My husband of 8 years shows me absolutely no affection. No hugging, no kissing (even during sex). This has been a real problem for the last 7 1\\2 years.I am literaly starving for some human contact.I have tried explaining to him I need more affection and kissing especially during lovemaking, which by the way is also a very rare occasion, but he says he is just doesn’t dwell on kissing me. . whatever that means. And he says he is just not affectionate which is certainly the truth!He spends hours daily on the internet with porn. . . which I really don’t care about but it tends to make one feel pushed aside especially with everthing else that is going on. He seems to like masturbating more than me.Please help me!!! I am turning into a very lonely unhappy person.
You are being starved and it has been going on for such a long time. Before you can fix the problem, you need to understand what part of you is comfortable with this type of treatment. I know you will say to me, ‘I’m not comfortable. I hate it!’Keep in mind that humans are never of one mind. Meaning, that while the conscious part of the self can hate something, the unconscious part can actually want whatever the painful experience is to continue.So, you need to examine the unconscious part of yourself and find out why it would have chosen an unaffectionate person as a mate and why it would allow you to continue to be treated this way.The answer to why can probably be found in your earliest relationships. You probably grew up feeling starved for love and this would explain why you would choose a partner who starves you.One, because we are all creates of habit who tend to recreate what we know: Familiar pain is preferrable to the unfamiliar. The second reason why we recreate the patterns of our early life is because we hope to heal. First we choose a mate that treats us the way our parents did, and then we set out to fix the problem.In your case, by hoping to fix your unaffectionate mate, you are also hoping to heal the original wound. Only the plan rarely works because we choose mates who are damaged or limited in exactly the same ways that our parents were.Hence, they can’t give us a happy ending to our old wounds. See my Advice Archives under Repetition Compulsion and Unfinished Business to understand more about this.When you realize what piece of your childhood you were hoping to heal with your mate, you then have the power of choice. You can choose to put your food down and demand that he respond to your needs.If he refuses to change, you can choose to leave.The bottom line is you are not supposed to feel starved in your own home. Good luck.
