Dear butterfly:

“I need huge chunks of focus time and hate being bothered when I am working. I tend to hyperfocus on the task and is very sensitive to interruptions. I feel stressed out for him to barge in dramatically every time he has emotional outbursts. He admitted to be very intense and would not change as it has always been like this“- he said that he will continue to barge in because he’s always done that: no exception for you, no consideration of you,  no consideration of what you need.

“I told him that I would build a wall and separate my office from his physically… He said that he would still open the door and barge in”- for crying out loud, how self-centered and selfish!

“I answered that I am not his stress ball to squeeze whenever he wanted. That I need my space“- exactly, you are a person with your own needs and preferences, you are not an object (a stress ball) that exists so to accommodate him.

“Where I went too far was when I said that ‘normal’ people needed time apart and their own space during office hours“- I suppose suggesting that he’s abnormal was not appropriate; self-centered/ selfish would have been appropriate, seems to me.

“He wants to be close to me so much, and I love it but at the same time I hate it… What do you think?“- it’s nice that he wants to be close to you, but.. not at the expense of you. There are two people in the relationship.. not one person (him) and one stress ball (you).

anita

Dear Laven:

Thank you for choosing to share about your life here once again. I think that you have a literary talent: you write so clearly and intelligently. The sentence that touched me most is this: “All my life I’ve been wanting people to genuinely include me, accept, want, and love me..“.

anita

I’ll reply in a few hours, Zenith.

anita

Dear taiga:

You shared that you’ve known your wife since the two of you were in your early 20s, (now in your early 30s), been married for more than 5 years, and you “have great admiration and respect for her and..  doting on her“. You want to have sex and a family with her, but every time you tried to consummate the marriage, she rejected you. You figure that she might have “fears and possibly pains“, and tried to persuade her to see a medical specialist, but “she doesn’t seem to think that there is an issue by brushing me off“.

“It is so bad that at times, I’d imagine that I better off stop living in this world… I have now come to the verge of giving up, perhaps myself or this relationship…  feeling like a loser or a creep. I look around and see my peers are having a happy family with their kids and it just makes me feel very useless not being able to even consummate our marriage“-

– it is interesting that in a paragraph earlier, in your 2nd sentence, you wrote: “have been happily married“, doesn’t read like happy when you imagine that you might be better off not living in this world, when you feel like a loser or a creep, useless and envious of your peers.

“I have great admiration and respect for her… she doesn’t seem to think that there is an issue by brushing me off“- seems like she doesn’t respect you when she repeatedly and knowingly ignores an issue that is troubling you so much.

In some places you can legally annul a marriage for lack of consummation. Here’s from nyc divorce lawyers. com/ can our marriage be annulled if it was never consummated: “When a couple divorces, it is documented in the county in which they live. If a couple is granted an annulment, the marriage is completely erased from all records as if it never happened at all. Because this type of dissolution is so extreme, there must be a good reason for it to be granted. Below is an overview of how annulments work and if you can obtain one if your marriage was never consummated…

“The law allows annulments to take place in cases where the marriage was never consummated or one party was impotent or otherwise unable to consummate the marriage. It is important to determine if one party was deceitful and never intended to consummate the marriage in an annulment, as well”.

Notice the last sentence in the quote above: if your wife never intended to consummate the marriage, then she has been deceitful.. and that’s definitely disrespectful of you.

More thoughts and quotes:

Asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction to others, having a low or absent interest or desire for sexual activity. Your wife may be asexual.

Hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) is a diagnosable disorder in regard to having a low/ absent sexual desire for an extended period of time, and which causes the person distress.

Psychology today/ sexual desire disorder: “Sexual desire disorder is a psychiatric condition marked by a lack of desire for sexual activity over a prolonged period… To meet the criteria for female sexual interest-arousal disorder, the symptoms must be present for at least six months and cause significant distress to the individual…

“Some risk factors for developing a sexual desire disorder include: * Negative attitudes about sexuality, *Relationship difficulties (poor communication, abuse)… * Medical conditions… * History of emotional or physical abuse… * Other psychiatric diagnosis (depression, anxiety) * medication side effects..”.

Is the above of any help to you, taiga?

anita

Dear Zenith:

“It reminds me of my college days. When I stayed in dorms I had a roommate who started ignoring me when she met her new friend“- this memory of yours reminds me that I too am very sensitive to being ignored and other people being preferred/ chosen over me. This is a very painful experience in my own childhood, growing up and since, although I am getting better at not overreacting, emotionally or behaviorally.

If I see a person attending to someone else, laughing with someone else, not including me, I automatically feel hurt and angry, but when I talk to myself and look at the situation from a different angle, I feel better. For example, I think to myself: sometime I too attend to one person and I don’t include others (and I should include others whenever possible and appropriate), or I think: this person enjoys talking to that other person, that’s all it means. It’s not a reflection of my worth- or lack of.

anita

Dear Clara:

You are welcome, and thank you for the invitation to ask you again how you are feeling/ doing.  “I have some ups and downs, but definitely a lot more ups than downs. Or, more neutral/ calm than downs“- recovery in-progress!

“I think asking her move away ASAP is the right thing to do“- yes, it was the right thing to do.

“I just didn’t know whether the ‘how’ is ‘ok’, and the emotions in between is ‘ok’ or not, like I told her off and said she was an idiot...”- emotions get messy during difficult, challenging times. We are not a perfect specimen, as you know. When I say things I regret later on, I make a mental note of what not to say in a similar situation in the future, and I pretty much let go of it.

“I have grown from there and it is as if my lens for my family has changed. There is a sense of calmness when I am at my parents home now, previously I felt easier irritated by little things. So, I think, this is definitely a huge plus of her leaving me… The other day, I gave my mom a proper, big hug. As Asian we don’t really show that much affection…  Very interestingly she almost hugged me immediately without hesitation… I was trying to solidify that secure attachment feelings and I think it worked… this should have built my ‘family island’…The whole realization of the secure attachment, calmed my nervous system– excellent attitude and work, Clara!

“I got myself some plants today… Now that her things are gone I have plenty of space and I am trying to fill the places with things I like“- I think that to fill the space left by her moving out with plants is a way better choice, at this point, than to fill it in with a pet, or a tattoo. Good progress overall, Clara, I am impressed!

anita

Dear YoungMufasa:

In my reply, I will explore my feelings and attitudes as I try to understand your situation (and myself) better.

“I had one relationship in the past, but it was short-lived and not physical. Since then, I’ve tried online relationships, which can be hit or miss—fun at times, but ultimately unsatisfying since they’re all digital… I also have a habit of watching porn and masturbating before bed“- I grew up with, and still carry shame in regard to sex. As I typed the previous sentence, it was even difficult for me to type the word “sex” (yet I typed it again, lol). Therefore, as I read about you masturbating before bed, having had some image of what it looks like, I was somewhat uncomfortable and judgmental. It is as if I wish humanity (and the animal kingdom) was not sexual. And yet, reality does not accommodate my attitude and wishes, and sex continues to be a powerful force, generally more powerful in males because of testosterone (the male sex hormone).

Overcoming my unrealistic attitude means that I remove my judgment of you masturbating: I understand that a male sexual drive is a very powerful one. It is not a matter of choice; it’s a matter of nature.

“Now that I’m working in a job that involves frequent travel in the hotel industry, I’m feeling like I’m not ready for a serious relationship yet and am more interested in exploring different types of relationships and experiences, including dating women from various ethnic backgrounds like Asian, Latina, Romanian, and Italian. I feel like I don’t want to miss out on these experiences before eventually settling down and finding a serious partner. I know it’s absurd“- I wonder if your interest in dating (having sex with) women of different ethnic backgrounds has to do with having watched porn involving women of different ethnic backgrounds..?

Which brings me to my attitude about pornography: I dislike it very much, and wish it didn’t exist. I think that although it provides a service short-term, it harms long-term.

Back to you: I understand that nature is behind your sexual drive, and technology is behind you watching porn, the industry that accommodates and profits from this part of nature, and I think that your desire to perhaps copy the experiences you watched on the screen, irl, could be a problem: when eventually settling down with a serious partner, will the porn images and.. creative ideas disappear? Will you still be watching porn because it’s a habit?

“My high sex drive makes me feel like something is missing, especially since physical touch is important to me“- Your high sex drive needs a real person to touch and be sexual with, so clearly, something (a real person) is missing.

“I’m looking for some advice or insights on how to navigate these feelings and desires and probably some solutions.”- my advice: begin the process of breaking the habit of watching porn (start at the present time, way before you consider a serious relationship). A quick online search just now brought me to psychology today/Addicted to Porn? How to Get Back in Control, and very well mind/ How to Stop Watching Porn.

I just read that within a serious relationship/ marriage, some couples who both watch pornography (each supporting the other watching it) report that it helps their marriage, but otherwise, and most commonly, it harms marriages. From Utah State University/ effects of pornography on relationships: “Within couple intimate relationships, pornography can have negative impacts in the following ways… : * User faces difficulty becoming sexually aroused without pornography… * Pornography consumption may be correlated with increased behaviors of hooking up and infidelity. * Partner feels sexually inadequate and threatened by pornography use. … * Both user and partner experience decreased relationship sexual satisfaction and emotional closeness. * Relationship trust decreases due to dishonesty and deception about pornography use…”.

I would like to read your response, YoungMufasa, to my reply.

anita

Dear Zenith:

“I felt better when I read the article. But…“- But OCD took that feeling-better away from you, telling you that your case is different from the article-author’s case, therefore her solutions (“1. Accept the relationship as it is…2. Challenge your faulty beliefs…3. Practice a new way and let go of expectations”) don’t apply to you.

But the author’s solutions do apply to you, Zenith, regardless of this or that difference (no 2 stories are identical).

The author wrote: “I became aware of this mantra that I had been repeating in my head: ‘I don’t belong.’ This belief was like an infection, poisoning my mind and tainting how I saw our friendship”-

– her mantra/ core belief was “I don’t belong”.  How would you word your mantra in regard to this friendship, the mantra  that keeps adding fuel to your OCD and making you suffer?

anita