1. His holier than thou attitude. "I have to teach you the right way to live". 2. Anger/criticism. 3. Putting me last on his list of priorities, after church, work, kids, in that order. 4. Being relentlessly negative. 5. Being too lazy to have sex.
These are the things that killed my relationship with him and ALL of them had to go in order for us to be able to move forward.
I'm sure I have a list of things that I did to kill the R and maybe I will think it up and post it later. Top o the list, though, would be my attitude that I am a princess and I shouldn't have to DO anything to have a man drooling over my charms and willing to be at my beck and call.
Quote: I am a princess and I shouldn't have to DO anything to have a man drooling over my charms and willing to be at my beck and call
But this part is TRUE!
This is NOT something you have to earn. You drool over your kids' charms and they don't have to earn that drool, right? You deserve the same unconditional worship! Seriously.
Children who take their sense of entitlement too far are kids no one wants to be around. People can tolerate the self-centeredness of a two-year old. And we've grown accustomed to having to deal with it in many teenagers.
But that same attitude displayed in an older person, is off-putting.
"Entitlement is that sense that whatever you do for me I deserve, so why bother thanking you. It's the attitude that my needs come first and it's your job to meet them. Closely aligned with a sense of entitlement is the attitude that if I expect it, you're obligated to do it. With entitlement and expectations, we relate to our partners as if they are extensions of ourselves, not unlike a baby's relationship to his mother's breast. When he cries, he expects to be fed immediately. Conscious amnesia or mindlessness is the art of ignoring or forgetting the obvious. We become oblivious to those small and large kindnesses that our partners do for us. I suspect a sense of entitlement or expectation leads to a state of conscious amnesia. " End Quote.
Just take the phrase at face value "Princess Syndrome" and then recall everything you've ever read about most monarchs and how they responded to and treated the minions. I don't think it's very attractive.
Quote: 3. Falling asleep on me. I guess she can't help it, but it just doesn't compute in my testosterone riddled brain how someone can fall asleep during sex or heavy affection.
EXACTLY!!!!! What is it with LD's and SLEEP!!! Not saying this is true for all of them, but for most it seems to be true. The book talk about it, I see it in person in my own wife. There are certain things that help relax her that can lead to arrousal. But these are also often lead to sleep! How can ANYONE fall asleep during sexual activity? And yet she does. To be honest how can anyone actually value sleep ABOVE sex? It's like their brain and their bodies really don't talk to each other 'cause the erotic stimulation does not even register with their brain.
I agree with what you're saying, Mrs. N-- no one wants to be around an adult "princess." And I also agree that the sense of entitlement, in that sense, is yucky.
I think what we're more likely to run across on this board is the belief that we're entitled only to crumbs, no matter how hard we work at the R. We're happy when we (this is the group, editorial "we" and may not include all members) get a kiss, a pat, a compliment. We're more likely to suffer from UN-entitlement than the opposite.
Between the lines of honey's post (and honey may deny it was there) I thought I read a whisper of the belief that she has to "earn" love... I know that in the past he has made stuff like a clean house a condition for meeting her emotional/physical needs.
I have a very good friend who is a super-responsible person, doing her job extremely well, putting in long hours, always committed to being productive. It was always very necessary for her to feel that she was holding up her end of things. She's always been utterly reliable to the max. She worked her way up to the top of a city department with hundreds of employees by sheer dint of will, competence, dependability... the willingness to go the extra mile. One time we were talking about her workaholism (which is what it was) and she said that she felt her productivity was kind of the rent she paid for being here on the earth. I said that was all well and good, but if she suddenly were paralyzed and unable to move, we wouldn't kill her off just because she could no longer be productive in the same way. (And I know paralyzed people can be productive, c.f. the wonderful Christopher Reeve and people in an organization for the severely disabled that I work for). She kind of agreed with me.
Then four years ago she was diagnosed with M.S. She could no longer keep up the same pace, eventually retired, and it's a long story. One of the hardest things was letting her gruff, something of an a$$hole husband do things for her. (He's mellowed a bit since this all happened.) No, she's not "productive" the way she used to be, and she has learned that she still deserves a good life even if, in her old way of looking at things, she's paying less rent.
Anyway, my point was that we don't have to earn that worship... if we stopped DOING all the things we DO, we would still be Entitled to love.
One of mine that I haven’t seen mentioned is uncontrolled angry outbursts. And not necessarily just aimed at me. When W goes off on one of her rants about how irresponsible, unappreciative and generally worthless the kids are, I’m completely repulsed. The repulsion endures long after the rant ends too.
The animals are another. I feel compelled to state again that I like animals as well as the next guy. It’s not the animals that turn me off, it’s W’s obsession with them. It’s having our lives revolve around them. It’s W’s placing the animals above our children, not to even mention above me.
Quote: I feel compelled to state again that I like animals as well as the next guy. It’s not the animals that turn me off, it’s W’s obsession with them. It’s having our lives revolve around them. It’s W’s placing the animals above our children, not to even mention above me.
BB to dogs. "Mommy will be right back after she takes care of daddy." Or the dog has to be on the bed so they are quiet? Does that ring any bells ZB?
Lillie, Fwiw, both H and I were wrong wrt the princess thang.
I got waaaay more than crumbs (and still do) but it was those darn expectations that were my downfall. I expected him to do and say and feel xyz and, boy, he'd better do it too. For his part, he very much felt that having a clean house was a perfectly reasonable thing to hold over my head. No clean house, don't expect a kind and loving husband. Expect a critical assh*le who berates me for hours and withholds affection.
We both had to change. It is not my birthright to have a man who is willing to be my love slave. (and may I take this opportunity to say DAMN IT!!) And it is not his birthright to have a fastidiously clean house, cleaned by *someone else*.
