Any kind of R talk (especially sex) for us is a sore subject. As unbelievable as it sounds, one question can set her off and she can hold onto anger like no one else I know. So yes, a 3 day window for her to cool down might not be enough time. I just know her well enough that it would be a chance anyway.
OK here's what I'll do, I will take that chance and hope that she won't be upset. Keep it simple and not open the whole thing up again, at least not right now. With D in school next week I could take an afternoon or a morning off and sit with her to talk about what she thinking about so far.
I know she loves me. I was talking to her this morning on the phone and she even told me that she loves me. She even said it first! She rarely ever says ILY unless she is responding to me saying it first.
Also I did want to tell you, that your positive attitude is really going to make the difference in the long run. I have seen your posts to others and on your thread, where you talk about your having faith, trying to stop the negative fearful thoughts, you are praying, you are trying to be hopeful....these things are the key to your success....I really do have a lot of hope for your marriage dear...possibly more than you do! LOL!
I'm happy she said ILY first this morning. Its the little things in life, isn't it?
I am going to come back shortly with another topic that I think some of you HD husbands will relate to, inspired by one of the other threads....more soon!
Awhile back, and I don't recall which thread it was on, some of the HD guys were admitting that when their LD wives had headaches or didn't feel well suddenly when they were approached for sex, the husbands sometimes felt that she somehow manufactured the sickness just to get out of sex.
On that thread, I simply wrote the word "...fascinating"...but did not respond further than that.
I have since given this a lot of thought, as to how I can respond and somewhat confirm the HD husband's suspicians, but at the same time, make a general statement about the power of the mind...which is something I have spent my life time studying.
OK here goes...
I can recall when I was in grade school that the ultimate treat was to be too sick to go to school. My mother and step-father were both teachers at my grade school, so if I stayed home from school, I would be home alone. Therefore I would be able to eat whatever I wanted and watch whatever I wanted on TV.
My mom was pretty much a pushover for a sick kid and I could get out of school anytime I was determined to be sick. So if such a day arrived, I would lie there in bed and "manufacture" the sickness feeling...and by the time my mom would come in to kick me out of bed and I would lay my "I'm too sick to go to school" thing upon her, I actually FELT sick at that point!
Then she would feel the forehead, give the OK for me to stay home, and leave the house herself. Suddenly....I don't feel sick any longer! And even though I knew I had manufactured the sick feelings, it would really surprise me that I actually FELT sick and then surprise me even moreso when I stopped feeling sick the moment mom left the house!
But then another thing would happen...I would remember that being home alone all day is boring and I couldn't see my friends....I always ended up regretting staying home when I wasn't truly sick.
OK so on to my marriage...and the power of the mind...
I have read so many books about the mind, spirituality, health, etc. I do finally now believe what my books have taught me - that your mind creates your reality and that even sickness is created by yourself.
(Please lets not get too far into a discussion about why children would choose to have serious illnesses....as in sad situations like NTE's child...that is too complex of a subject for this discussion...there are reasons but this discussion isn't about that, per se).
The opposite is true, too, of course. That if you decide to be healthy, you can be healthy and get rid of sickness.
Now as to the suspicions of HD husbands about their LD wives.
(ahem)
I do recall something similar happenening to what I described above in staying home sick from school in my marriage.
I recall that sometimes when I knew my ex-h was possibly going to try to intiate sex that night, just the thought of it would begin a headache in my head, or I would become unbelievably sleepy. I couldn't even keep my eyes open. And it was REAL too, I would actually feel the headache and/or feel so sleepy that I could drop off in the middle of a sentence.
But then...once the pressure was off (by either the fact that he fell asleep himself or he made it clear to me that he wasn't planning on trying to initiate)...then suddenly the headache or mysterious sleepiness would disappear!
I would be left baffled by this phenomenon, even while I knew I had created it. I couldn't believe how powerful I was! To actually manufacture narcolepsy or a migrane at will!
But wow, what did this mean about my marriage and my sex life?
I struggled with that a lot. I prayed for answers from God about it. I felt like a jerk and I didn't understand it myself.
Now in retrospect....so many years of retrospect....I can finally understand some of it.
Basically, I did not know how to tell him what I was feeling. I needed so much MORE from him, emotionally, spiritually, financial support (refer back to my horrid original posting for all the sad details), I needed him to be more fun and outgoing, I needed to feel seduced. I needed him to kiss me better...to upgrade his skills. I needed him to understand that good sex takes more than just an erection.
I had no way of trying to tell him that by not meeting my other emotional needs, he was zapping all of my sexual energy and taking away all of my desire.
I just couldn't explain all of this to him (which is why I now understand why we needed counseling). I had no avenue to explain it and he would never discuss it with me. As I said above, he felt that since he had desire and an erection, it should be that easy for me as well, and since it wasn't, there was "something wrong" with me.
So instead of explaining it to him, I simply manufactured narcolepsy or a headache or a stomach ache. Even while each of these things could have easily been true situations based on having small children, working all day, not eating right/taking care of myself, etc. But I know in retrospect the difference.
Now....PLEASE none of you, do NOT immediately think "I KNEW IT! SHE WAS FAKING IT EVERYTIME IN ORDER TO AVOID SEX WITH ME!" LOL!
But instead, please read the REAL message above....I had no avenue to address the REAL issues with my ex-h and THAT IS WHY I avoided sex.
Also, some of your wives may have health issues that are in a different category than simply headaches or sleepiness, so please don't apply what I have said above to your sitch directly. Just process the information...and also realize that YOU are possibly doing some form of it as well.
In my marriage, the way my ex-h did the same to me was to conveniently "forget" that I had asked him to do a certain task several times already. See the correlation?
It all comes down to passive-agressive behavior and most of us are guilty of it on some level.
But again the most important message I would like HD husbands to realize is WHY I avoided sex! It wasn't actually because I had low desire (which I now understand). It was because he was zapping my desire away by not meeting my other needs.
I actually wished and prayed back then that I would suddenly develop unsatiable desire for my husband. At that time, along with him, I felt that would have "solved everything". I thought that if I just wanted sex with him all the time, he would be happy and then we could be happy together. I did not want to avoid intimacy with him consciously.....I actually wished for it, went to doctors to figure out what "my problem" was....
The truth of it now slaps me in the face: he did not meet my other needs and this was the death of my sex drive.
YES it was my responsibility to forge SOMEHOW a way to speak to him about it, and I failed at that. I did try many times, couldn't figure out how to say it with any meaning, eventually gave up.
The one thing I did not try was counseling TOGETHER with him, where I could say out loud what I was feeling and have someone validate that my feelings were normal.
So I failed... I have admitted my failure many times on these posts...so in case I need to say it again, I am the one who failed myself in my marriage by not trying every means possible to fix things. Instead I buried my head and had no idea what to do or how to fix it and for this, I paid the ultimate price: divorce.
I should have done more to educate myself at the time...but I was only 20 years old, had run away from home, ended up pregnant...blah blah blah....still, it was ultimately my own fault for not being able to find the right avenue to speak to my husband.
I did though, for the record, TRY to speak to him countless times and it never went anywhere. At that point, instead of shutting down, I should have insisted we went to marriage counseling - - or just divorce at that time, versus remaining shut down for the next 15 years and then divorcing at the end of that.
It was only after I paid the price of divorce that I realized where I had gone wrong. I am trying to help others make their realizations WITHOUT having to get divorced first.
The day I did finally "own" my sex drive is the day I left him. Knowing, finally, by then, that the truth of the matter was that he was not going to make any effort to meet my needs, and that was the end of that.
As usual your knowledge and experiance along with a dash of humility make for great resources for all of us that are working so hard to understand our spouses and make our marrigaes work. Your insight into the female mind and how the male mind is percieved is also very helpful.
You were such a help to me over the last 9 months over on M/V and so I just wanted to say thanks. As some of you know DQ vists other boards and that's where I know her from as I am new to this one. Eighteen long months ago I faced a turning point in my marriage and have been on a long journey since that hopefully will be "unto death due us part". It has been a successful one so far but certianly not without bumps and setbacks along the way.
Vorlon
M: 50, W: 48 M: 26 yrs S:25, D:24, S:20, D:19 Hard at work on my marriage everyday! There is hope, there is life, it is the only life we have....
Everyone, this is Vorlon. Vorlon, this is everyone.
As Vorlon said, I know him from the Mars/Venus message board. He is very wise and kind and most of all, loves his wife.
I wonder if you married guys know that MARRIED GUYS WHO LOVE THEIR WIVES ARE VERY SEXY!
:0)
Vorlon has also helped me out by being a confidante at different times, because I don't share day-by-day details about my relationship on the message boards...(specifically when my man and I are fighting, etc)...but I of course do need help and support. So Vorlon has really been there for me that way several times.
V - Bagheera has a somewhat similar situation and timeline to yours. If you have seen his 4 phases thread, I was thinking of you when I read it. Have you read it? It seems that around the same time, you both decided to take charge of yourselves as men and husbands, and to put forth 100% effort into your marriages, and you are both now finally seeing results.
I hope V will stick around and give us his perspective on things here and there. I don't think he has read any of Michelle's books but he certainly has been through the ups and downs of marriage....I think he's finally in the home stretch now.
I'm still blushing about the sexy comment. :-) Besides you don't want to get me started about you and sexy....:-)) Sorry guys..inside joke there.
Yes I have a read a few of Bagheera's posts and got the sense he was in a similar place as I. True, I have not read Michelle's books...Yet! I have read almost all of the Mars/Venus books and they have really helped me but I'm a life long learner so in time I'll get to Michelle's books. For some crazy reason I decided to go back to school for my PhD and time is a precious commodity these days. With a career, family and a strong focus on my marrige, time is a luxuary I dont get to enjoy enough.
Its all about being the best man, husband and father that I can possibly be. It is about giving 110% instead of just what I thought was enough to get by. It's a different mind set. Now, I'm going to take 5 minutes to scrible a short love note to my wife so I can put it into her car tommorow moring before she goes out. I have found that the little things have gradully warmed her heart and awakened her feelings again. A little bit of effort can go a long way.
Greetings all!
M: 50, W: 48 M: 26 yrs S:25, D:24, S:20, D:19 Hard at work on my marriage everyday! There is hope, there is life, it is the only life we have....
Hey V - Just so that you know and we don't want to confuse anyone else...in your signature line you have Bomb: Jan 2007.
Around here, when they say "bomb" they are usually referring to one spouse telling the other that they want a divorce, or that there has been an affair.
I know that in your case, the "bomb" was something other than that. I just wanted to say this so as to not make anyone think anything untrue about your marriage.
To others...Vorlon and I had/have both contributed a lot on the Mars/Venus board, and it is really a cool place over there...however, strangely enough, even though John Gray writes relationship books for all stages of relationships (dating, marriage, after divorce, general spirituality, general sexuality), but at the message board over there, it is about 95% women who are dating and having trouble figuring out men. They are normally lovely young women, who should have no trouble dating, and most of them are picking silly young guys who have no clue how to pursue a woman.
I spent a lot of years over there helping those women and trying to help them out. I think I gave a lot of tough love, though. And eventually, after the same scenario day after day, year after year, (ie: why hasn't he called?), I finally felt I had done my part in helping over there and I stopped contributing so much.
But I have a need to "give", and also a need for stimulating conversation, and that is how I found this board. I found it gives me both, and I feel safe here.
V - I am still over at M/V sometimes and I always read your posts. Those girls need to hear from men like you who are REAL men who are truly pursuing REAL marriages with REAL women...the poor girls over there are mostly chasing shadows of men who are too young yet to know what is right before their eyes. Poor dears.
Now I'm going to share something about DQ: She is the total package! Born of fire and steel. Forged through pain and experiance and blessed with a wonderfully giving heart. She is Spiritualy, Physically, Intellectually and in every important way a deep and loving soul put here on earth to assit others come to fully realize there own potental.
BTW- No she is not perfect but it's hard to tell. :-)
M: 50, W: 48 M: 26 yrs S:25, D:24, S:20, D:19 Hard at work on my marriage everyday! There is hope, there is life, it is the only life we have....
