Not sure that you posted anywhere in my topics. But please explain what you mean. I'll put together a much more detailed post, but what types of things might be helpful?
Ahem... this was what I was referring to, my response to your 5th post on this board:
Quote:
JR(!),
I've read your posts - I really feel for you. I've been through what you're going through. I and others on this BB may be able to help.
Read through some of my longer posts to Tyguy, Tiredofpain and Neartheend. See if any of my ideas on these issues ring any bells within you. If so, which ones, how and why? Give your thoughts on this in as much detail as possible - use them to start a thread on the SSM forum. I and the other posters there will do our best to put a plan together.
In the meantime two quick points:
(1) You mention big "spiritual" differences between you and your wife - please elaborate on these. The reason I say this is that in order to achieve any progress in your SSM you will have to change your current mindset completely - there is indeed a spiritual undertone to perhaps the vast majority of SSMs - a dimension which many men and women are seemingly ignorant of. I have touched on this in other posts.
(2) Make a commitment to yourself that you will do your very best in this marriage for the next 6-12 months. I know, I know - this seems a long time, but ... in a SSM of this duration there are inevitably certain unhealthy behaviours and patterns that have built up (over many years). So you must be prepared to give yourself and your marriage a realistic timescale for proper changes to show.
Be strong and have faith - whether you ultimately stay in this marriage or not, your life is about to get a whole lot better.
I'm a bit pushed for time at the mo, so read through some of those earlier posts of mine (back when I thought I knew what I was talking about) and then put up a detailed post of your own that gives the history, the issues, and what you want the end result to be. I and other (smarter) members will do our best to help.
S&A
PS Have you read any books about male spirituality or sexuality - if so which ones?
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated" - from The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.
Which I take to mean that every man has within him a spirit of relentlessness and optimism. Its already there; he just has to cultivate it.
It is unclear to me if you are just here for support, or advice, or just to vent...
So I will just ask you as I don't think you have directly stated it above but....do you WANT to recover your marriage or do you want to let it go and possibly end up divorced?
Either way, we're here for you but I am unsure which it is.
DQ
I am not entirely sure now, to be honest about it. For the first 4-6 years I really wanted to recover it. And I did all that I could toward that end. At this point, I'd still like to recover it, for us both to be happy in it, but that's the key. Both of us happy. Short of that, I'd rather end the misery. It's going to take a lot of time, and effort, and work. I steadily hear from my wife that she just wants to gut this out, and get by. That she'll do what she has to for the sake of the kids, but that does not mean reading a book, counseling, etc. That just means she'll suffer through it for their sake, and I don't want to "just get by." If that's the goal, then we're finished already, and I'd just as soon end it.
Good question, and I needed to see my answer in print.
