As obstacles go, this one’s an Everest

Dear Carolyn: My fiancée and I are long-distance, but see each other nearly every weekend. I am very excited about being married to this woman. She is my best friend and incredibly sexy, in every way but one: She does not get excited about sex. She avers attraction, but this translates into arousal (which is important, and reassuring) just once in a very blue moon. Predictably, we hit that target when aiming at just being loving. She’s a good sport, but the cumulative psychic weight of so little response can crush.

My long-term strategy is to be as loving as I can, patient (without being a martyr) and available (without being needy). This can be grueling – thus I often fail to stick to it, with predictable consequences. Any suggestions on improving my strategy, either to better give her what she needs or to make it less grueling for me? – Abilene, TX

Only if you promise not to marry until you give them a chance to work.

Almost as many marriages fail as succeed – you pretty much have to have your head in a bag not to be aware of that demographic hurrah. But awareness can’t do its job unless you apply it.

Unfortunately, that can be asking too much of people emotionally, to put odds on their own marriages. So let’s hide behind an analogy. You want to “climb Everest.” You are aware that 40-plus percent of all “Everest climbs” end in “a scary D-word.” How do you think your chances are, equipped and healthy?

Now how about blind and missing a shoe?

Making your relationship work is crushing and grueling and sexually disappointing, and you haven’t even shared a bathroom yet. And this is by your account. Please step back far enough from sex to see that the real issue is your unhappiness. You may have only the one obstacle to happiness, but, as only obstacles go, it’s a lulu.

And, by isolating your problem, you risk catching everything-is-great-but-itis. That’s when you rationalize that you’re one step from great, instead of admitting that things aren’t great. The time for optimism is after the wedding, when you’re in it, for better or worse.

Now’s when you turn a pessimist’s eye on your problem. One likely scenario: Nothing changes. How does 50 more years of that sound?

An even more likely scenario – you move in together, familiarity kills what little spark you still have, and you give up on her and lose touch with your physical self and die a little inside. (Unless of course you meet someone else who inconveniently jolts you to life.) Do you want to be there in 10 years?

Here’s the happy scenario, though it’s both a long shot and nearly too late. Postpone the wedding until you: chuck the artifice of weekend visits and move to the same city (marrying blind is OK, but relocating blind isn’t?); get premarital counseling (your Everest map); and discover mutually satisfying ways to stay warm on the way to the top.

For more specific suggestions, you need to ask the people in bed with you. You and she need to talk, warmly freely explicitly, about her needs and your feelings. Then experiment accordingly. If you find there’s still no resolution, then call that a resolution unto itself.