The Great Wall Part II

[Stigmata]

"If you move, I will kill you -- look carefully into my eyes and see that I am deadly serious stare?

ooohhhh..that's good.
I'm going to try that on H tonight.


As for the rest of your post, my eyes just glazed over.

LFL

Um, I figured y'all were smart enough to know this was figurative and should be adjusted to your gender accordingly. You're lucky you put that grin there, you, or I would start to doubt.

Where does it say tough love involves screaming after months of silent fake happiness?

Mmm, yes, I found that's the most effective way of building trust and communication.

Better yet, wait until I walk in the door after a stressful day to ambush me with a tirade of your grievances after so many months of hiding from me emotionally.

Yes, that's womanspeak and I don't get it. Women can't get serious and direct in open honest communication.


I said before that Karen has to take back her power in terms of not resting it in H's lap in terms of when she would like sex. It feels good, go and get it. H isn't going to change overnight obviously so you have to start somewhere. It takes a long time to steer/turn around a big honking aircraft carrier already set in motion. Even said seducing him as is presented here will work.

Unfortunately, yes, initiating with him every time without holding his feet to the fire about also initiating forms a nice entrenched pattern for him and he gets to go with the flow and further get confused why he is causing such buried resentment.

Glaze over. Fine. But I will tell you right now, if an F lays into me after so many months of not saying anything ... and I KNOW she isn't going to leave me over the issue we are going to have bigger problems. Takes hen-pecking to another level.

Now, if she grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, pushed me down in a chair, hashed it out like rational adults and gave me an ultimatum without that shrill F ear-piercing tone I will perk up and clear my fog.This ultimatum being she is very unhappy and is going to leave me because she can't take living like this anymore. She can even slowly build up her voice to a low roar.

If I know she is going to pack her bags and is not bluffing it's going to scare the hell out of me. Or if after we cleared the air rationally I have not followed through on my end and I god forbid see the bags in the kitchen soon to be loaded in her car I am going to feel sick.

Fine. Karen sais she won't leave no matter what. But there has to be something else equally grave to fit into that ultimatum slot.

But to blast me with your litany of examples where I have ignored you and didn't initiate here, here, there, and there when you had been a nice, sweet albeit curiosly distant partner of a whole year is not going to make me trust you. No way.

Hm, wonder what else she's hiding? What else about me bothers her that I don't know about? Hm, makes me want to chew on some of that nice resentment about her as well.

Faking comfort and satisfaction with me and my family over long periods while seething with resentment inside seems inauthentic. Sorry.

Of course I know this from experience. See, unlike you, LFL, x never bothered to come to me about her feelings or what she felt was lacking, or what she was doing behind my back in terms of building attractions to OMs.

That's why I give you credit and I feel is your saving grace -- the ballz to approach your H about your contacts with OMs. If you had gone through with soldier dork or Chrome any respect I have for you undoubtedly would have been wiped out.

But I get the M-F differences on this. That's why I was shocked to see an actual scientific study that showed more than 2x the number of Fs than Ms justified their own cheating. "I was unhappy. I wanted more sex."

X just went and fcuked them. Like your GF, she thought and even said as much, 'you were never supposed to find out." Yes, the sign of true respect for me. Aw, I can't tell him, it would just hurt him. It's just sex after all, as your GF said. Why ruin an otherwise good R? LMAO That one kills me.

Yes, I suppose what I don't know doesn't hurt me. Oh, unless you count me eventually developing full-blown AIDS. Yes, I think that would classify as "hurting" me, hm?

Don't think were all at opposite ends here. As GEL once aptly put it, there needs to be a "Come to Jesus" communication.

But for godsakes would you Fs stop putting on a fake happy persona around us for long periods then unload in anger in a neverending cycle? Would you deliver a wake up call via your dealbreaker?

That's why we Ms like operating manuals and slot A, tab B, 145-step linear directions to assemble that stupid snow blower. Tell us how to fix it. Don't scream like -- talk about eyes glazing over.

That's why it's so hard for me to visit this site. If x had only come to me and expressed her months and months of unhappiness with me I would have done just about anything to put a stop to it for fear of losing her.

I never got that chance. She went inside her head and decided my fate. All those months of fake comfortability while secretly resenting me inside all to end in one big mushroom cloud point of no return when she finally had the courage to drop the bomb and throw away years of our lives and shatter my foolish rose-colored version of our future together into old age. I guess that was selfish of me to think that. I should have noticed. I should have upgraded my telepathy hardware.

I don't think her shouting me down would have sunk in. I think if she had only sat down with me and we had a real heart-to-heart talk and that she gave me her tough love ultimatum, whatever it was, I would have taken notice ... at least I would hope.



I know. Too much to ask. Never mind. Gotta go now. Take care. Carry on.

-Stigmata-

[Corri]

Karen:

I guess Stig forgets that just about every HD on the planet thinks they've done everything but throw themselves into the fires of he!! to communicate how unhappy they are with the state of things...

Since you won't leave....

I am suggesting to you, to GET THE BALL ROLLING... go fck your H. As Stig says, if you verbally pounce on him right now for not initiating, you're going to get one big... "HUH???"

So, get it going again. I'm not so sure why you can't be honest with your H, and in a very honest way, afterwards say to him... "gosh, that was amazingly lame sex after not being with each other for 8 months." Quiet voice. Not accusations. Roll over. Go to sleep.

Try again a few days later. Honestly assess the ENCOUNTER, not the person.

In any event, get it all back into the foreground of his thinking... don't pretend it's great sex. Don't pretend it's the worst sex (if it isn't.)

But you can't deal with the issue... until it is clear in his head what issue you are discussing... sh!tty sex. Not sh!tty man, not sh!tty H, not sh!tty father...

[Stigmata]

Karen:

I guess Stig forgets that just about every HD on the planet thinks they've done everything but throw themselves into the fires of he!! to communicate how unhappy they are with the state of things...

I did? Um, no I've read enough on this site alone to know better than to be ignorant of that constant post-bleeding frustration. I am actually astonished by the number of years OP are willing to live in limbo.

Well the communication over "their being "unhappy with the state of things..." hasn't really been effective to this point, no?

You can speak Venusian to the Martian as the Fs here are bickering about or you can try and translate it into Martian to get through. Imagine a bunch of guys all chatting about what they feel you Fs will react to while you're sitting there knowing how you feel.

Karen wrote:


Why don't I know more details about H's sexual predilections - because he hasn't wanted to share them. I have asked and he has gotten all icky uncomfortable and been unable to say more than, "Yeah, I jack off what of it? It is normal for all men and women."

So why'd you let him off the hook?

Wouldn't say what kind of fantasy material, photos or whatever is involved. Anal - doesn't seem so, said that he had no interest. Frequency? Won't commit due to the issue of "flexibility" which is why he outright refused a schedule.

Well a very simple to adhere to rare sex session is a lot better than no sex isn't it? Again, excuses and off the hook he goes. Come on, that's a lame excuse, "flexibility." Call him on it. Surely sex once a month is waaaaay flexible in the schedule. Again, better than once every 8 months, huh?

"Wouldn't" talk about fantasies? Karen, he obviously knows there's a problem if he actually bought a sex tape and sat with you. I might suggest asking him what a real nice fantasy with you might involve in a fun but persistent way. You keep letting him squirm and run.

Man, he's so uptight about sex you need to start from square one without shouting at him.

His answer to my questioning of his likes/dislikes was to buy a Better Sex video series which we watched once, I got all horny and fcuked him on the couch during the thing and he NEVER ONCE tried anything we saw on there nor did he mention it again.

But did you mention it again? did you try more stuff in there again? The squeaky wheel gets the lube?

Please don't bring up the HDs always feel they've done everything till their blue in the face to me. I get it. Really. It's not working obviously so cross off whatever's ot working from the list.

If you were a guy, Karen, I would say something to the effect of you gotta "sack up." Call him on his BS excuses without being snide or mean.

Maybe even write down a list of everything you want in terms of your SL, go over it with him, and then push it to him and let himm fulfill his male drive as troubleshooter.

This is what I want for our intimacy. I want you to tell me right now in the next hour how we can both solve these issues I'm feeling. I've tried so now it's your turn.

And don't let him off the hook until he gives you a freaking figurative pseudo Power Point presentation that is entirely of his own design and successful resolution.

That he must convince you, the BTDT skeptical client, that staying with him is your best possible choice and you need a lot of convincing to buy the life he is selling for you.

Good luck with whatever you end up doing. [[[Karen]]]

-Stigmata-

[MJontheMend]

((Stig)),

Here's the problem as I see it. That sickening feeling that you would have gotten in your stomach if your X had packed her bags is the sickening feeling that the HD partner feels all the time when rejected and fearing loss. In theory, I am in favor of open calm mature communication about feelings but talking about feelings like that sickening feeling doesn't really communicate them adequately. The only way to communicate that feeling is to exhibit behavior that causes that feeling in your partner. In a healthy relationship, it shouldn't take actually packing your bags to do that and the feeling shouldn't have to reach the point of being sickening. We are all vulnerable and we need to experience exposure of that vulnerability in order to appreciate what we have in our lives. In my next LT relationship I intend to do my part to create/maintain desire, longing and the pain of passion and the fear of vulnerability revealed in my partner by letting him experience both my absence and my presence, both my gifts and my greed etc. etc. The question I have for you is why are you still letting women chase you when you know the power dynamic that will set up? Letting yourself be vulnerable is really the opposite of being an unappealing passive-aggressive nice guy. Who knows? Maybe I'm full of cr*p but I think you are putting way too much emphasis on the way a woman will react to placating behavior and not enough emphasis on why you strive for the opposite.

[karen1]

Hey Stig - thanks. I can only imagine what it takes for you to read through the female yammerings of what must sound like women who are ready act out at any moment like your ex W. I am a great deal more put together than I sound sometimes. I am also tougher. I get what you're saying and I do concur. I also agree with the connect betwen what you are saying and what Corri is saying.

I don't think that I can cold turkey "talk" with H about all this. I had been thinking the other way around, that I couldn't "cold turkey" touch, flirt or screw H. Then I noticed that in the past two days he's come over once or twice for a peck. Then I recognized that we are almost through the "bad time of year" (the period between Thanksgiving and New Years where H had four deaths/losses of important people). So, I think I need to touch first (more my language even than the yammering) and address stuff as needed.

I have given H lots of descriptors of my hopes and dreams for our life together. He always seems to agree in a "how sweet" kinda way and then fails to do the problem solve part. I think I gotta move him from his cemented position through some stuff that will make him uncomfortable but not put in the corner with a dunce cap. I did get something out of my little rants and the only reason I didn't reduce those rants to name calling and worse is that I DO love that rat b@stard.

I am certain that you are right and H jacks off frequently and that he keeps his sexual edge blunted that way. I want to address it but I don't want to be disapproving Mommy. I think porn is a drain on relationships and think that people don't realize the damage that can be done. It is one thing to share some together and entirely another to have a whole hidden thing going on. I am not against porn per se - there is a place for it but it gets used like a drug and it messes with people. I adressed it once in a letter to H and just begged him to "close his emotional exits - solo sex, too much tv, too many outside activities etc...." He responded by taking me to dinner.

Karen

[Dom R]

I am certain that you are right and H jacks off frequently and that he keeps his sexual edge blunted that way. I want to address it but I don't want to be disapproving Mommy.

Saying "you're not f---ing me enough", doesnt sound like a "mommy" to me

If you're not willing to tackle the "is porn bad?" question... you could try addressing specific standards, and objective facts.

FACT: a man has a limited number of [orgasms / timeperiod].
The limit varies for each man, but every man has an approximate max number per week.

FACT: if he is "using them up" on porn, that means you are missing out on what is owed to you as his wife.

So, you could start out with those facts, which he should not be able to argue against... then say, "i dont care if you use porn... so long as it is less important to you, than YOUR WIFE. you show me that I'm more important to you, by f---ing me (2 times?) a week FIRST. Then all the porn you like, can come later".



Now, personally, I think that you being ok with him using porn, is a huge mistake. But if you're not going to tackle that head-on, then you have at least one alternative, as above.

I adressed it once in a letter to H and just begged him to "close his emotional exits - solo sex, too much tv, too many outside activities etc...." He responded by taking me to dinner.

Apart from the whole "begging" instead of "insisting" problem: Another reason why your letter "failed", was that it was probably too big. Sounds like it was a very long, very wide fielded letter.

Give a man too many things to "work on" at once, and he'll throw up his hands, say it's impossible, and just do whatever he feels like, because to his viewpoint, there's just too much stuff for him to get a handle on.

Telling him instead, short and sweet, "I want to be f--ked by you twice a week. Do whatever it takes to make that happen", and there's no getting around it. No confusion, no "how can I even do that/what does she really want" issues.

If he says, "I cant f--- twice a week, because of X", then your reply is, "well, what are you going to do to get rid of X then?
Or is X more important than your wife?"

[OG_Lou]

Stig, I think you have some very good ideas in your posts.

Lou

[MJontheMend]

...or you could just take off your wedding ring and put it on the little finger of his right hand and say "I just thought your favored wife should have it."

[Burgbud]

This is just the thoughts of one person's mind, but it still seems to me Karen is best off discussing "physical desire" with her H rather than "sex". It's more authentic. If she was wanting sex with her H she'd be initiating and she'd be having it.

It's also fairly easy to imagine an LD spouse blowing off the HD spouse's sexual initiation and stated desire for more sex with the notion that "she's just horny, she'll get over it." The need to feel physical desire from one's spouse, however, is not so easy to dismiss. Especially, I would think, from a man who appears to sincerely love his W the way Karen's H does.

"I need you to initiate sex once a week" could be easily countered with an internal, "Hey, there are a lot of things I need, too. We don't always get what we want." Otoh, "I need to feel that my husband physically desires me"...can anybody really say, "That's understandable but it's just too bad" in response to that?

Maybe they can. Seems pretty harsh, though.

[Corri]

The need to feel physical desire from one's spouse, however, is not so easy to dismiss.

Yes it is. BTDT. In the mind of an LD, 'sexual desire' is the same thing as saying, "I need sex from you."

I need to feel that my husband physically desires me"...can anybody really say, "That's understandable but it's just too bad" in response to that?

Yup. Absolutely can... and the person can feel it without the least bit of 'harshness' to it.

When you need something from someone who is unwilling to GIVE it, you are pretty much out of luck, because no matter what you do/say, you are going to come off as needy and clingy.

When you LOSE the anger, and the person honestly knows that you aren't BLAMING them, you ACCEPT them... but you are OUTTA THERE... most times... it's the 2x4 shift to slam the wax out of the LD's ears... because it ISN'T a power play... and you can FEEL it. Immediately.