Happy Birthday....Another thing you could do is take yourself out for some good sex. What I mean by that is MB tell you are competely satisfied. While you are doing you could think of HANK....
Happy 40th girlfriend. You know what you could say to your H? "Honey, I'm going to XXX tonight and I'm going to get laid for my 40th Birthday. It'd be really cool if that someone was you. Hope to see you there." And then LEAVE. Go to the place. See what happens.
Quote: So, what is the difference between a boundary (good) and an ultimatum (bad)? What if I were to say "I will not continue to live in a marriage in which I don't have sex at least twice a week unless there is a true emergency. If I find myself to still be in a marriage in which this is not happening on March 21st, I will ask you to start looking for your own apartment".
Of course, I would have to add "I will not have sex with anyone who treats me with disrespect, so disrespectful attempts to have sex with me will fail and therefore will not count towards the twice weekly sex I require."
Do I get a gold star or the dunce cap in Boundaries 101?
Well, let's break that down.
This is the boundary part:
Quote: I will not continue to live in a marriage in which I don't have sex.
This part is an expectation placed upon his behavior:
Quote: at least twice a week unless there is a true emergency.
This is attempting to control his behavior. I realize this is a preference for you, but this is something to be negotiated between two people, not something to be placed in a boundary. It will eventually come up in conversation, and you can state it as a preference... and then you have to leave him ALONE to decide for himself if he's going to give it a shot. Any attempt you make to control his behavior is going to blow up in your face.
The reason you are NOT having sex twice a week is because there is resentment, anger, frustration, and lack of trust and communication between the two of you. You THINK sex twice a week would do it, but if you stipulate it in such a way, it gives him no room to manuever, no choices to make, and no way for him to dismantle his own resentments, frustration, anger, etc.
When the boundary is about you, it leaves him with choices to make. He understands that he cannot continue on like he has been doing. You don't trust him to step up to the plate, and that is YOUR issue. Don't project it onto him. So I'd see your boundary as:
Quote: I will not continue to live in a marriage in which I don't have sex.
This is the consequence part, but I'd leave it out for now, or it will come off as a threat:
Quote: If I find myself to still be in a marriage in which this is not happening on March 21st, I will ask you to start looking for your own apartment".
The second one, I'd not even bring up. You know what it is. You don't have to STATE every boundary. If and when it happens, you know that you will STOP the sex from occuring, so how could it count?
At that point, you can call him on his disrespectfulness and say you will not be treated in such a way. When he throws his tantrum (I'm doing what you said you wanted!!), you can call him on that, too. But in a way that is in some part reinforcing:
"Honey, I really appreciate your attempt and I thank you for trying. But I can feel your anger and resentment and I cannot continue. Do you want to talk about it?"
If he wants to address the problem with you at that point, then the two of you can talk. If he shuts down, you have no options but to remove yourself from the situation. Let him regroup.
I understand you want the problem fixed NOW. But you have issues that need fixing, too, girl. You have serious trust issues. You don't treat him respectfully either. You treat him as someone who you expect to fail.
Why do you do this? How can you stop it? If you change these things about yourself, how will it affect his behavior?
There are plenty of things for you to be working on, too. Focus on yourself. When you get better at managing and changing your own issues, he will get better, too. And as he gets better, you will get better.
Find out what is BEHIND the lack of sex. Find out WHY some attempts fail. Don't assume. Nine times out of 10, it isn't about YOU. It is about some fear, anger or resentment thing going on inside of him that he is projecting onto you. See if you can help him get to the bottom of it.
In any event, stay away from attempting to control his behavior. How he behaves is his choice. Whether you will tolerate such behavior is YOUR choice. Keep it simple.
Happy birthday, JJ!. If I could pick one age to stay at forever, it would be 40. You're old enough to be taken seriously, but still plenty young enough to have fun.
Corri wrote
Quote: It is about some fear, anger or resentment thing going on inside of him that he is projecting onto you.
It occurred to me the other day when you said the two of you probably wouldn't have gotten married if you hadn't been pregnant that that might be the source of both y'all's (yes, that is a real word in Texas!) resentment: feeling like a) the two of you were forced into marriage, and/or b) each of you forced the other into marriage. Have you ever seriously addressed that issue with each other?
Happy 40th birthday to you JJ. almost every time I read your post, I keep comiing back to what LP said. ------------------- the two of you were forced into marriage, and/or b) each of you forced the other into marriage. Have you ever seriously addressed that issue with each other? --------------------------
I have imagined, what if this happen to me and my W. Would we blame everything on having to get married? Even the recent stuff that had nothing to do with caring for children?
So, Is having to get married the major problem, or is it just a smoke screen to cover up something else? Maybe a little of both? I think some people use what is visable and have a difficult time getting to the inner layer of the onion, the real problem.
HBD JJ. WOW 6ft tall in heals. You are my kind of girl.
Happy belated birthday, JJ. Can't wait to find out what happened. Jeeze, there were a lot of posts on this thread this weekend.
You got some good advice.
Note to Corri: I broke down her "boundary" almost the same way you did! I think I'm understanding this stuff better each day. If only I could put into practice as easily as I can tear it apart and analyze it in writing.
I actually did end up getting laid, not once, but twice on my bday. I have to give Corri some credit for this occurence. Her last boundaries post caused a lightbulb to start flickering dimly somewhere in my consciousness which led to me taking actions that I perhaps wouldn't have otherwise.
To give my H credit, he started the ball rolling by giving me a bday card with the John Donne poem that ends "No winter shall abate this spring's increase." and then made a nice offer for bday sex when I thanked him for the card. My level of bitterness concerning this week's events made me uncertain as to whether I even wanted to take him up on his offer, but I thought about it for awhile and decided that it would be very LD reactionary for me to turn down sex due to resentment so I asked him if he meant his poem as an apology for his recent behavior and when he said he meant it as a sort of token of hopefulness for our future, I told him that I would try to be hopeful/trusting too.
After a most satisfactory bday f*ck, we made plans to go out for a late lunch and then watch some football together. I jokingly said that if the Steelers won he would have to meet me back in the bedroom for another round. Then I tried to put myself in his shoes and consider how that might sound to an LD person and I backtracked and said "I'm just kidding. You're even older than me. There's no way an old guy like you could possibly pay up on that bet. Besides, I'd really rather have you dig my car out of the ice drift that has swallowed it if you lose the bet.".
They were having a special on Bloody Mary's at the restaurant where we had lunch, so I decided to indulge since Bloody Mary's have always seemed like a very grown-up drink to me and therefore appropriate for one's 40th bday. Halfway thru lunch my H started getting all riled up because the waitress hadn't given him enough cocktail sauce. I started having my usual thoughts about what a PITA he was to do things with and then I stopped myself (I think the Bloody Marys were helpful in this regard). I didn't do any of the things I might typically do in this circumstance. I didn't help him flag down a waitress or tell him to relax or continue to silently think what a crab he was. I just gave him a big smile and took another sip of my drink and let him deal with his problem.
After lunch, my H offered me a stick of Big Red gum in a lewd manner. This caused me to go into a semi-drunken monologue about how a Bloody Mary would be a good drink to have either before or after giving head because it would go much better with the flavor of cock and semen than whipped cream or chocolate or the other food items people sometimes use sexually. Then I started talking about how I had recently read "somewhere" that a lot of women didn't swallow when they gave head and I had found this interesting because I had always just assumed that swallowing was the proper way to do it. My H said something like "I think you are of the right opinion and shouldn't let others influence you in that regard.". I continued to chat about various other things I had read regarding technique in giving head over the years. My H gave me some of his opinions on the matter and finally said "I've been totally erect since the first time you used the word "cock" about 5 miles ago.". Thus our second sexual interlude of the day occured when we arrived home. We almost got busted by our teenage children but didn't care.
Of course, this morning my H is in a blatantly crabby non-sexual mood, but that's okay for now( by now I mean approximately the next 72 hours until I get horny again). Besides he did say he would dig my car out later even though the Steelers lost.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
that sounds great. I wonder what's in the air..full moon or what. But my W and I had a simultaneous rise in interest culminating in some sex. This is a big milestone because the process has always been through a clumsy initiation. Sorry. I don't mean to hijack your thread.
-Dave (who came clean at C session. wants to share the info here but is too overwhelmed right now)
Anywhere is walking distance if you have the time
-Steven Wright
