Oh HD, my heart aches for you... I read The Road Less Traveled years ago, and I'll dig out my copy and reread that chapter and comment later-- maybe it will give me some insight into my own sitch.
It just seems sad to me that she is completely discounting the way you want to feel in this R and suggesting that you're wanting something that either doesn't exist or is so ephemeral it doesn't count-- what about all the love poetry and songs written throughtout the ages? What about the Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs/Song of Solomon) for pete's sake? What about Dante, Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Fcuking Browning? Were all those people on a temporary endorphin high?
I was thinking about y'all this weekend and the question I wanted to ask you was: how do you keep feeling any love for her after years and years of her jabbing at you and discounting your wants and feelings? I don't mean that as a rhetorical question... I mean how does one do it? I've only been at this three years in this R, but I feel that every time my bf holds up a brick wall that I run into head first, a bit of my feeling for him dies. The first year of our R I persisted, I made excuses, I had hope for the future. But I'm wearing down, and irreparable damage has been done. I'm having a hard time locating positive feelings for him beyond a general benevolence and "wishing him well." As you've said about your W, there's more to her and to the R than the sex issue, and that's true for us, too. He's the perfect partner in a zillion other ways, we completely share interests, and just the whole lifestyle vibe. But my trying to connect and his resistance to connecting (and his saying he has no idea what I'm talking about when I say I want to "connect") is like a gray, dingy film that has settled over everything. We've been to two C's and he's now going to one on his own to work on anger issues.
Anyway, how do you keep feeling anything for someone who over and over again rejects the gift of yourself that you are offering to them?
and...just to add, I really do admire the way you have handled yourslef throughout all this; I think you are really taking the high road. I think a lot of people would have had affairs or checked out in some way.
The next C appt. is Wednesday, and I think I'm going by myself because W had some other thing going on. I have a lot to talk about with her, so whether I go with or without W, it should be helpful. I'll be sure to bring the solution focus up, as well as the issue of unconditional love vs. feeling as if she's being graded.
I also agree that some compromise is in order. I have felt, however, that at least on the physical affection issue, it is always me who has compromised. I'd love to have a schedule, but, well, we'll leave it at that. I refuse to predict her reaction to it.
Lillie: I knew you had read this book! It's a section called the "myth of romantic love" I think. And yes, HP, we could get into a "book war." But I won't.
How do I keep loving her in spite of the years of physical neglect, and her jabs, and her discounting my wants and feelings? I can't answer that. In the middle of a fight, when she is calling me horrible names, and saying horrible things, I can't imagine ever loving her past, present, or future. But then, days, or sometimes hours later, when we have reached an understanding, or some sort of truce, I feel the love again. We laugh, or we start playing with our daughter, or start talking about something we heard on the radio, and I see the woman I met so many years ago with whom I fell in love.
Quote: Here's where we are: She wants me to commit to unconditional love for her (because my condition of having a physical relationship or I'm out is keeping her from feeling physical), and I feel I have done this in the past, yet she has said I'm not "really" committing because she "knows" I'm not doing it from my heart, and the weeks go by with little affection, and no ML. So I'm reluctant to ride that train again.
I don't see how you could agree to this HairDog, considering that you don't believe in unconditional love.
It's like she has skipped right over whether or not there is such a thing and has moved right into establishing a kingdom where she has the power and control.
I would back way up and address the unconditional love aspect.
Also note that she has told you to leave and has threatened to call the police on you and accuse you of abuse - she is asking for you to comply with something she has failed to walk successfully.
That is a bastardization of Peck. Inexcusable in fact. I read the book a long time ago but I'll bet I still have it. I'll review it too. Seems to me that the first line of the book says something like "Life is hard." The ENTIRE book is about maturation in love and life. A mature perspective is not one that says that once the initial romance fades you simply write off the sexual aspect of your M altogether. Mrs. HD needs to find a better source to quote. That take on Peck is CRAP!!
I agree with those that say that what is missing is compromise.
I'm looking into my yellowed and aging copy of The Road Less Traveled, and I'm remembering that this book was very popular when it came out in 1978, and I kept reading in it, trying to figure out what everyone was "getting" that I wasn't.
The thing is, at the beginning of the chapter called The Myth of Romantic Love, he describes Romantic Love this way:
Quote: To serve as effectively as it does to trap us into marriage, the experience of falling in love probably must have as one its characteristics the illusion that the experience will last forever. This illusion is fostered in our culture by the commonly held myth of romantic love, wherein the prince and princess, once united, live happily forever after. The myth of remantic love tells us, in effect, that for every young man in the world there is a young woman who was "meant for him," and vice versa. Moreover, the myth implies that there is only one man meant for a woman and only one woman for a man and this has been predetermined "in the stars." When we meet th person for whom we are intended, recognition comes through the fact that we fall inlove. We have met the person for whom all the heavens intended us, and since the match is perfect, we will then be able to satisfy all of each others needs forever and ever, and therefore live happily forever after in perfect union and harmony. Should it come to pass, however, that we do not satisfy or meet all of each other's needs and friction arises and we fall our of love, then it is clear that a dreadful mistake was made, we misread the stars, we did not hook up [sic- that expression means something different today] with our one and only perfect match, what we though was love was not real or "true" love, and nothing can be done about the situation except to live unhappily ever after or get divorced.
I don't think anyone on this board believes in The Myth of Romantic Love as glibly described by Peck above. I think this battle-scarred group knows that love is much more as described in the Ursula LeGuin quote at the bottom of my post.
...
I've just spent some time looking over the book, and I'm seeing things that are relevant to the present discussion.
At the end of the chapter on Ego Boundaries, he says
Quote: The temporary loss of ego boundaries involved in falling in love and in sexual intercourse not only leads us to make commitments to other people from which real love may begin but also gives us a foretaste of... the more lasting mystical ecstasy that can be ours after a lifetime of love. As such, therefore, while falling in love is not itself love, it is a part of the great and mysterious scheme of love.
And to illustrate that he doesn't discount the importance of sex:
Quote: There is another set of questions having to do with matters deliberately ommitted or glossed over in the discussion of love. When my beloved first stands before me naked, all open to my sight, there is a feeling throughout the whole of me: awe. Why? If sex is no more than an instinct, why don't I just feel "horny" or hungry? Such simple hunger would be quite sufficient to insure the propagation of the species. Why awe? Why should sex be complicated with reverence?
Alas, he doesn't say much about sex specifically.
In one anecdote, Peck talks about one client that he was not able to get through to. She "was vociferous in her complaints that I did not genuinely care for her in any way, shape, or form, and was interested only in her money." This went on for nine months, with him using the typical "therapist" style of relating to her-- reflecting her comments back to her, answering a question with a question, etc. Finally one day he departed from his training and told her how frustrated he was with their lack of progress. She smiled and said, "You really do care for me after all. If you didn't, you wouldn't feel so frustrated." He sums it up this way
Quote: My reaction to Helen was meaningful and significant to her precisely because of the depth of my involvement with her and the intensity of our struggle together. We are now able to see the essential ingredient that makes psychotherapy effective and successful. It is not "unconditional positive regard," nor is it magical words, techniques or postures; it is human involvement and struggle. ... In short, the essential engredient of successful deep and meaningful psychotherapy is love.
Here he makes distinction between unconditional positive regard and love. This suggests that honest struggle is more loving than unconditional acceptance.
HD, I refer you to The Case of Kathy that starts on page 197 of the paperback. I think you'll find it really interesting.
Thanks, Lillie. I knew I could count on you. I'll give it a look when I get home. I didn't bring it to work with me.
What gets me is that she is able to find just about anything to support her "cause," and then ignores almost everything else. I'll agree that Peck is one viewpoint on this issue. One of many, many others.
I still find myself in "awe" when I see my wife naked before me. Not just horny, but reverent.
Here is the other side of the fence again talking and telling well actually screaming at you NO NO NO. You cannot remain in the postition of allowing your wife to dictate your entire relationship and life basically. What she wants is to have her cake and eat it to.
Unconditional love. Excuse me where is yours from her? Yes in unconditional love you can accept someone has faults and still love them but to the degree that she is asking is not to just accept it but to excuse them giving her a license to have them and hold them from this day forth. I am telling you honestly had my H ever made me feel that he had accepted and excused my not wanting to have sex. I would have thought I won a large victory and no more effort would have been put into trying to find a acceptable solution to the sitch for both of us. Hence I would have never came to the understanding of my H's needs that are met from this personal act SO NO NO NO.
But now is the time to make some decisions about where we are and where we are going with this relationship.
The other day I suggested you put this out there to her. I again state I feel you need to go along this line the importance is WE Make some decisions not Her make some decisions. And they have to benifit both of you not just one of you. That way where you are going is where you both want to go not just her.
because my condition of having a physical relationship or I'm out is keeping her from feeling physical.
Again I state that while I understand her feelings on this. I feel she is using this as one of her many crutches and I do not see her willingly putting any of them down. You are gonna have to start kicking at them so she has to stand on her own to feet Hairdog. Meaning okay tell her I am not pyhsically going anywhere no matter what but dont think I am just gonna sit here and say okay dear either. So expect that we are going to grow old and grey together and laugh and cry together but also expect that we are gonna keep fighting about this issue until the end.
I do not know how to state it well but I have lived where you wife is for the last 10 years. I know or think I know you do not have the additional issues that my M does but believe me you are running in quicksand getting no where fast until your W realizies that her personal issues are standing in the way of healing not only your R but herself. How to get her to realize this is the urghh to the sitch.
I would sugguest in your one on one you speak in depth to the consuler about understanding she has issues and that they jade her perception on sexual issues. Ask her how you can help(keyword) her change this perception now before the frustration it causes you gets you to a point of no turning back. In a word how to help make her understand you are not a rapist and she is not being raped (metaphorically speaking only).
I hope I have stated this well I have been very hmm disenchanted with my own sitch the last few days. Feeling stuck at the point I am at and not knowing where to go myself. Woke up this morning feeling sorry for myself. After reading your post though I am now feeling sorry for both of us! Odd since I am on the other side of the fence and can so relate to your W.
Dang, Chrissy, you have a way of stating the bottom line that is so simple and clear. While a lot of the rest of us have read treatises on love and relationships and sex, you seem to just have a natural gift of understanding.
Thanks for the advice and guidance. You are a keeper!
I'll give it a look when I get home. I didn't bring it to work with me.
Odd since I am on the other side of the fence and can so relate to your W.