First, thanks for a very thoughtful reply. I have read it several times. May I say... you're smart. You didn't just get the obvious stuff right, you also got the subtle stuff.
OK... if you can bear with me... I think I'll just dump your post in here and start replying in bold...
"If I share my thoughts you will like me less?" Where does that notion come from? What drives that belief? How do you have a more fulfilling sexual relationship or any other kind of a relationship with someone you fear sharing your thoughts with? Is that fear based in something she has done to you or is it based in your belief that your thoughts aren't worthy of being shared?
Pretty much any time I make the mistake of saying what I think the situation gets a lot worse really quickly, for a long time.
I read your post and came away wanting to ask a 101 questions. I became so interested I found your thread on newcomers and read it. It's my belief that you set yourself up for failure in your relationship with your wife because you don't feel yourself worthy of a true emotional connection with anyone and more than likely have stuffed any feelings of intimacy for anyone for so long that you have forgotten how to feel or go about getting what you need from your wife.
We can only stuff feelings for so long though. Our needs eventually come to the surface and I believe that is what has happened with you. Now that they have come to the surface, now that you have decided to feel, instead of work toward maintaining the "deal" you made with your wife what have you done? You have gone out and gotten yourself emotionally attached and in the middle of a situation that is unattainable.
It's a small point but crucial to me... I didn't go anywhere. I stayed. I knew how to find Sheila and never did. I did not want to disturb her life. I wanted to keep my deal. I went nowhere... and one day, there she was. GRANTED, I knew what would happen if I talked to her and didn't resist, but I want 1/4 point for NOT initiating. As if we are keeping score!
Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy maybe? Deep down you don't believe yourself worthy of love, fear being rejected if you do openly love someone so you set yourself up for failure once again by finally feeling for and accepting love from someone you can't have.
This high school sweetheart that you fell in love with and never let go..why do you suppose you have held on to those feelings for all these years?
Simply because they were the best feelings I'd ever had, beyond anything I'd experienced before or since, beyond anything I could imagine.
Could it be, that if you hold on to the love you felt for her you wouldn't have to feel it for anyone else? If you don't feel it for anyone else then you don't have to run the risk of being hurt by it or rejected by another person? Why do you have such feelings of love for someone who cared so little at the time that she wasn't willing to put you and your need for an education before her desire to marry and have children?
You say in this letter to your wife that you would rather not risk her rejection of you when you try and initiate sex so you just don't initiate. Maybe that is the running theme through out every aspect of your life...as far as it relates to emotional involvment with a woman anyway. It's easier not to feel and not to connect than it is to suffer some of the pain that comes along with loving someone.
Perhaps...
When you talk about "speed" and how you run a thousand fantasies through your brain so that you will be able to end the session faster I have to wonder if this isn't the same as giving her more time away, working hard to make sure she is kept satisfied and keeping your end of the bargain up. Work, work, work to make sure that things stay as they are, that she is not made to feel any discomfort so that you don't have to face the fact that you have needs that aren't being met and you might possibly have to step outside your realm of comfort to make sure they get met.
Why do you feel perfectly content to just let it all go? Why do you feel it's better to let it all go to keep from having to make your wife angry?
Is avoiding her negative reaction to the fact that you have certain needs....not only in the bedroom but in every other aspect of the marriage...more important than actually making sure that your needs are met?
YES. Emphatically, YES. If I have an unmet need, that's a nuisance. It's dismissable. If I'm horny I'll buy a new guitar. If I'm lonely I'll watch a great movie. If I'm afraid I'll read a great book. The need passes. It's far better than puting water on a hornet and having real trouble in the home. I was raised in a combat zone, I'd rather my kids be raised in an emotional desert than live that.
Whats going on here? Is it that you finally want to connect with someone emotionally and you are finding it easier to do with the old girlfriend that with your wife because the old girlfriend is giving it freely.
Exactly, and that's why it's priceless. It's actual love not barter.
You might have to negotiate your needs with your wife and you seem to shy away....hell, you seem to run for cover when it comes to negotiating your needs.
I think you long for a connection with your wife.
Everyone seems to cruise along with a high degree of accuracy until they hit this point. I'm the world's foremost expert on me. No one has studied the subject as extensively as I have. Trust me... I do not long for any connection to my wife.
If not, the fact that your sexual relationship with her is less than satisfactory and seems very painful would not bother you at all.
The fact that it continues is the main thing that bothers me.
I think you long for it but don't trust yourself to get it, don't feel worthy of it and have no idea in hell how to go about getting it.
You said in your other thread that all you wanted was to hold up your end of the deal you made with your wife. Well, if you are in business you know that business deals change and have to be re-negotiated at times. That doesn't mean the company falls apart. It just means putting your negotiation skills to work and hammering out a solution that suites all involved. I think finding a solution to the problems you are experiencing will only come after you learn to stop being passive, stop getting your needs met in ways that will allow you to continue to be passive and to learn that communicating and dealing with the anger that comes from communication is nothing to fear.
I cannot bear to say to anyone, even her, "I made a mistake by getting involved with you". Can't do it. So honesty is out the window. Plus I feel that as a father, saying something like that is an insult to my children. So, I procede from an initial position of dishonesty. No wonder it doesn't work.
Fear, passivity and apathy...it's a killer!
Cathy~
I will read your post again I'm sure. It has been very helpful. Don't read my few rebuttals above as anything but more data points... you were still eerily accurate in your descriptions of the situation.
THIS HELP IS GREATLY APPRECIATED...
I know in my heart I have to loose Sheila again, right away. The first time was like dying. I never got over it, but I became moderately functional again after TEN YEARS. This time will be worse... I'll know it's for the last time, and W will be watching and prying to figure out what is going on while I just try to cope. And if she figures out why I'm mourning, then I'm toast.
(OK, this part would fit better a few paragraphs ago, but oh well).
I do think I deserve nothing (emotional, sexual, etc.) and that probably hampers my negotiations. I think that I had a chance at the brass ring and when Sheila feinted resistance I folded. I think she expected me to fight for her, but I believed all that "If you love something let it go" crap. Which confuses me further, because "it" did come back to me eventually. So I probably punish myself for not fighting for her as if my life depended on it back then. And all the coaching I get now is to just roll over and make the same mistake again.
