Expert: Clyde - 10/11/2010

Question
Hi my husband is 3yrs sober and I'm very very proud of him. He has made many life changes which have improved our relationship immensely. We have been married 6yrs and had a very active sex life from the very beginning. Our problem now seems to be his lack of sex drive and avoidance of ANY type of intimacy since recovery. The mere mention of any physical contact seems to make him almost violently angry. Needless to say this has made me very insecure about my self and our marriage. We have taken to sleeping in separate bedrooms at my suggestion because I simply can't handle the torment of laying beside a man every night and not being able to be close to him. My question: Is this a product of his recovery or apart of something deeper perhaps what ever it was that caused him to follow the alcoholic path to begin with? I feel very lonely and cheated in our marriage. I have never put him down or criticized him because to me the alcoholism is a disease as serious as cancer heart disease or other major illness. I have stuck with him throughout all the problems alcoholism causes such as financially, emotionally the verbal, mental and physical abuse and do not understand how he could treat me so cruelly. If you can help to give me some insight as to what the problem is and how to deal with it I would be ever so grateful.

Answer
Robin,
   Thank you for your question.  You do not say anything about the "quality" of his recovery in terms of Alcoholics Anonymous, therapy, etc.  Unless a person in recovery is willing to do serious and difficult work on themselves, there is little chance that anything other than "being a dry drunk" will occur.

   you describe a "violent anger" when he is confronted with intimacy - this may indicate some psychological block he has because of some guilt he has about his sexual past but only he can say that.  If he has not done a thorough fourth and fifth step these patterns will not have been discovered and he will not know what he will need to address in growth.

  I wish I could offer more but not knowing anything of his program makes it difficult if not impossible to comment on his lack of sex drive.

Grace and Peace,
Clyde