Being the Hero of Your Own Life

Being the Hero of Your Own Life

This story is still being developed, but here is some of the raw material:

Sunday, October 3, 2004

In the Comfort Zone

"Dennis" wrote to me in email:

I am in a similar situation as "Darby", i.e. my kids are the same age (actually I have 3 in stead of 2) and my wife's libido is zero too - when we do "do it" it is about once every two months or so. We don't have as much money, as I don't make as much, but I do work five minutes away so I am there for my family - my father was a traveling salesman and was not home very often - I try not to replicate that.
When we do talk about sexual frequency (or the lack of it)she says that she is too tired; her sister and her friends (who also have small kids) are the same way (or never have sex at all). She also assures me it has nothing to do with me technique or style-wise, etc.
Your blog does have some interesting suggestions - the body odor/farting issue is an important observation and needing to get away from it all, say to a bed and breakfast is a good suggestion as well.
A contributing factor is that my wife is on Paxil; I know this has an effect.
Finally, I also think that our marriage has settled into a pattern in which my wife is perfectly comfortable. One of my problems is that I try to avoid conflict at all costs and I think if I move my wife out of her "comfort zone" it will cause of great conflict.
My question is: how do you break the routine?

You are looking at your wife as if she and her emotions are chess pieces you could move around on a board of your devising if you just knew the rules of the game or the "tricks" to try. But the answer is that you don't "move your wife out of her comfort zone," you move yourself out of YOURS.

Your comfort zone is the one where you"avoid conflict at all costs."

Maybe in some part of yourself you LIKE being a quiet, self-righteous sufferer, clutching your virtue to your bosom and resentfully telling yourself how your spouse is so awful to you, how her behavior or personality limits you so fatally, how she makes it just impossible for you to...(fill in the blank).

You break the marital routine by breaking your own routines, especially the routines inside your head, the main one being the childish fantasy that if the other person would just straighten up and fly right --"flying right" defined as behaving in consonance with your pleasure -- you would finally be happy in your life. Meanwhile, YOU don't have to do squat. You can wash your lily-pure hands of the whole thing and sit back, secure in the knowledge that The Problem of the Marriage is the other person and their failings.

Cushy gig, huh?

Being afraid to cause conflict is a big part of the problem, of course. But you also don't want to just go out and start breaking things before you know who you really are, what you really want and the right way to get it.

So ask yourself (ideally you'll sit down and write the answers, or at least make a few notes to yourself):

What kind of man are you?

What kind of man would you like to be?

What is the most ideal man you COULD be?

How did you get to where you are and who you are today? What is your family and romantic history?

How would your enemies turn your life story into a movie?

How could you turn your story into an uplifting movie, with the happiest ending possible? (No fair saying "a fairy godfather makes me rich" -- the story has to be driven by YOU and your character.)

That imaginary movie is your personal myth, the one you'll base your ethics and behavior on in the future.

But be careful: you don't explore your history, your "story so far," to make yourself unhappy or to give yourself excuses for failure, you're looking for (a) the real, live truth about yourself -- as brutal or ugly as it might be -- and (b) the basis for your future story, the one in which you become your best possible self. The one in which you become a Hero.

The Heroic You is defined from within, by examining your own reality, not by comparison to other people.

So you don't say to yourself, "I'm okay because other people are worse." But you also don't say, "I'm terrible because other people are so much better."

You don't restrict your adult self, going forward, to what Mommy or Daddy did/didn't do to shape -- or "ruin" -- you.

You don't define yourself by what other people might think of you.

You don't define yourself by what other people will "let" you do.

You don't define yourself by measures like

how much you have,

how you got it,

what you can't get,

why you're not able to get it, or

what other people won't give you.

This is dangerous territory, of course. When you first start thinking in this new groove, of your new self, emotionally independent of others' opinions or demands, it will be tempting to believe that you can chuck realities you don't want to face and dismiss responsibilities that you think are interfering with your ability to Be All You Can Be. But the inconvenient thing about being a hero is that they always fulfill their commitments in life, one way or the other. Dealing with their their personal demons and their tough situations -- in a forthright, proactive way (not just suffering through them) -- is what MAKES them heroes.

Heroism starts within you. It's not a product of your situation, your opportunities, or the people you have to deal with. It's inner strength and quiet assurance without any taint of "Look how much I saaaacrifice! Look how much I suuuuffer!" Wanting people to notice how good you are, demanding to be admired or rewarded because you're Such A Nice Guy (or having tantrums to make sure they know you're baaaad) are some of the ways you enslave yourself to them.

ORIGINAL COMMENTS ON THIS POST (use the "Comment on this Page" button to post current comments):

I agree with most of the response to this particular question. you said your wife is on paxil, is she suffering Postpartum Depression? I'm asking because you say you have three kids, but do not say how old they are. If it is postpartum depression I can empathize. It is terribly rough on both husband and wife.

I have three children also and have been through it all three times. The first time neither of us had a clue what it was and our reltionship suffered greatly, sexually and otherwise. The good thing about it is though, that it is not a forever thing, and eventually she should be able to go of the meds and her libido will resume. I'm assuming if it's not PPD that it is some form of depression or anxiety, and yes, SSRI's kill a persons sex drive.

Please do not feel the martyr in this situation, it really is not something she can help, and believe me her feelings, or lack thereof are not in any way a reflection on you. You should be sensitive, caring and understanding, but do not tiptoe around issues in your marriage. That will only make it harder to deal with once she stabilizes on meds or is able to go off of them. Just approach issues in your marriage in a caring, and non-accusatorial way.

If it is postpartum depression she's going through I would be happy to provide some links on information about support for her, and support for you as her spouse, because you are going through it right with her and you need support in order to be able to be the strength she needs to draw on.

I agree with what this person responded. Don't sit there and silently suffer. She will take your withdrawal as a lack of interest and care for her, and nothing will come of it but a huge rift between the two of you. Please feel free to visit my blog. My dear husband and I are trying to rekindle our romance also, and I am chronicling our success.

Square1 • 10/5/04; 3:39:16 PM #

For "Dennis", the fact that his wife is on an antidepressant is likely far more than a "contributing" factor: meds like Paxil can definitely decrease sex drive and are notorious for their tendency to make orgasm difficult to reach. But beyond the medication, depression itself will decrease one's sex drive. And yet another angle is the fact that Dennis perhaps doesn't seem too concerned about her mental health issues - maybe she secretly resents that he doesn't notice how blue she is, and so doesn't feel emotionally close to him (I'm speculating, of course...).

Thor • 10/6/04; 12:31:18 PM #

Thank you Thor, I was trying to say something like this but in a more tactful way. He does need to address issues in their marriage, I will stand by that, but the one that should be on the front burner is her mental health. I have a 6 month old, and have been on Zoloft for PPD. After starting it I was a complete ice queen, much to my dear huband's frustration, and that for me was almost as depressing as the hormones. (Plus there is a possibility that it was misdiagnosed postpartum anxiety, closely related, but treated differently.)

It's possible that her lack of libido due to the medication is only serving to further perpetuate the problem. Issues of intimacy may need to take a back burner right now while you offer your wife the care and support she needs to get her mental health back on track, but it should not be avoided all together. I'm simply saying that you shouldn't dance around the problem, but you shouldn't cause her any undue stress or make her feel less than adequate about it either.

Square1 • 10/6/04; 12:46:41 PM #

My wife posted this in our Blog>

"Our sex life had been infrequent since the birth of the first, but now it was non-existent. Apart from the typical lack of lubrication associated with nursing, there was the simple fact that my body was worn out at the end of the day and would simply not tolerate one more person wanting something from it. I remembered being interested in sex, kind of like I remember liking marshmallow peeps when I was a kid, like something odd that I couldn't imagine liking now. I knew this wasn't a good thing, but I had no control over the feelings."

We eventually got it back (as is explained further over there) and now are much more active than ever before. There is hope, but one of Kitti's other comments gets to the point that the typical admonision of "no sex for 6 weeks" seems to presume that after 6 weeks it's back to normal. NOT! Jay

Jay • 10/19/04; 1:59:24 PM #

I have not had a chance to revisit this until today - actually because I took some of the articles on the site to heart and tried to, for example, bath every day BEFORE going to bed, buy simple gifts, go away for the weekend, etc. - and they had a positive effect; towards more mental closeness, other than more than once a week sex, which has NOT happened. My wife has said on more than one occasion how much she enjoyed going away for the weekend. (I also didn't come back here becuase I am kind of political junkie and have been heavily involved with that election thing)

The depression is not post partum related, at least as far as I know, it reared its head during pregnancy #2, and it has now been four years, and she has been on 40 mg of Paxil ever since. My kids are 7, 3 1/2 and 8 months. They are all wonderful, but a handful. My wife and I never really had a kidless marriage, we got pregnant a month after we got married, it is something that we kind of miss in retrospect, i.e. never a whole lot of time to be just us. I am very sensitive to her mental health issues; my own family has a long history of depression as well. I have resigned to the fact that depression is like diabetes, you can treat it to make it less severe, but you can never make it go away completely. One part of it is that, if I have read up on this correctly, you need lots of sleep, which means that my wife takes nap every afternoon weekend (she is a stay at home full time worker) and that I get up with what ever kid is up at whatever particular moment, albeit 11pm, 1 am, 4 am or 6 am, for bottle feedings, water or snack breaks or comfort breaks because of a thunderstorm or because it is so dark.

As far as Julia's comments go, my first thought was "damn that's harsh" but my second reaction was yes, I do have a tendency to play the martyr and the victim and maybe that isn't a very attractive character trait. I will try and take this advice to heart and see what happens.

I would like to submit one more thing into the discussion as well, my wife says that after women get married, their sex drive goes down because, since they have found a mate they don't have to lure them with the offer of a whole lot of sex. She says that she has some friends who think exactly the same way including her sister. Slightly OT, her sister reportedly withheld sex from her husband for more than a year becuase he refused to go out and get a full time job. My point of the final anecdote is this - is my wife's view realistic or is something else at play here?

"Dennis" • 11/5/04; 1:24:53 PM #

Comments: