It takes me awhile to make my way around the threads but I get to everyone sooner or later. I chock it up to my slow thought process when I am replying to a post...I try to think things through WHILE I'm posting so it usually takes me about an hour or so for each reply lol.
A little bit on the sex issue. This might be a little too blatant for some...I hope I don't offend anyone.
For 4 yrs H led me to believe he was LD and I was HD...of course this wasn't exactly the truth on his part but he said he didn't want to hurt my feelings by telling me that he just wasn't interested in me anymore. His lack of interest was a result of my lack of interest in myself...I stopped wearing nice clothes, doing my hair or getting it done at the salon, stopped wearing make-up and yes, I gained a whole lot of weight. H said that my weight was never an issue for him but the other things were. On top of letting myself go physically I let myself go emotionally too and H said that was a DEFINITE turn off.
H has an A...turns out that OW was the object of his projection of the way he wanted me to be or rather the way I was when we first got together. The solution was actually fairly simple...Zoo had to go back to being herself again (I think I have discussed most of this in my own threads someplace ).
WHen H leaves for work I generally look like hell but when he comes home for supper I have make-up on, I'm dressed decently (no baggy sweats and big t-shirts anymore)and my hair is done. H is also one of those men who likes a woman who is aggressive sexually which I was when we first met Now, if I feel like then I go for it...if H isn't in the mood I just smile and say np and, well, um, let's just say I'll usually start to take "care" of myself. H usually experiences a mood change then but not always This is not an indication of rejection (my old response would be to think this immediately and turn over and start crying) but more then likely the poor old dear is just "too tired to pop" so to speak .
I have gotten rid of the inhibitions that had built up over the past few years too. When H first met me I had no shame nor any inhibitions to speak of...he missed that aspect of me. One other thing I have learned is not to do the same thing over and over again to try to get H interested. Example: I bought some sexy under garments and the first time H saw me in them became his immediate priority I thought to myself OK, so I bought some more and started wearing them all of the time...next couple of instances sparked H's interest and then after that fttttttt, no response at all. I got kinda pissy about it since I had spent all of that money (notice, my concern was the money and not rejection ) and H finally explained to me that it wasn't that he didn't appreciate my efforts it was just that he preferred me to keep it "mixed" up, otherwise it got kind of stale and boring.
Sorry, that is probably more info then some folks needed but thought that maybe it would help someone a little bit. Sex was one of our MAJOR problems, one we thought we might not overcome but with work on both of our parts we did. Now H pretty much can't keep his hands off me which I find extremely empowering in a strange sort of way...
I've had a similar experience with the wrong things in the wrong bottle. H switched my window cleaner out with bore cleaner for his guns. Bore cleaner does not like to come off of windows plus the overspray caused the paint on my walls to blister I yelled at him and told him to find something else to put the stuff in. He found something else all right...the bottle I keep my miracle-gro in to foliar feed my houseplants!! Why does everything have to be BLUE?!?!
Quote: When CJ came back from the meeting (and picking up a few groceries) I asked him how it went. He told me he was still feeling off from yesterday (averted migraine) and went off to do some school work.
NOT a problem. Probably WOULD have been a problem before...I'd have wanted him to tell me all about it, would have been peeved that he didn't share, he probably wouldn't have felt comfortable expressing that he just didn't feel like it.
Instead he worked, I worked, I made dinner and half way through he brought it up and talked about it.
It is great to hear that you waited for him to bring his meeting back up. I'm still trying to get a handle on this area myself. I'm much better at waiting then I use to be but I still slip up once in awhile...I'm determined to get it totally nipped in the bud though
Zoo
"If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm."
- Mahatma Gandhi
Shiny, I think you're gonna have to start getting up earlier to keep up with all the action going on around here!!
The thing about CJ's meeting was a great display of patience. It got me thinking ... the importance of letting others share when they want to, rather than pushing them to do so on our timeline is such a subtle one that most seem to overlook what a huge potential there is for it to be the source of a wedge that is driven between us.
I now can see where this was a point where I did some major damage between CAW and me. A lot of times if CAW was silent, I would start asking question after question ... so what did the doctor say during your appointment? ... who were you talking to on the phone? ... what did they want?
I thought is was innocent enough, but she started to feel like she was being drilled and came to resent it. When I could tell something was bothering her, I'd ask some more. She would just reply "Nothing.", but I wouldn't let it go and keep at it because I just wanted to help.
This was a pattern where I thought I was trying to help but it was causing her to shut me out even more, which frustrated me even more and I got angery ... what a death spiral that was ... I was never patient enough to let her tell me when she was ready to. While I have 180ied this for the last year, I believe I've done so much damage that she still will remain shutdown to sharing her personal thoughts for a very long time.
Sorry Shiny, didn't mean to take up so much space on your thread. I also didn't appropriately thank you for your imput on my thread the other day , so I just wanted to say here ... Thank You for your insight ... it really helped me alot!!
Hi Shiny, I started reading this thread and found it quite interesting, usually your threads do come up with a lot of insight Anyways I was reading the part about "behaving ourselves for success" and had to add my own success - if partial story.
Rui's first affair was certainly "stronger" than the second one and things were touch and go for quite some time.
I know that in a way the fact that he never leave home helped me to work from the "inside" so to speak:) and facilitated many things, but for a while I was so shocked, depressed and sorry for myself! Most of my thoughts were negative and although I wanted for my marriage to survive, I couldn't think of how. Well talk about the way we feel affecting the outcome! It certainly was going nowhere or if it was going somewhere it was completely backwards...
Until I had the "brilliant" idea of waking up.. smell the coffee.... get rid of all the negativism, take better care of myself.. and start tackling the situation from a completely different perspective. Out with "I'll try but don't know if it will work" "i don't know how we can fix this" and in with a completely new attitude: Act as if I was completely sure, with no doubts whatsoever that we would be able to fix the whole thing! I cold loose some batlles here and there but I knew I was going to win the war. Well, there is no quick "fix it" for anything, but I did start getting such good results after a while I was not acting like it.. I was almost bellieving it :) True that there was a lot of work to be done, but I was then geared for success, and not sabotaging my own efforts. I was aware that there are no guarantees and that it was possible that even with all the changes it wouldn't work. But with all the changes I became stronger as well and ready to deal with whatever came my way. And it did work.... I know that only 5 years after all that there was another affair. But there is no link between the two of them.AT least not in the sense of happening because we didn't work it the first time. The second affair happened simply because Rui does have a problem recognizing boundaries and being able to refuse what's so gently offered. It is an issue that he has to work on.. but it has nothing to do with me or the way we solved the first one.( It took me a while to get here though, I kept looking back to what I was doing hoping to find reasons for what happened, ways of fixing this or that, ways to change myself! I finally understand that it is a problem that he has to solve, fix, understand. I can help, but I can't fix it for him )
anyway great thread, hugs nightshade
"Each and every one of us is deserving of a kind word, a gentle thought and the gift of understanding. "
Yeah, this was SUCH a subtle issue that I didn't even pick up on it myself UNTIL YESTERDAY!!
It was only after CJ headed off to work and I was feeling just fine with it that I realized how very differently it would have gone pre-DB.
Yet another insight for me as to how CJ felt me as so CONTROLLING, while I didn't see it that way much at all.
But one thing is clear to me...an equally remarkable change is that CJ TOLD me he wasn't up to talking about it (in so many words)...which I believe he would have been scared to do (for fear of my reaction..questions...assumptions) in the past.
Good luck with CAW, I don't think you'll have to wait forever, most folks DO like to talk about themselves!
Great post! It is pretty amazing what a change in POV can do. ...and your description of how it goes from "acting as if" to actually feeling it, is bang on!
I'm so sorry to hear that after all that your H cheated again ...But KUDOS to you for coming to the realization that it had nothing to do with the excellent DB work that came before...nothing to do with YOU...
Is your H working on those boundary issues? Seems to be a problem with lots of the H's around here.
Exams went well (glitches withstanding). Brought soup home for lunch for CJ and I. Did some school work and then headed out for a half hour of serious raking!
Came in to watch Dr.Phil and....wound up dozing on the couch for another three hours. ...I think I may need to have my blood tested.
Tried to get in to see my doc today...all booked up.
On a positive note: Came into some money for some text books I had in my office so the chinese food dinner and movie later is gratis!
While "listening" to Dr. Phil, who was interviewing a couple where the H is perfectionistic, angry, controlling, yells a lot...he asked a question he asks of many people:
How fun are you to live with?
And you know what? I'm a heck of a lot MORE fun to live with now...
Now, if I feel like 
then I go for it...if H isn't in the mood I just smile and say np and, well, um, let's just say I'll usually start to take "care" of myself. H usually experiences a mood change then but not always 
I yelled at him and told him to find something else to put the stuff in. He found something else all right...the bottle I keep my miracle-gro in to foliar feed my houseplants!! Why does everything have to be BLUE?!?!
