Hi Carlita, Thanks for writing about America's most popular couples subject...sex. In your question, you asked "is there hope for sex?" This is not about hope. It’s about knowledge. You said your husband "hates" sex but you didn't say that he hates sex with you. My point is that there are two mistresses in America for men that can take their interest away from the woman they married. 1) The girl down at work who praises your husband and opens up the possibility of an affair and 2) the pornography industry on his computer. Both of these are popular choices in how men relieve their built in biological pressure. When a man, who normally "needs" sex no longer desires it, there are five questions to ask in order.]]> Carlita’s Question For Larry…

My husband and I have been married for 27 years. He says he “hates sex”. We haven’t had sex in seven years. I was always the one in our relationship with a high libido. Is there any hope for sex?

Larry’s Answer:

Hi Carlita,

Thanks for writing about America’s most popular couples subject…sex.  In your question, you asked “is there hope for sex?”  This is not about hope.  It’s about knowledge.  You said your husband “hates” sex but you didn’t say that he hates sex with you.

My point is that there are two mistresses in America for men that can take their interest away from the woman they married.

1) The girl down at work who praises your husband and opens up the possibility of an affair and 2) the pornography industry on his computer.  Both of these are popular choices in how men relieve their built in biological pressure.  When a man, who normally “needs” sex no longer desires it, there are five questions to ask in order.

Women whose husbands no longer desires sex, should ask themselves the following questions:

1) Does he not want to have sex with me?

2) Does he not want to have sex at all? (lost desire)

3) Is it biological or is it emotional?

4) If it’s biological, is he willing to find a solution on his own? (i.e. Sex therapist)

5) If it’s emotional, is he willing to get help so he can get to the bottom of it? (i.e Medical doctor)

Of course I can’t know the answers to these questions about your husband, but at least you should start to ask them yourself in that order and get his help in answering them.  If he puts up a stone wall, then I believe your husband is a man who is afraid to talk to you because he sees you as not “safe” anymore.  Throughout all the couples I have worked with where intimacy is a big issue in their marriage, I’ve found the answer to this problem within one of the five questions above.

I hope this helps you Carlita, thanks for writing.

Until next time,

To a LESS stressful and MORE fulfilling marriage,

Larry Bilotta

Developer of the “Environment Changer Program -
Stop Your Divorce Today – Without Your Spouses’
Participation Even AFTER The Papers Have Been Filed

——-> www.stopyourdivorcein4weeks.com

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]]> http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/261/my-husband-says-he-hates-sex/feed/ 0 http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/242/i-dont-like-my-husband-at-all/ http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/242/i-dont-like-my-husband-at-all/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:39:27 +0000 Larry Bilotta http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/?p=242 Cindy's Question For Marsha... "We've been married over 22 years, together over 23 1/2. I really don't like him AT all!" 1) I don't really remember our marriage every being "good." Before the "I do's," we at least seemed to be content, although we were broke and didn't do much. Of course I believe I made HUGE mistake in marrying him, but you can't undo history. 2) Our marriage is a constant war zone. I've been a homemaker, stay at home, homeschooling wife/mom. Our oldest, who's 19 moved out this June. He's betrothed and in college. Our youngest is 16, has been lonely with his brother gone, we live in a dead very small little town. He's sick of being here alone in the war zone with us, and I'm ready to let him move into his own place near his brother for his own mental health. 3) I think my husband is a sociopath. I have standards and believed in staying till the kids were grown, and have almost accomplished that. But I am having a hard time now believing that was the best choice. The oldest moving out, and now likely the youngest, it's forcing us to deal with all of our problems, and he trys to avoid everything. At least he works. He knows this is the case, because he's so out of the loop around here, when he attempts to pay attention, he gets himself in more trouble than if he'd have just kept his mouth shut. Then whines complaining, "I know, I'm just the witless provider." I say back, you get what you put into life. I'm just tired and realize divorce is likely the only option out of this hell.]]> Cindy’s Question For Marsha…

“We’ve been married over 22 years, together over 23 1/2.  I really don’t like him AT all!”

1) I don’t really remember our marriage every being “good.”
Before the “I do’s,” we at least seemed to be content, although we were broke and didn’t do much.  Of course I believe I made HUGE mistake in marrying him, but you can’t undo history.

2) Our marriage is a constant war zone. I’ve been a homemaker, stay at home, homeschooling wife/mom.  Our oldest, who’s 19 moved out this June. He’s betrothed and in college. Our youngest is 16, has been lonely with his brother gone, we live in a dead very small little town. He’s sick of being here alone in the war zone with us, and I’m ready to let him move into his own place near his brother for his own mental health.

3) I think my husband is a sociopath. I have standards and believed in staying till the kids were grown, and have almost accomplished that. But I am having a hard time now believing that was the best choice. The oldest moving out, and now likely the youngest, it’s forcing us to deal with all of our problems, and he trys to avoid everything. At least he works. He knows this is the case, because he’s so out of the loop around here, when he attempts to pay attention, he gets himself in more trouble than if he’d have just kept his mouth shut. Then whines complaining, “I know, I’m just the witless provider.” I say back, you get what you put into life. I’m just tired and realize divorce is likely the only option out of this hell.

4) So what can I do about it? I don’t think there is anything I can do about it. You can’t become a emotionless robot, catering to everyone else’s needs while your own go un-noticed, unmet. I need to heal myself. I’m trying not to let my spirit die, but my will isn’t there anymore. He hasn’t touched me in any consistent manner in years. We have sex maybe 5 times a year. He isn’t interested.

I’ve been on your mailing list for almost 2 years now. I’ve been reading all you write. You seem to simplistically narrow it down to treat each other right by giving the wife money and the man sex. She’ll “give out” if he “pays” for it. Our marriage so does not relate to all that. I’ve always had the sexual appetite. He’s the one who’s wanted money. I could live in a cardboard box, and get our food from a pantry. He’s got a steak mind and a hamburger pocket. He’s NEVER happy or thankful about/for anything in his life. I’m very basic needs kind of person, He’s always bored and unsatisfied. He’s had 5 one night stands, but not any actual affairs. That would be my deal breaker. But I’ve gained weight, and he says he’s not attracted to me. But weight is so fixable. My emotions are starving, and the food filled the void.

That’s it in a nut shell. I don’t see how we can get help, when most marriage counselors have the approach to needs you have always preached. So do you have any other ideas/thoughts to help an odd couple like we are? Because I just pretty much don’t care anymore.

Marsha’s Answer:

Dear Cindy,

I do not want you to think that I may have all or any answers to your problems. All I can do is to tell you what I think, believe or have done. I also want you to realize that I do believe in telling people exactly what I think even if they may not like it. Having said that, I have read your email over and over. OK… here goes.

To me it sounds like you have a lot of time to think of what might have been or dwell on things you don’t like about your husband. I use to hate Larry and just threw myself into making my kids happy.

Then the kids grew up and left home. I started to look around at other people and realized that they all had issues with their spouses also. Many people aren’t happy in their relationship and if they say they are then they have either come to some sort of understanding with each other, they are hiding the truth, or refusing to accept the truth. I have seen a whole lot of couples that outwardly seemed happy together and then divorced and the truth came out.

I use to be a person that had certain expectations and they rarely came to be. I have no expectations at all now. I don’t believe that it is up to Larry to make me happy. I am happy because I don’t have a dreamy idea of how something should be. I have never thought of divorcing Larry because I make a decision and then live with it. I have never thought of finding someone else or just being by myself. I think Larry and I have worked out that we both our flaws, but we also know that everyone else does too.

Don’t wait for your husband to make you happy. You have to make you happy. He is probably as miserable as you are. You say that you don’t care anymore but you wrote me. I think you do care. My suggestion would be to find someplace in each others lives that you can both be happy in. He doesn’t sound like he is a total waste. I find that if you develop a sense of humor about most things they tend to not be as bad. Larry and I pretty much goof around about everything including each other. I think most people would find our humor odd but it works for us.

You also mentioned that you have two sons. If you and your husband could somehow learn to accept the things you don’t like about each other and even joke about them, I think you would set a good example for your sons when they find they have problems in their relationships. There has to be something you like about your husband. There is a reason why you stuck it out for 22 years.

The one thing that I have found that is the most valuable part of my relationship with Larry is that he lets me be me. Throughout the most difficult period of our marriage we had many heated arguments and fights, but during that time I had decided that this was one thing that was more important to me then anything else.

See if you can find even one thing like that to build some sort of relationship on. You have always heard that you only have one life. No one should be that unhappy.

You can find some happiness for the time you have left. I really believe you can. I am sure that you both love your kids. Even realizing that your sons are here because of both of you and enjoying them might be some common ground. I am not saying that you should stay together for the children, but you decided to bring two other lives into the world. They are here because of you and I am sure they would love it if they had two happy parents.

I would like to hear from you again, so keep in touch.

Thanks for your question Cindy,

- Marsha

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]]> http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/242/i-dont-like-my-husband-at-all/feed/ 6 http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/140/emotional-affairs/ http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/140/emotional-affairs/#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:12:14 +0000 Larry Bilotta http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/?p=140 Most emotional affairs start out as an innocent friendship. You see each other often, go out to lunch every now and then, share your thoughts and feelings with each other…so where’s the harm in that?

For starters, just like a drug…emotional affairs can be ADDICTING.

It’s true. There is actually a powerful hormone released during sexual attraction.  It has been scientifically proven that this “mating chemical” is released to ensure that the population continues to grow.

This “addiction” begins when you start to think about this other person, even when they’re not around. You look forward to seeing them again because you’re addicted to the way this person makes you feel.

Take a look at the following list of feelings that are typical in an emotional affair….

1. I feel loved
2. I feel accepted
3. I feel important
4. I feel understood
5. He/she laughs at my jokes
6. Encourages me to do what I am good at
7. Notices my accomplishments
8. Physically attractive
9. Allows me to be who I am
10. I can say anything without being judged
11. I feel content and comfortable
12. I’m very excited about meeting again for more

With all this in mind, what do you think the chances are of two people feeling this way about each other for an entire lifetime?

That’s right…slim to none!

After all, an emotional affair is really just an illusion, a fantasy…a DRUG.

Let’s take a closer look at what the true definition of ‘drug’ REALLY is…

DRUG: “Often an illegal substance that causes addiction, habituation, or a marked change in consciousness.”

Up until now, when someone mentions the word “drug”, you immediately think of the illegal substances that people go to jail for. But according to the above definition, a drug is an “illegal substance that causes ADDICTION, habituation or a marked change in CONSCIOUSNESS.

Let’s face it; an emotional affair is not technically “illegal”, but if you’re married and pursuing an emotional affair, you’re acting “illegally” because you’re breaking the moral law of the legal institution of marriage.

Add to this, the fact that there IS a change in consciousness when you or your spouse is involved in an emotional affair. Your perception of this person is inaccurate because of the hormone that’s released during sexual attraction.

The truth is, when you’re under the influence of this drug; this emotional affair, the two of you may fantasize about your beautiful future together but one thing is certain….

You do NOT talk about reason, facts, reality, responsibility and life as it actually is.  These topics are ‘off limits’ when you’re “drugged” by an emotional affair.

But here’s what’s really ironic…

You get all the short-term benefits of the wonderful drug-induced feelings during an emotional affair, but even if you were to leave your spouse and marry this other person, you’d most likely wind up in the same place you are right now…married and MISERABLE.

To put it bluntly, if you choose to marry or get involved with someone based on how they make YOU feel “in the moment”…you’re setting yourself up for failure.

During an emotional affair, there is no discussion of each other’s values, habits or beliefs….in other words, the foundation of a strong relationship.

Yes, you may have SOME things in common, but the fact is; you’re putting your marriage in jeopardy based on the short-term feelings that this ‘drug’ creates.

You’re putting your family at risk because you think this other person can meet your needs better than your spouse does.

Now don’t get me wrong, this article is NOT meant to lecture you in any way if you are the one involved in an emotional affair. I completely understand that you feel you’ve been driven to this emotional affair by the person you married.

And I agree; it’s not 100% your fault. You expected to get married and have all your needs met.  But to your surprise, your needs were NOT met, but instead neglected, ignored and ridiculed.

You may even feel as if this emotional affair is like taking a vacation from the Hell you’ve been forced to live in. You just want relief – you want to feel loved.  Who could blame you? Doesn’t everyone want to be happy?

With that said, you still need to face up to reality and find a way to stay married AND get your needs met too….or you’ll end up in this same predicament down the road.

After all, marriage shouldn’t be all about dull and boring life routines like laundry, what’s for dinner and car pools. You need to get your marriage back to the way it was when the two of you first met.

Whether it is YOU…or your spouse who is involved in an emotional affair, since you are reading this article, chances are, you want to do something about it.

If you want to pick up the pieces of your “old” relationship and create a much deeper “new” marriage with your spouse, start by understanding the person you married and the values he or she lives by. Most people don’t know this, but our value system is formed during our first 8-10 years of life. The values you live by today are a direct result of the way your parents lived when you were young.

If you didn’t like the way your mother ran the house like a military bootcamp, today you run a very relaxed household. On the other hand, if your childhood home was always a mess, and this bothered you as a kid, today your home is likely very organized, clean and tidy.

STEP 1) The first step I want you to take right now is to watch a FREE video I created that will help you see your spouse in a whole new light because you’ll finally understand…

- WHY…your spouse is so sensitive to yelling

- WHY…your spouse gets upset when you spend money

- Or WHY….your spouse hates conflict so much.

Whatever your “hot button” issues are, you need to uncover the SOURCE of these issues instead of dealing with the SYMPTOMS.

This video, titled ” Why You Fight: Discover Your Invisible Lifestyle Today”, will show you how…

NOTE: If the video WILL NOT play on your computer, CLICK HERE to download the video to your computer. (Right click on the link and then choose save as.)

(This should resolve that issue, but please allow the video enough time to download because it is a large file.)

STEP 2) Next, after you’ve watched the video, I strongly suggest you sign up for my FREE 7 Secrets email mini-course so you can learn how to eliminate that “little voice inside your head” that tells you your spouse is “the enemy”.

If you are involved in an emotional affair, you’ve probably noticed that your spouse has some problems this “little voice” too, but so does the other person in the emotional affair…you just can’t see it right now because you’ve been “drugged” by the emotional affair.

Just remember, an emotional affair is a drug….it is NOT reality. You CAN make those wonderful drug-induced feelings a REALITY between you and your spouse when you start learning how to first, uncover each others’ Invisible Lifestyle values and second, learn how to eliminate your negative feelings in 60 seconds.

About Larry Bilotta:

Larry Bilotta has been teaching couples how to restore their loveless marriages since 1995. Back in the 90’s, Larry was suffering MISERABLY in a loveless marriage.

He needed a way to reduce the stress, anxiety and tension in his marriage. Not because he was devoted to his wife, but because he needed to maintain his own SANITY. Larry’s wife didn’t believe in divorce…but at the same time, she told him he could leave her…in a body bag!

Needless to say, Larry set out on a mission to find a REAL solution to their ongoing struggles. And after 27 years of misery – he finally found it. Today, Larry and his wife have been happily married for 34 years…and they’re closer than ever.

Larry is one of the few marriage experts who actually transformed his OWN marriage and today, holds the key to bringing back a marriage from the brink of divorce – even AFTER the papers have been filed.

At the core of Larry’s teachings is his “secret method” that allows individuals to transform themselves from the inside out, and positively influence their spouse as a result. By learning to eliminate their negative feelings in just 60 seconds, Larry has taught individual spouses how to completely change the environment of the marriage through his Environment Changer program for the past 15 years.

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]]> http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/140/emotional-affairs/feed/ 3 http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/132/cheating-spouses/ http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/132/cheating-spouses/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:42:39 +0000 Larry Bilotta http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/?p=132 Have you ever wondered what makes cheating spouses cheat in the first place? They certainly didn’t get married with the intention of being unfaithful to their spouse, so why did they do it?

Many “infidelity experts” on the internet will get you focused on finding solid PROOF that will expose your spouse or catch them “in the act”. But instead of putting all your effort in finding proof of adultery, your energy could be better spent first understanding what went wrong with the two of you in the first place.

It’s fairly common for “chronic” cheaters to go looking for some other relationship the moment things start to become a little difficult for them. Cheaters are often programmed to cheat in their first ten years by being raised by an immoral mother or father who considered cheating to be perfectly legitimate.

So rather than admitting and accepting that there’s a problem the cheater is responsible for, they look for someone else to fulfill their needs, just like their mom or dad did. These “needs” could be anything from physical to intellectual relations leading to an emotional, then physical affair.

There’s 2 things you need to know about affairs.

1) Affairs begin because one spouse’s needs are not being met by their spouse. Cheating spouses go looking for and are drawn to someone else who WILL (temporarily) meet those needs. Most amazingly, the vast majority of troubled spouse cannot tell the one they married, what their emotional needs really are. They just don’t know.

2) Your spouse is cheating on you because that person had a parent, mother or father, who had an affair that led to divorce in their first ten years. If this is true of your husband or wife, there’s an almost certain guarantee that you’ll have to deal with a cheating spouse at some point in your marriage.

Because cheating is not so much the problem in a marriage, but more of a symptom, we need to look at what you did or did not do, that drove them to cheat.

Now by all means, I’m not saying it was right for your spouse to cheat on you and that it is all your fault. What I’m saying is that your spouse has cheated on you because their needs were not being met by you.

So where did you do wrong? That’s easy. You remained ignorant. First of all, you were totally unaware that your spouse had unexpressed needs that you were not meeting and second, the person you married came with a high risk factor for an affair taking place that acted like a bomb with a short fuse. Your inability to meet their emotional needs lit the fuse while the other man or woman in the affair set off the bomb that was built into your spouses’ brain during his or her childhood.

But that’s not all, there’s something else you must realize about cheaters, especially women. Women tend to idealize love as something they just “fall into” to you. Even the saying “falling in love” implies that it is something you have no control of at all. Men or women who have this belief are the quickest to give up on a relationship when they feel they’ve “fallen” out of love.

Most unfaithful partners feel that love is nothing they can control. If your spouse loves the idea of romance and being “in love”, firmly believes in soul mates, and thrives on unpredictable excitement, then he or she will expect these things as a way of life. If this sounds like your spouse, then your marriage is at high risk of an affair or divorce.

The idea of soul mates exists in romance movies but rarely does life deliver the perfect mate. It can happen, but not very often because love is first something you do first, then something you feel. Our culture leads us to believe that this is not true however. Movies, books and television glamorize the idea of two inseparable soul mates that overcome insurmountable odds but manage to stay together because of their true love.

Contrary to what most people want to believe and what our entertainment culture LEADS you to believe…Love is something you feel ONLY after something that you do. The courtship stage of a new relationship clearly demonstrates this because you are both on your best behavior with each other. But what happens 10 years down the road? Life’s normalcy kicks in, you get back into your old routines and your programming from your childhood kicks in.

Here’s what I mean.

You will do in your marriage what you were raised to do by your father, if you’re a man, or by your mother if you’re a woman. Worst of all, you don’t have a clue you’re doing it, especially when your spouse shouts “You’re just like your father!” or “You’re just like your mother!”, both statements are intended to be insults and you’ll take them that way too.

There is one exception to this rule and that is people who rebel against the way their parents lived when they were young. This happens because these “buckers” were consciously aware that they didn’t like this way of living as a child and they won’t stand for it today.

Now that you understand these basics about cheating spouses, you need to see the path that all cheating spouses travel through called The 8 Steps To Divorce. (Click on image below to view larger version)

In this graphic are 8 collections of emotions, 5 in each step. When a husband or wife spends most of their time in one particular step, that’s called their “Home Step”. The Step below a “Home base Step” is called their “Visitor Step” because as the marriage gets worse, that spouse will visit the step below their “Home base Step” and then return home. Eventually, their “Visitor Step” finally becomes their new “Home base” and thus they work their way down toward divorce.

Without seeing these clearly defined 8 Steps, no spouse can see how close they are to divorce. A spouse who is vulnerable to cheating can be turned around provided you know what you are doing and why. But first you must locate where you and your cheating spouse are on the 8 steps diagram. Since neither of you have clearly seen these emotions described in a step by step format, it will be very helpful to your current situation to understand exactly what point you are at right now in your marriage.

This graphic allows you to talk about where you are now and why you’re there. Most important, it allows you to see where the goal is…which is being Happy together. You can define it, you can describe it. You can remember when the two of you were actually there. And if you were there once, you can get there again.

Cheating is not always a marriage death sentence unless that cheating spouse cannot wake up from that destructive childhood bomb that says cheating is good, normal, right and justified.

After an affair has been discovered and the ugly emotions have been shared, you want to get down to the business of clearly and simply explaining each of your emotional needs.

Here are the basics.

Men need to know this about women. They have TWO needs. One is financial. The other is emotional. Most men know about the financial need, but they don’t know about the emotional needs of women. Men often believe that once they provide the financial security, they’re done. That’s totally wrong as any woman will admit.

So women need financial security and emotional security and a man needs to know exactly what those needs are and how to deliver them.

Now Women need to know this about men. Men also have two needs. One is respect, the other is intimacy. Most women know about men’s’ need for intimacy but they have no clue about their great need for respect.

If you want a free report that will not only help you define your needs, but also show you how to measure them go to fulfilled couple.com and click on the free report button.

Here’s a statistic I’m going to leave you with today that might give you some much needed hope during this difficult time in your life. A study from the Institute for American Values found that “almost eight out of 10 couples who avoided divorce were happily married five years later.”

What this means is that if you just work to find a way to get through this affair, this obstacle in your marriage, and start meeting each other’s needs, your marriage will be much stronger than it was…even BEFORE the affair took place.

I work with individuals every day whose marriages were damaged by infidelity, but because they’ve decided that they are 100% committed to making their marriage work, even WITHOUT their spouses participation they are able to begin meeting their spouse’s needs through the step-by-step action plan in my live, 8 hour support system called the Environment Changer program. Even if your spouse isn’t living with you right now, it IS possible to turn your relationship around. I see it happen every day – even when infidelity is a major issue in their marriage.

To find out how if there is still hope for your marriage, you can submit your story through my Second Chance program and get a complementary; no strings attached 30 minute consultation where you and I will talk one-on-one over the phone about how to approach this affair so no one feels attacked and no one person is at fault.

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]]> http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/132/cheating-spouses/feed/ 0 http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/19/sexless-marriage-how-to-restore-the-intimacy-in-marriage/ http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/19/sexless-marriage-how-to-restore-the-intimacy-in-marriage/#comments Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:51:57 +0000 Larry Bilotta http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/?p=19 "How can I restore the intimacy in my sexless marriage?" If there's one subject in marriage where you can find a flurry of expert opinions, it's got to be intimacy. It's a supercharged topic for men and women but the reason they’re both charged up is not the same... When women search for the answer about restoring intimacy when sex has disappeared, they're not thinking about sex like men do. Men have a tough time understanding this so to help answer the question more accurately, let's first look at two groups of women. Those who are emotionally secure in themselves and those who are not. For emotionally secure women, sex is her end game, only AFTER her man takes care of his responsibilities. When he works to make her life easier, cares for her emotionally and is a great father to his children, then her emotions urge her toward the physical act of sex which her husband's behavior has drawn her to. But for women who are emotionally IN-secure, it's a different story.]]> A common question I receive is “How can I restore the intimacy in my sexless marriage?”

If there’s one subject in marriage where you can find a flurry of expert opinions, it’s got to be intimacy. It’s a supercharged topic for men and women but the reason they’re both charged up is not the same…

When women search for the answer about restoring intimacy when sex has disappeared, they’re not thinking about sex like men do. Men have a tough time understanding this so to help answer the question more accurately, let’s first look at two groups of women.

Those who are emotionally secure in themselves and those who are not. For emotionally secure women, sex is her end game, only AFTER her man takes care of his responsibilities. When he works to make her life easier, cares for her emotionally and is a great father to his children, then her emotions urge her toward the physical act of sex which her husband’s behavior has drawn her to.

But for women who are emotionally IN-secure, it’s a different story. In this world, sex becomes the MEANS to this woman’s desired end result. Like a tool that is necessary to reach a goal, this woman is getting very little of her man’s attention, so she seeks ways to draw him close, so for her, sex is a tool to reach her end game, which is the attention she gets, ONLY during sex.

But like most men who feel that vibe of a poor self image, they treat their wives with contempt. These husbands don’t know what to do for these emotionally insecure girls so they end up treating their wives badly. The more bad treatment she receives, the more worthless she feels. As this trend continues, intimacy will usually disappear and it’s the man who will shut it down.

So the secure and the insecure woman’s answer to restoring intimacy question is very different. The question the secure wife should ask is, ‘how can I help my husband understand that he needs to create a desire in me to WANT sex’ while an insecure wife would ask, ‘how can I feel more valuable and important about myself?’ Very different questions from two very different types of women.

Throughout the hundreds of women interviewed in a recent experiment I conducted, there were no women who claimed their greatest need was sex. Not even the insecure women. This tells us that for women, intimacy is not about sex. It turns out that for women, fulfilling sex with her husband is first about achieving a fulfilling life. That means if a man wants a sexually active marriage he needs to understand that women need four things to ‘turn her on’ as guys like to say it.

Let’s look at this with a simple train analogy. We have the engine, the coal car, the box car, and the caboose. Four parts make up the train and they need to operate in that order. Because men are like stand alone engines, they don’t sense to need to pull a train, but not so for women. Wives need all four cars to reach fulfillment in life. For them, their husband is the key.

Let’s continue with this train analogy. The engine would be the woman’s need to feel important. She must have an importance engine which keeps her feeling good about herself. The importance engine needs power so the coal car in our analogy carries the energy needed to keep the engine running. We’ll call that our commitment car.

The box car carries valuable content so if a husband wants his wife’s enthusiastic participation in a fulfilling sex life, he’ll need to fill this car with what she believes is valuable. We’ll call this the contribution car. The caboose in old trains held the trainman who took care of the daily work of managing the train wherever it went. Let’s call the caboose our management car.

For the greatest sex a man can experience, he needs to deliver a fulfilling life to his wife and the train makes it possible. When he makes his wife feel important, demonstrates he’s committed, delivers contributions and manages family life, a woman has the environment she needs. Environment to do what? To make her man the top priority in her life…the very thing every man wants.

Now wait, I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself, “So Larry, are you saying that when men do the work of creating that train for a great sex environment, that women only need to enjoy the ride?” Absolutely not! When a man delivers the train, a woman must do all she can to build her own self worth. That’s why it’s so important that she eliminate her negative emotions as her guy puts that 4 car train together. Then she will feel confident, supportive, happy and secure with life as it is. The vast majority of husbands would do anything to be married to a woman that fits this description.

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]]> http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/19/sexless-marriage-how-to-restore-the-intimacy-in-marriage/feed/ 0 http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/4/how-to-stop-a-divorce/ http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/4/how-to-stop-a-divorce/#comments Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:51:36 +0000 Larry Bilotta http://youcansavethismarriage.com/blog/?p=4 I know firsthand what it’s like to be in a painful marriage because back in the 90’s I was trapped in a marriage made in hell.

Like you, I also wanted to know what to do first, second, third. I wanted exact steps and I wanted RELIEF.

Needless to say, I was on a 27 year mission to find a REAL solution to this sad and sorry relationship that seemed more like a prison than a marriage, and in the 28th year, I finally found it.

Today, my wife Marsha and I have been happily married for 35 years and closer than ever.

If you see us out at a coffee shop, you’d see us talking, laughing and actually looking each other in the eyes after 35 years of marriage. Why?

It’s because I didn’t find AN answer. I found THE answer.

It’s the answer that every book, seminar, therapist and helping professional alludes to, but never reveals. These experts provide you with hundreds of pieces of tiny truths, expecting you to put it all together yourself. And that’s exactly what frustrated me for 27 years throughout my quest for answers. Tiny bits of advice here and there will not reveal the path to happiness.

Every day from around the world, I get emails from people saying they will do whatever it takes to save their marriage. They want to know what to do first.

But after talking to them, I come to find out that’s not always the case. If you’re intent is to save your marriage by yourself, you must be a very strong and determined person and have no doubt that you will succeed.

So my question to you is this:

- Do you have the inner emotional strength to save your marriage without the help of your spouse?

- Are you REALLY willing to do anything it takes to keep your family together?

- Are you willing to put aside nagging doubts, times of feeling alone and the ability to endure family and friends who want to protect you as they keep saying their favorite phrase… “Move on with your life.”?

I’ve seen marriages where one spouse has filed for divorce and one month later returned to the courthouse to tear up the divorce papers. It IS possible to save your marriage on your own, but you must first understand just WHO you’re really married to.

I Conducted a Study Where I Spoke by Phone with 210 Troubled Couples and discovered that 93% of those marriages had either one or BOTH spouses who grew up in troubled homes.

Only 7% of the struggling couples consisted of TWO individuals from fairly good childhood homes. If YOUR marriage is in trouble, chances are very high that you share something with these struggling marriages- ONE or BOTH of you are “Chaos Kids”.

So What Is a Chaos Kid? And What Does This Mean For Your Marriage?

If you’ve ever said to yourself, “This is not the man I married!” or “This is not the woman I married.” Then this is your first sign you married a Chaos Kid. You might even be one yourself!

A Chaos Kid can be instantly recognized in marriage when a troubling event takes place that drives your spouse to snap. In most marriages, it happens when that troubled spouse is between 30 and 40 years old.

The traumatic event could be…

• A lost job
• A parent moves in
• A sick child
• A depressed spouse
• An addiction
• An affair
• A move across five states,
• Etc.

When this troubling event arrives in your life, something I call the “Chaos Engine” is triggered in the brain of that spouse.

This Chaos Engine is a set of instruction installed in that spouse’s brain during their first ten years by the adults who raised him or her so when the Chaos Engine is turned on, you could say that “all hell breaks loose” because that’s exactly how it feels.

This event then causes a dramatic change in the Chaos Kid’s behavior that pushes them to recreate the same conditions they lived in throughout their first ten years of life.

In essence, the Chaos Engine in that person’s brain is driving them back to a thing called “normal”, with normal being those same conditions of their particular childhood.

If your spouse was raised by a father who ignored his children and only spent time for himself, and a mother who endured depression, then being selfish and disconnected would be the normal way to live.

If your Chaos Kid grew up with an angry step father who blew up over the smallest inconveniences, then your Chaos Kid’s brain is urging them to recreate the identical fits of rage over the smallest issues.

Hopefully by now you’re seeing the potential of this Chaos Engine along with the damage it can cause to your family and none of it spells anything good for your spouse, or your children. Once this Chaos Engine turns on, you can expect a totally different person to appear.

Common behaviors to expect might be:

- Affairs
- Staying out with friends in bars and not explaining their whereabouts
- Throwing money away on shallow pleasures
- Taking off on trips without explanation
- And so much more.

One of the most frustrating features of a Chaos Kid in your marriage is that this kid is never wrong, but you will ALWAYS be wrong. That means you can never win an argument.

This is the reason I urge couples to not see divorce as an option. Divorce is very harmful to kids during their first ten years and if you’re married to a Chaos Kid, your children will adopt these destructive habits as their own in their adult lives.

In the case of a child who was raised in a stable, secure home, for the rest of their lives, they will find that they naturally gravitate towards successful choices in their marriage, social life and career. Success for them is relatively easy.

Not so for a child with a Chaos Kid for a parent.

So here’s what all this boils down to - if you’ve decided you’re going to save your marriage alone, it’s very important you first realize whether or not you’re married to a Chaos kid.

To get caught up on the concept of being married to a chaos kid, visit my blog to listen to my 4-part radio series I’ve conducted on this topic.

You’ll hear from chaos kids first-hand who share their stories of how they were able to turn their marriage around and positively influence everyone in their life. Just visit the Fulfilled Couple blog to listen to this inspirational internet radio series.

I know firsthand what it’s like to be in a painful marriage because back in the 90’s I was trapped in a marriage made in hell. Like you, I also wanted to know what to do first, second, third. I wanted exact steps and I wanted relief. I was desperately searching for some way to overcome the tremendous amount of pressure, stress and tension I endured day in and day out.

But unlike you I wasn’t looking for a way to save my marriage – I was too selfish for that. What I needed was to save my own SANITY because my wife didn’t believe in divorce.

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