My husband wishes I were more sexual. Truth be told, his sexual appetite has always outpaced mine. He would have sex three times a day if he could, but I'm completely happy with a couple of times a week. Even before our marital issues starting affecting my performance in bed, I still didn't want to get intimate as often as he did.

Nowadays it takes quite a bit to get me in the mood. Strike one: I have back problems, and as my chiropractor so delicately put it I shouldn't do anything that involves "jerking up-and-down motions." Strike two: I'm usually pretty exhausted from the rigors of motherhood, working, and all the other fun stuff that comes with my role in life. Strike three: Yeah, this is gross, but my two pregnancies not only blessed me with two beautiful children, but also bestowed upon me some pretty serious hemorrhoids. When those bad boys flare up, getting me in the mood for sex is downright impossible. 

Okay, so now you probably know more about me than you care to. Sorry about that.

When my husband hasn't had sex in a couple of days he starts dropping hints and making sexual innuendoes in conversation. The other day I was heading out to the gym and I made the comment that I was in need of a good workout. He arches his eyebrow and says, "I can give you a good workout." I really don't like when he makes these types of comments in front of the kids, so I say, "What Daddy doesn't seem to realize is that sometimes Mommy can't hang from the chandelier and whoop it up." To this he sighs and responds, "Don't worry...I expect very little from you."

Ouch.

I already feel like a failure as a wife because I can't just find a way to be happy in this relationship. I thought I was at least being a good wife by hooking him up with some sex on a regular basis, but apparently I can't even get that right. 

Sometimes I want so badly to have a happy, intimate marriage that my heart feels like it actually hurts. The cynic in me says that no marriage is actually happy, and anyone who claims to be happy in a marriage is either lying or living in denial. The realist in me, however, knows that there must be something to this whole marriage thing because otherwise we wouldn't all be doing it, right?

Sometimes I just want to scream, "HOW DO I GET HAPPY IN THIS RELATIONSHIP?!" I want someone to tell me what to do to fix things so that I can stop living this life of emotional Atari. I want someone to take my hand and tell me that eventually, everything is going to be okay.

A big part of why I haven't ended things is because I want to believe that there is hope that this can work. What a fantastic thing it would be to someday look back on how we almost split up but then were able to repair the relationship and stay together. I think about how much stronger we can potentially be as a couple after going through all this and then coming out of it all okay.

Then I look at how lukewarm we are toward each other and I wonder if couples ever really recover from something like that.

When does a person decide to actually give up hope and file for divorce? Does it feel like a loss of hope, or does it feel more like a triumph of having made a decision finally? Is it terrifying, empowering, or both?

Do you want to know which nights I get the best sleep? I get the best sleep on the night after I have sex with my husband. Not the night of the sex, but the night after. He initiates every few nights, but the night following an evening of sex, he doesn't expect anything from me — so he just drifts off. It's great.

Here's what it's like to go to bed when my husband wants sex:

1. I lay down and he rolls over, puts his arm around me, asks me how I'm feeling.

2. If I don't respond physically he starts running his hand up and down my arm or trying to rub my shoulders. He might ask me if I want a massage or if there is something I want to talk about.

3. If I still don't respond physically he'll start making suggestions about the things he wants to do. Unless I want to stay up for a few hours arguing with him, I have sex with him.

4. If we don't have sex, he intermittedly grabs and paws at me throughout the night.

Here's what it's like to go to bed the night following sex:

I lay down and my husband rolls over, putting his back to me. He doesn't say a word.

It's a pattern I'm used to. If he's physically satisfied then he doesn't stir when I come to bed. If he wants sex, he's suddenly awake when I come to bed no matter what time it is. Apparently I'm really interesting and intriguing when he wants to get some, but when he's satisfied I become a stealth ninja when I come to bed. Funny how that works.

On the nights that I'm really tired and just want to go to sleep — but don't want to get intimate — I've fantasized about sleeping on the couch just to avoid the whole song and dance with my husband, but I know he'll come looking for me and it will turn into a lengthy discussion that will evolve into sex if I want to get any sleep.

It really shouldn't be this complicated. 

A comment on one of my recent blogs said this about the things I write about my husband: "I don't recall one post that mentions loving, appreciating or cherishing him."

Maybe I'm not making myself clear, and that doesn't surprise me. I spend so much of my time lately in a confused state that sometimes I really don't know how I feel about my husband. I'm not surprised that someone who takes the time to read through my posts would start to wonder whether I actually love my husband anymore or if I don't. You can't possibly assume that this isn't something that I haven't labored over in my mind over and over again.

Do I appreciate my husband? Yes, I do. I've written about how he's a professional man who supports his family well. I've written about how he's making his way through graduate school. I realize that a lot of different aspects of my life would be much more difficult if he wasn't around.

Do I cherish my husband? I've written about how I cherish watching his interactions with our children. He can make them burst into giggles quicker than anyone else.

Do I love my husband? Holy cow, that's going into a really gray area. I once loved my husband very much. He has since changed into a different man, and I have changed into a different woman. Does the New Me love the New Him? Yes, there is some love there. Is there as much love now as there once was? No, not even close.

My husband spent a great deal of time not appreciating me and not cherishing me, and although he said he loved me there was really no proof there.  That's devastating, and it's still very painful to revisit. That's probably why you don't read many blogs from me singing my husband's praises. 

In an ideal world I'll someday get to the point to where I'll have no problem blatantly loving, appreciating, and cherishing my husband. I just don't know if that will ever happen.

Want to hear the definition of uncomfortable? Try going to a movie with your husband that's chock full of sex even though you and your husband's level of intimacy is strained at best.

True story.

Last night my husband and I went to see Choke. If you go to see it then expect to see plenty of sexual situations. It's not like I wasn't expecting it since I read the book beforehand, but it was the first time my husband and I had been to a movie together that featured so much naked fun during a period in our life when our sex life consists of once a week or so me nudging him and saying, "If you want to do it, go ahead before I go to sleep." Ahh, romance. 

It's tough to watch a movie that so blatantly displays one of the very things we have tried to deal with but can't seem to fix.

You've heard about not talking about the elephant in the room? This was like the elephant sat in front of us at the theater and bellowed loudly from its trunk every few minutes.  And wore a big hat. And threw popcorn at us.

Stupid elephant.

My husband is enough of a gentleman to not nudge me and say something vulgar about how he's glad someone is getting some enthusiastic sex once in a while, but I've been with the man long enough to know what goes through his mind. 

Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to turn off emotions and just have a passionate romp in bed with him while our relationship flounders. I wish I could, though, because it would certainly make going to the movies a lot easier. 

There is a new trend arising in my house. Every few nights before falling asleep, my husband will roll over and sigh, and then look at me with the whole, "We gotta talk" facial expression.

He'll then start telling me that this isn't working, when am I going to stop being mad at him for the past, what does he have to do to get his wife back, etc, etc.

That one is my favorite:  "What do I have to do to get my wife back?"

It's not what he should be doing now. It's what he should have been doing years ago. He should have taken a more active role in parenting instead of leaving it all to me. He should have helped me out when I had post-partum depression instead of just waiting for it to go away. He should have spent some time nurturing our relationship when we became new parents instead of just dumping everything into my lap while he spent seven hours a night playing video games.

He shouldn't have resisted counseling when I begged him to go.

What is he supposed to do now to get his wife back? I haven't a clue. Does he want the same wife he had before kids...the one who had tons of energy and could spend inordinate amounts of time making sure everything was just right for her husband? Does he want the wife who trusted that her husband would always have her best interests in mind? Does he want the wife who didn't stick up for herself when things weren't right?

That wife is gone, baby, gone.

One thing is evident. My whole tactic of waiting everything out to see what happens next seems less and less effective nowadays.  My husband and I have both said out loud that our relationship isn't working. What happens next is anybody's guess. 

I took introduction to psychology in college so I have a general idea of what the term "passive aggressive" means. It wasn't until recently, however, that I really got to witness it in person.

Apparently my husband has decided that this is his newest way to complain about the things I do without actually complaining about them.

Here are a couple of examples, which could easily be compiled with a slew of others for a "passive-aggressive husband reference manual":

The other day my kids and I went out to lunch with a couple of other moms and their kids. I don't eat out for lunch all the time, and this was an impromptu get-together. I had packed my husband a lunch that morning for him to take to work so he had leftovers. When he gets home he tells me this: "The guys at work said, 'Let me get this straight...she gets to eat out for lunch and you have to eat leftovers? Man, that's messed up!' Ha-ha!"

Translation: He's ticked off that I got to eat out and he had to eat leftovers.

My husband recently did some volunteer work with the guys at church that involved a lot of physical labor and when he got home he said, "Bob told me he was so glad that his wife and daughter were out of town because after we finished up he was going to go home and take a long nap without interruption. Ha-ha!"

Translation: He wants to take a nap but knows that we already agreed that he would take the kids so I could get some work done. He's hoping I suggest he takes a long nap and I'll just stay up until two in the morning working.

How do I know it's all passive aggressive? These comments don't even go with the flow of conversation. They come out of nowhere, and he gives a long pause afterward as though he's waiting for me to fall to my knees and beg his forgiveness for going out to eat with my friends/not offering him a four hour nap/whatever else I do that ticks him off.

I'm walking through the store, barely noticing the music they're pumping into the sound system, when all of a sudden I realize that I'm singing along with the tune that's playing: "Going to the Chapel." I used to love that song. When I was about 10 or 11 years old my parents gave me a cassette of Motown classics and I used to play it over and over, singing along and making up dances.

Back then I thought that was just the way it worked. You meet a boy, you fall in love, and "we'll never be lonely anymore." I'll admit that when that particular lyric hit the sound system I actually snorted out loud.

When I was younger I really thought that would be true. I thought that marriage was a partnership and I would never feel lonely for companionship or for the romantic gazes from a man who loved and adored me.

It wasn't even that I thought I would find a man and have his undivided attention forever, but I never thought that I would wind up married and lonely. Bitterly lonely. The kind of lonely where you sit in your house and think to yourself, "Who the heck is this guy that I'm married to?"

Back in better times, I wasn't lonely at all. We had a good social group and my husband and I would spend hours talking to each other and laughing and generally having a great time.

Fast forward to now, and we don't really have that much to say to each other. He'll tell me about his day and then listen politely while I tell him about mine, then he switches on the television while I work. So instead of "we'll never be lonely anymore" my lyrics are more like "we'll never feel connected anymore."

That stinks.

What would happen if I just made up my mind to leave? How would life change for me and for my family? Would I find the inner peace that I lack right now? Would everything magically get better?

I'm not delusional. I know that it would be ridiculously hard. Most of all, I know that it would be a really difficult transition for my kids. They're young and as far as they know, mommies and daddies stay together.

Did I say it would be "difficult?" Maybe I should change that to "horrible." "Tragic." "Life-altering."

"The end of a secure life."

Am I being dramatic? I just try to think of what it would be like if a life truth was suddenly changed for me. What if my house burned down? What if I lost my arm? I can only imagine what it's like to suddenly have everything change.

I know that I would recover just fine. I know the process would be painful, but in the long run I think that it would make me happier overall. Then again, how can I be happy when I cause so much pain to my kids?

What a tangled web.

If I one day suddenly blurted out, "I can't take this anymore. I need a divorce," then it would be a bizarre combination of a huge weight lifted off my shoulders while also opening the door to a bunch of new drama and turmoil. It’s like I know what I want the eventual outcome to be, but I don't want to deal with all the stuff in between.

So what happens if I just make up my mind to leave? The world will be turned upside down. My life will never be the same again. The question then becomes, will the new life be better, and worth the effort?

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend of mine from church. She asked me how my husband and I had met and I laughed while I told her the usual thing I tell people: "We met in the dormitory and he couldn't stand me."

Everyone gets a real kick out of this story about how a man could detest a woman but eventually wind up married to her.

I've been thinking about this a lot. Does my husband like me now? I can't imagine I'm all that easy to live with. I tried to leave him once and I'm emotional unavailable a good portion of the time because I don't feel connected to him. I don't initiate sex. I work long hours and I'm critical of him when he doesn't push himself like I push myself.

I don't think I would like me either.

He's professed his undying love to me through this entire process of trying to figure out if we'll stay together, but I'm having a hard time figuring out if he really loves me, or if it is instead a case of not wanting to wind up divorced like his parents, or not wanting to break up the family, or — hopefully not — he doesn't want to lose the dame who cooks his meals and makes sure he has clean underwear.

Would I want to stay with someone like me? No, I probably wouldn't. Then again, my husband has pushed me to the sheer brink of madness but I'm still here, aren't I?

What a mess.

If you've never been in a situation where you didn't know if your husband's love for you was genuine or if instead he really liked having a live-in maid, then let me tell you this: It stinks. It's also very confusing. Most of all, though, it's awfully lonely.