I'm an 8 on the Enneagram, The Challenger. When happy (read: sexually satisfied) I go to a 2, The Helper. Under stress (read: normal life) I go to a 5, The Investiagtor.
As a 4, when functional, I go to 1, the Achiever, under stress I go to 2, the Helper (or in my case, meddling, micromanager). With my disabled late husband, I was stuck in Helper-Caregiver most of the time.
As a 7, when happy, my bf goes to 5, the Investigator (also the Scientist). When stressed, he goes to 1, the Know-It-All (the down side of Achiever)
Yes, I realize that for many years I have expressed my love to her in my love language. I now know from reading the "5 love languages" that I have been wrong. The problem is that I do not know what her love language really is. I am guessing that I do speak her love language at times, but she is so assexual, she still does not respond in a way that I would notice. She has already told me she just has no desire for sex. What I guess she wants is a rich, ambitious guy who is LD like herself, and would accept her as LD. Life for her is about doing things, it is NOT about being lovers.
As for focus on her, I probably don't do enough of this. I don't spend enough time meeting her needs. However, if we asked her, she might say that I am to dependant upon her becuase I need sex and affection from her. The problem is that for ND women, ANY need for sex or affection can look to be "needy". That is the bad thing about a relationship with a LD women, they have absolutely no dependancy upon their men, their needs can be met by ANYONE. But the HD man is COMPLETELY DEPENDANT upon the woman since his primary need is sex. And it is not like I am pushing her, we have sex about once every 2 months, we never hug, we never kiss (it probably has been 3 years), and we never cuddle. I guess she wants a rich, romantic, PARTNER, who dislikes sex like she does.
I agree with you, #1 should be God, #2 spouse, and #3 is the family. THe problem is that many if not most women, at least the ones I deal with, tend to put the children first. My wife makes no bones about this. The problem is that children are around for only 20 years, while you have to deal with your spouse for 50+ years. It is no wonder that couples divorce when the children leave home, there is no connection, mostly because of the HD/LD problem. My goal is to be lovers, and that is not my wifes goal, mainly because she has no idea how to ever become that intense. We are in the old catch-22, she needs the emotional connection to be sexual, I need the sexual connection to have the emotional connection. The only problem with this situation is I can try to meet the emotional connection, but her sexual connection never results.
Quote: Describe an average day in your wife's life, from getting up to going to bed.
1) Get up at 6:15 to shower, get redy for work, make sure the 3 boys get ready for school, everybody eats cereal. Boys are 14, 12, and 8. 2) Drop youngest at his ride, take oldest to HS, middle son goes to school with wife (wife is teacher). 3) She teaches middle school all day. Tough job to be around 6-8th graders for 7 hours a day. 4) She gets home around 4PM. She has many numerous afternoon activities: Den Meetings, Referees Volleyball, coaches track in the spring, runs the clock for basketball games. She also likes to take walks whenever she can fit them in. 5) Take care of the house. 6) Cook dinner. 7) After Dinner, take kids to functions. Grade Papers sometimes. Watch TV with the family. Play games sometimes. 8) Go to bed around 10:30. 9) On weekends in the spring and fall, go to 3-5 soccer games. 10) During the summertime, she and the kids have off, so they do things during the day. Kids stay up till 10 or so, except her and the oldest son stay up till 2 am watching TV or movies, they are real night owls.
Quote: Describe an average day in your life, same parameters.
1) Get up at 5:45 to get ready for work. Go to work at 6:30 AM. 2) Work until 3PM and then go pick up youngest from school. 3) 3:30 make sure kids practice the Piano, every Tuesday run them to lessons. 4) Work around house, clean kitchen, run errands. 5) Drive kids to practices for soccer. I am assistant coach on 2 of their teams. 6) Currently I am taking youngest to basketball practice twice a week with games on saturdays. 7) Coach Soccer on Satrudays during season. 8) Sometimes, I prepare dinner, especially if the wife has left notes. 9) Usually clean up after dinner. 10) 2-3 nights a week I go to work out at the gym. 11) Sometimes I have to go back into work. 12) Work at home sometimes. 13) Try to always help with putting kids to bed, the younger ones like to have us lay with them for awhile.
Quote: Then describe what you would like your day to actually be.
This is the ideal day for me:
1) Wake up and cuddle with the wife for awhile. Maybe even ML. Then get ready for work. 2) Kiss the wife good-bye. She does not like to kiss me, and when I try, she often turns her cheek to me. So I no longer even try. 3) Goto work. 4) Pick up kids after school. 5) Kiss the wife and hug when we get home. Again, she does NOT want to do this. 6) Still have to do all the things for the kids, take care of the house, cook dinner, etc.. 7) Flirting and playful touching during the afternoon and evening. 8) When we relax in front of the TV, do some cuddling. Wife hates to cuddle. 9) Bedtime. I want my origianl wife back. I want the women that used to LOVE to sleep naked. I want to ML on most nights. Some nights I want long drawn out LM sessions. I want experimentation. I want Cuddling, Kissing, Oral, Caressing. I want somenone that WANTS to enjoy my body, completely. I want the sexual person I married back. 10) And in all of the cuddling and sex, I want some conversation, some meeting of the minds. I want to be best friends. She told me once that she thought only Weird marriages are best friends.
Obviously, we woork our butts off, between work, 3 kids, sports, the house, and other interests. But it is the activities that my wife loves. This helps to let her avoid physical touching, which she is apparently uncomfortable with now. Partly do to a poor relationship, but also do to low self esteem. She hates her body and does not feel very feminine. The throw in the beginning of menopause and you have a great mix. She basically can not "feel" sexy, she can not get arroused without ME providing all the arrousal. Basically, she is looking to be busy so she can either stay up late, or come to bed in a very tired mode. I believe that one relationship expert calls these "Outs", things that people use to avoid intimacy with their spouse. For LD women, they often find things that "just" have to be done right around bedtime. That is alot to chew on.
My wife is completely focused on the kids. I have seen numerous women with new families at work that do nothing but talk about their kids. Do they still have husbands? Thier is no better way to destroy a marriage then to focus on the children! I know that in my own family, my only real purpose is to be handiman, chauffer, the breadwinner, and mentor to the kids. I get USED by my family, partcularly the wife. Lovers? yea, right!!
I am a Rosemond devotee myself. He has a lot of good points. As far as LD women doing a bunch of "stuff" at bedtime - so do LD men. Don't forget that everyone uses "outs" to deal with discomfort. What are yours Cemar?
