I was almost a WAW (and still am-- in my heart?)

[sandi2]

Why would I assume any differently now? He has not changed his sleeping pattern or offered any explaination when I've asked.

As I've said, I have been thinking about when the breakdown in our R started and the resentment started. I remember the very first time he did not go to bed with me and chose to stay up and watch TV. I was pregnant, living in the house with MIL, and we had been married around 4-5 months at the time. I felt so crushed and neglected b/c that was the only time we had to ouselves! Some of his relatives were over at that house all the blessed time. I needed those precious few moments alone with him in our little bedroom.....(even if it did have a walk-through closet between the room to his mother's and she could hear everything). I cried myself to sleep that night. I was under so much stress being a new bride, just getting pregnant, living in a house with people around me all the time.....absolutely no privacy, plus he never went anywhere with me nor ever wanted to do anything for fun. He sat at the table, drank coffee, smoked, talked to his mama, and watched TV. That was his life! And.....it still is minus the smoking and the MIL. Only now, he does go to church. We had no friends, no social life.........God, I could go on for hours.

Yes, I am resentful. Yes, I am having a hard time forgiving and forgetting almost 42 years of neglect. As I have said, I was always the one trying to add "spice" to the MR......not "Mr. Bump on a Log"! I needed that emotional intimacy so badly that first year of M! I practically begged him for it....but he couldn't do it and as a result, my body shut down to him and I couldn't respond to him sexually. But, then I was the bad one! When I tried to talk.....he wouldn't even acknowledge me by looking at me when I talked. He wouldn't answer me when I asked him a question. He just stared at the TV. But, his answer was always the same.....just have more sex and that would solve the problems of the world!

Sorry, DomR, I just get so tired of it all. I think he needs to take his share of the responsibility of the breakdown of the M and he doesn't. He doesn't think he has done one thing wrong. Well, I just don't know if I can get the grit and grace to overcome all of that and respond to him sexually or not. We are talking about a lot of years of neglect to meet emotional needs. Yes, I did not meet his needs sexually.....but neither were mine met either. I tried over and over to tell him that if he would only meet me half-way and compromise and come to bed with me and hold me and talk to me that I could respond to him sexually. One time.........one time....he tried it and it was the best night of our entire M. I'll never forget it as long as I live. And all he had to do was talk to me. I was on cloud nine. You would think that he could see what a difference a small gester like that would make, wouldn't you? He never did it again.

He still has not given me a reason why he stopped ML to me eleven years ago just as I began to feel like I was enjoying it more. I almost climaxed! I was so happy to think I even came close. He never touched me intimately again.

So, you want to talk about resentment? I'll talk resentment till the cows come home. I'm not perfect and never claimed to be, but I am sick and tired of being the one that gets blamed for the "problem" in our M (which means the lack of sex)!

I didn't move out of the bedroom.....he did. I didn't stop having the sex just as it was getting good....he did. So, yeah, I'm resentful and you can tell me it is poison and how unhealthy it is all day, but I don't know how to get past this when he can't just say, "I'm sorry for hurting you all these years". And to think he was so "hurt" b/c I didn't run to him to say the same thing when he found out about OM. Well, when he brought it up, I did say that I was sorry for hurting him, but do you want to know what he did? He just nodded his head in agreement. Then he said that he had done nothing wrong and had done everything he knew to do to make me happy and nothing worked! Oh really? Strange......I've been trying to tell him for 4 decades what it would take to make me happy. But, those are the things he didn't want to try to do.

Ok, now I feel better and you are probably sorry for bringing up the subject of resentfulness. Sorry, you didn't bring up the subject.....I did. Okay, you thought perhaps my assumption about him had changed. Well, it hasn't!

It is just amazing to read all these posts from men and how they do not listen to their W trying to tell them for years that they are not happy and then when she walks away......OMG, they are so hurt! Well, gee whiz! Now, grant you, some WAW's are sorry and that is just the plain truth of the matter, but then there are some that I feel have a certain amount of justification. I didn't say she had a right to have an A or anything like that....I just mean that she shouldn't have to put up with crap when her sorry H won't listen or even try to work on the R. If he is a sorry so & so, then I have to feel compassion for her. My H is not a sorry so & so and that is why it hurts and that is why I still love him and that is why I am still here with him and have not walked away. But, as my title says, I am still a WAW in my heart. I am still dealing with it and I have these moments that the anger flares and I need to get it off my chest. Sorry I used you for a sounding board, sweetie.