I’m not sure I even remember what the word ‘ravage’ means.
When we got home D went straight to bed and completely ignored me. He was asleep before I even got undressed.
okay, maybe I need to lay a bit of groundwork here. It may get more than a bit personal, so if that bothers you please stop reading now. 
D and I have been together for 14 years. We have been through a lot of crap, and a lot of good times, like any couple. We have 5 kids together, and we are also foster parents. We’ve done a lot of work to make our marriage strong, and we are both faithful spouses.
With, that said, I have to say that D has always been somewhat insecure, as long as I’ve known him. I compliment him, encourage him, building him up at every opportunity, but he just doesn’t seem to have a good understanding of his personal worth. And he is always aggravated by any attention that I receive from other men. One time a guy at a video rental store told me my hair looked nice, and D got very jealous. It was the sort of compliment you pay to your aunt at a family reunion, no sexual innuendo at all.
When he gets upset about something he completely retreats. Sometimes leaves the room, sometimes just shuts down conversationally and refuses to talk to me. He waits for the situation to blow over, and then acts like nothing happened. It is a pattern that drives me nuts, because we can never get to the bottom of anything unless I force it. In this way I feel like he needs as much parenting from me as our children do.
I really don’t feel like there’s anything I can do to fix that part of our marriage, other than what I’m already doing. I refuse to give him a co-dependent outlet for this crap, or to enable it in any way.
For most of our marriage I have been the aggressor, and the pursuer. Looking back I wish I had not pursued that course to such an extent, because although it was fun, it set a pattern that did not require much from D when it came to pursuing what he wanted, especially sexually.
About 2 and a half years ago, he just seemed to lose all interest and desire. In the interim, we may have been intimate half a dozen times. Most people ask right off the bat if he’s having an affair, and after a lot of careful consideration I have to say no. I really don’t think so. None of his activities or behavioral patterns suggest it to me. I really just think he lost interest. He claims that as he approached 40 his sex drive just tanked. He has gone through quite a bit of testing, and nobody can find a reason why this is so. He changed his diet (now we eat paleo), began working out and got quite fit, takes supplements and vitamins, etc. Nothing seems to make any difference.
Staying faithful to my husband has been one of the biggest struggles of my life. In the 14 years we have been together, I have never touched another man, although the opportunities come along quite frequently. I am a very sexual person, and long dry spells make me absolutely crazy.
So, on to the party last night.
This was not D’s first exposure to this mix. I wear this mix a lot. The cops, the IS-A, the I-Shine, all in the same proportions, although some of the scent was different this time.
It would be my expectation that this mix would inspire a protective instinct, even possessiveness. I would expect it to inspire him to stake his claim and ardently pursue what was being suggested pheromonally. Instead what I got was a petulant temper tantrum.
When we are out together, just the two of us, his response to this mix is negligible. He most often acts as if he doesn’t notice anything different. When we are out with good friends, he gets more jovial and relaxed. Last night he got really out of whack…same mix, different people. Most of them were people from his work, although it wasn’t a work function, per se.
Perhaps it was the company that made him so wonkers? Could it be that he felt threatened by the guys from his work? He is in management at his work; most of the people there were underlings. One was his own supervisor, but they are buddies and do stuff together a lot. In my opinion, D was the most polished, most attractive and fit man at the gathering. I can’t see a reason why he would be intimidated by any of those guys.
I feel like I’m rambling here, I hope some of this is making sense.
So, thoughts? Just lay it out there plain.