Am I Justified to Leave for Lack of Love?

[Guest]

You make the case very well, Anatess.  I don't know that I agree--I suppose I'll leave that for the clinicians!--but in the context of the OP, I think there's a deeper issue of which the sex issue is merely a symptom.

 

Let's go back to your hypothetical of a couple where the wife is in a medical situation.  Let us say that she is also confined to a wheelchair.  Let us say that her husband tells her

 

"Honey, I love you and value our partnership.  But you must be aware that as you go about your life, I simply refuse to get things off the top shelf for you.  Oh, maybe two or three times a year; but in general--no.  I just don't feel like it--not in the mood.  And really, your being able to access the top shelf isn't a need, is it?  And if you disagree with this, you clearly have no respect for my autonomy or my feelings as a person."

 

Regardless of the role of sex in a relationship; I submit that prolonged willful dismissal of another partner's feelings and desires is not a sign of a healthy marriage.  In this regard--while I strongly disagree with any suggestion that the OP should abandon the relationship, and assuming that the OP has been completely faithful (including avoiding porn use)--I do think that the wife is not completely blameless in the marriage's troubles.

 

 

The problem is not the sex.  The sex is merely a symptom of it and focusing on that is missing the forest for the trees or however that saying goes.

 

Let's take the top shelf for the wheelchair-bound wife for example.  If the husband refused to take the stuff from the top shelf for the wife just because he doesn't want to, then there is an underlying reason for why he doesn't want to.  If the man won't get stuff from the top shelf but he is just fine bathing her, feeding her, taking her to her doctor's appointments, listening to her... then the problem is not Love.  You can start looking at his physiological condition to determine why he can't do the top shelf thing for the wife - for all we know, he has a yet undiscovered phobia of exposing his armpits.

 

But, if the top-shelf thing is just another symptom for a lack of service holistically, then the problem is love... but even then, one doesn't say - oh, no love for me, time to leave.  Because LOVE should not be conditioned after one can GET but rather what one can GIVE.  But that's just me.

 

In any case, the top-shelf is not the problem in the same manner that sex is not the problem.  Focusing on it - especially making the marriage covenant tied to it as a condition - is foolish.

Edited October 7, 2014 by anatess

[priesthoodpower]

 

 

"Putting out" is such an offensive term...and men wonder why their wives might be turned off.  Let me count the ways....

At this point in the OP's struggles he shouldnt have to beat around the bush to communicate with is wife, come straight out and tell her boldly and bluntly, maybe that will force her out of her comfort zone to respond back to him in a bold and blunt manner too and finally bring out what is really bothering her about sex.

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

At this point in the OP's struggles he shouldnt have to beat around the bush to communicate with is wife, come straight out and tell her boldly and bluntly, maybe that will force her out of her comfort zone to respond back to him in a bold and blunt manner too and finally bring out what is really bothering her about sex.

 

 

This is so wrong I don't even know where to begin.  

 

I didn't say anything about beating around the bush.  I said "putting out" is an offensive term...let me add juvenile.  There are a myriad of ways one can talk about sex clearly without using such demeaning terms.  Putting out is language used by disrespectful young men in locker rooms. This is not terminology that a man who hold the Priesthood of God should use when describing the intimacy that a man and woman who have been sealed in the temple share.  If you don't know the difference, then nothing I can say is going to help.  Why don't you ask your Bishop what he thinks?  

 

Edited to add: The title of this thread asks if he is justified to leave for "lack of love"....putting out is about lust not love.

Edited October 7, 2014 by LiterateParakeet

[Str8Shooter]

Sexual expression is a human behaviour that needs to be fufilled in a healthy mutual realtionship, just like how a human needs to eat food, drink water and breath air, sex is an important need. The answer is not to find a therapist that will have a better method on how to control his passions, the answer is for his wife to start putting out.

Sex is as important as eating, drinking, and breathing? I respectfully disagree. I don't think anyone had died from a broken....well.....uhhhh....never mind.

As for his wife "putting out"- Let me be the devil's advocate and say that I know of relationships where the wife uses intimacy as a bargaining tool and it is wrong in so many ways. It's a very good way to sabotage a relationship. I hope this is the situation you are thinking about when you say his wife needs to be "putting out" because if it's not, what you said could be interpreted as a horribly sexist, condescending, insensitive, and demeaning thing to say.

I agree 100% that intimacy is important to a healthy relationship and that it is an important need, but it is not needed to sustain life.....

.....thank goodness.

[MrShorty]

I agree 100% that intimacy is important to a healthy relationship and that it is an important need, but it is not needed to sustain life..........thank goodness.

I sometimes think the need vs. want argument for sex kind of falls flat on its face. Do we really see our efforts to serve our spouse as successful if we have merely kept them alive? Paul Byerly has mentioned this kind of thing frequently on his generous husband blog (example: "When you love someone enough to marry them, and they claim to love you in the same way, you expect that their love will motivate them to do more than just provide you with the things you need to survive" http://www.the-generous-husband.com/2011/10/18/you-dont-care-about-what-i-want/ ). Technically, you are correct, sex is not necessary for survival, but then, neither are flowers, talking, date nights, and almost everything else we list as "necessary" for building a strong marriage.

[MrShorty]

What you need to do is separate the act of sex with the expression of love and work on bringing your marriage into a state where the strong desire to express love is present - in any way of expression it is found.

I'm not sure I completely agree with this view. Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but it sometimes seems like we are saying that sex is merely an expression of love, but has nothing to do with building and strengthening love. I'm not sure this is correct. The Marriage and Family Relations manual says

 

[sex] brings great blessings to a married couple, helping them unify their souls and strengthen their love for each other. (emphasis mine)

If you have studied Dr. Harley's stuff, you know that he views sex as a significant way of "adding love units" to a spouse's love bank -- especially when sexual fulfillment is a major emotional need for that spouse.

 

There has been much said recently about the surge of oxytocin that men and women experience in conjunction with sexual activity, oxytocin being a hormonal component of attachment.

 

I don't think it is as simple as trying to disociate "sex" and "love" for some of us. I think the two concepts, while not synonymous, are often more closely intertwined than we often suggest.

Edited October 8, 2014 by MrShorty

[notquiteperfect]

I've had a couple more thoughts:

 

- you mentioned flowers, compliments and sharing the workload but is that speaking to her main love language (and do you do them often enough)?

 

- are there regular date nights?

 

- she may be testing you - not intentionally necessarily - but to see if you'll still love her no matter what and if you give off the notion that you won't/don't, well that would definitely affect her motivation to be vulnerable with you.

[Guest]

I'm not sure I completely agree with this view. Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but it sometimes seems like we are saying that sex is merely an expression of love, but has nothing to do with building and strengthening love. I'm not sure this is correct. The Marriage and Family Relations manual says

 

If you have studied Dr. Harley's stuff, you know that he views sex as a significant way of "adding love units" to a spouse's love bank -- especially when sexual fulfillment is a major emotional need for that spouse.

 

There has been much said recently about the surge of oxytocin that men and women experience in conjunction with sexual activity, oxytocin being a hormonal component of attachment.

 

I don't think it is as simple as trying to disociate "sex" and "love" for some of us. I think the two concepts, while not synonymous, are often more closely intertwined than we often suggest.

 

 

Sex is an expression of love.  It does not BUILD love.  Love comes from the spirit.

 

Think of it this way.  The body is the vehicle of the spirit.  The body is mortal, the spirit eternal.  To figure out what is wrong with the spirit, you have to remove it from the trappings and weaknesses of the body.  But, your body is how your spirit expreriences things so all expressions are made through the body and the spirit is strengthened through the body.

 

As love is of the spirit, then you need to figure out the issue with the spirit.  Addressing the physical stuff (i.e. more sex) is not going to solve the issue with the spirit... especially as sexual expression is merely ONE of the many ways one can strengthen love and heal the spirit and unify souls.  The sentence in the Proclaimation addresses the incorrect thinking that sex is simply for procreation and nothing else (more common in Catholic culture but also present in LDS culture as I've noticed in some women I've talked to).

 

By the way, this EXACT same thinking is why homosexuality seems so hopeless.  Because, a lot of homosexuals (well, a vast majority of all of us) condition love with sexual intimacy when there are so many more ways to express love outside of it that marriage of a gay man to a woman or a gay woman to a man is completely possible and just as fulfilling when the spirit of love is present so that yes, you can definitely and completely love somebody you are not sexually attracted to.  Love builds sexual intimacy - not the other way around.

Edited October 8, 2014 by anatess

[omegaseamaster75]

Men and women view love form entirely different points of view. A woman wants compassion, trust, understanding, someone to talk to and confide in. Men do not need these things the display of love is in the act it's self. We are wired this way, it's physiological. We need different things from the relationship, my wife needs someone to take out the trash, cut the grass, change the oil, and I need sex....frequently.

 

Sex is a vital part of a healthy relationship, not a bargaining tool, not a "prize" but something that should be shared frequently. The OP counted 3x in one year? UNACCEPTABLE. It's unacceptable bottom line. 

 

Pretty soon we will see a post from the OP's wife about how he is masturbating all of the time, watching porn and having sex outside of marriage, and what a good and dutiful wife she has been and how could this happen how she never saw it coming, we've never seen posts like that before have we?.....I CAN'T WAIT!!

[paulsifer42]

Sex is an expression of love.  It does not BUILD love.  Love comes from the spirit.

 

Sex is a promise we make with our bodies.  It's the ultimate form of acceptance and promises that those two people will be together to build a life together.  I respectfully disagree with the idea that sex doesn't build love.  When I feel accepted, when I'm promised once again that we're going to stay together, raise a family together, go through thick and thin together, I feel more loved, and am convinced to give more love, to choose to love more deeply and fully than I did before.

 

For a good talk about it, look up "Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments"  on youtube.  It's a talk Elder Holland gave once as the president of BYU - Provo, and then once again as an apostle.

Edited October 8, 2014 by paulsifer42

[Just_A_Guy]

Pretty soon we will see a post from the OP's wife about how he is masturbating all of the time, watching porn and having sex outside of marriage, and what a good and dutiful wife she has been and how could this happen how she never saw it coming, we've never seen posts like that before have we?.....I CAN'T WAIT!!

 

I agree with the rest of your post, but am a little uncomfortable with this.  Porn use/masturbation by husband and withholding sex by wife is a little bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario.  Yeah, a man who isn't "getting it" from his wife will be sorely tempted to go elsewhere.  On the other hand . . . knowing the way women perceive sex, what woman would want to have intercourse with a man who's been engaging in that kind of crap?

[jerome1232]

 

I agree with the rest of your post, but am a little uncomfortable with this.  Porn use/masturbation by husband and withholding sex by wife is a little bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario.  Yeah, a man who isn't "getting it" from his wife will be sorely tempted to go elsewhere.  On the other hand . . . knowing the way women perceive sex, what woman would want to have intercourse with a man who's been engaging in that kind of crap?

Well, looking at the secular world, apparently a lot.

Edited October 8, 2014 by jerome1232

[omegaseamaster75]

 

I agree with the rest of your post, but am a little uncomfortable with this.  Porn use/masturbation by husband and withholding sex by wife is a little bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario.  Yeah, a man who isn't "getting it" from his wife will be sorely tempted to go elsewhere.  On the other hand . . . knowing the way women perceive sex, what woman would want to have intercourse with a man who's been engaging in that kind of crap?

The OP should not engage in those activities, in fact I pointedly asked if he was because it is a turn off and an acceptable reason for being cut off.

[Guest]

Sex is a promise we make with our bodies. It's the ultimate form of acceptance and promises that those two people will be together to build a life together. I respectfully disagree with the idea that sex doesn't build love. When I feel accepted, when I'm promised once again that we're going to stay together, raise a family together, go through thick and thin together, I feel more loved, and am convinced to give more love, to choose to love more deeply and fully than I did before.

For a good talk about it, look up "Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments" on youtube. It's a talk Elder Holland gave once as the president of BYU - Provo, and then once again as an apostle.

I don't understand what this post has to do with sex. Feeling accepted is not a byproduct of sex. Sex is the byproduct of being accepted. Raising a family is not a byproduct of sex. The decision to raise a family and the love present to come to such a decision comes waaaay before sex - in the normal scenario. One doesn't go through thick and thin together because one had sex. The decision to do that and the love present happened way before sex... Ergo, sex is an expression of love. A powerful expression, sure. But acceptance has happened before sex. But, one can express love and acceptance in many many many other ways. Sex is a temporary expression at best. An old person should not have to require Viagra to express love to his spouse. Edited October 8, 2014 by anatess

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

Sex is a promise we make with our bodies.  It's the ultimate form of acceptance and promises that those two people will be together to build a life together.  I respectfully disagree with the idea that sex doesn't build love.  When I feel accepted, when I'm promised once again that we're going to stay together, raise a family together, go through thick and thin together, I feel more loved, and am convinced to give more love, to choose to love more deeply and fully than I did before.

 

For a good talk about it, look up "Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments"  on youtube.  It's a talk Elder Holland gave once as the president of BYU - Provo, and then once again as an apostle.

 

 

But sometimes there are complications...survivors of childhood sexual abuse can (and usually do) struggle with intimacy.  It has nothing to do with lack of acceptance of their spouses and more to do with how trauma rewires our brains....

This is OT...but I love that talk.  I think it is interesting that he outlines so clearly there why sex before marriage is so wrong, and yet when someone is struggling to overcome sexual abuse we say, 'Forgive and let go" --as if the offense was not all that serious.  You might not interpret it that way, but I assure you many survivors do. 

[The Folk Prophet]

Per the original question:

 

Matt 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

[paulsifer42]

I don't understand what this post has to do with sex. Feeling accepted is not a byproduct of sex. Sex is the byproduct of being accepted. Raising a family is not a byproduct of sex. The decision to raise a family and the love present to come to such a decision comes waaaay before sex - in the normal scenario. One doesn't go through thick and thin together because one had sex. The decision to do that and the love present happened way before sex... Ergo, sex is an expression of love. A powerful expression, sure. But acceptance has happened before sex. But, one can express love and acceptance in many many many other ways. Sex is a temporary expression at best. An old person should not have to require Viagra to express love to his spouse.

Listening to the talk would probably help clear it up, but I'll do my best. Does acceptance come prior to sex, yes, but sex is a physical manifestation of that inward commitment, and when a commitment like that is manifest it helps the participants want to strengthen that commitment. Hence, helping build love. Is it the only way to build love? Absolutely not, but it is one way.

[paulsifer42]

But sometimes there are complications...survivors of childhood sexual abuse can (and usually do) struggle with intimacy. It has nothing to do with lack of acceptance of their spouses and more to do with how trauma rewires our brains....

This is OT...but I love that talk. I think it is interesting that he outlines so clearly there why sex before marriage is so wrong, and yet when someone is struggling to overcome sexual abuse we say, 'Forgive and let go" --as if the offense was not all that serious. You might not interpret it that way, but I assure you many survivors do.

I'm not at all saying those aren't legitimately concerns, also, I'm not saying sex is the only way to show that acceptance, just that is a good one. Obviously, different circumstances will require sensitivity and unique approaches.

[Guest]

Listening to the talk would probably help clear it up, but I'll do my best. Does acceptance come prior to sex, yes, but sex is a physical manifestation of that inward commitment, and when a commitment like that is manifest it helps the participants want to strengthen that commitment. Hence, helping build love. Is it the only way to build love? Absolutely not, but it is one way.

 

That's what I've been saying all along...

 

... by the way, I've listened to that talk long ago.

Edited October 9, 2014 by anatess

[paulsifer42]

That's what I've been saying all along...

 

... by the way, I've listened to that talk long ago.

 

Okay.  So we're together on the idea that a byproduct of sex can be more love built?

[priesthoodpower]

This is so wrong I don't even know where to begin.  

 

I didn't say anything about beating around the bush.  I said "putting out" is an offensive term...let me add juvenile.  There are a myriad of ways one can talk about sex clearly without using such demeaning terms.  Putting out is language used by disrespectful young men in locker rooms. This is not terminology that a man who hold the Priesthood of God should use when describing the intimacy that a man and woman who have been sealed in the temple share.  If you don't know the difference, then nothing I can say is going to help.  Why don't you ask your Bishop what he thinks?  

 

Edited to add: The title of this thread asks if he is justified to leave for "lack of love"....putting out is about lust not love.

 

are you over the age of 60? because the way some words are used in this century dont necessary have the same degree of intensity it did last century. Its obvious that Im not at your level of supreme spirituality but for you to chastise me in such a strong manner rather then understandably disagree tells me how disconnected you are with younger generation of folks.

 

We all need to learn to stay connected with the younger generation because they are losing their faith in droves, they dont want to be taught too they want to be understood, the internet is bringing all kinds of crap and evil into our homes and no matter how badly a parent want to fight it, our kids will explore and find things. Its best to be a friend to our kids while they go through these stages rather then an enemy of their choices and actions.

 

Jesus being able to hang out with the sinners and tax collectors means that he must have been a pretty cool dude.

[Leah]

are you over the age of 60? because the way some words are used in this century dont necessary have the same degree of intensity it did last century. Its obvious that Im not at your level of supreme spirituality but for you to chastise me in such a strong manner rather then understandably disagree tells me how disconnected you are with younger generation of folks.

 

We all need to learn to stay connected with the younger generation because they are losing their faith in droves, they dont want to be taught too they want to be understood, the internet is bringing all kinds of crap and evil into our homes and no matter how badly a parent want to fight it, our kids will explore and find things. Its best to be a friend to our kids while they go through these stages rather then an enemy of their choices and actions.

 

Jesus being able to hang out with the sinners and tax collectors means that he must have been a pretty cool dude.

Leaping to assumptions and much judgmentalism. And a completely failed argument.

Your inability - refusal? - to recognize the offensiveness of the term you used shows how disconnected you are from how Heavenly Father views his daughters. No "priesthood power" there.

[Backroads]

I'm in the younger generation. "Put out" is still considered a coarse description.

[priesthoodpower]

I guess I can learn to be more civil in this forum but im from the camp that we shouldnt always gloss over these deep issues sounding so monotone that only the monotoned-in-tuned can understand. I didnt mean to offend but you can choose to be offended or not thats your choice.

 

 

Nevertheless we are all here as LDS members to learn from each other and many words of wisdom are contained here in these forums.

[Backroads]

I personally wasn't offended (I did somewhat agree with you), but we have only text here, which can make or break meaning. If you had picked a simpler term, your point would have been more clear.