Is it "Go Bones"? I must have given the impression that my W thrives on gifts, but I'm not sure that she does. Often when I buy her a gift, say jewelry (she wears jewelry often) she never wears it. My sister in law noticed it too: My W does not respond to gifts.
I'm not talking about touching here. I'm talking about conversing. We both require people to converse with; though I'm not sure she really confides in anybody. I'm refraining from confiding in my W. What unfortunately does happen is that, while she makes both reasonable and unreasonable requests, I often don't realize until later which are which, and I can refuse to acknowledge reasonable requests. A tough row to hoe this selesctive strike.
Paul, who took kids to see the Cubs play the D'Backs at Wrigley today
Indeed there are arranged marriages in Japan even today. I don't want to say that the marriages are loveless. I think there is a lot of commitment. Also, Asia has its extremes. According to Men's Health, Koreans have more sex than anyone else in the world, about 4X a week, while the Japanese are nearly last at 30X a year, or 2 or 3 X per month. It makes me want to visit Korea
I think love is there, but we wouldn't necessarily recognize it as such. W's parents seem pretty close to me now that they have retired. There are a lot of obstacles to Japanese couples being intimate; they sleep with their kids, and even after that ends, houses are not at all soundproof; and many couples live with elderly parents. Hourly "love hotels" are popular, but those are I guess for unmarried couples.
There is the issue of fate. W believes that wide tendencies in life are fated and can be divined by talented fortune tellers. So a given year will be lucky or unlucky. Many things in life that she could take responsibility for she chalks up to fate. I am patient with her on this to a point. Certainly life has its ebbs and flows, and I don't have a much better system for predicting these than she does. However, I do think we a people could take more responsibility for our actions, instead of blaming fate for our shortcomings. If we were to divorce, I'm sure that she would say it was fated. And she may be right, in the sense that perhaps no amount of effort could save us. I think she is making no effort, but that is another matter.
FOO= Family of origin. Your roots, your environmental and sociological formation, and way or relating to others. Your reality and way of perceiving the world. Language differences make a large impact on this. Religious boundaries or lack of and social heirarchys. Biology and its subcommunication can blow right thru all of that, but thats not what appears to have happend in the beginning, in your case.
From the things you mention, your W seems to have always, worn the pants, so to speak. She may be telling the truth about not being able to deal with domineering men, but thats not gonna change what she responds to as a woman or what she recognizes as a strong male presence from her FOO.
If I do something I can be fairly sure of the consequences. I know how not to pi$$ her off, but not how to please her.
This is going to be simple for me to say, simple to read, but not at all simple to comprehend, or to implement.
Stop trying to not piss her off. That is the epitome of placating behavior.
Trying to please another person is one of the most fruitless endeavors in life. There are exceptions, but typically people want those in their life around them to be happy with themselves, confidant, not dependant on someone elses opinion of them, for there self identity.
I did not start out looking to attain a mixed FOO family, but that's just how it worked out. At first I saw it as a positive and could still be convinced that it is.
I know how not to pi$$ her off; my point is that I have had it with stepping on eggshells trying not to break any. It seems that if I succeed in keeping the eggshells intact, she replaces them with soap bubbles.
W wears the pants only because she won't let me take them off. She could wear bib overalls all day; as long as they were replaced by sweet lacy things at night I would be AOK.
Harry, she agreed to come with me to the ballet. Good call.
Re Paul I know how not to pi$$ her off; Paul, break some egg shells.
It seems that if I succeed in keeping the eggshells intact, she replaces them with soap bubbles. And that my friend is part of the problem. What is she going to replace the soap bubbles once you learn how to walk on them? What I am saying, it's a no win situation. The more you do the more she wants.
Just because you think of divorce, doesn't mean you or she is there. I see lots of potential individual conflicts that could get the issues out in the open. IE don't worry the ride to a potential D will be short, most people hang in there longer than they expected.
I know in my case, I didn't make much progress when I was afraid and walking on eggshells.
I say be honest in a caring way, but don't worry so much about the eggshells. Think of the eggshells as an unlimited supply, breaking some is not going to mean the end of the R.
I think Lou has a good point. It doesn't seem that your behavior has much effect on her one way or another. Can you give an example of an area of your lives where what you do/say/want influences her to do anything, good or bad, EXCEPT for pi$$ing her off? IOW is there any area in which she takes you into account?
Well, she asks me a lot of questions, and much of the time I do not see how she puts my responses into action. She often has made up her mind before consulting me.
She relies on me for information. She thinks I know something about medical issues, and usually listens to me there. But she does not usually care about my opinions (much less my feelings). So she will ask me whether a particular house is appropriate for us, but is not interested in whether I think we even need to move.
In her mind, she is running a business. I'm not really even a partner in the business, I'm more of an employee. Let me take this analogy further. Suppose I complain that she is not doing her part as a spouse. She listens and has absolutely nothing to say because she cannot comprehend what I am saying. After all, it is not the employee's role to question the boss's right to run the company as s/he pleases. This is especially odd since in her actual job, she has almost no decision-making authority, whereas I do.
I'll never forget my first visit to a MC, who thought that W did not feel "empowered."
Quote: In her mind, she is running a business. I'm not really even a partner in the business, I'm more of an employee. Let me take this analogy further. Suppose I complain that she is not doing her part as a spouse. She listens and has absolutely nothing to say because she cannot comprehend what I am saying. After all, it is not the employee's role to question the boss's right to run the company as s/he pleases.
This really seems to fit the way you have decribed your marriage.
Thanks. Now how can I address this to her? I can't imagine that she would agree that this situation is a desirable one. Here's what I believe she may be thinking but won't say, "Honey (yes, believe it or not she always calls me honey or even baby) we've got a good thing going, two wonderful children, steady income, peaceful environment. But I'm just not that interested in you as a person. You should respect this, insofar as you also benefit from your relationship with me. Why can't we just be colleagues?" She has hinted that she feels something like this and that she refrains from telling me some of her innermost feelings because she is afraid she might hurt me. In a sense I agree. I don't want her to tell me that she does not love me.
