Feels like I am doing it all over again....

[sgctxok]

Good job answering...that's exactly what we need to know.

I don't think I am being selfish and I don't think I am being unfai r to demand that she takes some responsibility for the well-being of our marriage. It should not all fall to me and right now it very much feels that way.

You're right. Now she is overrewarded for her bad behavior.
We're going to try to retrain her now.

Two things.

One

What are the things that you do that she wants most? What are the things that make her happy? What would affect her most if you stopped doing it?


Two

What are 2 or 3 small, baby steps would you like to get from her in the next 2 weeks? Something that would tell you you are moving in the right direction?

[tyguy]

Based on the Love Language book it is acts of service and words of affirmation that moves her. She likes that I help around the house and she likes it when I tell her how sexy smart and funny she is etc etc. She also expects me to be home every night to do those things.

The big problem is that those things come so natural and easy for me that I don't even think about doing them. I don't mind doing stuff around the house and she IS sexy smart and funny and I don't have a problem telling her. I also like to be at my home more than anyplace else...so not coming home and doing things is rough for me =D


I am a physical touch, words of affirmation kind of guy so anything the goes that way would mean a lot for me. We talked yesterday about what we were going to do and we did it in a very nice restrained way. She seems to be ready to call it quits and nothing that was said really had any effect on her. She tends to change subjects a lot to totally silly things while we talk and that makes me pretty upset. An Example would be that while we where talking about our marriage she would blurt out in the middle of what I was saying things like "we need cat food!" or "don't forget to pick the baby up from daycare tomorrow!" This while I am in the middle of a heartfelt monologue and she is going off about cat food? It kills me a little inside that our marriage means so much less to her than it does to me.

I guess where I am going with that is if she would just slow down and pay some attention to the things that I say and do instead of taking me completely for granted all the time. Maybe that is not a baby step...but what can you do?

[Strong&Alive]

Tyguy, I’ve looked through all your posts here in order to understand the background. I’m now going to do my best to give you some advice. A word of warning. You may not like it at first – it all might seem too hard-hitting – but I make no apologies for that. Once you’ve let it sink in, maybe over a day or two, I think you’ll start to see things in a whole new light. In fact you might never look at life the same way again. There is far more to your marriage problems than simply a lack of sex. I’m talking from hard experience here, and although my own wife has never had an affair, I’ve had to deal with the SSM situation. Its tough. Very tough. But I’ve come out of it a wiser and better man. It might sound weird to you right now, but I’m actually profoundly grateful for the whole experience, because it forced me to look deep into myself and discover emotional and spiritual resources I would never have known I had. Anyway, here goes.


(1) Your wife (more about her below) currently has little or no respect for you as a man or a person, and this is a situation you yourself have permitted to develop over years. You have been far too “nice” – as in weak and placating. That is something you are going to have to come to terms with and remedy as apriority. EDITED--ADVERTISING NOT ALLOWED I’m not going to even attempt to summarise it here, but once you’ve read it you’ll realize several things: you need to stop being “nice”; you need to become an “integrated male” i.e. more masculine; and at some point – if your wife continues to behave the way she’s behaving now – you may well have to end your marriage. I’m going to deal with this point next.


(2) I know this will sound bleak, but when your marriage is in turmoil and negatively affects every other aspect of your life, its in fact very healthy to step back and contemplate how you would go about life if the marriage was already over. Let me explain. Your life would go on. It would go on. No matter how distraught and depressed you might be, and how worthless you might now feel, you would have to keep going. If not for your sake, then for your children’s. There would be living arrangements to sort out, property to be sold and bought, contact agreements to make regarding your children, and if this couldn’t be agreed amicably, this would all have to be decided by a court. It would all be very stressful and expensive and time-consuming. Very. (As you have two children from a previous relationship I assume you have already gone through something similar?) So you know you can do it if and when you have to. And then what? Perhaps after the 6 months or a year or 18 months that this all took, you would at last have some breathing space – time for yourself and to plan your own future. You would inevitably start thinking about your own career – which you’ve probably neglected because you were so depressed during your marriage. You would want to perhaps do other things that you’d not been able to do before – sport, pastimes, travel. You would also start thinking about dating again, and of starting another relationship. But this time you’d want to get it right. You’d want to be the very best man you could be, in order to recognise and attract and keep a healthy attractive woman. Have a long think about all that. It really puts your marriage in perspective doesn’t it?


(3) Now here’s the punchline. Start working on yourself and your future as if you were already divorced. In other words, devote yourself to a 6-month plan. An exciting programme called “Project Tyguy”:

(a) Focus on your career – stop thinking of it as something you are just doing to earn money for your wife and children. Start looking at it as an expression of your true self – something that allows you to come alive and show the world what you’re really made of. Work hard, push ahead, and don’t coast. If what you’re currently doing is not what you want – change jobs. If you’re not already, get on top of the family finances – be aware of what’s coming in, what’s going out, that you’re getting the best deals on everything.

(b) Get yourself in top physical shape. Start going to the gym regularly, lose the excess weight, become physically stronger. It will really help your self-esteem and of course your work.

(c) In addition, start spending some time with male friends. Preferably, strong successful men with happy marriages. If you don’t have such friends, start making them, either from work or the gym, or the fathers of your children’s friends at school. Meet up once a week to play sport or have a drink. Don’t spill your guts to them about how awful your marriage is – just learn to relax in their company and have a laugh about other things.

(d) Pick one more thing – an interest, pastime or hobby – to pursue. Something that’s close to your heart or that you’ve dreamed about, that you would definitely want to try if you were no longer with your wife.

(e) Start doing all these things. Not for your wife (or even your children), but for you. Only you. Mentally sever yourself from the expectation that your wife is at some point going to turn around and thank you for any of this. Judging by your background, that will be a tough proposition to get your head around, but you’ll eventually see it makes sense. Whatever happens in your life, whether you stay with this woman or not, its your destiny to be the best version of you that you can be. That’s your sole responsibility but also your great freedom. It means doing these things for yourself, with no expectation of any thanks or appreciation or indeed any response at all, from your wife or anyone else for that matter.

(f) Here’s where it will get interesting. If you stick to your programme, after some weeks you’ll start noticing changes in yourself. You’ll feel mentally sharper, stronger, more emotionally stable and much more at ease with yourself. You will start to feel and look and act like the man you were always supposed to be. People will definitely notice. Your wife will notice too (more about what to do about that below). I’m telling you so that you are not surprised when people notice. They will. But do not do these things for that reason. And do not stop doing them if they don’t.

(4) Your children. You love them a great deal and they are your responsibility to feed, clothe and bring up as strong and decent young men. Their greatest chance of all that is for you to be mentally and physically (and economically) the best that you can be. Again, you do these things for you, but that helps them as well. What kind of father do you want them to see as they grow up? – strong and heroic of course. Make efficient use of your time to ensure you are able to do for yourself the things I’ve suggested above. By fulfilling yourself you will enjoy the time you spend with them all the more.


(5) At last I get to sex. Sex is fun and exciting and exhilarating. Except when it isn’t. Sex can be intense and emotional and intimate. Except when it isn’t. Sex can really make a man feel he’s a man. Except when it doesn’t. In other words, sex is like any other activity – it can be good or bad, depending on the situation. Don’t get me wrong, I like sex as much as the next man (probably more) but you will never have a truly satisfying sex life unless you can get the whole thing into perspective. Sex is a celebration of your masculinity, not an ingredient. Sex is a desire, not a need. You do not need sex, from your wife or any other woman, in order to be a man. If you were marooned on a desert island with no female company for years, you would be no less of a man. Believe it and act it.


(6) Finally, your wife. I’m sure you love her very much. She is also the mother of your son, and that is a bond you will share no matter what happens. But she clearly has issues regarding sex and commitment to your marriage. On the one hand she has no sexual desire for you, but on the other she was capable of having a physical affair. As another poster NOPkins has pointed out – she may even still be cheating on you. You should consider taking steps e.g. an investigator, to establish whether or not this is the case. Either way, you must not tolerate her current unreasonable and selfish behaviour. So far it seems you have let her walk all over you, and that has to stop.

EDITED--ADVERTISING NOT ALLOWED

You then should have a talk with her, making the following crystal clear to her:

(a) Your marriage is in difficulty.

(b) You still love her, but you will not tolerate any further infidelity (mean it and watch her closely).

(c) You will now be taking time to do some things for yourself – you and she will have to divide up housework and childcare on a fair basis.

(d) You want to have an emotional relationship with her. (It has to be said that her present attitude to you – verges on outright contempt. However, there is also a good chance that in the past you have not understood what her emotional needs are. When a woman is with a man who has allowed his innate sense of masculinity to fade, and who does not know how to listen to her, she loses sexual interest.
EDITED--ADVERTISING NOT ALLOWED

(e) You want to have a physical relationship with her, but you will no longer accept grudging or mechanical or “pity” sex.


EDITED--ADVERTISING NOT ALLOWED


When saying all this to her, do not be angry, or accusing, or get dragged into a fight. Be firm, be calm and make yourself understood. Listen to what your wife says, but do not make an emotional response or backtrack. You then get on with “Project Tyguy”.


(7) Lastly, I understand how down and depressed you feel right now, but once you start focussing on yourself you will start to notice that these are feelings that come and go and are part of life’s cycle. You are at the bottom of a particularly bad cycle, but things are going to get better for you. The more you work on cultivating a sense of masculine strength and self-esteem that is completely independent of your wife, the better you will be able to deal with her and your marriage.


You may think I’m patronising you by writing so much about so many aspects of your life, but that is not my intention. I know from experience how very deeply sexual rejection can wound a man, and there is simply no point in dealing with it in a superficial manner. If a man doesn’t get the right kind of advice, its effects can be destructive in all kinds of ways – and then everyone in his life suffers. It’s a taboo subject that rarely gets properly talked about. So I’m giving you in one post pretty much everything that I’ve picked up from lurking on this board and from previous posters (particularly NOPkins, Crazy Eddie, Corri, Mojo, Lilliperl and others too numerous to mention), and that worked for me.


However, it’s of course totally up to you what to do next. Hit me back if you have any further queries.


Best of luck, Strong&Alive

[tyguy]

S&A-

That is about the best reply to any question I have ever gotten for any forum post ever. Thank you.

Now I will start answering/asking things!

I have been told before that I am too nice. I never really understood what that meant before, but I think I am starting to. It is HARD for me to stay mad at people..I just can't do it. People that have done terrible things to me in the past are still my friends to this day. I will get that book and read it because it is becoming more and more apparent to me that I need to stand up for myself more. Not just in my marriage, but in my life in its entirety. I would like to strike a nice balance between being kind and nice, but having that line there that says "you have gone to far!"

Clinical depression runs in my family and I always try to do things that I can to steer away from the signs of depression. I like to think that I am keeping a decent amount of perspective with this thing. I am still friendly to other people and my personality does not suffer (from my point of view anyways)with people other than my wife. Around her I am pretty silent and withdrawn most of the time now. My relationship with my kids is actually better than ever right now (except for my step-son, but that is another story =) because I am able to almost completely concentrate on them because there really is nothing between my wife and I anymore.

I have been working out and running for almost 3 years now and I feel like I am physically in good shape. I don't think I am ugly or anything like that, but I do not understand why my wife does not find me attractive anymore. I am in better shape now than I was when we met...but that ties into her thinking I am less of a man now I suppose.

I did decide this weekend was a "my" weekend so I went to a driving range with a buddy on Sat. night and then out for some drinks with another friend and then golfing and fishing on Sunday. It was the most fun I have had in a long time, but a part of me felt guilty for not being with my youngest son for that time, but another part was so happy to feel free for a while again.

I have learned that sex is a want, not a need =D Despite claims otherwise I am not driven by sex, but I do enjoy it. However your statement is the first time I have ever thought about not having sex has affected my view on myself. I have been told before it is not me, it is her, but that is hard to buy into from time to time.

I think you hit it right on the head with her viewing me with contempt. I have mentioned that in the past, and of course she denies it but there has never been reprercussions for her for anything she has ever done or said to me (see the I can't stay mad at anyone part above) so her behavior has gone unchecked for the last years and she doesn't give it a second thought.

Again, I don't feel all that depressed about "me", but I feel sad and depressed about my marriage. I feel really sad for my soon-to-be 4 year old. But I don't look at myself with any kind contempt or self-loathing. Have I questioned my ability to be a good husband? Almost all the time...but have I questioned weather or not I am a good man? Not really.

I don't think you are patronising me at all, in fact I appreciate you taking the time out to type all that out for me. I am glad and a little surprised that someone took the time to read into my scattered ramblings so deeply.

Thank you again.

[sgctxok]

Hi Ty,

You've gotten some good advice, and some not so great advice. I only have a few minutes, and I will expand later.

I am sorry you are depressed....and it's a good idea.


But basically, you want a slow takeaway of what you do for her. Not in the manner Strong has described. And if you give an ultimatum, you will most likely have to live with the consequences of that. Plus...it will add to her 'contempt'.

If your goal is to save your marriage, stick with advice that has been proven successful to that end....



"I have been working out and running for almost 3 years now and I feel like I am physically in good shape. I don't think I am ugly or anything like that, but I do not understand why my wife does not find me attractive anymore. I am in better shape now than I was when we met...but that ties into her thinking I am less of a man now I suppose."


It has more to do with your PATTERNS OF INTERACTION.


More later.

[Puppy Dog Tails]

Ty,

I cannot agree more with what Strong has written to you. My wife had an affair too, and I had to learn to do all of the things that he describes, and trust me, they did NOT come naturally to me! I, too, was a "nice guy," but through my self-growth my wife did leave her affair and come back to our marriage.

Of the advice you've been given so far, based on my own experience I would have to STRONGLY recommend that you listen to NOP and to Strong and consider what they've told you.

As hard as the infidelity hurts (and I've been there -- I know it does!), you've actually been given a golden opportunity here.

Puppy

[Strong&Alive]

Just touching base quickly.


Ty, I'm glad you found my post helpful. As I said, I am myself simply passing onto you a distillation of the collective wisdom of previous posters here, plus my own take, having personally put nearly all of it into practice and seen results. That does not mean an endless supply of sex. But, as you will start to realise, a lack of good sex (not all sex is), and your own reaction to that lack, is telling you something about you, your perceptions of the world, and your choices. EDITED--ADVERTISING NOT ALLOWED. Let us know how you're getting on.


Sgctxok, I see your point entirely, but I should clarify the course I've suggested:

(1) I'm not suggesting an ultimatum. Telling a spouse you will not tolerate infidelity is not an ultimatum. Its a boundary. It may well be that Ty's wife was unfaithful because she felt her needs were not being met. But she is an adult and has to take responsibility for her own actions. I totally understand that women are fundamentally different from men, but they are nonetheless still responsible for their own actions. She needs to know that although she may be forgiven, this is not forgotten and will not be tolerated again. It is possibly the most important boundary in the marriage. There is no point sugar-coating it as if she were a child. Stating this boundary will be an important step in her starting to respect her husband again, which she currently does not.

(2) "You want a slow takeaway of what you do for her". I'm not suggesting taking anything away, only that they split up childcare and housework fairly. What is fair should be determined objectively by their respective working hours etc, not by whether or not Ty is expecting to get sex. Removing (permanently) that expectation will take the pressure of his wife, and allow an adjustment of time for him to work on himself.

(3) "If your goal is to save your marriage". That is the reason we are all here: a healthy marriage speaks for itself, and is (I think) the best environment for raising children. We have to make ourselves healthy and self-reliant, that gives space for the attraction to start working again.


Puppy Dog Tails - I get the nursery rhyme reference - I'm pleased to hear from someone who has come through the other side. I think an SSM is like a furnace - a man can either fold up and burn, or he can discover the steel he already has within him. What I've personally learned is that the marital home is not some kind of shelter from the outside world where a man can just lie down and have his wounds bandaged, its actually a part of that world, where he still has to be a man though in different ways i.e. with his wife. Like the world itself, there is the potential for great cruelty, but also great joy. And there are no "guarantees".


I will put up a new thread on marriage in the next few days. Watch this space.

[Puppy Dog Tails]

I will very much look forward to reading it, Strong.

[tyguy]

Thanks again to everyone that has replied to this thread. I am attempting to keep my head up and do what I feel is best for me and for my kids.

She continues to stay away from the house and spend late days at work and also not come home a couple nights a week. It seems she has befriended a younger single girl at work and it seems some of her friends habits have appealed to my wife. She is acting a lot like a 22 year old single woman right now.

My family is celebrating Easter this Saturday ( a little late...I know ) and she has decided she does not want to go. It makes me sad, but more for the kids than myself. I really just don't understand the decisions she is making lately.

Again Thanks for all the replies!

[Puppy Dog Tails]

Ty,

What do you intend to DO? What is your Plan?

Puppy