craze283

I will try to sum this up as short as possible. First i am almost 7 months sober. Second i have been with my "now wife" for 15 years "married 4" and i love her more than anything. I put her through more than any woman should have to go through and has stood beside me every step. Now i feel as though we have gotten closer as friends but i dont feel she sees me as the lover that she used to. I can now count how many times we have been intimate since i have been sober and we were always a very sexually active couple. She sais she feels no differently about me in that way that it is just taking time to get back to how we were. I fear that now she sees me as a needy friend and not as her husband. I am forever grateful to her and love her till the end. Will this get better in time or has she just filled the void i have left? I would like some feedback from men and women and i know that every situation is different but i am lost and hurting badly. Happy to be sober but the struggle with depression seems to be getting worse. Have made one step to getting my life back on track with so many more ahead but i need to know where i stand. Please HELP! Thank you and hope you managed to read all of this without me boring you.

Anna

Hi Craze,

I know that I put my family through a lot during the years I was drinking. I know that my relationship has changed considerably since I began to recover. And, change is not necessarily good or bad, it just is.

I think what you're talking about is wanting to make the situation the way you want it to be. And, you can't do that. It's one of the many things that you can't control. All you can do is to recover and be the best person that you can be.

craze283

Thank you anna. I think you are completely right and i understand completely that our lives will never be the same. And im sure from reading that post some may think that it is just about a change in the sex life. Its not really that its me wondering if she has changed the way she truley "feels" about me. Like you said though we cant control that or force things to go our way. At this point in my recovery though it is the unknowns that are the hardest to deal with and im sure their are no black and white answers.

ste

From what I can surmise, you love each other very much, but are now going through some changes that may or may not affect your love. Change is difficult, at the least uncomfortable.
Communication could alleviate some of the trepidations, but talking openly is sometimes difficult and uncomfortable also. Like you say, sex is just one aspect. Can you define some of the other "unknowns" and bring them to light?
Think you are handling things well, and you'll be happy with the results.

craze283

Thank you ste. You are very correct. We don love each other very much. I just dont know if she loves me more as a friend now. After what i did to myself physically during my last binge i dont know how anyone could see me as attractive. We do talk about it very openly. (for the record that is one good thing that came out of all this mess) My communication skills that were horrible before are much better now. When i talk with her about it she swears she sees me no differently but im just not sure if she is trying to convince herself or not. I love her and always will, i just need to know if we can rebuild what we had. I will never hold it against her if we cant. No woman should have to endure what they go through dealing with a person with my problems. Some of the others i guess are mainly physical but at times i feel as though she may resent me for costing her some valuable time in her life and having her make sacrafices both financially and other wise. Maybe i am just seeing these things because that is what i expect?

Change4life

put aside what the past was....look towards the future. When I am having trouble with my girl, even though we live together I ask her out on a date. It doesnt have to be anything extravagant just make some special time and dont talk about your problems or any problems for that matter. just do something that you both can enjoy together...enjoy each other. things may never be like they use to, but you never know they might get better

ste

I think maybe you feel remorse for your past actions, with your new self-image. You are trying to see yourself through her eyes, which doesn't work.
I think maybe she has already forgiven you, because she loves you. I agree with C4L, look towards the future, you can't rebuild the past.

whiskerkissed

At one point me and my now ex had discussed marriage counseling. It might have helped, but we'll never know. We never pursued it. We divorced after a 25 yr dysfunctional marriage where we both used for the whole time. He was the drinker - I was the doper. Our intimacy was able to be counted on both hands in the last 2 yrs of that marriage. We slept in separate bedrooms in that last 6 months.

We both work a recovery program today. We're better friends than we were a married couple. We still talk on a weekly basis and we've been divorced for 1 1/2 yrs. now.

I lost my respect for him MANY years before it got to that point. I didn't see that until yrs later.

You haven't said how you got sober, but if it helps, maybe Al-anon would help her.