Approaching a decade, there appears to be either a deepening or a drifting, and I feared the drift.

QUESTION: My husband was a tender and romantic lover for the first 15 years of our marriage, but over the past five years, he’s become increasingly critical.

He keeps saying I’m too frigid to try new things, but I’ve never turned down his advances or suggestions. The more I try to please him, the crosser he seems. How do I deal with this?

 

ANSWER: If there’s one word I’d ban from the sexual lexicon, it’s “frigid”. It’s far easier to call your wife frigid than admit you may not be satisfying her.

Which is why your husband’s cruel words say more about him than you.

Try to identify the real cause of his unpleasantness for peace of mind, even if the price of that discovery is high. Sometimes, people who are stressed at work will lash out at loved ones; equally, a man who’s having an affair (or wants to) will often blame his wife for not being the woman he desires. Sometimes, marital boredom is the culprit. After two decades together, it’s easy for one spouse to blame the other for the exact qualities they adored when they fell in love. The partner who is dependable can be characterised as boring.

But money problems, depression and dependency on drink, or drugs (including prescription ones) can cause the callous behaviour you describe.

You mention your husband yearns to try “new things” in bed.

What this reveals to me is a man too scared to express his true desires. That suggests those longings aren’t the sort of thing most women readily embrace.

Put it like this: a man who wants a threesome, or an affair, might launch a pre-emptive strike on the spouse he expects to refuse. He’s preparing his case for declaring that his partner is unreasonable.

However, the person being unreasonable here is your boorish husband, who is stripping away your confidence.

And I suspect he knows, because the harder your try to please him, the “crosser he seems”.

It’s time to challenge him. If he’s involved with another person (or wants to be), then you need to face that dilemma head on.

If, on the other hand, your spouse has slipped into depression or addiction, he must seek professional help.

You must rebuff this absurd charge of frigidity. He is rejecting you and, until he admits this, you will both be unhappy. - Daily Mail