My marriage isn't swelling with passion but neither is it DOA. It's probably what people refer to as "normal life"...we connect passionately at times and other times barely have time for each other at all.
We moved into a new house 2 months ago and have been busy as heck getting adjusted. In addition to that, H is single handedly gutting and remodeling our kitchen, including new electric, plumbing, walls, ceiling, wood floors, sink, faucet, appliances, you get the picture. It's keeping us waaaaay busy.
About 3 weeks after we moved in, I went to CO for 5 days to visit my sister. While I was gone, H built up some massive desire for me. I came back to a person I hadn't seen in years. He was downright aggressive and not inhibited whatsoever. It was amazing! Then life intervened again (poison ivy--he gets it worse than anyone I've ever seen) and we drifted back into dullsville again.
The good news is that I believe I'm having some hormonal whackiness again and the degree to which I care has gone way down. I mean, I care, but I'm not all that tore up about it. Some days I could take it or leave it, which isn't like me at all. My hair is falling out again so I need to go see a doctor soon. Last year, when my hair did this crazy stuff I waited until it was actually thinning on top (shudders with horror) before I made the appointment and then had to cancel it due to insurance problems. (that is, our insurance sucked, LOL)
Last week, I went to CO again and came home to an aggressive mate again. So absence does make his something grow something, that much is obvious. I'm not sure how I can capitalize on this but I did go to a party alone on Saturday night. He got extremely jealous, for some weird reason, and ended up calling me at the party and demanding that I come home. ??!?!?!??! It was at my female cousin's house so there was no logical reason for him to act like that. Whatever, I said. I was not mad or upset or anything--I just looked at him and shook my head at how ridiculous he was being. I absolutely refused to get down in the pit with him and before I knew it, he was out and pawing lustily all over me. Men!
We also got into a discussion about marital boredom. During one of my brutally honest moments I told him that I was verrrrrrrry bored but overall happy and content with my life with him. I had to steer back the topic of conversation about 10 times, no joke, as he kept trying to steer it from being about our marriage to being about our "life" which includes of course, our kids and home and new move and all.
Anyway, I suppose you could sum up this update in the following way: 1. W has possible hormone problems 2. H is severely preoccupied with pressures of house remodel 3. Still managing to connect with decent frequency, though the QT has vanished and intimacy is in short supply.
All in all, we are trying to connect with each other and are having varying levels of success. I'm hopeful that a doctor can help me sort out why my flippin hair is flippin fallin out again. And hopeful that he/she can help me determine the reasons for my sudden emotional flatlinedness. As some of my long time SSM friends know, I'm up or down but not indifferent!
The kiddiepots are all fine. Enjoying the summer and testing my sanity daily.
Soooo awesome to hear from you. I have missed you. I think your description is just what you said - a normal marriage. I guess the trick is to just appreciate the passionate times and flow through the not so passionate ones.
I have been wondering about my hormones but not because of my hair but because of the fact that I am excercising A LOT and not losing a pound. It is making me nutz! I am up about 4-5 pounds from pre-baby weight but I am working on it.
Yup, sounds like a normal marriage. Sorry you are experiencing the hair loss thing. Hope you get that sorted out (((hug))) Hang in there. Nice to hear from you
Good to hear from you...sounds like, as you said, things are rolling along
I hope you get you hair loss thing figured out...I'm sure that's frustrating. A friend of mine had an issue with thinning hair...hers was diet related, she is allergic to so many foods...so basically for her it came down to poor nutrition. I'm sure that's not the case with you.
I've missed you 'round these parts as well. Sounds like you've got your hands full between the move, the kitchen project and the MrHP remodel (which is apparently coming along splendidly, I might add )
As for the pulling your hair out , Could it just be stress? You've got a lot going on right now, and stress is one of the things that can cause problems with hair loss (might explain my own chrome dome ) Stress could also explain your emotional flatlining. I know first hand how stressful a kitchen remodel can be, BTDT twice. Even if it doesn't outwardly feel stressful, I'm sure there is a bunch of internal stress going on. Sad to say it, but unless there is something obvious out of whack like a thyroid problem (possible, but not highly likely), the doc will probably not be able to find a cause for it. I'm going through a similar thing with hives right now.
Say, is there anything H will let you do on it to help out? Perhaps pulling the wires for the electrical if he'll show you where he wants them, or helping with the plastering (anyone can do it...the better you get at it the less sanding you have to do to get it smooth), or even cleaning up after him. Make it a joint project if you can rather than him doing all the work...working together on it can help your R as well. I wish I could get MrsGGB more involved in the house projects, usually I grow to resent them because she isn't interested in helping and it ends up being time spent doing something that has to get done alone and with all the pressure to hurry up and finish it.
Anyway, a "normal life" isn't half bad, and is better than you were a year or two ago, right? Glad to hear from you. Keep up the communicating with MrHP, and I am sure as things around the new home settle down the R issues will also improve. Congrats on the new home too.
I remember long ago and far away, you and I having a discussion about 'getting out of the house.' From your posts, you have noticed that this does something quite lovely to your H's drive. Hmmmmm.... here's to taking more trips away from home... at least three weekly!!
Seriously... if this behavior of his perplexes you, it shouldn't. It's all biological. Use it to your advantage.
I hope all goes well with the hormone check up, and I hope you don't wait too long to get yourself to a doc. Farm girls don't tend to get themselves into the office until they are on death's door.... soooo.... amscray to the ocday, hm?
So glad things are going well for you... if you ever need a road trip, lemme know.
Yep, sure could be stress related. Hadn't thought about that. I'm also dog tired all the time, tho. My weight is holding steady, nothing really to report there. I look fine, I guess. Not as skinny as I'd prefer to be but isn't that EveryWoman's lament. I went to a county fair in the new town we live in and apparently one is smoking hot if one isn't morbidly obese. Who knew.
Well, I can handle the tiredness and weight weirdness but I cannot handle my hair falling out. My hair is only about 5 inches long in the spots that it fell out last year and, unfortunately, I've lost a good bit of that newly-grown-in stuff already. And, hey, I used to get hives when stressed out, too. It is so annoying and slightly scary as it's happening.
Thanks for checking in with me. Things are going okay. I've said it before but MrH is guilty of nothing more than taking me for granted, really. He is so consumed with our remodeling that he seems to forget that I'm even there. I may sound like I hound or harass him but that's not the case. When he asked what he could do to rectify my marital boredom, my answers were things like: sit next to me, look at me when I'm talking instead of sizing up the next project, tell me that you missed me, etc. Easy and pretty basic stuff. He has always thought that if life intervenes in your romance, you just wait til it settles down and then resume it. He nevereverever sees that it doesn't really settle down, it's just a peaceful interlude til the next shtuff hits the fan. So when we are going through stressful times, his solution is to do his own thing and get back to me when it's over. This kitchen remodel might well take 6 months--or longer--and he can't understand why my heart starts to drift after a couple months of being an afterthought. Little things do a LOT towards us being able to hold it together til the peaceful interludes arrives.
Thanks for the feedback on helping him. I am more than willing to help. It's hard, you know, because someone has to be watching those pesky kids of ours. But I do the small jobs and even made up a list of things that I could do to help him and asked him if he could think of anything else.
You know, GGB, a while back you stated that you thought you might be a QT person after all and I thought, Hmmmm yeah...not me. Well, maybe I am. Looking back, I can clearly see that my mind drifts when we are not spending any time together. It is simply too much for me to spend all day long here at the ponderosa, tending to the kids and then do it some more when he gets home while he is working on projects and then go to bed and do it again the next day. I'm starving for time with him, time doing adult things. The romance will flow from that, I betcha. Of course, if you ask H, he will tell you that my love language is ALL of them, lol, so who knows.
HP, Ain't it good to know that you're "smokin' hot"?
I gotta admit, when I get busy with a project I sometimes forget to take care of the heart as well. Sometimes it is hard to focus on more than one thing at a time. I suppose it's a guy thing. It's up to you to give him the reminders that the R is partly his responsibility too, and that it needs consistent nurturing in order to maintain the blossoms so to speak. In a non-nagging way, of course. Its those little things that make the R worthwhile.
Ya know, maybe get the kids to pitch in too. It'll go a bit slower than you doing it alone, and you might have to re-do some things, but including them will make the whole thing more fun for everyone, and the kids will feel special for getting to help out. For example, a couple weeks ago I had a bit of restoration work to do on our lawn tractor. S2 "helped" me with it, (and probably learned a swear or two ). He mostly played with the socket wrenches while I was working. He had a ball, and undoubtedly felt important. Yeah, it took probably twice as long with him there, but on the other hand had he not been "helping" me, I wouldn't have gotten it done at all because I would have been inside watching him study entropy with his toys. Plus, he got some one-on-one QT with Dad.
Whatever, the big thing is to make sure that you two spend some QT together, and carve it out of the day no matter what else you have to give up to do it. Don't let it become a groundhog day for you. I don't envy you doing the kitchen remodel at all. The kitchen is the center of the house, and with it all torn apart... well it is just hard to live like that. He's undoubtedly feeling a ton of pressure to get it done, even if no one has said anything about the inconvenience of it being all apart. That's why I suggested working with him on it (perhaps some evenings when the kids are in bed), because if you work together you are at least getting some QT and it relieves a little bit of the pressure if you are both invested in it, KWIM?
I've pretty much come to the conclusion that most of us have at least shades of all the LL's. Had you asked me two years ago, I would have said mine is 100% PT. Now, I see little bits of all of them....well maybe not the gift giving, I still don't get that one...in me as well as in MrsGGB. I bet your are right, have some QT and the romance will flow from it....heck, you'll have a new kitchen to christen shortly, might as well have a few practice rounds before it is done
Part of the problem is that he thinks that doing my HoneyDo jobs is "taking care of me". I get what he's saying and I am SO appreciative of what he is able to accomplish while working full time and raising 3 little girls.........but (ha, y'all knew that was coming!) it doesn't fill my love tank. Besides, remodeling the kitchen aint exactly a honeydo job--it's something that we both knew would have to be done as soon as we saw it. Not only is it 40 yrs out of date, it's also unsafe. (the stove barfed up a flaming ball of copper wire one day, while D4 and I were trying to cook oatmeal)
Get the kids to help? Are you freakin insane?? This week, his jobs are installing cabinets and chopping out a ceramic tile floor. Not exactly jobs that kids can help with, or even be in the room. Well, my oldest could help with installing the cabinets (hand me the level, honey) but that tile is lethal.
I want you to know that I did not mention the R atrophy at ALL..I knew it was fallout of the remodeling pressures he was feeling and I didn't say a word. Also, whatever is causing this emotional flatlining (life..hormones..whatever) just did not propel me to look any further than thinking, Huh. Things are getting stagnant again. I didn't bring it up until we got into a tiff about me going to a party alone. He was enraged that I would go alone and I said that my life is boring enough as it is, I wasn't about to sit at home every night simply because he does not like being social. Then it evolved into a discussion about my general feelings of boredom, within our marriage.
Otherwise, I never would have brought it up. I understand how hard he is working and how stressed he is to make it all happen, on a pauper's budget and only general handyman skills.
Thanks for the reminder about how taxing it is on him. I always appreciate reminders from the Other Side.
, Could it just be stress? You've got a lot going on right now, and stress is one of the things that can cause problems with hair loss (might explain my own chrome dome 
). He mostly played with the socket wrenches while I was working. He had a ball, and undoubtedly felt important. Yeah, it took probably twice as long with him there, but on the other hand had he not been "helping" me, I wouldn't have gotten it done at all because I would have been inside watching him study entropy with his toys. Plus, he got some one-on-one QT with Dad.