The first book to come was "Rekindling Desire". I skimmed through several pertinent sections, and talked with my wife about it. Her reaction was predictably negative. She is very skeptical that the authors have anything useful or applicable to say, therapists go into the profession because they themselves are troubled, blah, blah.
But, she did tell me to underline or mark any sections that I want her to read. She was trying hard to be disinterested, but I know she is actually curious in a hostile kind of way... I couldn't help but smile, it must have looked kind of smug, but I think she is open to some new ideas.
Today, the other two books arrived, "The Sex Starved Marriage" and "Love Languages". She had opened the package and then hid them out of embarassment (I did tell her I had ordered them, so it was not a surprise). She told me where to find them when I got home. As a joke I took SSM and put it on the coffee table. Big letters -- SEX STARVED MARRIAGE. I told her relax, I'm keeping them hidden away in my underwear drawer. But she didn't think it was funny, I have a kind of twisted sense of humor which she does not always appreciate.
The last couple of days, as I was reading, I would sometimes read a couple of paragraphs to her. She told me DO NOT DO THAT AGAIN! If she wants to read it she will, and stop shoving it down her throat. Okay, a little defensive, but understandable.
I'm still balking at calling off the affair, which is selfish and weak, I know, I know. But I feel like I need to see just a tiny bit of progress at home before taking that step. To be honest, I think things are cooling down on their own just due to the natural course of things, maybe you "experienced" cheaters out there can tell what to expect.
Quote: I'm still balking at calling off the affair, which is selfish and weak, I know, I know. But I feel like I need to see just a tiny bit of progress at home before taking that step.
dude if you are at all serious about repairing your marriage then call off the affair...waiting to see progress at home before you call it off would be like waiting to loose a few pounds before you actually go on that diet..or expecting to see some muscle gain before you actually walk into the gym...
you can't work on your r with your w if you are screwing some other woman.
plus just imagine the extra complications your marriage will suffer if your w finds out about the a...which by the way eventually she will..they always do!!
I understand that sex is important...it's a need etc...but by continuing to have this r with the ow...even if it is just for sex (it seldom stays that way for both parties what if the ow starts to have feelings for you and THEN you decide to shut her off...then you'll be faced with ow threatening to tell your w...get out fast and go buy some magazines til w is ready to work on that area with you) is a dangerous thing and is undermining the progress that you and w may make.
I am not speaking to you just as any woman...I am speaking to you as a high drive woman married to a low drive man...so I understand your frustrations...thing I realized is that when I focus less on the physical r and more on the emotional r..the sex just seems to come along with it.
Well put lostlove! I agree completely - and believe me the thought of having an affair has crossed my mind many times. But if I ever do have an affair (and I don't plan to) it would only be after giving up all hope of making things work with my wife.
Well, it's done. I told OW that I want to work on my marriage. I also gave her the titles of the books, maybe they will help her situation if she decides to work on her marriage. It was an e-mail so I don't know her reaction, but I think she saw it coming.
Now that is done, I am committed to giving this my best effort, and I feel that our chances are very good for making it work. After reading through the books a bit, I realize that the broken parts of our relationship are minor and probably easy to fix, relatively speaking. I know it will take a lot of time and a lot of patience, but the reward of success is huge. I'll check back in a month or two and let you all know if it's working. Thanks for listening, and thanks for the advice.
Bravo! Now you're talking! I'm glad to see you're getting serious about making things work with your wife. That's wonderful. Read the book cover to cover and fix the things that need fixing. Real intimacy with your wife will be far more satisfying than anything you can imagine. Put effort into making that happen. YOu'll be glad you did. Michele
Well it's been a week and so far so good. My wife read the parts I highlighted in Rekindling Desire along with other parts she found interesting. I'm mostly through SSM and I think it will be more helpful than RD, I think it applies better to our marriage. (Also, it is just plain a better book!)
We've had some good talks about the desire gap and it was good to see my wife vent a bit about her own frustrations. Normally she just doesn't want to discuss it, so that is definitely progress.
We planned a date and had a nice evening out, and made love that night. She wasn't exactly enthusiastic, but I appreciated the gift all the same.
Next week hopefully she will read SSM and we can talk about goal setting. Baby-steps-get-on-the-bus, baby-steps-get-on-the-bus... (Bill Murray in "What About Bob").
By the way, my female friend wrote back and was understanding and supportive, and actually suggested that we break off any contact whatsoever. I agreed of course, although the next morning I broke into tears on my drive to work, listening to some 60's tune on the radio. Well, got that out of my system, and probably a warning that I wasn't quite as distant about the no-strings affair as I was telling myself.
I suppose after two decades I can't expect anything to change very rapidly. My wife read most of SSM and found it to have very little of value for her. She doesn't really feel like she has a libido problem. There are no physical issues, no emotional barriers; there's just an imbalance between us. So how is that her problem, she asks.
She has been making the effort to be intimate about once a week, but it seems like that effort is diminishing her enthusiasm. When she just follows her own body's natural rhythm, I think she's a lot more in to it. I'm hoping that she'll be willing to keep up the effort and that over time her body's rhythm will pick up, too. But I don't want resentment building up in her, that she is sacrificing intensity for frequency. That will just poison her desire.
I am trying to spend more time together, without kids, just to talk and be emotionally close. That seems to be helping a lot, I can deal more easily with the lack of physical contact (touching, hugging) when at least we enjoy being near each other.
Other times I just feel so tempted to be unfaithful again. I've had dreams the last few nights of sex with random women, strangers. I'm up tonight because I touched my wife's shoulder in bed and she pushed it away and told me to go to sleep. Well, of course, sleep was about the last thing I could do.
Regardless of all that, it seems like we're making steady progress. I'm pretty confident I can keep my pants on (away from home). And hopefully our summer vacation will be a good time for us to make a deeper connection.
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