And how many times a week does she masturbate?
I know that this was probably meant to be a rhetorical question, but it's definitely worth noting something that I wrote in a prior post:
We moved on to the question of genital touching. My wife said that it wasn't just directed at me; she said she hated touching her own genitals.
Sometime with in the last couple of years, I asked her whether she ever experimented with pleasuring herself to figure out what might feel good. She said she had done it only a couple times.
She constantly uses sex as a weapon. Her comment that she was "horny" but didn't act on it because she didn't feel "emotionally connected" to you is yet another example.
It took me years to get past my own sexual shame to see that she was doing this. Despite my efforts to become a "healthier" person sexually, there was no rise in interest on her part.
I know people probably get tired of me quoting Schnarch on this blog, but I've never read any other therapeutic literature that identifies this dynamic. He calls it normal marital sadsim (read through page 311).
This excerpt nails it right on the head:
Emotional fusion fuels and shapes normal marital sadism. You see it when a spouse attacks the partner's reflected sense of self. Statements like, "If you were good enough, I'd have orgasms... or no sexual difficulties... or desire for you." are invitations for the partner to feel bad.
The key to getting past it is to stop being fused, or dependent on the other person for your validation. It upsets the apple cart and either pushes toward greater intimacy or the end of the relationship. It all hinges on whether the other person can begin to self validate as well.
It's also worth noting that Schnarch harbors skepticism about sexual addiction.
