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And let's not forget that she's his *girlfriend* not his wife. We who have been married a while will simply not view Vday the same as a girl who's expecting all the stops to be pulled out, in her honor.

I can vaguely remember the days when I was treated like a princess on that day, instead of getting construction paper hearts cut out by my kids. (and, for the record, I loooooooove the latter just as much as the former!)

Re Baltoman can definitely see why you may not want to put an MC session right before a time when you are trying to be all lovey and romantic.
That is part of what I did not post. I doubt his gf was planing anything romantic. I bet Scott's gf was wanting Scott to be the romantic one while she sat there acting like a sponge, not a hot young thing (HYT).

Sorry folks, it's my attitude and experience. Trying to bring enough heat to the R for two people and getting shot down so often makes me think the more one person does, the less the other person is invested in the R until the well runs dry. Then the slow poke is willing to look for water by digging deeper at the old watering hole. Trouble is the fast poke has maybe moved on or is so dissapointed with the slow poke that the fast poke quits trying. With no one trying much, where does that lead the R?

To me it is a lot like living with lazy kids. The more you do as a parent, the less they do for themselves.

Lou

GEL:

What is the #1 cause of lack of confidnce in men? LD women.
What is the #1 confidence builder in men. Wive that WANT sex. GAL helps, but it is the HARD way to get confidence, but for most of us, it is the only way to get it. I can relate to the way this guy feels.

CeMar,

I'm done responding to you. You don't want help, you don't want solutions. If you did, you'd open up and communicate.

YOUR refusal to communicate with others is crystal clear on this BB CeMar. You don't communicate here with us in a way which will allow us to help you, you refuse to open up with us....so it's very likely, you don't communicate at home with your W either. YOU ARE YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY.

I wish you luck, but I am done responding to you. You are an exercise in insanity.

GEL

CeMar

How about I try one more time. Start a thread in which you describe details about yourself, your relationship, actions you have taken to improve it, actions you would like to take, questions about your SPECIFIC situation that you would like advice on, problems you currently have and don't know how to solve, your history, etc. etc. etc. Try not to use the acronyms HD ND or LD once in that post. In fact, stay away from labels and just talk about you and your W. Do that and I'll bet you'll start getting more productive convos here on this board.

Just my two cents. Be well

Chromo

OG-Lou,

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I have been through the same schedule (jump through her hoops) thing. I did jump through BB's hoops and the more I did, the less she worked on the MC enviroment as a whole.
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I am already skeptical. When I asked her (last week) if we should reschedule for another night this week, she said "I guess" - no real motivation there. As it turned out, the MC's schedule was full anyway. Then now next week of course she doesn't want to go on Valentine's Day. I doubt she has anything planned for us, probably just concerned that we would actually be attending counseling on a day that is supposed to be romantic between couples. In a way I can see her point about V-Day, but I definitely do feel like I am jumping through her hoops.

Based on my current experience, I think you are right on the money about how "people that are not willing to find solutions to differences, use any and all excuses to not get out of their center of the universe seat." I suggested MC over one year ago, but she never really seemed interested and felt that we could work through the problems on our own. In reality, she didn't address any of the issues that I had with her so that got us nowhere. Around the same time, I suggested that we visit the bookstore together and pick out a relationship book that looks good, and work through it together. This never happened, so I went out and got one on my own - Harley's "His Needs Her Needs". One night, I finally got her to look at it with me and she picked it apart - finding 'faults' with it. She never looked at it with me again. I was thrilled that I finally got her to session #1 with the MC, and now I am finding a similar pattern. Oh - and with the first MC session she said that she would be more affectionate specifically through more passionate kissing, and more hugs. I haven't seen even one remote change in the two weeks since that time. This is why I really need to get both of us back in there!

You asked if this is how I would want to live for the next 10/30 years, and the answer is definitely NO. This whole counseling thing is pretty much my last attempt at working through things. The question is - is my fiancee REALLY going to join me in this attempt. Time will tell.

P.S. - thanks for the information regarding the colonoscopy. It will allow me to understand what she is going through tonight and tomorrow.

honeypot,

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And let's not forget that she's his *girlfriend* not his wife. We who have been married a while will simply not view Vday the same as a girl who's expecting all the stops to be pulled out, in her honor.
____________________________________________________________

Well, we have actually been together for over 3.5 years and this will our 4th Valentine's Day together. I don't really think she expects me to go all out like perhaps our first and second VDays together. Not that I am not doing something special this year for her (a small gift and a weekend trip to the shore).

Actually, Valentine's Day two years ago is when I first started noticing REAL problems in the bedroom... that was about two months after I moved in with her. We were in a hotel room and she fell asleep on me - I woke her up and was like "helloooooo"! We then proceeded to make love. Now LAST year was a real downer. Again, she fell asleep on me and at that point we had been having SSM related problems. However, I was thinking JEEZ - it is Valentine's Day. I felt down, and didn't even bother waking her up. The next day I expressed disappointment that we did not make love, and she said that "it (sex) is not necessary for romance on Valentine's Day." So I am not sure what to expect for this year - I guess I should have no expectations so that I don't set myself up for disappointment?

OK, MrMom, Scott and others with self-esteem problems ... I'll start with the preamble given to me by my coach. We can then get into self-affirmation activities and the 10 talking points. Sound good? A lot of this sounds really hokey (think Stuart Smalley on SNL), but it works.

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In general, the things you do to improve your self esteem will also improve your relationships with others. In turn, improved relationships with others will improve your self esteem. The trick is to get into this positive cycle and out of the negative cycle (the opposite of the above).

Some of the self-help methods we will discuss here take more time than others to learn and to get good at. It is necessary to keep these ideas in mind long enough that they become habits, and then it is important to go back and remind yourself from time to time, so that the habits don't fade. The habits needed to build self-esteem require steady practice over a long period of time. Fortunately, you do not have to have all of these things before you can feel better. In most cases, the quicker methods will help a great deal, and this will in turn help with the things that take longer.

The place to start is with how you think about yourself. To help that along, you can practice "affirmations," positive statements about yourself. Even though this idea seems pretty simple and is easy to make fun of, the fact is, research shows it works. When you have negative thoughts about yourself that are not useful to you, it is good to replace them with affirmations. What you are doing here is training your mind to accept positive thoughts about yourself without backing away from them. Affirmations need to be TRUE and relatively SIMPLE in order to work. For example, if you think you are a kind person, an affirmation would be "I am a kind person." On the other hand, if you have been unkind but now are working on that, an affirmation would be "I'm learning to be a kinder person."
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To start with, list 5 negative thoughts about yourself. Think about how you could reword them to turn them into 5 positive thoughts. Then write down 5 things you know are positive about yourself. Turn all of these into affirmations. Affirmations begin with "I" and always use the present tense. Practice saying each of these statements clearly to yourself each morning and one other time during the day. Keep your mind focused on what you are doing, don't just say them from memory, or recite them in a "monotone voice." Feel free to change some or all of the affirmations as time goes by and you feel you need it.

If you want, I can list my affirmations here and anyone else can do the same. Don't feel like you have to though, or that you have to list all of them. Some of them can be intensely personal. But if you want to list them to get feedback (i.e. not positive enough, try rewording it this way, etc.) feel free. Good luck!

Just had a thought . MrMom, if you would rather I start a new thread to discuss the self-esteem stuff, I can do that instead. I did not mean to hijack your thread. I have a bad habit of doing that on occasion (I just figure everyone wants to hear what I have to say ).

I'll just go ahead and start a new one and repost the start of the self-esteem stuff there. Please feel free to join in if you have the time and inclination.