Hmmmm. you said you have been here for a long long time, and I believe it, but the above is not the truth. a) I really fcked up last time. Ive said it a million times. I wasnt protective. I mistakenly thought a marriage *should* be differant then attraction. Thats why my intitial response was atypical for for the first couple months. I didnt know what protective was in a M. I didnt know Jealousy was a good thing. Of course if a M is just attraction...
It's not just attraction, although there does need to be a good dose of that.
Now as for the need to be protective, does a woman really want to be protected from herself as a child would? How much? Because when you get right down to it, the other man doesn't "steal" her away... she goes to him of her own free will.
In your case, I thought it was more a matter of you neglecting her and giving her no reason to stay in the marriage rather than you not protecting her from her own desire to go to the other man.
Originally Posted By: blackfoot
But no woman on the face of the planet will always "chose you" no matter how much you abandon her emotionally.
Whats a reasonable expectation for this? I mean, I expect her to have several if not, many, other attractions in a life time. I know I will. I expect and accept the emotional abandonment that will come with her life and our situational changes.
Seriously? You think that "emotional abandonment" of her partner is the natural and proper response of a person to life and situational changes? It's depressingly common, but that's not a reason to "expect and accept" it... it's a reason to try to prevent and/or correct it, or to move on if it proves impervious to long-term intelligent efforts toward that end.
Originally Posted By: blackfoot
If I need 'space' how long would be reasonable to be able to receive said necessary 'space', without betrayal, and infidelity?
Depends on how much space we're talking here. Months or years of "emotonal abandonment" seems to me to be a betrayal of its own. We all need some space, of course, but I recall you saying that you were cutting off affection and attention, in part, because you wanted to see if she'd seek it elsewhere. Why shouldn't she? If I understood you right, you had promised to supply it to her when you married her and then you cut off her supply without any provocation on her part.
I may be really missing something, but I don't see any reason to conclude from that that lack of "jealousy" or "protectiveness" was the problem here.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
