I can hear the ache, the emotional pain, in your comment and my heart feels so heavy as I read it. This is certainly not what wants for your marriage, for either of you. This one issue you mentioned — “Why did she have to want to breastfeed each child for two years and never feel like sex because all of her hormones were being used up?” — I almost want to answer directly, because those were the dry spell years in my marriage. I had little to no interest, and yes, it was partially related to breastfeeding. I have no regrets about nursing, because it was a very good thing for me as a mom and for my kids, but I have apologized to my husband for not prioritizing our sexual intimacy, because I’ve learned it really isn’t an either/or (breastfeed/have sex drive); there were ways to have both that I didn’t pursue.

I also wonder what your wife would cry out as part of her “Why, God?” yelling. I suspect you both feel lonely in this marriage, and I pray heartily that you can find ways to reach out, connect again, and discover intimacy of all kinds. Yes, you should be having regular sex in your marriage, and I pray that a breakthrough happens. Saying a prayer for you. Many blessings.

I went back to my home town, not thinking about the woman, but thinking about the stark contrast between the attention and respect I got from her and the negative attention and disrespect that was a constant aspect of how my wife treated me.

You name it. Blame for every problem. Complaints about everything she has to do. Problems with messy children who have lots of problems. In-Laws that are in our business constantly. No peace. No privacy. And no sex.

This is what I signed up for God? This is what I married for? Are there any women out there who care about the marriage bed other than as a place to fall asleep at 8:30 PM? Sure I get it. Everyone has good days and bad days. But 15 years of bad days? Months and months of no sex and no respect.

For the first time in my life I understood why some men are tempted by affairs. It isn’t the sex. It’s the respect. It’s the attention. It’s the soft voices and sweet smiles of a young woman’s face. But it is also a big lie. Satan’s lie. A fraud. But then there is what is not a lie. The home I return to after a long trip on business. A place of no soft voices and no sweet smiles.

Why God? I want to scream. I don’t want to sin. But I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life being sexless and miserable. Do you really care, God? What is my evidence? If you really cared why do you let my wife get pregnant so quickly after sex resumed after long dry spells? Why did you make every pregnancy so awful that sex was off the table.

Why did she have to want to breastfeed each child for two years and never feel like sex because all of her hormones were being used up. Why did you give me in-laws that never leave and children that never sleep and bills that can’t get paid?

I have no answers. I see no light at the end of the tunnel. Is this just a season of life? Season’s are supposed to be shorter than this. Maybe it IS my life. That brief 4 month window of sexual frequency at the beginning of our marriage was the exception. Maybe that is another one of Satan’s lies. Give him false hope so he’ll hang in there hoping for something better. Then keeping him waiting year after year until he feels one brief moment of appreciation from an attractive woman who is off limits.

The only wait to hurt a man who has lost everything is to give him something broken.

Oh Shelly, my heart aches for you. Such a tough loss. May God give you much, much comfort.

They’d expect it, but it doesn’t happen…and some folks – including my wife get kind of peeved at my “some days you de windshield, some days you de bug” attitude.

It does cause strain; my wife gets so tired of my relatively lighthearted attitude that she sometimes thinks I don’t need her compassion. If I’m good to go, why worry about me?

I think she suspects it’s a “tough guy” act, or a sort of lunatic Stoicism. That may be true. I hope not, but one can never fully judge one’s own character.

So I guess the point is that maybe we need to be able to cry out to God, to join the other voices that are crying out in our behalf. Maybe I can cry out to Him in protest for my wife’s anguish?

I don’t know, and I apologize for this long and somewhat tangential comment.

Right now I’m reeling from pain and nausea – this comment’s taken over an hour to compose, because of that – but still…I figure that with all this manure of illness that’s filled up the drawing-room of my life…there’s GOT to be a pony here somewhere!