You are one of the minority of women (though you are not alone) who is more interested in sex than a man, but you don’t have a sex problem. You have a negative energy problem. Negative energy comes out of people in thousands of ways. Some very subtle and others very obvious.

A researcher and author for Psychology Today magazine, Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, author of a book called Positivity, has shown over 30 years of research that people who have three positive thoughts for every single negative thought in an average day, experience great rewards in every area of their life, and sex is one of them.

I would encourage you and your husband to take her positivity test online here: http://www.positivityratio.com/single.php

You should get her book if you have an interest. I worked with married couples every day and I find consistently that the more negative energy there is in the relationship, the more dead they are to sexual interest. Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

Larry

Thanks for writing and it’s encouraging to see that you are putting a very positive feeling out to your wife so that she feels safe with you. I hope you will find a way to make it a way of life as well.

Larry

When you have a husband who is doing something clearly wrong, you become a nag when you threaten him in a yelling tone that condemns him. Of course a man who isn’t faithful to his wife should be condemned because he deserves it. Unfortunately, that does not get a woman what she wants. What she wants is a man who is tuned into her feelings and is a good provider financially.

When you marry a man whose childhood included a troubled father, a troubled mother or both, you are marrying a damaged human being with very negative instructions in his brain on how to be married. Your marriage is not the results of what you do in your adult life. The quality of your marriage is the result of the programs you are both given in childhood. These determine the happiness level and the length of your marriage.

Because a man does not respond at all to punishment, you’ll need to take on a question strategy that asks him questions in a most pleasant tone. Picture yourself meeting your husband at a wedding and the two of you getting into a social conversation in a group. If you were interested in him, you would ask him lots of questions to learn what he thinks. That turns out to be the right strategy now in this time of his marriage moral crisis.

Good questions that a wife could ask without judging her husband sound like this:

“As you look at your past and think about things that could hurt a marriage, in line with your value system, what kinds of regrets would you have that you would not do again if you had the choice?”

“Everybody is trying to find out how to be happy. What do you think is the most important thing to you in being happy. Is it what you do or is it what someone else does to you?”

“What do you think is the most painful thing I have ever done to you and how could I somehow make it right?”

“If you have a choice of taking responsibility for what you did versus placing blame on what somebody else did, which way would you lean most of the time and why?”

“Let’s say there was a scale with 100% being a lot and zero being none, how would you rate my ability to understand your male needs and learn how to support them?”

“What is one thing you could have done in our marriage to put us in a better place today, but you just didn’t happen to realize it at the time but see it now as you look back?”

“How did your father show you to treat a woman by the way he treated your mother?”

These are all thought provoking, non-threatening questions that can be asked in a calm conversation. You can even present them as questions you found on the Internet to help married couples communicate in a better way. The tension I felt in your e-mail is not a good way to live and these questions could begin to cut that tension down if your husband is not so far gone that he will still participate in answering. I’m also going to assume that you will make him feel safe from judgment and hopefully he will do the same for you.

Larry

You said you did all the wrong things after we talked, but in truth, you just Treating her the way your father always treated your mother because that is the ball of instruction in your brain. If you are like most men I talk to, that program from your father is simply a marriage killer. You had no idea. I hope you can do all you can to secure your kids. Thank you for your kind endorsement.

Larry

My husband is having an emotional affair and doesn’t realize it. How do I deal with it? How does he come to see the ironies of the emotional affair? I can’t tell him because I’m the nagging voice in his head. What can the spouse do to help repair the marriage in this situation? I love and accept him unconditionally, but he doesn’t think so.

Learning to eliminate your negative feelings is one of those few skills in life that really can (and will) change your life. -Larry-

That’s great, Sherry, that you may be interested in Larry’s program.
Would you be ready to be disciplined and put your energy into doing the steps of the program?? It does take committment. I know that in my situation, after I decided to sign up for Larry’s program, I had less and less of a need to vent to my friends and family. I became more focused on a real solution to my problems instead of just talking about them. It was definitely worth it. Hope you make the right decision–you will be in my prayers!