Sars —

Just curious if you may have some advice on my topic: sex and marriage.

I have married been a few months now and have noticed a dramatic decrease in the amount of sex my husband and I have. Yes, we are both busy professionals, but our friends are as well and they seem to have a “healthy” amount of sex.

Last month we counted twice! It seems whenever he is in the mood, I am not. When I am in the mood, he isn’t. I just feel hurt because I thought, that although men aren’t always in the mood, they usually respond well then a woman is practically begging.

The act of being turned down, especially so soon into our marriage, is somewhat crushing. I feel hurt and then am not in the mood for quite some time.

We have discussed this but nothing seems to change. He always asks if I am mad after I am turned down, and I say I’m not, because I am more disappointed. I also, don’t want him to feel like he has to sleep with me to please me. It’s not the number of times I worry about, but the connection and the desire to want to have sex with each other.

Any advice?

Why isn’t this topic in the vows??

Dear It Is, Under “For Worse,”

You need to discuss it again, and this time, you need to say these things instead of assuming and pretending. This problem isn’t going to get solved with “I thought” and “I say I’m not” — don’t “think.” Ask him what the deal is. Don’t pretend you aren’t disappointed and hurt; say you are, in so many words.

Leave your friends out if it; every couple is different, and comparing your relationship to other people’s is a waste of time. Deal with the relationship in front of you, and I mean deal with it. This is your husband; you have to be able to have the awkward, ugly conversations, and “nothing seems to change” because neither of you is taking steps to change anything.

Talk to your husband, and this time, don’t stop talking until you feel like you’ve learned something about what’s going on.

Hi Sars,

I’ve been confused about this issue since I first came across it in a Harry Potter book, and now I’ve seen the same thing happen in The Vine. I’m referring to this statement:

“But if they never kiss you anymore, not even during/right after having sex, and to a man they won’t talk about it with you?”

What the hell does “to a man” mean?! There’s a part in one of the Harry Potter books that reads something like, “There were no girls on the Slytherin team, leering to a man.” WTF?

Thanks,
MN

Dear MN,

The context makes it pretty clear what it means, I should think, at least in the first instance, where the letter-writer was saying that all of her boyfriends eventually stopped kissing her, but…evidently not. So: it means “all of them” or “every last one.”

I wrote you, I don’t know, it was probably some time ago. I’m using a different email address now. I asked you about going to a prostitute to get the virginity thing over with and you gave me really good advice. I used the name “Contemplating Something Skeevy” and you told me to get therapy and stuff.

It was good advice but I’m really low right now and I want to feel different but I don’t want to have to try too hard. Everything is making me pathetic and sad and I just want to run away, I want to live behind the dollar store in a tent, I just don’t want to try anymore. I feel like I’m forcing myself to do things I don’t care about. I’m sitting here stoned out of my mind right now and something has obviously gone wrong. I never did it, I actually tried it (I called one of those escort services and went to some ratty motel) but I just got nervous and my hands were shaking and I just kept trying to smoke pot to kill the nerves, you know, but I just felt pathetic and I couldn’t even function because of nerves, I could practically feel my heart beating.

I don’t even know why I’m writing this, I’m sorry. It is so cold here too. I feel like I don’t know something, like I’m missing something, like maybe I’m functionally retarded and my parents bribed all my teachers to just treat me normally and give me good grades on tests and stuff. I need to try therapy but I’m just afraid that there are going to be these knowing looks and no one will tell me what is really wrong, and I don’t want my parents to know and I think pot is a better anti-depressant than Prozac. I totally don’t even care about the women thing anymore, it just isn’t going to happen, I can’t relate to people that way. Drugs help me with people but they come with other problems. I started taking acid at work, it just erases the time, but then I come down and I feel scared and it’s hard to take people’s orders because everyone looks accusing and evil. Therapy is just going to mean different drugs and more people. I totally quit going to strip clubs and stuff like that, when I read what I wrote to you the first time, it just made me feel more pathetic. I can just picture them laughing at me, laughing at how stupid I am.

Would it be weak for me to run away as an adult? I’d just like to be alone for awhile, because I’m failing badly as a person and it seems like most of my loved ones would probably be better, I mean it would hurt them for awhile but I’m never going to be a normal person, I can’t do it on my own, I’m always going to need something to make me normal.

Contemplating the hobo life

Dear Hobo,

My advice then is my advice now: get therapy. Get it now. Get yourself some help. Running away isn’t going to change anything; you’re going to feel the same way you do now, alienated, exhausted, beside the point.

You need help, man. Yes, going to a professional means “different drugs,” but your self-medication regime isn’t working; pot is not in fact an antidepressant, and if you smoke too much of it — which it’s pretty clear that you do, because you feel like you can’t deal with anything without getting high — it starts to make you more depressed. It doesn’t happen that way for everyone, but for a lot of people, marijuana is a really bad call when you’re mentally fragile, which you are.

The fact that you “don’t want to try too hard” is symptomatic of all of this. You are depressed. You don’t care about anything. You don’t want to do anything. You’re in a king-sized rut and you don’t see a ladder out. But here’s the thing: 1) there is a ladder, and 2) you are not the only one who has gotten stuck down in a rut like this. There are millions of people who have tweaked brain chemistry, who need to take antidepressants to live their lives — but they do it and they live their lives. Diabetics have to take insulin; they have to take Wellbutrin. It is what it is.

It’s time to stop hating yourself so much that you won’t get yourself help, because you think you’re broken and you don’t deserve it. You aren’t; you do. But you have to take that first step. Once you take that first step, call a hotline, go to an ER, make an appointment with a therapist, anything — once you do that first thing, everything gets easier after that. You get some pills, maybe, and you take them and see if they work, and if they don’t, you get some different pills; you find the right medication, and maybe you stay on it forever and maybe you don’t. You find a professional to talk to, and you get some things off your chest, and you feel better. You learn how to like yourself a little bit, a little bit at a time. You figure out how to pass the boring, uncomfortable times without having a panic attack or taking drugs. You make friends that aren’t dealers or strippers; you make them one at a time. You find a girl who likes the same movies you do. That girl doesn’t work out; you find another girl.

This sounds like a lot, because it is a lot, but you don’t have to do all of it today, or this week, or by 2008. For now, you just have to get up out of your chair and call a number in the Yellow Pages, or drive yourself to a hospital, and ask for help. This is all you have to do right now, is find someone who can help you, and ask them to please do so. And you will be helped.

One thing at a time. This one thing first. Please do it. Write me back, get your pens, shut down the computer, throw the joint in the toilet, and go do this one thing.

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