Refusal mistake

My wife said we could have sex after the gym today. I dreaded coming back to deal with it, but thankfully, she seemed to leave me alone for a bit while I played a video game. She did try to be cute and put a wrapped sausage sandwich on my crotch and say it was a sausage for my sausage, an obvious ploy for me to turn her joke into something sexual and invite her into the bedroom. I just smirked and gave a fake laugh, then went back to playing.

A few hours later, she stood up from her book and came to the couch next to me, moved her head in and watched me play. I could tell it was another ploy for me to look at her and invite her into the bedroom, so I just said hello, then turned off the game to go to the bathroom. When I came out, she was still on the couch and asked if I "wanted to do something" with her.

For the first time in this marriage, I refused her. "Maybe later," I said, then returned to the couch to play more games. I wasn't looking, so I didn't know (or care) what her reaction was except to go quiet, then move off to the bedroom to nap. Later, I went out to pick up my son as soon as I could to solidify the sexless day, and when I got back, she was out of bed and looking somewhat happy. She made more of an attempt to talk to me and our son then the rest of the day, and was basically on excellent behavior. Simply more proof that treating a woman with apathy is a great way for her to start treating a man like a king.

To be honest, the refusals were wrong of me. First, the sex refusals may lead to a divorce in the future, which is putting my son in harm's way, which is the one and only thing that has kept me in this marriage for the past six years.

Second, I stopped the punishment through complete withdrawal for my wife's nagging, overspending, huge weight gain, abusive rage, sexual cutoffs and such quite a bit ago after she showed great improvement in her personality; I can't be sure of the date, but it was sometime around the middle of this year when I started engaging with her again, about a year after I first started the pushback in November of 2012 (the Last fight post). My recent refusals of sex with my wife was me accidentally conflating two different things: punishing my wife, and avoiding something I now actively despise.

The punishment should be done now. I think my wife has learned her lesson about both abusing, and taking advantage of, me as a hostile dependent, at least for now. And if she slips back into the creature she was from 2010-2012, I'll just bring back the Iceman for another few days or years.

Also, there are a lot of things I despise about marriage, but sex seems to be the only thing I'm trying to avoid like a contagious disease. Driving to work today, I realized that I need to look at sex as less of a disgusting trial (looks half nauseating, sounds silly, smells horrible, tastes even worse, no longer feels good, takes too long and requires cleanup), and more of a chore, no different from washing another load of dishes or pulling more wet clothes out of the washing machine. I won't directly refuse my wife in the future for the sake of our son.

Secret rejections keep her on her best behavior and make her go through a multitude of mental gymnastics to explain away why I don't answer her or why I don't initiate anymore, and she even makes excuses for me, like how I must be tired or busy or my phone must be broken. She's also joked several times that I have a mistress, which shows some obvious fear, which keeps her treating me well to "win me back." These secret rejections lead to an even more pliable and docile wife, but I will knock it off from here on... unless she returns to the person she was two years ago.

I never thought I would write something like that, about controlling my wife. I've always been more or less an equal treatment guy, and I tried to be that guy for most of this marriage.

And then the 2009 Christmas fight hit. I had no idea what was going on, or what the hell happened to the girl I married, to leave that monster behind for me to deal with. I couldn't tell why the behavior only got markedly worse as the months dragged on, or why she wasn't responding to logic, friendliness, apologies, pleading, less work, more money or anything else.

Thank God for the internet and the multitude of surrogate fathers out there that revealed to me the true nature of a reptilian woman, and how best to deal with her stupid outbursts. But why did I have to believe the lies of society that marriage is a partnership of equals and the blissful end of painful solitude that leads to a shining future, instead of the putrescent institution of coerced caretaking that it really is?