I have experience some of what I’m told is the worst pain possible. Kidney stones, migraines that hit like cluster headaches. I wouldn’t rate any of them a 10 because I’m always like… I could definitely feel more pain. Kidney stones are unmanageable pain, but it’s not sheer agony shrieking through every nerve constantly.

Like you could rip off my arm and that would fucking hurt unimaginably, but then you could always pour salt on it after.

They aren’t going to know unless you tell them. And if you’re already to the point of discussing sex with someone, you’re probably past the point of that being a hangup. It’s like worrying about the size of your junk—by the time someone is at the point of seeing it, it doesn’t matter.

Sex isn’t precious. Don’t get me wrong. It’s intimate and a wonderful way to feel close to another person physically and emotionally. But I feel like it’s so intimidating because people think it’s precious. It’s just sex. Every single thing in your genetic lineage before you has done it for hundreds of millions of years.

Are you going to get hung up about a woman who tells you she’s been with thirty people? She’s likely just as self-conscious about being judged. I don’t know how to express this in a way that is easy for someone on your side of the conversation to hear. I struggled with it earlier in my life. Just worry about being a person someone would be interested in having a relationship with, and sex will follow.

It’s when someone is pursuing sex or marriage or whatever without regard to whom that they come across as desperate and creepy.

All of this. I had sex once at 14 and then not again for a few years. Losing my “v-card” didn’t materially affect my life or relationships.

I didn’t discover good sex until my thirties. Due in large part to finding some sex-positive, kinky friends. I think I only ever had sex with one of them, but the social environment had a big effect on my outlook and was a big game changer.

I hope something in that word salad helps.

It doesn’t come across through the frustration, but I love my wife very much. And if this is just how life is, I accept it. And I’m no fucking paragon of wise living, either. I’m just as hard to deal with as she is. I wouldn’t want to do this thing without her, but fuck if I know how to do it with her either, you know? Without her and the kids, I think I would only eat, sleep, work, and stare at pointless things. Maybe I need someone to tell me to get out of the fucking house and go to Barbados or wherever we’re going.

Good luck, man. I’m glad you’re in therapy. And just because I disagree with him… well he knows you and your situation a hell of a lot better than I do.

I relate to some of this. Probably more than I’d like to. I could vent and commiserate, but I won’t. I just wanted to address this:

I have to find a way to break through to her that it’s unfair without letting her make me the bad guy

I could be wrong, but I really believe what your therapist is suggesting here is impossible.

The two of you have adversarial positions here. Both of you see the situation you are in. She considers it and thinks seeing Taylor Swift is more important than having $3k (or whatever) more money. In your estimation it is not.

Do you have any objective, undeniable facts that, when added to what she already knows, will alter the balance for her? If you do, will she accept that they are objective and undeniable coming from you the “opposing party”?

That’s hard. One of the hardest things I’ve done is to disagree with my wife, and to truly believe she is wrong, and to accept that her viewpoint is correct and mine is wrong. And sometimes that’s the case (or it at least turns out just fine). But there is a lot of resentment when she is wrong.

Our oldest daughter got married last year. I knew we’d wind up doing some things for the wedding and paying for them. Maybe a few thousand dollars. In April of this year two things happened: I lost my job (and I remained unemployed for 5 months) and I discovered she had spent over 30k on the wedding. Our wedding cost under $500. Our credit cards were maxxed. Her dad gives us ~$10k per year of money he has to withdraw from his retirement but he can’t spend (he gives equally to all the siblings) and that was all spent on the wedding a year in advance.

5 months out of work drained my retirement to $0. I started working about 2 months ago. Our 15th wedding anniversary is next year. She wanted a trip I okayed ~$5k. She is spending ~$11k. (It’s a nice vacation and I did agree to it because I’m a fucking sucker for it and she has long held this to be an important anniversary.) Now she wants to spend $4k putting up permanent LEDs around the house. Night before last she was wondering why our phone bill was so high, so she goes to Verizon to look and 30 minutes later lets me know she bought a new phone. I asked what new features she’s looking forward to. And she gets pissed and says her phone is 3 models old and she wants a new one.

I lied about not venting, sorry. And you know… if everything works out great with this job, none of this shit will kill us. But meanwhile we’re spending $1600/year on a maxxed $5k credit card between interest, late fees (hopefully that should stop at least), and annual fees.

Anyway, all I have to do is just non-judgementally ask her reason for wanting a new phone and we fought for like 12 hours over it.

TL;DR There is no way she will hear a reasonable argument from you and see it as anything other than a manipulation of facts in order to prevail in the disagreement. You need a neutral third party or someone she respects and will listen to.

Trauma is a real thing. My wife’s mom died at like 59 years old, just after she retired and was looking forward to spending all the money my inlaws had saved over their lifetimes on travel and such. Now my wife thinks it’s critical that we live while we can because she isn’t going to live past 60.

Sometimes trauma needs to be assuaged, but other times it will lead someone to self-destructive behavior that feels like what they need to cope with their trauma.

I’m sorry for writing a book. I’m honestly not sure if I wrote it because I think something in there will help you, or because I just needed to get it off my chest.