Hi ladies. Lurking & commenting here has been a huge help. I guess I swallowed TRP a long time ago, in a more extreme way... then backed off over time when it wasn't being effective (my husband was just taking advantage of it to bully me), and now I'm working on myself again.

I've posted about this before, a little bit. My husband comes from a family where his mother is completely, over-the-top controlling. She got in my face early in our marriage about how if my husband screwed up, it was my job to deny him sex until he got back into line. I was so put off by this that I made it a point to never tell him no. Even though she despises me, she is irate when I refuse to control my husband (her son!). My FIL is the saddest super-beta ever. She controls his wardrobe, what he eats, every moment of his day. She doesn't have a single female friend (not even one!) and people who meet her are freaked out by her right away.

My husband is an alpha personality, especially at work. He resents being told what to do. However, I think he has a deeply ingrained attitude of being passive aggressive to avoid conflict at home.

Early on in our marriage he figured out it was more fun to use use sex to humiliate and punish me than to enjoy it with me. I don't think he enjoys it, really, at all.

I absolutely cannot initiate it in any way - and reading Surrendered Wife gave me some insight into that. It was the first book to address this problem in a way that made sense to me. If I do, he acts like I'm gross. It's gotten so bad over time that I even have to be careful to only be affectionate with him in platonic-like ways or he pushes me away (he craves affection). What he used to do, when I would initiate, is he would act disgusted and tell me there was something wrong with me - then be in the mood five minutes later, while I was crying & humiliated!

When we do have sex, it is only once, maybe twice, a month. It lasts about five minutes. It always has to be the same way - he lays there, I do all the work. But nothing weird. Just have to be like a machine. Any foreplay that happens I usually do - but he doesn't really like it - he doesn't want any oral sex or anything that is intimate.

When I have forced him to drag it out, or teased him, or made it more intimate - he obviously has a bigger finish and an easier time achieving climax. But he would like me to believe this is weird, not what he wants, and is less enjoyable.

It's getting worse over time. I have always loved sex, always up for it, would go for it every day. Now I cry when I think about sex, and when it happens I feel violated. I still want it, but I'm learning to not want it with him (but I don't say no, and I try to put my heart into it).

We went to exactly ONE marriage counseling session twelve years ago, and the counselor told him within twenty minutes that using sex as a weapon would destroy his marriage. He was furious, and told me he will divorce rather than ever go again.

To The Point: Last week, as a last-ditch effort, and thinking about things I had read in Surrendered Wife, I told him I thought we should take sex off the table completely for 90 days. I said, "I can't do this for even one more day, be humiliated in this way. You have to find another way to communicate with me if you're unhappy with what I'm doing." (I've never done anything but push him for more sex, more intimate sex, so this is the total opposite.) That was our whole conversation, because he had no reply, and I haven't mentioned it again.

In the meantime I'm working double-time to be kind to him, to defer to his opinion, to have a good meal cooked for him each night, to have the house clean. When my daughter needs help with her homework (it's always math!) I say, "Oh, I don't remember this. You have to ask Dad. He's the math genius." He loves to cook and REALLY loves serving amazing meals, so I'm deferring to him about meals and doing things like, "oh, man - how did you prepare this thing? I don't know how to do this" - even if I do. The kids were in huge trouble yesterday and it's been an issue in the past where he thinks I'm too easy on them and I think he's too hard sometimes - I completely deferred it to him & said to them, "this is so important your dad has to handle it". He asked me if he was too hard on them, and I said, "No. I left it to you because it was too important an issue for me to maybe go too easy on them." I've made the kids each apologize to him at least once when they were speaking to him disrespectfully.

I don't know if I can last 90 days - I'm SO sad. To be perfectly honest it does sometimes seem like it would be easier to just walk away than to fix this. Years ago, early in our marriage, I made him do the His Needs Her Needs quizzes. A lot of it was pretty dumb, but I remember sex wasn't even in his top 5 needs - but it was my #1. We're weird that way. For him to have spent all these years using my #1 emotional need as a way to deny, punish, humiliate, and otherwise hurt me has been agonizing.

At night he will actually cuddle up to me and rub my breast or poke me (ahem), then say "goodnight." I do believe he is trying to get me to break & initiate it, just so everything can go back the way it was!

That gives me some hope, that with it not an option he will eventually realize it isn't necessary to use this to control me. And that maybe he'll think about what's really bothering him. Because I think what's really bothering him is that he is approaching 40 and his mother treats him like a child. She did some things recently to really be controlling over him. He just lets her, because he thinks he isn't a good son if he doesn't let her have her way. So I think that when I show any signs of assertion with him he takes it ALL out on me, all his frustrations - to the point that it's just a habit to torture me now.

Something has to change, because anyone who looks at him can tell he has lost all respect for himself. He's very overweight, he stuffs food, his hygiene is getting worse over time. He spends every minute of his free time with a screen glued to his nose, surfing the net or whatever it is he's doing. Our sex life isn't the only thing that's broken.

I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing. I guess my plan now is to say on the 89th day, if things are going better, something like, "Tomorrow is day 90. Thank you for letting me do this." And absolutely not initiate in any way. Just keep being a good wife.

And I know it doesn't sound this way - but in other areas of our marriage he is very nice to me. Maybe too nice. I would rather he yell at me sometimes & then things be smokin' hot later on... but anyway.

If you made it this far, I appreciate your time & your comments.