Dear DSO: "I Feel Like My Wife is Just Using Me in Bed! There's No Connection!"

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Hello folks, we have a new Dear DSO entry on the website. And you could submit your own question or story to deardso.com. And if it's a good one, I will create a video out of it for the whole world here to see. And this one comes from— we'll call him Jose. Jose says, I have just read your Dead Bedroom Fix book. And let me pause there. You can learn more at deadbedroomfix.com or do a search for Dead Bedroom Fix wherever books are sold. And he says he just read the book and I am checking my house for taps. 'As you know too much.' I hear this one a lot. It's just, you know, my own personal experience, and apparently the experience is so universal that guys think that this is kind of creepy that I know so much about their story. It's just that we're all alike. Uh, he says, 'Jokes aside, I could not be more thankful, and I'm looking to apply this. I have been married for 10 years with 2 little kids aged 1 and 3.' That's very important. As we continue on here, he says, 'So getting away is going to be a hard one.' but I will look for ways to implement the principles in your book. Pause there again. What he's talking about, getting away, um, often the men that reach out to me, read my material and so forth, are what we call very anxious in nature, and especially anxious in their form of attachment, as it's often said. And they tend to hang on to and cling to their partner in a very unhealthy way. They stick around no matter what. They don't have their own hobbies or interests or friend group outside of their spouse, and so they're never away from the spouse. You know, there are a couple of like axioms that have been, you know, proven to be true over the generations. One is absence makes the heart grow fonder, and familiarity breeds contempt. So if you're wanting to maintain a level of positive emotional tension between the two of you and subsequently sexual attraction, you can't be on each other 24/7. So that's what he's saying. It's kind of hard for him to keep get away. He's got a couple of little ones there, a couple of toddlers. And he says, so the question at hand is, my wife disrespects and despises me. That's not good. She said she couldn't care less about my opinions, etc. Typical scenario as described in your book because I've been too submissive, etc. He's doing what a lot of men do, is he's putting the, the onus or the The responsibility for the situation squarely on his shoulders. She's treating me poorly, disrespectful, and she despises me because I'm too nice, too submissive. There's really no excuse for a person to treat you that poorly just because you, in your mind, are too nice or too much of a pushover. But I continue. He says, when I try to kiss her, just a peck on the lips, she turns away most of the time. It's not good. Unless I hug, I'll never get a hug. Et cetera. The only difference is in the bedroom. I think I get pity sex as the woman just doesn't desire me. She just lays flat and she doesn't touch or caress me. Sometimes she doesn't even want to make out during sex, and she says that I, quote, kiss funny. Ouch. However, she does orgasm every time. And then I'm going to skip this part. He Can he— goes on to describe in some detail about what they do, but just to summarize, he says that all physical indicators are there that she is aroused during the act. Just leave it at that. And then he says, is this pity sex? And she doesn't desire me. She once, one time even said to me in an argument, quote, I'm only here for the kids, but even so I would still give you sex as I have my own needs too. Okay, she seems to be horny without actually desiring me, and she's able to have sex with me without desiring me at all. I feel it's purely transactional, and I am constantly afraid of her cheating. That's huge. As I know, uh, she can have this sexual urge without being attracted to me at all, kind of like a guy almost, he says in parentheses. It's just for your pleasure. Is this messed up? I have had typical pity sex too, where she just told me to get it over with and just focus, focus on finishing myself. And then I reached out to him. I said, I plan on doing a Dear DSO video out of this. We were going to do a back and forth via video, like a live radio call-in audio type of thing, but we couldn't get the schedules to work with his location. But then he did a follow-up and said he's looking forward to this video. And he says, I guess to summarize it, he would say, am I a human vibrator? No one desires or wants to make love to the vibrator. It's not about the vibrator, it's just a tool to help you orgasm and to reach feel-good endorphins, he says. On the other hand, I don't know if you heard about Katie Kat. She claims to be a sex guru. This is important. She does mention that women aren't always in the mood. Sometimes they should be more open to sex even if they're not into it. Not pity sex, but go through the foreplay, give husband the chance to turn you on. This is what we call responsive desire. Although she wouldn't have heard of this, maybe that's what she is doing. Honestly, I don't know. So what Jose is doing here, he's building the case for him being a pretty anxious dude. It's obviously he's very emotionally preoccupied, is the term they use, and it's perfect. He's emotionally preoccupied with what she thinks, what's going on, the health of the relationship, and so forth. And he's with a woman who's basically like, I really don't give a shit. Now, where it's unique, your story, Jose, where it's unique compared to most of the men that I talk to, is that your wife is going through the action of intercourse with you, and it would seem simply as a means of getting hers. And you're right, kind of using you as a tool, if you were. There's no connection there. Now, there are some people that are like kind of cold in that way and say, yahoo, this is what I want. I don't want that connection. I want that, you know, kissing and talking, that I just want to get the deed done. You're like most people though that say, that's kind of weird, Cole, I don't want that. I want a genuine emotional connection, mental, intellectual, sexual, the whole nine yards with the human being, and then that culminates into the sex. So dude, yeah, you got issues. You're— this is, you know, anxious avoidant 101, to use the psych terms. You are hanging out to somebody who very obviously doesn't want anything to do with you, but she has a sense of obligation to do an act with you. And it would seem it is born out of not necessarily an obligation because I want to please my husband, I don't want him to run off or whatever, which is not necessarily a good breeding ground for connection, but that's typically what I hear. But no, her reason for doing so, if you listen to her words, is I just want to get mine. No, it's not good. And yeah, it's kind of effed up, but where you need to start your work is on yourself, dude. Don't worry so much about what she's thinking. Don't worry so much about what does this mean, what does that mean. I read your follow-up. You talk about a person named Catty Cat or Katie Cat. I'm not sure how to pronounce that. And she's describing what's known as responsive desire, which is a very real thing. Especially for women that are in long-term monogamous relationships or marriages. It's that they don't experience that spontaneous 'I need to do this' thing. But what most women will tell you is, once I am in the— I recognize that the act is important to stay connected to my partner. That's why we do it. And once I get going, the women say like, 'Oh, that's why I do this. I like this. I feel better connected to him. It physically feels good. Emotionally feels good.' mentally, this is a good act. And what a lot of men will report is that their women will sometimes verbally say this, like, I'm so glad we did this, this is so great. And the man's follow-up to that is, why don't we freaking do it more often then? Or why aren't you asking me to do it then if it's such a good experience when we're in the middle of the act? We're just wired differently, men and women. No, this isn't necessarily a response of desire thing on your wife's part. It's, um, there is a subset of people, usually they're men, But your wife seems to be, and you pointed out, kind of like a guy in that it's that emotional connection and everything is not there, but need to get my rocks off kind of thing. That's a very manly thing. It's funny, your message overall is one that I've received from women saying, um, I don't have that romantic lovey-dovey connection with my spouse, but he sure does want me a lot, and it seems like I'm a tool for him. Like any, any effort at connection with him, trying to do things with him, talk with him, walk hand in hand on the beach and all that stuff, he has zero interest in. But he wants to lay down next to me at night and get it on. And the woman feels like a device for his pleasure. And she's right. That's exactly what she is. It's not nice. Not a good thing on the man's part. But yeah, that's unfortunately what's going on. That's kind of your situation, dude. It's not good, and you don't want that. So really, you only have two options: work towards coming more to center— you not as anxious, her not as avoidant— and see if you can come to a compromise in that way. Now, a lot of people will hear that and say, yeah, but that's not going to breed genuine desire, that's not going to get the lustfulness out of her and spontaneous desire out of her for her husband. Not necessarily, no, probably not to the degree that José here wants, sure, but we have to be realistic. Many years together, you have a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old. I totally skipped over that part. That's huge, dude. Children, having children rewires a woman's brain. It can say it rewires us as well as men, but not nearly to the degree that it does with the women. I've even been melodramatic about it and said, guys, your wife's dead. The woman you knew, the woman you courted, fell in love with, had, you know, so many months or years of relationship with, that woman's gone. You now have Wife 2.0. Wife 2.0 now is number 1, mother. You are not even number 2. You're somewhere like number 95, somewhere on the list of things that she's concerned about. Sounds terrible, sounds awful, but that's realistic for most relationships as far as I've seen. So obviously you're not going to get the same level of spontaneous desire and so forth. There has to be a middle ground there somewhere. Is she willing to find that middle ground? You've painted the picture, at least in your very anxious mind, of a woman that's going to be like, "No, I have far more important things to deal with." There may be an argument for, or a case to be made for, be patient, work together. So many years from now it may be better. Once the little kids aren't so little and so hanging all over mom all the time. You got a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old. I'm exhausted just reading that. I can't imagine, because I'm a dude, what your wife is going through anxiety-wise and so forth in her brain. So to add to that anxiety by kind of hanging on her— and you're right, you need to get the hell away from her— that's not helping your situation at all. There's no way to know where you're going to end up from now. So many months or years from now unless you both say, "This ain't good where we're going, the direction of where we're going." Your wife has to have the tools in her mental toolbox to say, "Not good. I'm gonna lose Jose over this. I'm gonna lose my family. I'm setting a bad example for my kids, showing them how relationships go when kids come into the picture. Not good. We need to reverse course here. We need to come back together emotionally, mentally, and then the sexual thing will take care of itself." If she doesn't have that mechanism to say, "Yeah, it's not good," that's not good for you in the relationship. Look at her family. What kind of example has she grown up with? Her mom and dad, grandma, grandpa, aunts and uncles. That will tell you a lot about what you're about to experience. It's not everything, but it's a lot of it. It's a big portion of it, my friend. I would love to chat with you one-on-one about this if you would like. You can go to helpformen.com, go to coaching in the menu, or— or better yet, I'll tell you what, join our men's group, the HFM Brotherhood, if you're not already a member. Anybody watching this, checking out help4men.com, check out the Brotherhood, scroll down on the homepage, you'll see the link there. Go to help4men.com/join to jump, jump right to the page. We have a giant community, hundreds of men from around the world, all the way from US to Australia, everywhere in between. We have private discussion forums, very, very active. Tens of thousands of discussions have been started on there. We have live Zoom meetings, several of those every single month. You get all of my books as well as another book by Coach Austin in PDF and audiobook formats. We have live conferences where we get together in the US as well as Australia. Our 5th annual conference is coming up in 2025 in Charleston, South Carolina. We're a very, very busy group. We do a lot of great things for a lot of men. A lot of men have made lifelong friendships there, so check it out. The the HFM, Help for Men, brotherhood at helpformen.com. And Jose, we would love to have you. All right guys, thank you so much for watching. I appreciate it. And Jose, thank you for reaching out. I appreciate you sharing your story.

Best of luck to you.