As long as your wife blames you for her not wanting to have sex (You pressure me all the time, and that makes me not want to have sex), then her statement to you is NOT a boundary. It is a statement that she holds you responsible for her actions and reactions (or in this case, lack thereof).
It is clear that you cannot see the freedom you have in responding, making choices, and limiting the ways your wife's behavior affects you. Marriage was never meant to be enslavement. Boundaries help us to know just where someone's control begins and ends. What your wife is doing is not a boundary. It is an attempt to contorl you. What she is saying to you is: "I am this way because you act that way. If you change the way you act, then I may or may not change. I haven't decided yet."
Boundaries are not something you place on another person. Boundaries are about self.
You are not a person who will force your wife to have sex, obviously. But there is absolutely no reason that you have to be happy about this, nor accept it gracefully. She has made a strong statement to you. Now you must set a boundary on yourself.
Whether you act happy or not, or respect your wife's decision or not is solely up to you, not because of anything she has said or claimed. You cannot change her, and you recognize that. It does not mean, however, that you must give up your self-respect to honor her decision. She has no domain whatsoever on how you feel about you and your own sexuality.
To me, THIS is the time to move to the basement. She has clearly said to you that she is shutting you out. She is attempting to hold you hostage. Hairdog, make no mistake, this is a power play on her part. She cannot force you to leave the marriage, and she has no right on the planet to force you to give up a part of yourself.
In my mind, you move to the basement in order to honor yourself, not to punish her. You are not trying to manipulate or change her. You are saying, "I respect your statement, but I also respect myself."
Next, and I am NOT joking, go out and get "Boundaries in Marriage" by Cloud and Townsend. It does have a religious bent to it, but it's contents are spot on. Read it. Get an understanding of boundaries, then go to a shrink and work on setting boundaries.
You certainly can respect what your wife has said to you, but it does not mean you have to give up who you are in order to do it.
I cannot empahsize this strongly enough, Hairdog. If you continue to give up your choices and your power to your wife, you WILL lose your marriage at some point.
I agree with Corri - and it is clear that W has been in control of your R all along, and she sees no reason to stop now. That is the problem when one spouse controls most of the R, including sex, within the M for years and years. It is really up the the individual whether to stay or to go -- and it is much more than about sex...it is about living without intimacy and the human touch...a completely natural need for many of us and hard to imagine living without...I would die inside without it. Some can learn to live without it, some bide their time and make other decisions regarding the M. I would ask her if she thought it was fair for you to live without intimacy forever. Just because it is ok for her doesn't mean it is ok for her H. But in the end, choices have to be made, and it is up to you to weight what is more important...I personally think that a sitch like this with someone with a normal need for the human touch leads to miserable resentment, but yes, there are other factors involved and only you know how you are going to handle in the future. I'd move to the basement because it would be best for me...she says it won't be good for the kids, but the truth be known, there is no intimacy between you two...why hide that?
A 180? Or are you just feeling like you can't win so you're "giving in"? I feel the same many times, sometimes it's just not worth the effort. You could take her statements reverse it on her..."she should love you for the HD person that you are", "if you like sex then she should accept that", blah blah blah. It's all a cop out, something to push you off your track. Maybe you've hit a nerve recently.
Corri's response says it all (as usual) she's set her boundry now you've got to set yours. On the selfish side this is making me evaluate my own boundry setting, and I realize...I suck at it. I'm off to Amazon to get that book Corri was talking about.
Best of luck, remember you're not alone...it just seems like it sometimes.
I am really confused now. I'll get back to you later, but I wanted to correct myself. It wasn't you, Corri, who wrote that passage, it was Mojo. It's right here. Now my head is spinning.
Unless there is some sort of freaky consciousness merging happening on this BB, I believe that I am the one who wrote what you quoted. Now that you know that the Mistress of WishyWashyOverAnalyzationNewTheoryEveryday was responsible for it, feel free to not take it too seriously.
If you go with Corri's suggestion to move to the basement, I think you should order the Farrah poster on E-bay instead of the BlackLight ones I suggested previously.
My advice for the day based on my own sich is it's best to take a stand based on integrity even if your relationship doesn't improve because at least you'll feel better about yourself and the world. There's nothing wrong with telling your W "I'm the kind of person who will always be unhappy in a marriage in which I am only getting laid twice a year.". Of course, don't say it if it isn't true, but I think it must be true based on what you've posted. Numb isn't happy. I know because I've tried.
P.S.
You really should read "The Corrections" by Franzen. One of the main characters has a wife who won't sleep with him until he improves his behavior which she blames on depression. The whole novel revolves around some HD/LD relationships. It's not at all biased. You will laugh at your own reflection in some of the HD behavior and it casts a positive light on some LD behavior. Actually I think everybody on this board should read this novel. Actually I think everybody everywhere should read this novel because it is the perfect endpiece to 20th century literature given that Samuel Butler's "The Way of All Flesh" was the beginning. I want everybody to read "The Way of All Flesh" too. Your book reports are due by the end of October. Get crackin'.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Hairy, I don't see anything wrong with your approach except for the fact that you did not mention that you were going to tell this to your wife, in plain language. JUST how you told us.
Imo, it can't really be a boundary unless it is communicated to the other person in some fashion. Otherwise it is resignation. The other person has to know where they stand and what you are all about. I know, for myself, I would hate it if my H had made a boundary and then not told me about it and left it up to me to guess/assume/wonder what was going on. Oh wait, he did do that. For four years.
Now, to be fair, I did not confront him on this (for my own chickenpoop reasons) but still.....it rankled me for a looong time that he had made a decision and not told me about it.
I think your wife deserves to know what is going on inside you. I believe what she was trying to do last night was to self disclose. Now we all know that she sucks at this and so instead of REALLY disclosing anything, she just gets defensive and says abrasive things to you designed to get you riled up.....but still.....I believe that in her heart she INTENDED to have a heart to heart with you. It's just that when the rubber hits the road, she can't bring herself to be vulnerable. Oh well her loss.
I just wanted to say that a true boundary occurs when you SAY it to the other person...'Hey this is what I am all about and this is what I intend to do about it.'
Best of luck and we are all pulling for you. I think this is definitely an opportunity for a 180 and you shouldn't let it pass. The 180 being, of course, your golden opportunity to say "you know what...your offering of Maybe Sex/Maybe Not sucks and I have no intention of living the rest of my life that way. Until that day I will treat you with love and respect but don't say I didn't warn you about what lies ahead if it stays this way."
Ok, so maybe not in such a threatening way...Mo's way sounded MUCH better, but you kwim!
Okay, who gave this thread 5 stars? I'm guessing Mojo.
I don't think I'll be moving to the basement right away but I'm thinking what I will do is read the Boundaries book, make an appointment for ME to see my therapist who I haven't seen in years, and maybe tell W that I don't think she needs to be deciding unilaterally to end our sex life.
I just remembered that W, DD3 and I are going to HP's backyard for the weekend to visit some friends. 4.5 hours each way. Either there will be a big elephant in the car to ignore, or it will be an interesting ride. Either way, I'll report back.
OK - finally - things are back to normal and I'm disagreeing with Corri. In spite of everything, I still think that this is good. I don't think it's time to move to the basement. I don't see this as her making a power play and you giving in. I see it as a statement from her of how it is right now and a willingness on your part to accept that for right now.
It's painfully obvious to everybody that sex is far from the only problem in your M at this point. W has issues with XW, with J, with the (not all that) new location, with you, and of course with sex. Right now, sex and the city are the biggest of those. If, as you said in the other thread, you've made conciliatory gestures on helping her to adjust and offering to move if things don’t get better for her within some specified time period, and if you’re willing to temporarily accept her enforced celibacy, it should have two positive effects.
First of all, by ameliorating the two biggest issues on her list, you should increase the peace in the Dog household. Secondly, one would hope that she would notice that you’re making an effort. In theory at least, that should improve her feelings toward you. It may never lead to more (any) sex, but I predict that the R will improve. If the R improves and if she feels like you’re not constantly harping on the sex thing, she may be more willing to address some of the underlying problems that are causing the sex issue to loom so large.
Another thing to consider is that by both your and her own descriptions, she’s a heel-digger. OK, last night she dug hers in. You can now either dig yours in (i.e. move to the basement) and have a heel-digging contest/stand-off, or you can try a different approach. I recommend the other approach. I recommend that you just accept her statement: don’t tell her she’s wrong, don’t argue, and don’t try to dislodge her heels. As was said in another thread: you can always move to the basement later. Accepting her position and not fighting it doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with it forever.
Man, you have ALL my flags up in the hurricane force winds.
Why is your wife jealous of you?
Have you been boinking your ex?
There are too many hints from you that your wife is NOT a hard-ass witch of a woman to believe that sex is the main problem here. I wish it was, since that is fairly simple to fix.
Why do I detect a seething undercurrent of distrust in your relationship?
Is there a dead ELEPHANT in your woodpile?
Your wife keeps bringing up SEX in her exchanges with you because she thinks IT IS THE ONLY WORD YOU UNDERSTAND. Why is that?
-NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
Nop: Jealous of me? I don't know why she would be jealous of me. Why do you think she's jealous? No, I haven't been boinking my ex, or anyone else for that matter. Distrust? Yes, she says that she lost trust in me because I kept our financial situation from her back when I was in charge of the bills and thought I could get us back on track before she found out we were in trouble. I know I should have told her, but I wasn't thinking right. Now, she handles all the finances. She also points to my failure to consider her feelings about the move from KC to acreage outside the greater KC area as a major trust issue. I distrust her because she keeps on calling it "her" bed and bedroom when the going gets rough, and, more recently, her threat to call 911 and say I was abusing her. Yeah, we have some trust problems.
Dead elephant? Gee, I hope not, as she truly loves elephants. Other than what I've set forth above, I really don't think I'm keeping anything from you.
Why does she seem to think sex is the only word I understand? I don't know, maybe because deep down (or not so deep down) she feels she has failed as a wife in that department, which she knows is significant to me, and because she feels she needs to be beyond reproach in every area of her life. Just a guess.
