The title of this thread may be a misquote of Winston Churchill's response to the question, "How can we win the war?" However, I have always liked its simplicity and its underlying attitude. My only regret is that I do indeed sometimes think of the interactions between W and me as a battle. It could be called the Battle of the Bulge, but I won't expand on that idea.
Anyway...W has decided that she doesn't want to go to the MC session with me today because she feels that she will end up being on the defensive. I guess her idea is that the best defense is just not to show up.
We did talk more last night. She's really focused on her inability to make room in her busy life for meeting my needs. She said that it won't always be this way, but right now, she is giving all she can possibly give.
If you recall my earlier post in response to this argument, I went ahead and told her what I said there: in essence, that her belief that she is doing her best is self-limiting. She didn't like this, and said it suggested she was some sort of slacker, that she needed to give more and more to meet my needs.
She explained that she has nothing left to give. She gives all day long to her clients. Then she comes home and has to give to our DD4. Then, after DD4 is in bed, she is spent.
She said that vegging out in front of the TV is her way of trying to replenish her energy. She held her hand way up above her head and said, "This is the amount of energy it takes me to meet your needs," and lowering her hand to the level of her lap, said, "this is the amount of energy it takes to veg out, or read, or needlepoint."
She said that when she vegges out, or reads, or takes a nap on the weekends, she feels guilty because, "I know you're thinking I could be using that time to be physical with you."
Our conversation went on for a while, with me explaining my concept of the scale of happiness, and my problem with using the word "comfortable" in her mantra of "you have to be comfortable with me saying 'no'" and my preference with the word "accept" in its place.
She did get to a point where she made herself vulnerable, and I think this is probably the most important part of the conversation. I don't want to go into the details, but essentially it was about wanting to stop hurting each other, comforting each other, and taking care of each other.
Anyway, Lillie asked some questions in a previous post, and I wanted to answer them.
1. Does she see hostile motives behind other people's statements, or just yours? Not any more than usual, except that she often sees hostile motives behind the words and actions of my ex-wife. Of course, she's usually right about that. And, of course, given her feminist beliefs, she sometimes sees chauvinism, or male-favoritism, or misogyny in some situations that seem pretty benign to me.
2. Does she see other women as sisters, or as another version of the enemy? It depends. There are those women who she deems "unenlightened" who do damage to the cause of women because they model for Victoria's Secret, or prostitute themselves in some way. But, most of the time she does see them as "sisters."
3. Does she have friends? Not really. Her best friend and confidante is her sister, and the next in line is her mother. She has acquaintances, but any non-family people she calls friends are from her past and are not currently part of her life.
4. Is she liked and respected by her colleagues? What is her professional reputation like? I think she is definitely liked and respected by her colleagues, and that those opposing counsel who don't like her, take that position because they are outgunned by her, and think she is a ball-busting bitch. Which is not entirely inaccurate. She has a good reputation, both among her academic colleagues, and her professional ones.
5. I guess I'm wondering if this nit-picky, cruel behavior is reserved for you or if she's difficult with other people, too. I think she can be pretty nit-picky with the kids, and with her family, but she pretty much saves the cruelty for her fights with me.
Understand that she is not Cruella all the time. She only gets that way when she feels under pressure by me to "meet my needs." Of course, she has felt that pressure fairly consistently for awhile.
The unfortunate thing, for her, is that I don't intend to let her ignore my needs indefinitely. So the pressure for her will continue.
Hairy, I'm so glad she's going. This might be the first tiny step of millions that will restore your M.
As I was reading your first post, I thought, This woman is scared to death to be told she's wrong.
If you know that, and know how vulnerable it makes her feel, you can go into the meeting with compassion in your heart for the difficulty she will be going through.
All the while maintaining your new steely persona and not letting her off the hook. She won't like hearing that she's not perfect but she will be a better person in the end. Hang on tight to her so that she realizes that your love is still there, even though she has big time warts.
Thanks for answering my questions, HD. It sounds like she presents her competent, "together" exterior to the outside world and to you she can admit that it takes a lot out of her. The key, to me, is for her to see you as inside that "safe bubble" with her as an ally, and to stop seeing you as one more Thing that is making demands on her.
One of my qualifications for a good R is that you should feel as good and as "at home" with your partner as you do when you're alone. IOW when the two of you come home at the end of the day and lock the door behind you, you should feel as safe as when you're alone. You shouldn't be in a sitch where, when you lock the door and turn around, you are facing an enemy, a challenger, another person with whom you'll have to keep your guard up. But it sounds like that's exactly the way she regards you-- at least in the sexual arena. Being alone with you is not a time and place to relax, lay down the weapons, close her eyes and feel safe. She probably only feels that way in the bathtub with the bathroom door locked.
I agree with honey that she is scared to death and feeling very vulnerable, a feeling that I'll bet she HATES. And even though I also agree that you should go into the meeting feeling compassion, as honey said, now is NOT the time to let her off the hook.
I think for some people, feeling their flawed nature is absolutely intolerable. That was the core of the Undefendeed Love workshop, that we lash out and react to avoid feeling that painful, tender, vulnerable, soft center. But if we go there and let ourselves feel it, we find we can indeed tolerate it, and it dissolves into warmth.
My bf actually experienced that at the workshop, but he's forgotten it. Like your W, he cannot stand feeling vulnerable or flawed. The feeling is so intolerable to him that he will heave boiling oil in me to avoid feeling it. The best defense is a good offense, etc.
Good luck today... sounds like you might make some headway if she doesn't get her defenses cemented into place by the time of the appointment.
Mostly likely I shouldn’t be giving you or any one advice, but over the past few days I’ve been reading about your sitch. Your W sounds a lot like I did about sex earlier in my R with my then H. Here’s my take on it, for what it’s worth:
I think she does want you but she feels like she can’t get affection from you without it leading to sex. My LL is PT. I love to be hugged and kissed and touched by my XH. After a while of the only time he would do any of that was to start sex, I began to hate any form of affection from him because he couldn’t just be affectionate to be affectionate. An idea if you would like to try (and I don’t know that you haven’t already) but maybe next time you’re together, just hold her. Nothing else. Then maybe next time add some kisses. And so on. If she is like I was then after a little while she’ll see that you can show her affection with out expecting the end result to be sex.
And just so you know, this did work for me. Now XH and I have the opposite problem. I want sex more than he does.
Either way, I’m glad she changed her mind about MC. Good luck.
Hope: Thanks for chiming in. Three or four years ago, my W said something similar to what you were saying, that she always thought that she couldn't get affection from me without it leading to sex. It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now.
We even had a period of about a month during which the MC asked us to commit to no sex, but W was supposed to be more physical (more kisses, hugs, touching). W didn't do much then, and she doesn't do much now. I get about three kisses a day, all pecks. I get to touch her non-erogenous zones while she is watching tv. She sometimes touches me in the middle of the night, again, in non-erogenous zones. It is rare that she would initiate anything more than the most friend-worthy hug, or non-threatening touch.
So if she indeed believes that touching always leads to sex, then her thinking is erroneous.
Besides pressing the issue by going to MC and by just asking from time to time (sometimes with weeks of no requests at all), I have probably been the most non-demanding person you could imagine. Without some pressure by me, I think my W would be perfectly happy with the status quo of our relationship.
But hearing stories like yours, and Chrissy's, and cinemanymph's gives me hope.
I feel your pain HD. I know it has not been that long compared to others here, but I have been at it for 7 months and still not extra effort from my W. I asked her yesterday when she thought she might start working on the things she keeps telling me she needs to work on (sex and more affection with me). This started another arguement because she then started with all I wanted was for her to spread her legs more. I told her that I thought she had no idea about how important this was, and I feel she has no idea how much it hurts when she tells me she will work on it and then she does not. I finished with 'my biggest fear is that one day, I will not give a shi#'. Good luck Hairdog. Andy
God is love, love is blind, Ray Charles is blind......so there.
I don't know if your W would be willing or not, but I've recently read a very good book that helped me to really understand men and why sex is so important to them. The name of the book is "For Women Only" by Shaunti Feldhahn. It was a real wake up for me. I highly suggest any woman read it.
I read the editorial review of this book and thought what a great book this would be for W. But, when I started reading the readers' reviews, I came across one that will likely be the position my W would take if I were to ever get her to read the book:
Quote: Feldhahn believes that the lack of sex men are experiencing in their marriages is a "crisis." A crisis. Along the lines of the September 11th terrorist attack? Or the tsunami that washed over Southeast Asia? Nope. We have the real crisis right here in America! Men aren't getting enough sex! It's a crisis, according to Feldhahn, because men who do not have sex with their wives as often as they need it are not able to develop a secure, emotionally intimate relationship with their significant other. Lack of sex breeds "secret feelings of inadequacy. Making love assures him that you find him desirable, salves a deep sense of loneliness, and gives him the strength and well-being necessary to face the world with confidence" (pp. 92-93). Feldhahn goes on to state, "Your lack of desire can send him into depression" (p. 101). Yep, that's right. Straight out of a night-time soap opera off the WB...oh, wait! Silly me! These are statements from a Christian woman who is trying to "help" husbands and wives develop deeper, more intimate relationships.
And she goes on and on about how this shifts all responsibility for the success or failure of the relationship to women and their ability to sexually satisfy their man. If you want to read it, it's the one by D. Kessel, here. I appreciate the recommendation. I don't think my W would get much past the "About the Author" section, as she finds people who declare that they are writing from a "Christian perspective" to be somehow flawed before even reading a word of what they have written.
There will be no quick fix here. There will be no lightning flash of inspiration for her. I think I am being a realist and not a pessimist when I say, this will take years of heartache, tears, pain, and regret, with little chance for success. But then, that's what Churchill was talking about, right?:
Quote: But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period--I am addressing myself to the School--surely from this period of ten months, this is the lesson: Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
Churchill said this on October 29, 1941, when he visited Harrow School. It was after the Blitz and things were looking up a bit for Britain.
Quote: I asked her yesterday when she thought she might start working on the things she keeps telling me she needs to work on (sex and more affection with me). This started another arguement because she then started with all I wanted was for her to spread her legs more.
Andy, what are the relational dynamics in your marriage? If you get a chance to answer, maybe start your own thread so we don't hijack HD's.
