asks for. Mostly I want her to know that she’s not alone and that, whatever she’s going through, I’ll be there. The last thing I wanted to do was stress her or put undue pressure on an already overwhelming situation.

But I did. I realized after the loss of my mother in law how much time I’ve wasted on pursuing my career and over-parenting when I could have been getting busy with a hot, sexy wife with a healthy sex drive. I also came to realize more fully what role I played in creating a dead bedroom and made a promise to myself and to her to fix my end of it so that we would walk through the rest of our lives wanting but not having each other’s physical intimacy. In short, I fell deeper in love and lust with my wife and it feels so good and right to me.

I expressed this to her and promised to do my best to relight the fire when the time was right. She asked me why now and all I could tell her is better now than never. She said that it wasn’t as big a deal as I had made it out to be but that she appreciated my feelings for her.

I’ve told her how beautiful and strong she is and how she excites me. I even tried to seduce her on some meaningful occasions recently (valentines day, her birthday) but it put more stress and pressure on her. The last time I tried, she broke down crying because it’s making her feel like a failure of a wife. She’s sorry she’s not meeting my needs.

I know that grief is a tricky process and I completely understand how I’ve made her feel pressured and inadequate. I truly DO NOT want to be another source of stress for her and told her that I would back way off and just be there in other ways when she needs me. she has also expressed confusion as to why I’m so interested in her now. Yes, she is in counseling and I fully support that as well.

So I’m have two questions about how best to navigate this process as her partner:

1. I’m horny AF. I can... errr... take care of myself just fine but what else can I do to handle the sexual frustration? I truly don’t want to lose this high libido and I know the attraction I have for her isn’t going anywhere. I’m lifting and working out more at the gym and that helps but what are some other things I can do to lessen this load (pun intended)?

2. How do I not lose track of my goal to eventually kill the dead bedroom forever while still respecting her space? I think she needs at least a month or two to get past her current struggles before I even bring it up again but I don’t want a long stretch of no sex to become a bugaboo. What are some ideas to constructively work through this together when she’s ready to do so? How will I know and how should I bring it up without pressuring her or making her feel les than?

Marriage therapy may help with communication. There are reasons she is pushing you away but they are unspoken. You need to have a neutral professional help you two communicate better. What goes on in the bedroom is usually a reflection of overall relationship conflicts.

Okay, so I wrote this late at night while I was upset and just sort of vomited up words and feelings. One of the things I notice in re-reading it is that I say I want help being a better partner but then ask about things related only to me. Sorry to be so disjunctive, just some stressful, sad, and busy times we’re going through and I’m feeling the weight of my own struggles.

Let me boil my questions down here in hopes of some clarity:

1. For anybody who’s lost a parent, what did you need most from your spouse during your grieving phase? Was intimacy something you had to work up to?

2. For those who have rekindled a dead bedroom, how did you do it? Any tips on how to make a person feel wanted without putting pressure on them?

Thanks, wiseman. I do think we’ll have to do some counseling at some point and I’m very open to that. I’m probably just going to have to be patient about because she’s got some bigger fish to fry with her current counselor.