This is such a HUGE issue for me w/my AH. I completely understand how you are feeling and what you are going through. I feel like I am whoring myself out to my AH most of the time. It is a horrible feeling. I used to feel a lot worse about it than I do now. I know my AH and I know that if we go any longer than a week w/out doing it, he gets really irritable. He claims it is a stress releaser for him. He doesn't understand that his stress release is an anxiety builder for me. Just knowing that I have to perform just to keep peace in the house is enough to drive me over the edge sometimes. It has become a chore.

Most of the time, I have to set my daughter up w/a movie and a snack in order for us to run off to bedroom for a little bit. She has gotten better about just watching her movie and leaving us alone but she used to knock on the door, cry at the door and just do anything she could to get us out of there. She is a HUGE mommy's girl and couldn't understand why she was locked out. So that added more stress to it....making it an even bigger chore. Geez just do it, get it over with so I can tend to my daughter.....that is what was always going through my head. Now if my kids were already asleep, then the thoughts were to hurry up and get it over w/so I could go to sleep myself.

Other times I used to wonder the whole time who he had been with while he was gone. And even now, when we kiss, I just can't get into it b/c I keep thinking about what he has done to the inside of his mouth when smoking crack. I think about the layers of funk that build up while he does it...so think that he would have to scrape it off w/a toothpick. I only know this b/c of the time a year ago he went to the ER b/c he thought he got a broken toothpick caught in his throat that he was using to do this scraping. It is disgusting. He wants me to get into the kissing....and I just can't .... it really just groses me out now...and I never used to feel that way. He asks me what is wrong sometimes and I just can't bring myself to tell him.

I can tell you that when I cut the sex off completely, it was NOT good for the relationship. Even when I had kicked him out and we were separated, he still came over and acted all sweet to me and the kids and EXPECTED to get sex before he went home. When I refused it, it made him so mad. He HAD to have it is what he would tell me. Like something I used to hear back in highschool from teenage boys.....they NEED it, they will DIE w/out it. BUNK.

I finally had to make a decision.....if he was going to be living w/me and work on staying clean & sober and work on being a good husband, then I had to work on being a good wife and that meant sex. And not just when he initiated it either.....I have to initiate it sometimes just to make him feel like I AM putting forth effort. Of course I find I still think of it as a chore......like last week....on Tuesday, I didn't have karate so I figured "go ahead and do it, get it out of the way"....so that is what I did. Initiated it on Tues. Of course w/my AH it is like giving an inch and him taking a mile....he wanted it Wed night too and I was tired from karate...thinking this is the reason I gave it to him the night before and now he wants it 2 nights in a row. BLAH.

I think this is something that you have decide what is right for you and your relationship. And I don't exactly believe in talking to my AH about how I am feeling either. I don't figure my feelings would be received very well at all. I know I have touched on them w/him and from just the surface talk, he definately would like the whole gammet of info.

Good luck to you in finding the best solution that will offer you peace of mind, body & soul.

Sincerely,
QOD

this my post from a thread a few weeks ago -- if you go back and read the thread Intamacy issues", perhaps you could find some helpful ESH.  I would also like to say that - it is okay to feel these feelings, yet I would encourage you to share them with your A. (if there is ability to communicate)  Open and honest communication never hurt anyone, and usually makes for understanding.

with love,
cj

RE: Intimacy issues
I was thinking I didn't want to participate in this conversation, but I thought a guy's perspective might be helpful, also.

My perspective is --- nearly the same as yours.  My Awife was always "MORE" horny when she was drinking -- at least, while she could still walk.  I very much enjoy sex, but making love to what smelled like a nice mix of stale beer and stomach acid did not give me that warm, fuzzy.  Through all the chaos and destruction the disease has caused, I began to assimilate all of those bad times to the times when she was sober, friendly, and willing.  I sometimes did and sometimes didn't make love.  as a thirty-ish man, i struggled with those needs.  i found myself fantasizing more often, and actually got, ah-hmm, "caught" in the act, by myself, by my wife....(wow, i'm turning red... deja vous from 13yr old land, ehh)... SOOO, yep, it hurt her that i would masterbate.  i didn't have the tools to talk to her about why and honestly confront the reasons. "You repulse me" never brought a positive outcome to our day, but living with an active alcoholic rarely had positive outcomes, anyway... so let go, let God - and perhaps laugh at yourself a year or two later!

humbly, yours
cj

I have talked to him about it, he seems to get it, but expects me to feel "back to normal" in a day or so. I might should mention that twice, when he's been drunk, he's tried to force me [nearly impossible due to his malfunctions that occur when he drinks/ (or uses?) too much] and when I'd tried to talk him out of it he'd end up very angry, then hit me. Now this is not a problem now, bc I won't allow him here drunk anymore (I am able enforce this one - w/ my parents backing me up). But I know it's a big reason I feel this way - and though I know it won't happen again, I still don't know how to get past it.

Thanks Jerry, I really hope that some day he'll gain some of the perspective you have. I feel so conflicted on this. I feel on the one hand if I do continue the sexual relationship as is, that I am disrespecting myself but that if I don't I'm not being a good wife...grrr this is so frustrating. Detaching, not detaching, detaching, not detaching. I'm a friggin YO-YO