I guess it's time to get to work

[Michael Mc C]

My wife and I had an unexpected talk last night which left me with some very mixed feelings. The best part of the conversation was her openness and the fact that she is showing a real effort in trying to make our marriage work.

I have posted a few times (at least a few) that I take full responsibility for my contribution to the stagnation and souring of our marriage. Last night my wife pointed out something that I hadn't taken into consideration and damn it, she's right.

I made a sexual comment to my wife last night in private and she gave me a look of disgust. I asked her why she seemed bothered by it and she told me that she finds a lot of my comments and actions demeaning. I defended myself telling her that I am only kidding around and besides, we used to always joke around this way.

She told me (mostly my words, I can't remember ver batim...) 1) joking around from time to time is fine but when it becomes a constant, predictable response it becomes insulting and demeaning, 2) although we both used to act in this way, we're in a mature relationship and we should do what we can to "unlearn" this legacy behavior because it does not represent a truly loving and caring relationship and 3) in response to my comment "you never told me it bothered you", she said "I'm telling you now because we can't fix our marriage while this continues".

It was eye-opening. She is correct in saying that at times I treat her more like a sexual object than someone I truly care about. Obviously this was never my intention but nonetheless it happens. I thanked her for her honesty and told her that I am going to work on this. She went further and said that while she believes I love her and care about her for HER, she sometimes feel like she is wanted for no more than some physical fulfillment. She wants a relationship with someone that appreciates who she is, not how sexy she is. She said "If I wanted that, I could get it on any street corner."

and...

She continued with her openness (ouch) and told me that this past summer I had treated her, and a lot of our women friends with a great deal of disrespect through similar behavior. My disrespect towards her was doubled because no one but my wife should receive the attention I was giving women.

I am a flirt but I KNOW that this summer there were times when I pushed the limits and I KNOW I was disrespectful to all involved.

The second best part of the conversation was the fact that she told me these things without accusing me of anything. She was not angry, she was not throwing my past transgressions in my face - she was simply telling me the truth about how my behavior makes her feel. She also stated that she has noticed that I had already shown improvement regarding this even though we never really discussed it before.

So... my immediate reaction was to sit back and think about all the times that I behaved in that way (a few times yesterday alone...). I was ready to beat myself up about it and as if she could hear my thoughts she said "I don't want to rehash all the times this happened, nothing can be done to change that. We need to work on how we're going to move forward from here."

As a pre-cursor to this converation, by the way, she commented on how she has made her own mistakes in our sitch (behavior leading up to the OM and the relationship with the OM).