Did we lose you Lost? Or are you busy working up a draft letter?
DQ
Nope, I'm still around. Just been a bit busy. I'm working on the draft letter but the resentment keeps getting the best of me and comes out in my letter and I'm not sure that is the way to go.
OK that is totally fair and honest of you, and I would agree that if there is too much hostility the letter is not going to be useful.
Maybe stick around, posting and reading, for a couple more weeks, until you can be a bit calmer about things and then try again?
However, writing the hostile and angry letter, but not giving it to her, can maybe help YOU a bit by getting your most honest emotions out there...outside of yourself, even just by a letter she will never see. That's just a thought, and these letters can be a useful therapy tool even when they don't go to the intended reader.
Have you thought more about trying to understand she is not doing this to tick you off on purpose like I said yesterday? I know this will not ease your long-running anger in just one day, but does the idea of it help at all?
It is ok to say "no it doesn't help me, I still feel angry". I can accept that. I was just doing a bit of follow-up.
DQ, Yes, it helps. It's just some of the things that she has said in the past that makes it hard to look past as her just not understanding how I feel. The resentment goes both ways and it might be too much to overcome.
I will wait to see what you write later, but I am guessing that her saying "I don't enjoy sex and never will" comment is haunting you and you can't get past it. Let me know if that is what you meant...
Lost - DQ's right about writing letters that you never intend to deliver. I have written many over about an 8 month period, trying to draft a letter to make her understand my feelings. I would write them and then read them over and over. I would look at them weeks later and realize how cold they would sometimes sound. Sometimes I would even cry as I wrote parts of them. It just helps to get your feelings down on paper. It's a very small price to pay for some good therapy.
When I bought the book SSM, I also bought some stationary. If you get to the point of writing to her, there is nothing more personal than a hand written note on nice paper. It really makes it seem to come from your heart.
I will wait to see what you write later, but I am guessing that her saying "I don't enjoy sex and never will" comment is haunting you and you can't get past it. Let me know if that is what you meant...
DQ,
Yes, that has a lot to do with it. I don't know how one can change from that attitude without the other partner feeling as though sex from then on, if it occurs...will be nothing more than pity or chore sex which to me is a term that many used to use on here as being "crap" sex and that won't work for me.
OK Lost...I will just play devil's advocate here (and you can tell me to shut the hell up if you want, just realize I am only trying to make you think)....
Did you read my blog today, the post about "talking" open and honestly about sex?
(if not, please go read it now and then come back with an answer)
So after considering what I had said in that post, what is YOUR part in this? When you say that you felt that she seemed to enjoy sex earlier in your marriage, why do you say she "seemed" to enjoy it? Did you never discuss it with her? Were there never words expressed about it?
I am trying to help you get to the bottom of whether or not her statement was true, or whether she said it in an angry moment, or whether she really doesn't know herself if she enjoys sex or not. While it may seem very simple to you whether or not she would know if she likes sex or not, it actually is not that simple.
So back to my question to you....why don't you "know"? Did you never discuss it with her, and if not, why not?
Ok, let me rephrase my original post. She liked sex. How do I know? Because we did as you said, and we would talk about it. Maybe not to the extent that you and your current partner do, but no...talking about sex was not/is not taboo.
So who do I believe? The woman, who for 2+ years, I had a wonderful and open sex life with....or the woman who now claims to have never liked sex? Her actions of the past 2 years places a huge doubt in my mind as to the thruth about anything to do with our marriage. That's going to be hard for me to overcome those doubts.
DQ, I'm not doubting your tactics and I am sure that I come across as being very negative. I am not generally a negative person, but the past 2 years of rejection and failures have hardened my skin a bit. Sorry.
That is GOOD actually, that you do know from previous talk, conversation, it was not a taboo subject, etc.
For what it is worth, I do agree with you. What are you supposed to believe? Why would she have lied, if she didn't actually like it back when she said she did? And why would she lie now and say she doesn't like it but she actually did? Either way, she wasn't being fully honest one way or another.
However...there is an answer, and only she knows it. And she may likely not know it consciously.
There are so many factors at play when it comes to human sexuality, desire, etc. Once you become a mommy, you find out things about yourself and your body that you never knew before. And some of us mommy's find out that while we have our babies, the daddy isn't our first priority any longer. And while baby needs mommy for legitimate reasons (life depends upon her), daddy appears to be asking for simple sexual gratification at times when mommy needs time to herself.
Dont get me wrong in any of my posts Lost....I want to be an advocate for FIXING SSM's. Not justifying one side or the other.
But the thing is this: there is always a need to fix BOTH sides, and you have a side to this. I don't know what it is and you likely don't either. But there is some reason why your wife has shut you out and it is NOT because she just hates you and wants to make you suffer.
Thus the importance of realizing she is not doing it on purpose.
Just like a woman cannot truly know what it is like to be a man and feel a rush of testosterone big enough to clobber another full grown man, a man cannot truly know what it is like to become a mommy and how there can GENUINIELY a total loss of sex drive for a time.
As to whehter or not she is re-writing history or whether she really never liked it, how can you find out that answer without moving forward, making the ultimatum, and heading toward counseling together?
But (and this is tongue in cheek) if you would rather just assume she hates you so much she likes to see you suffer, then don't bother with the ultimatum, just leave.
My main point to EVERYONE here is that the need to look within and own all their own side of things before assuming the other person holds all the power in any situation.
I personally felt that I had done everything to try to save my marriage and it was my husband's lack of desire to save our marriage that caused its demise. What a fool I was...please don't be the same fool. It cannot possibly be all your wife's fault. Right?
