What is the principal of least interest? Simply stated, in any transaction / relationship, the party with the least interest holds all of the power. For example, if you go to buy a car, if you are ready to walk away without one you picked out UNLESS the sales guy takes your offer, you can negotiate from a position of strength. It doesn’t matter what the sales guy does /tries to do, you have the least interest and therefore hold all of the power. What if you tell the salesman, I HAVE to go home with the red sports car, (whatever it takes), he now holds all of the power, you might get the car but ONLY at his terms.
One of my tasks at work is to review contracts and negotiate terms. I see this happen all of the time, if you TRULY have the least interest, you totally control the negotiations. Same works for dating BTW, if one person MUST have a date, and the other can ‘take it or leave it’ the more ambivalent one holds all of the power.
How does this relate to me and this board? It is obvious, in my relationship I haven’t left (or worse looked somewhere else for my needs), despite over the years expressing my displeasure. Since these are not part of my ‘available negotiating tools’ I am set up as the one with the MOST interest. My wife hasn’t made any real changes (brief attempts but nothing permanent), It is obvious that my W has the least interest and hold all of the power in the relationship (in regards to sex at least).
It is so simply obvious that without a change in my interest level or ability (willingness) to react on it I will be unable to make any changes in my sitch. It sounds so clinical but without a change in the interest / power I feel that I will be unable to change the relationship. I think this explains the change from HD to LD many of us see during our ordeal. At least lowering my interest helps get me closer on par with my W but what have I gained? (or sacrificed)
The hope that her interest will increase to be closer to mine (resulting in some kind of parity) I think at a certain point must be abandoned.
Clinical and depressing at the same time, the double header eh?
Hey socal. This ties in with the "leverage" discussion over here. And I agree. You can tell your spouse, "I will not live in a sexless marriage forever" until the cows come home. Until you're ready to truly walk out the door, why should they listen? (And of course, I'm saying that, knowing that of course they should listen). They've likely heard your complaints, threats, pleas, rants, before, and still they haven't had to change their behavior. They know that, with continued deflection, they never need to change.
This is SO true, SoCal. I call it "he who cares the least" (short for "He who cares the least, wins"), but it's the same principle. And, being in sales myself, I see it used, quite effectively, all the time in negotations, and I used it myself to help my daughter by a car just last Friday.
But I've NEVER seen it be effective in the HD/LD dynamic. The problem is, in this case, the "disinterest" is taken by the LD/ND partner as being simply what they WANT -- namely, to be left alone, at least sexually. So you give them more disinterest, they are relieved, but they don't use that new level of comfort to then step back out of their comfort zone to meet YOUR needs.
If anything, they are reinforced in their LD/ND behavior.
I stopped pursuing my wife sexually about 4 years ago, and she's perfectly fine with it. No doubt relieved, even. Don't get me wrong, I do think in a PERFECT world, she would like to know that I still DESIRE her (and would want compliments, and expressions of that desire), but she still wouldn't want to have to actually DO anything about it.
I've said it before, at least with MY wife: she wants to be sex-Y ; she just doesn't want to have to have any actual sex.
Choc., who now cares the least also, but still ain't gettin' any
I also once believed in the saying “He who cares the least controls the relationship.” But I now only see this as a possibility, not a certainty. Pick up the book “Love Addiction” by Pia Mellody and you will see quite clearly that there is a pursuer/avoider role in many relationships. My wife is the avoider and usually acts like the one who cares the least. I have always been frustrated that she seemed to control the marriage, but I now believe this is just her way of self protection.
The pursuer feels abandoned by the avoider, but the avoider will also feel abandonment when the pursuer truly stops pursuing. It is the same dynamic as with other roles that couples play. They are all ways to avoid fear. If it is in fact true that your wife does not care about you and therefore controls the relationship, then you do have a problem. But how do you know that is true?
Have you ever tested your wife to really know how she would react if YOU abandoned HER? The book says that the avoider will feel abandonment when the pursuer truly stops the pursuit. That is because avoidance of the pursuer is a way of maintaining control. If the pursuit stops, control can no longer be exerted and the avoider will then feel a sense of panic.
Rigley’s recent discussions are a good case in point. He is showing us how the avoider thinks. Though he is pursuing now, before he was the avoider. His wife was trying to get his attention and he basically ignored her (not saying you did so intentionally, Rig). Once his wife stopped the pursuit, made it clear to him that she was serious about leaving, he lost the security of being pursued and began to panic.
I think the better adage is the person with the lower TOLERANCE for abandonment controls the relationship. Perhaps your wives just have a lower threshold of detachment before their abandonment fears kick in. Over the years they have come to learn that your threshold is much higher and that you will come around like clockwork before she has to really worry about your leaving, do you think? So that way of thinking “He who cares the least controls the relationship” is really putting on a self imposed straight jacket. Stand up to her and take some action.
In my case, my wife's tolerance for my stopping my pursuit stopped only when I threatened to leave her and get my own place. When that happened, a fortnight of HD, attention, respect, affection and other lovely things kicked in, but then it quickly faded. I'm afraid -- like so many others' stories on here -- that she only takes me seriously when she thinks she's going to lose me.
I DO think she wants to be pursued. She just doesn't want to actually be caught. And without the reward of an eventual catch, this pursuer has stopped pursuin'.
any 