My (mid-30s M) wife (mid-30s F) took a job that has rather extreme hours. She also has another time/location commitment as the direct consequence of some of her actions. These combined have left us with, at most, 1 hour each day during which we are both awake and under the same roof.
As you might imagine, it has put quite the strain (for me at least, she doesn’t talk about it) on our quality time, conversation, interaction, romance, and amorous activities, which have become, at best: difficult, forced, unenthusiastic, and incredibly rare. She mostly spends what little time there is playing games on her phone.
I put myself in her shoes and it becomes marginally understandable: After a long and challenging day, I could see the desire to sit quietly and do an activity with/for myself rather than attend to the needs of yet another person.
But I’ve been having a really hard time. I am being stoic and supportive and appreciative of all that she is doing, but, under the surface, I am lonely and miss my wife and long for connection. Should I stay the course or find some way to broach the issue, adding yet another burden to her already laborious time?
I’d really appreciate hearing from someone who’s dealt with/is currently in a similar situation, or anyone who has encouragement or advice, or just anything I could think about while I deal.
This is great advice and I will try these things, thank you very much.
Not to be pessimistic, but part of the issue is that she makes it seem like using that one and only hour to turn her attention towards our relationship is almost like staying on duty. She longs for time to herself (of which she has none), not time with me (of which she also has none).
Planning and building anticipation is a great idea. I just get the sense from her that this would almost be like asking her to schedule yet more time that she doesn’t get to allocate on her own. There’s no time for the relationship so we have to prioritize it, it’s just that she isn’t prioritizing it.
I can create an environment where she feels more attenuated to romance, but is it wrong that I’d like her to just naturally desire some rather than be convinced to allow time for some? I haven’t gotten any indication from her that she, too, is feeling the absence of clothes. I don’t want to just create opportunity for it; I’d like to feel wanted.
I can handle it if I have to do all the work, but I’d like to feel like she’s grateful for it because she, too, wants the result. Instead, she makes me feel like it’s one more thing she has to reluctantly check off a list.
I’ve tried to be vocal about this with her but her only response was “you only ever think about one thing” so I just gave up because she clearly wasn’t in a position/mood to be capable of understanding the feelings I was trying to convey.
If she wants time for herself make sure to schedule it as well. Maybe she gets the time to herself a few days of the week. Even better help set up some better relaxing time for herself when she gets home. Make the house set up how she might want to better relax on those days such as making sure its clean, prepared with food, soft lighting, a bath, incense, silence or nice music ask her what she wants for those days. That way she can enjoy that time and really focus on you two together when that is scheduled. Stress is a major libido killer which are you trying to remove when she gets home.
I get her thoughts that this is just more work for her. You are trying to remove that work by taking on the mental load. You want your time together to be fulfilling and joyful. Part of that is when she comes home she shouldn’t have to do any of the planning or scheduling. At least in the beginning when you are both getting use to the system. For example on Tuesday you will have dinner ready without asking her thoughts on it. I used to always wanted to get my wife’s thoughts on food and activities when we were first married. I wanted to make sure she was included but I was just pushing off the final decision back onto her. I now mostly say “We’re going to have lasagna tonight. I will go shopping for it.” If she wants something else she will let me know which is better than saying “Would you rather have lasagna, or something else”. That way she doesn’t have to make a decision. Mental load for planning and deciding is usually placed on woman and most men don’t realize it until they start doing it. You are trying to anticipate what she wants to show that you care
I get the feeling of being wanted. For most men sex is the only time they feel wanted or sexy. It also fulfills a lot of different emotional and physical needs. It helps to figure out what you need both from sex and what you can get outside of sex. I highly recommend reading Hot and Unbothered to better understand everything both the sexual arousal systems as well as how to talk about and identify what sex emotionally does. I found that I get lots of emotional and physical needs met by giving back massages to my wife since I found that the physical touch and giving of pleasure really does like 70% of the emotional needs that sex gives.
Also take a look at the Dual Control Method of Sexual Response to understand how sexual response works in both removing those sexual inhibitory and increasing sexual excitatory aspects.