Confidence and attitude is alot of what draws people to each other, no matter the body size. Having a "perfect" body but a less than a whole mind is not an attractive combination. The brain is the largest sexual organ that we have, and the most exciting to play with, too...
I may be intially atracted to a handsome man, but if he is a dumb as a stump, I won't stay with him for more than a second. I'll find the intelligent, kind, and witty man that challenges me instead....
Women's secrets, just letting the guys know some of them today...
Quote: I may be intially atracted to a handsome man, but if he is a dumb as a stump, I won't stay with him for more than a second. I'll find the intelligent, kind, and witty man that challenges me instead....
For us HDs, I'm not at all convinced that trying to be more attractive is always important. I seem to be attractive enough to interest lots of other people, just not my wife. And no, I'm not sleeping around, but it's hard not to notice. Especially when something inside of me is really crying out for affirmation as a man.
So what I need is a way to not be attractive to anybody except for my wife, and to be attractive to her ;->
Sometimes I long for the old days where I was just plain too naive to recognize attraction...
We HD women also need affirmation that we are desireable women. I really understand how you feel, very empty and lonly in your marriage. It is so painful to be rejected by the one that you love the most. Sad that our partners cannot understand us and that if only we had some attention, we could possibly survive. Instead, we die a bit each day.
We HD women also need affirmation that we are desireable women. I really understand how you feel, very empty and lonly in your marriage. It is so painful to be rejected by the one that you love the most. Sad that our partners cannot understand us and that if only we had some attention, we could possibly survive. Instead, we die a bit each day.
Yeah, that's just how it feels. For me, at least, there's more to it than just how it feels. My wife is attentive and caring and loving in other ways, and I do need to accept that and take it to heart, it helps me survive. It's just ... well, I still feel so rejected and undesirable, and I HATE that feeling.
I'm trying to stay positive, but I've hit a bit of a speed bump, and I'm looking for your take on it.
Ok, without going into much detail, dh told me he'd love to have a 'quickie' in the middle of the day, so we did! Not so bad, I kept my eyes closed... aparently he could see everything but I just went for it and he loved it!
Skip to last evening... we usually go to bed together, but he has made this habbit of reading for hours after we tuck in... it keeps me awake, and I feel like he's too 'busy' to cuddle up. We used to cuddle, just not lately. Soooooooo.... I asked him if we could snuggle instead of reading... trying to keep the connection going. He insisted on reading 'just for a few minutes'. I tried to not get irritated, but I did.
He finally cuddled in, put his arms around me, and thanked me for this afternoon. I told him I'd love to thank him for putting me first tonight, but wasn't able to because he didn't put me first... He did say that it was a compromise that he 'only' read for about 10 minutes, but it felt like he got his cake, and got to eat it too, and I took second place.
Now, I know that whole point of this is not to 'bribe' him into good behavior, but it would be nice if I felt like he at least appreciated that I'm making an effort.
Ok, this is just the first time this will happen... what do I do about it? I made a bit of a comment, but really just told him he didn't make me feel like number one... I feel like we've gone a step backwards... I'm not feeling overly motivated today. Do I have to just accept that he isn't going to be on board with me with everything? Am I expecting too much? I did tell him what I wanted as much as I could, is there a better way?
Okay, so you put him first, and then he put you second (but not a distant second, since he only read for about 10 minutes). You told him what you thought :
Quote: I told him I'd love to thank him for putting me first tonight, but wasn't able to because he didn't put me first..
and that was that. I think this all sounds good...at least headed in the right direction. He screwed up a bit...and you corrected him. If he screws up again (hey, he's a guy, he's bound to screw up), correct him again. If he gets closer to the target, great! If he gets further from the target, correct him more. As CeMar often states, when we're getting sex, we're happy puppies, we CAN be trained and are eager to please. Okay, so maybe I'm paraphrasing, but that's the basic operations manual for men. We may never get it exactly right, but as long as we're making the effort, be happy and realize there's a lot of jerks out there who don't even try.
One question for you, dear: Why did you close your eyes?
Quote: Now, I know that whole point of this is not to 'bribe' him into good behavior, but it would be nice if I felt like he at least appreciated that I'm making an effort.
Quote: He finally cuddled in, put his arms around me, and thanked me for this afternoon.
uhm? did I miss something? he did say thank you right? but when he said thank you, you said..
Quote: I told him I'd love to thank him for putting me first tonight, but wasn't able to because he didn't put me first
Are you keeping score? How is a response like that to his effort to show appreciation going to get you closer to your goal?
My heart broke when I read your post because its so familiar to me right now. The irony is that I can count about 12 years of me putting myself first. I hope my W isn't retaliating against me for this.
Anyway, I'm not sure where you are in this phase of repair but rules and expectations should be very clear and I think one principle that should absolutely be honored is that a request to cuddle shold never be denied .
Hang in there.
I'm getting readyto start a new thread that outlines specific principles that shuold be adhered to by each person in the R. As I've been working on our R, I've noticed that I will go to great lengths to make sure I'm putting W first by cancelling things I want to do etc. My college girlfriend used to say "I thoght you were going to skip meeting your friends and come hang out with me" these were probably unrealistic because because she wanted me to skip meetings that were planned a few days in advance. She was just nuts though.
I think that you need to be patient. You are the one who started the ball rolling but it will take a little while for you H to get in the grove. Just be patient and I think he will probably come around.
Michelles outline of what you will find in her book divorce remedy
Quote: In the next section of the book, I am going to take you by the hand and introduce you to the seven steps you’ll need to take to save your marriage. In the first step- Start with a Beginner’s Mind- I will help you free yourself from the change-defeating kind of thinking that plagues all of us from time to time. I will help you replace these unproductive thoughts with new and more creative ideas that will assist you in accomplishing the goals you have for your marriage. I will teach you how change happens in relationships.
In the second step- Know What You Want- I will help you identify your marriage-saving goals. Although you may think you already know what they are, you don’t. You haven’t been specific enough. Therefore, I will help you make you goals crystal clear, so clear, you can almost touch them.
In the third step- Ask for What You Want- I will encourage you to approach your spouse with your newly developed goals. I will suggest ways for you to do this and strategies to use if your spouse isn’t as receptive as you would like.
In the fourth step- Stop Going Down Cheeseless Tunnels- I will help you figure out which strategies you’ve been using that have been backfiring and making your life miserable. This will help you redirect your energies to doing things that are more productive.
In the fifth step- Experiment and Monitor Results- I will teach you a slew of field-tested techniques for getting through to the spouse you love. I will help you become more systematic in your marriage-saving approaches and that you learn how to “read the results” after you’ve tried something new. By the time you put step five into practice, you will begin to have a much higher marriage-saving I.Q.
In the sixth step- Taking Stock- you will be asked to stand back for a moment and evaluate how much progress you’ve made since you’ve started the program. Once you’re clearer about how far you’ve come, you’ll know exactly what you need to do to reach your goals.
In the seventh step- Keeping The Positive Changes Going- I will teach you how to make your changes permanent. You’ll learn how to prevent minor setbacks from becoming a spiraling downward trend. In short, I will show you how to make being solution-oriented a way of life.
And finally, after learning all the new techniques, you will read an important chapter in Section Two entitled, Pulling It All Together. It is here that I will help bring all the ideas, techniques, strategies to life by showing you how several people in your shoes have made the Seven-Step Program work for them. I will walk you through the path they took, week-by-week, so that you can compare and contrast your marriage-saving experiences with theirs.
In Section Three- Common Dilemmas, Unique Solutions- I will answer the questions put to me from thousands of divorce busters over the years. In so doing, I will address some of the most common situations and problems with which people who are trying to save their marriages are confronted. They are: infidelity, internet affairs, passion meltdown, depression and last, but not least, the midlife crisis.
Section Four will be a chapter you will want to read over and over and over. That’s because it is full of success stories. You will read about people whose marriages were divorce-bound, full-speed ahead but due to their putting this program into practice and their undying belief in themselves and the importance of saving their marriages, they managed to make their relationships more loving than ever. You will feel incredibly touched by these real life accounts from people who feel as you do about the importance of making marriages work. Their letters are truly a blessing!
don't be afraid of the title it's not just for people facing divorce...it's for all couples.
Not so bad, I kept my eyes closed... aparently he could see everything but I just went for it and he loved it! 
I tried to not get irritated, but I did. 
