S&A, yes that was our plan, to elope to a carribean island. That plan is still active...however, it may be Hawaii instead, and it will not be February 2009, more likely will be May 2009.
However...there is much to sort through before that, and for now, we aren't even thinking of the wedding. Just focused on the here and now and the challenges we are currently facing. We both want to be 1000% sure before saying "I do", and although we are probably being way too cautious....well, its just that we've both been divorced before so we are both needing way more reassurance that we'll never get divorced again than most first time married couples ever need.
Kakatal...I have been reading your updates but haven't posted to you in a while...I will try to get over to your post later today and do that.
And an update for me...
A little over a week ago, my fiance had an epiphany. Basically it was in the sort of DAM (dumb ass man) mode of epiphanies. The type where a man suddenly becomes aware of what his wife has been saying all this time....things like:
*Please don't talk to me like I am on one of your construction crews, I need you to be softer to me in general, and especially when speaking to me.
*Please make time for us to do something besides work work work all the time. I need your presence in my life, not just the work you do for me. I will work for you too, but not 100% of the time. You don't see the work I do for you by supporting you while YOU work all the time, and its killing me. I need a break from it.
*Please remember that when your stress levels go up, I can help you with that IF you don't shut me out. I understand the cave, but yet, you must understand that you are SUPPOSED to turn toward your loving woman to help you with this...not retreat further and further from me. I will give you some space and time for your caving....but eventually you need to realize that we are not meant to not lean on each other. That is what we are here FOR! To lean on each other!
*Please remember that while you are in your cave, you can come back out at any time at your own whim. But when I am in a well, I will drown in there without your help. I do give you your space when you need to cave, but I need you to return this to ME by giving ME what I need....ie: when I am in the well, please do not leave me in there alone to drown. I need your assistance when I am stuck in there.
And lastly....
*Please stop focusing on things in life that will never matter one way or the other, and instead focus on the things in life that if you screw them up, you will spend the rest of your life regretting it (ie: love, relationships, kids....NOT work, work, more work, and again, more work. No one is on their death beds worrying about the work they didn't complete).
Anyway....
So even though I had already been saying these things for a very long time, we had to get to the point of almost breaking up for him to have this epiphany. And then its like all the words I have been saying for the past year or so are suddenly coming back to him so clearly.
It actually reminds me a lot of the posts I read in "newcomers" from DAM's whose wives have been telling them similar things for years, then she finally leaves him, then the husband is here going "what the F was I thinking? Why did I refuse to listen to her? What did I think was so important that I couldn't spend a little more time on her? And now she's gone and I would do anything to get her back".
Apparently, many of us need a true wake up call in order to wake up.
But speaking as a woman, this is so very irritating. Why can't you just listen to me before it gets to that point? Because by the time we are on our way out the door, there is very little left to salvage. The pain that occurs up to that point makes it a very difficult task for a man to clean up his own mess.
However...we are doing pretty well and I am totally giving him a chance. So far, he is back on track. I don't know what the future holds, but for now....he is working his way back into my heart and I am open to him.
We are also making our plans for the exit of my house. This will still take several more months of work. But I have been very pleased in the meantime to be finding comps to my house in the price range I am hoping to sell mine for. And on top of that, my neighborhood is very coveted in my city...so houses don't sit on the market in my neighborhood for 6 months like they do in other parts of town. Goodie for that. One of the very few financial things I ever did right in my life was buy that particular house.
Sex seems to be coming back around....and its still great. The frequency will have to come back in its own time....or maybe it never will, who knows....I am waiting for the lovin' good feelings to come back first before I know how the sex/frequency thing will come along. But for now, things look up.
Ok after a lot of thought and reflection, I am realzing that my fiance is possibly going through an MLC.
Some of his signs are not "classic" so it kind of escaped my attention before now. But when I have been paying closer attention, I am hearing more than just issues with our relationship. I am hearing general dissatisfaction about his life and weird angst about the past and future. Bing! I can't believe I missed these clues. I am also realizing this was probably beginning around the time we met, 5 years ago (based on some of the things he was saying about life in general at that time - confusion, angst, etc).
I printed off a list of typical signs of an MLC for him on Friday, and he agreed that a lot of it sounded like what he is feeling.....and it also seemed to help him a little, like to read that this is somewhat "normal" to be feeling at mid-life was helpful.
Not that this solves everything, but it makes more sense than what I was previously thinking and worried about.
We took a weekend off from work (on my never ending remodeling project) and went out of town to a romantic destination on Saturday night. That helped a LOT in terms of bringing us closer again, and we talked a lot about things. Mostly about how in love we once were and how we both miss it.
I am actually still in that much love and have never wavered, and he is beginning to realize that he was the one who pulled back from me and he is questioning that now. He is questioning why he was pulling back. At the time he was rationalizing doing it based on things I was doing (or not doing) in the relationship that were bothering him. Upon reflection and me gently reminding him of all the ways I do support him and love him, he is starting to see that he was in the process of creating a re-written history....without any solid truths to back it up. Thank god we were able to talk so much this weekend.
Also on Thursday afternoon, we met with a real estate agent to ask a few questions about my house: should we spend the money on this project, or that project, and will it pay back? Also what do you think the list price will be?
That meeting was a real triumph, for me personally and also for us as a couple. Long story short, the minimal projects will be just fine, don't do any extra stuff (ie: less cost and less time to complete, yay!), and the list price will be exactly as I hoped it would be and I will get to walk away with plenty of money, thank goodness.
So that meeting set the stage for him to be able to relax a bit more. He had been thinking that we were going to need to put a lot more work into the house than we will have to, so now he can stop his overdrive thinking about that and we can focus on the smaller stuff.
This is a very good update, the whole thing! I am feeling so much more hopeful.
We have counseling again tomorrow.
I have been reading the 7 principles book.
I am all in on making every effort possible to make this work!
(and we had amazing sex all weekend....thank god we brought the big sex tarp)
S&A - thank you for checking in and for your update on your thread.
Energy - LOL! I have no idea how to even respond to your post. You must not know my story at all. Thank you for trying to help but enticing my man isn't a problem with us.
My fiance and I have been having so much trouble for several months, with fighting and general crabbiness, etc. But underneath it all, we both always know how much love is there, and neither of us wants to give up. We just don't know how to navigate around both of our very strong personalities effectively, so we end up on each other's toes very often.
We got to a point of nearly breaking up, though. And at first, we both felt like we were going to die, because we just don't want to break up. But it was something we both had to face head on and be mature enough to handle it if it came to that. In retrospect, going through the exercise of accepting a break up if it came to that, actually helped us. It made us step back and begin working on our friendship again, because we knew we would need those skills in play if we had to divvy up our stuff and move apart from each other.
Also it just helped us to step back from our co-dependancy and realize, we really are separate people and we have to stand on our own two feet as individuals before we can be good partners to each other.
We stopped going to counseling. It may seem weird but, I knew that we needed to step back and do a lot more WORK on US at home, before just talking more in the counselor's office. We kept having nothing new to report in counseling, and that was when I knew that we needed to do some home work.
Over the past couple of weeks, I personally have done all the work I could....mostly in the form of really forcing myself to not start fights or be baited into them, and learning how to accomplish this. I got a long series of CD's of an audio book on just this subject and put the exercises into practice.
Then...I just prayed, very earnestly, for several weeks. I prayed for help for us to fix our problems, but if we couldn't, I prayed for the strength to end things.
Everything slowly began getting better...culminating into this weekend, which was a huge success and breakthrough for us.
We spent a night out of town (again due to my house being uninhabitable due to remodeling). On that one night we spent at least 4 hours reconnecting and working on relationship issues (reading the 7 princpals book together, doing an emotional needs questionaire together and sharing our answers, and just talking about the reasons we are having such trouble with fights honestly and kindly). Then we spent another 8 hours on each other's bodies in a sexual manner.
For those of you who may be new to my thread/sitch, 8 hour sex marathons are not unusual for us. In fact, when we don't get to do this frequently, we both start feeling the loss and it affects our daily lives. It is harder on me when we are missing out on this, because he is much more self-assured and mature about sex than I am. I have been much more needy about it during our relationship....mostly due to my previous sex-starved marriage and my own issues. He has always been confident and self-assured and he doesn't worry the issue if we are not quite up to speed....but at the same time, he does miss it when we can't have our really ROCKIN' sex marathons....it recharges him in a way nothing else can.
So the end result of the weekend was:
*We reconnected on every level *We discussed very important issues in our communication problems *We made a re-commitment toward each other and the relationship
I still don't plan to go back to counseling just yet. We have some more work to do until there is any kind of update to give her. And he still needs to finish reading the 7 principals book (which she recommended, although it had already been recommended to me by Bagheera).
And then finally....my house....
We are very close, like within 3 weeks, of it being "almost" finished. But this point of "almost" finished will be a real turning point for us. We will each have some separate space FINALLY, and he will have his own "man room" where he can set up his huge TV. Not having his huge TV for over 2 years now (since he moved in with me) has been a big problem for him. He doesn't feel he has that "escape cave" he really needs for his own masculine recharging. He has his shop, but it isn't the same. And for me, I need a place to meditate, pray and study in quiet without being interupted. Right now, I don't have that place, but in the next 3 weeks, I will! Not having separate space to do our owns things has been a real problem for us....so I'm willing to set aside most of the relationship work we need to complete until we complete this phase of the remodel....we really need it.
Plus its just beautiful! My house seems to be standing up straighter with pride!
For the first time in months, I feel I can see light at the end of this tunnel, and that the light has us still together instead of ending up apart.
Still, we will be selling the house (or trying to) and that will be its own whole new phase in our lives....but between now and then, I just can't wait to enjoy our separate spaces in my house, and we are happily moving back toward our usual 8 hour weekly sex marathons. Hurrah!
That's my story for today....thankfully, it is a great one!
