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Woman Who Waits on Him Hand and Foot and Isn't Getting Any

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 04/09/2001 - 7:00pm
in
April 9, 2001

Question

My boyfriend and I have our 7th year anniversary together in June. Our relationship started out as a friendship because when we were introduced through a mutual friend, I was dating someone else and was not happy at all with him. It was very obvious Steve and I liked each other.

Immediately felt comfortable and it was easy to be ourselves. I finally broke it off with the guy I was seeing about a month after meeting Steve. We went on our first offical date about two months later. Steve came to my apartment and we ate, took a walk and we talked by the pool for a long time. Well, we are still on that date because he's lived with me since that night.

To try and make a long story shorter, we had the usual awesome relationship for about 2 years when one of our other mutual friends told Steve I slept with a sleezy guy we new when Steve was out of town. Well, it's an honest to God lie. . . I did use bad judgement and partied with this guy a couple of the nights he was gone and our mutual friend came over. I don't really think it was the friend who came to decide I slept with the sleeze, but the sleeze told our friend and his girlfriend, so after Steve returned, I got a couple of calls from this guy's girlfriend asking me, then accusing me of sleeping with her boyfriend.

I have no doubt this guy said we did because he and his girlfriend had a terrible relationship and I'm sure making her jealous suited him just fine and if it hurt mine and Steve's along the way, so be it. The first stage of our dying sex life came after this. Steve wanted to believe me and I think he did in time, but it took a while for us to start having sex again, but not near as often. Also around this time, Steve hurt his back at work and had to have major back surgery to have a disk in his lower back removed.

Recovery was pretty slow, but he started back to work a few months later. As time goes on, I am discovering some thing about Steve that disturbs me, angers me, and hurts me. I am finding evidence, careless clues that Steve is very much into porn and has been materbating in the bathroom with the door shut and me in the other room. I accidentally found a dirty magazine under the towels in the cabinet. Well, at first my heart sank. . . no wonder he barely touches me, but how dare he do this, but do it behind my back with me in the next room all the while completely rejecting advances from me, telling me that it was not me that it was him.

Time goes on, I go out of town to come home and discover 1-900 magazines under the couch, one of my business cards that I keep in my car in the back seat of my car with a North Dallas Hotel name and room number written on the back in his writting. He drove my car when I was gone. I asked him about it nicely at first thinking that maybe I forgot about one of his friends coming to town for a visit, but he said he didn't know what it was. I kept on asking and he finally said he was entitled to some free time to himself and it was not my business.

I then get sneaky and call the 1800 number to his credit card to disturbing find out I could access his account electronically and found out that one night during my absense that he spent almost $600. Kept making trips to the ATM getting 100, 150, 200 50. He had to have hired an escort service out of one of those magazines I found under the couch, or did some kind of men's entertainment. It's been almost 2 years since this incident. Steve had another back surgury (laser surgery this time so the recovery time), weight gain, you name it, real or fake, he has every excuse in the world not to touch me and he refuses to discuss it. It's never a good time.

We've had sex 1 time in approximately a year and that was around October of last year and I initiated it and I caught him off guard or I'm sure he would have rejected me like he does all the other times. No, he's not gay, no, he's not seeing anyone else, yes, his equipment works very well. I'm 37 years old and I don't think I'm asking too much to want some physical love in my relationship. We never fight, we are basically like roommates/good friends who sleep in the same bed and have maybe grown too comfortable, lazy, depressed to make a change in our relationship.

I am on my last trek with him unless something gives. What am I doing/or have done wrong? What's wrong with him? I wait on him hand and foot and take care of him hoping he will be happy at least a little with the other part of his life if he can't be happy about the Steve part of his life. What do you think? Thank you for your time and patience with this long letter. . . so much more I could have said.


Answer

I think that your relationship went sour after Steve heard the rumor that you cheated on him. Soon after he heard that story, he stopped having sex with you, begain reading porn, started masturbating under your nose, and began using escort services, etc.. On one level, I think that he terrified of loving and losing you, so he holds you at arms length and engages in various distancing tactics, in order to protect himself.

There is more. His behavior extends beyond simple self-preservation. He is indirectly expressing a lot of anger toward you through various withholding tactics. For example, it is normal for people to masturbate even when they are in a relationship, however, when a partner masturbates while depriving his partner of sex, that classifies as screw you (or not screw you) behavior.

Clearly he has a sex drive, he just isn't sharing it with you. Likewise, his involvement in porn magazines and escort services seem to be another way of thumbing his nose at you. What can you do about it? One thing that you shouldn't be doing is rewarding his mistreatment of you. Behaving kindly toward someone who is mistreating you is sending the following message: 'Dump on me, it's all right. I'll still reward you with kindness.'

If you want to break this pattern, you need to stop rewarding him. You need to confront his behavior. A good confrontation is a a cool, factual, non-insulting description of what the person is doing. For example, you might say, 'Ever since that rumor got spread about me and so and so, you have distanced yourself from me in various ways, including (list every distancing behavior that he's engaging in). Are you aware that you are doing this?'

After you deliver the confrontation, you have a choice about how you wish to proceed. If you wish him to voice the feelings behind his behavior, then you would ask him, 'Do you know what feelings are behind your actions?' or 'What message is your behavior sending me?' If you want him to understand the impact that his behavior is having on you, then you would say, 'How do you want me to feel about your behavior?' or 'Do you want me to be feeling pushed away (or punished)?'

You may even want to push the confrontation to the next level and get him to discuss his anger. To do this you might say, 'Are you aware of how much anger you are expressing through your behavior?' Then, outline the various angry behaviors, the porn, the mags. , the escort services, the masturbation, the withholding of sex, etc.. If you can get him to talk honestly, then be prepared for his direct communication of anger. You will need to listen, reflect back what he says, not defend or justify yourself, take responsibility for the impact that your actions (partying with so and so) have had on him, etc.

For more help on how to confront him and how to properly respond to him after you deliver your confrontation, read my book, Till Death Do Us Part (Unless I Kill You First). Your situation isn't impossible. You are dealing with a lot of fear and anger that is being acted out rather than discussed.

If you both want the relationship, then the feelings are going to need to surface and be discussed and resolved. I have given you a beginning, but to make sure that you are fully prepared to handle this complicated situation and see it to a resolution, do read my book.

- Doctor Love

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