I'm picking this up here from a Hijack on Fran's thread. Journey asked me if I could get away with MrsGGB.
Right now, probably not. She's up to her eyeballs in all the stuff she busies herself with. Someone mentioned 15 hours a week with your spouse. I'd be fortunate if I could get her for 1.5 hours a week right now. Yup, that's part of the problem I know, but when I bring it up to her she feels I am once again highlighting her failures as a wife. So, I wind up going to sleep to the sound of the sewing machine while she does her quilting to unwind.
It's interesting how for some people, when you suggest to them that ANYTHING be changed to something different, they take as a criticism of how things are right now.
My late H and I used to have this discussion. He was not fond of change. If something-- schedule, meals, furniture arrangement-- was a certain way, then suggesting a change was the same thing as saying that the old was was bad and needed to be thrown out. If we have hamburger for dinner every Monday night and one day I want chicken, "What's the matter, you don't like hamburger any more?"
This can be generalized into: "Why don't we do/eat/go [insert suggested new thing]?"
Reply: "What's wrong with the way we do it now?"
"Nothing. It would just be nice to do something different."
"You don't like the old way any more? So I guess you've been pretending to like [old thing]? So I guess you're disappointed in me because I still like [old thing[?"
Journey asked me if I could get away with MrsGGB Just so you don't feel so bad if it has been a while, the last vacation I took with BB, 2 teenagers and grandma was 1986.
The kids moved out about 1994 but that didn't help.
AARP joke: We don't have to work, the government is paying us to stay home, no kids, we have the house to our selves; we could have sex anytime we want, but nothing is happening. ( just what every 20~25 yr old dreams of.
Someone mentioned 15 hours a week with your spouse. I'd be fortunate if I could get her for 1.5 hours a week right now GGB, the time helps but doesn’t solve the problem. The time allows me to do lots of touching, and enough rubbing gets my foot in the door but doesn’t light her fire.
Maybe I need to hold a cardboard sing up at Wal-Mart, “ will trade hair/back/foot rubs for good sex. LTR only need apply.”
I saw a Jonathan Winter’s skit on TV where he has a cardboard sign stating; ~“Need money for airplane upholstery job and annual maintenance inspection.”~
Lil "You don't like the old way any more? So I guess you've been pretending to like [old thing]? So I guess you're disappointed in me because I still like [old thing]?" Snort BTDT, but a slightly different version.
I'm going to hijack right back at ya GGB! Because travelling different roads would be an apt description of the state of my M right now.
when I bring it up to her she feels I am once again highlighting her failures as a wife
Lil said when you suggest to them that ANYTHING be changed to something different, they take as a criticism of how things are right now
This rings such a bell. H is completely criticism phobic and any suggestions I might make are immediately read as critical of HIM rather than the situation. I found a Book which looks like an interesting read - it suggests that the ability to hear blame is a function of low self-esteem.
I am continually amazed the extent to which H will hear blame in my voice when I absolutely intended none - not that I was trying to cover it - but not even feeling it at all and he will still manage to hear it. This makes it extremely difficult to have reasonable R talks because anything I talk about gets twisted round into him feeling attacked. He also said this about the few MC sessions we had, that he felt attacked by me and the MC.
I'm not sure what you can do.
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
Criticism is a big thing here right now. She says I am critical, and I am at times. However, even when I am not, like you said making a suggestion for improving things is always taken as criticism of the status quo. It makes me want to be careful not to say anything, which is exactly opposite what needs to be done to improve communication and the R. I'm not sure what I can do either. Withdrawing feels safe, but in the long term I know it will do more damage than good.
I am continually amazed the extent to which H will hear blame in my voice when I absolutely intended none - not that I was trying to cover it - but not even feeling it at all and he will still manage to hear it.
