I don’t want you to become a divorce statistic. Nor do I want you to make a mockery of marriage by allowing yourself to get comfortable with a situation that is inherently unfair to your husband, yourself, your children, and to marriage itself. Too many women take this route, thinking it is the easy way. But it isn’t. Ignoring your husband’s sexual needs is the low road, not the high road.
I wish I could give you the Three Steps to Marital Bliss, and your husband the Five Secrets to Driving Her Wild. But I can’t. I can’t even put my finger on exactly what we did that broke the deadlock between us. We muddled through. We didn’t give up and we’re still muddling through. It would be foolish to presume to tell you in particular, what you should do to get your husband back in the bedroom and your heart, where he belongs. There are ten thousand different ways to do this right.
Unfortunately, there are probably fifty thousand ways to do it wrong. If your husband is sleeping in the basement, literally or metaphorically, you’re doing it wrong.
I would just ask my women readers to do this. Forget your own feelings for a moment. Think about how unhappy your husband must be if he is sleeping in the basement. Take this column to him, and say something like this:
"I’m sorry for the pain you must feel over sleeping in the basement. I’m sorry for my part in causing it. I don’t know what to do to improve this situation. But I want you to know that I’m committed to trying. It is not OK with me for you to be this unhappy."
And ladies, if you can’t do this, if it really is OK with you for your husband to be this unhappy, you need a heart transplant. The one you have isn’t working.