I would give it until the end of one month, so you have a fair picture of where you're going. Then, make the following changes:
Quote:
Also something I think that is going to come up as this game progresses is the following issues...
- I am supposed to initiate EVERY night - yet, I am not in the mood EVERY night If you genuinely don't feel in the mood say so and explain why - So, I have to GET myself in the mood...come on strong...then get shot down... leaves me sitting there ready to go and now I have to go to sleep...makes me irritated that I got myself all motivated and now I have to un-motivate myself Understood, but are you starting to break through some barriers e.g. is the feeling that accompanies rejection now changing? - she has taken the position that even if I initiate in a positive way...even if there is nothing preventing us from having sex...she can still say "no" -- with no penalty... Not very "sportswomanlike" is it? - point this out
I think once we get a little farther into this I am going to have to insist that if I succeed in initiating and she says "no" then she either...
1. sleeps on the couch 2. does "something" to relieve my issues..." 3. Or gives you an automatic "bye" the following evening - seems only fair to me
Don't forget to maintain all your other interactions and activities with her, and be calm, confident and playful throughout. Nothing whiny or complaining.
Keep us posted.
S&A
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated" - from The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.
Which I take to mean that every man has within him a spirit of relentlessness and optimism. Its already there; he just has to cultivate it.
Just an update on my situation. We have had two issues to deal with during this time... her period - an then an episode at her workplace that has her very stressed/upset (this just happened last few days)
All in all, I think maybe SHE is the one getting as much of a training from this as I am...
I think the reason I slowed down on my initiating in the first place is because it would often lead to fights. For two reasons... 1. she would be upset that I was asking at a bad time/ bad place/ bad way/ etc 2. I would feel rejected and unloved which would cause me to lash out.
So, I quit initiating unless it was a "sure deal" because too often it would end with hard feelings.
Now, SHE is having to say "no" in a very nice loving manner (something our counselor years ago told her to work on) - she can't establish a system where I MUST ask every night - then, get pissed because I'm asking.
As such, every night she is not in the mood (90% of the time) she has to say no in a loving, caring manner.
I guarantee if she ever bites my rear for initiating - game over.
What's the point of him going another 18 days before making ANY adjustments to something that's clearly:
a) already annoying him; and
b) meanspirited and controlling on his wife's part?
Shouldn't he just try to make the adjustments now, and her reaction will tell him everything he needs to know about her motivations?
But for Tex this is the start of something. None of us (perhaps even his wife) really know where its going. But after many years of dissatisfaction for them both, a kind of a dialogue is underway.
I say he should play along for a month, because that gives a fair idea of what is likely to happen in the next month - at the moment its not clear whether some of these rejections are not due to her period etc. So a month gives a full picture - Tex can then say to his wife "Well, we gave your game a month and after X initiations, you thought Y were good, and we actually had sex Z times. Now we're going to mix things up a bit." That kind of statement carries far more weight than "We've given your game 12 days..." (after many years of dissatisfaction). Do you see my point? His wife will find it very difficult to deflect if he gives it a whole month. A month is a natural cycle for a woman and gives a pretty good indication of what will happen if they continue this game playing only by her rules.
Given the positives that could well come out of this, I think its well worth Tex putting up with "annoying" for a little while longer. All kinds of situations can be annoying, that doesn't mean that they're not opportunities. If a man can't take a bit of "annoying", he'd do well to avoid women altogether!
And why this assumption that his wife is being meanspirited and controlling? You may or may not be right about this, but I prefer to assume some kind of good faith on her part - it can't be a coincidence that there's been all this publicity about 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy, and now Mrs Tex wants her husband to initiate for 365 nights as well. I somehow doubt she was thinking "What a great way to belittle my husband". I tend to think she sees this as a plan to get them both going. I've not personally read 365 Nights, but I suggest that Tex himself gets it and reads it - he may get some more insight. I can't think why I didn't suggest that to start with
There was another thing I wanted to say, Puppy and its this. This is my own personal view, arrived at through a lot of pain, depression, reading many books and countless posts here and on other boards, as well as some very deep soul-searching.
No-one is entitled to sex, even in a marriage. That mistaken sense of ownership and entitlement causes all kinds of problems for marriages and huge resentment. For sex to start happening again in a SSM the couple have to strip out all their resentments. That's very hard work. But it doesn't just stop there. The old atmosphere of resentment doesn't simply have to be removed. That would just leave a sterile vacuum. So it must be replaced with a spirited and playful atmosphere.
A man who approaches sex with a deadly serious attitude will always struggle. The woman has to feel she's going to have some FUN dammit. Read what I wrote on DQ's thread about emotion and spirit. A man really has to fill himself up with a strong masculine joy, so that he's approaching sex as something he definitely wants and that will be fun, but that he doesn't actually need. If his reaction to rejection is "how cruel" or "I'm wounded", its doubtful he's done the necessary inner work, because a rejection should not wound.
A woman should rarely be able to wound a man who is complete and happy and confident within himself. However, a man who is emotionally "brittle" with pain, entitlement, resentment and need, will probably always feel wounded by sexual rejection - because he has not made himself strong enough on the inside. That may seem like an overly dramatic even harsh thing to say, but my own experience as well as all that I've read on the subject by both men and women, tell me its true. Sex is a game, even within a marriage, and a man must enter it prepared with the right mental attitude.
So that's why I think Tex can quite easily afford to play along with his wife's game for a little while longer - because he's a man, because he shouldn't be taking this so damn seriously, because he needs the practice, because her rejections won't wound him unless he lets them, and because he has an opportunity to learn something.
Of course none of the above excuses Mrs Tex from her responsibility to own her femininity and to play the game that she has after all started herself. Time will tell .
S&A
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated" - from The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.
Which I take to mean that every man has within him a spirit of relentlessness and optimism. Its already there; he just has to cultivate it.
Now, SHE is having to say "no" in a very nice loving manner (something our counselor years ago told her to work on) - she can't establish a system where I MUST ask every night - then, get pissed because I'm asking.
As such, every night she is not in the mood (90% of the time) she has to say no in a loving, caring manner.
It sounds to me like she has a bad case of the:
"If you loved and knew me enough, you would just know...
what turns me on and what doesn't."
when to initiate sex."
how to initiate sex at that time."
how to arouse me and stimulate me."
how to bring me to orgasm."
And when you DON'T just know, she gets angry, feels, hurt, and perhaps even unloved...you obviously don't love her enough. From her point of view, she shouldn't have to say anything before, during, or after sex, and it's aggravating when she does --> it completely ruins the romantic myth.
This is a very common myth that young women, then full-grown women buy into. Their romance stories, novels, and movies are FULL of fantasy men who either (a) have an innate ability to 'read' and please ALL women that they meet, or (b) find this innate ability to 'read' and please when they meet THE ONE...their one true love. And when these young women meet REAL young men, who are completely clueless with regard to the opposite sex, it's a big disappointment. And later on, after they've married some supposedly older, more experienced REAL man, it's still a disappointment, and may even be taken as a sign that "He just doesn't love me enough...else he would know.
Openly expressing one's sexual desires and needs, teaching one's spouse how to please you, and patiently redirecting your spouse when he strays from what would work for you at a particular time and circumstance is HARD for many women to do, but also necessary for a successful sexual relationship. So while you're playing her '365 Days' game, you might think about ways of getting this point across to her.
* Men aren't mind readers,
* most of us don't instinctively know how to please a woman sexually,
* we have a tendency to get caught up in our own sexual fervor and falsely project this on to our mate, and because off this,
* we're going to make mistakes in reading our spouse from time to time, either in initiating or executing a sexual encounter.
Welcome to real life, with a real man.
-- B.
Me 50, W 45, M for 26 yrs S25, D23, S13, S10 20+ year SSM; recovery began Oct 2007
Rather than try to quote all the posts above I will just touch on a few things that stuck out.
I actually heard about the book "365 days of sex" a few weeks ago - I think there is another one where a couple with a hundred days... anyway, not sure if she heard about it on one of the morning Oprah, The View type shows or now. However, I think there is a big difference between "let's try having sex 365 days" where both partners are in - versus what we are doing "you initiate for 365 days" where I am the one doing most of the work - however, like I said before - this is forcing two things (1)I make more of an attempt and I am getting more comfortable in part because of (2) she must respond in a positive way whether she says yes or no.
In the beginning I thought - why did she pick EVERY night... why not something like "three nights a week" or something like that... well, I know the answer to that... I am a procrastinator - if you give me a task to do and tell me it is due in 7 days - I will work on it the 7th day. So, if she had said "I want you to initiate 10 times a month" I would have put it off till the last 10 days.
On the issue of being hurt by rejection - I was like that years ago... not so much now. Now, I am more frustrated by the fact that I have something I want to do and share and no one to do and share it with. It's not like playing pool - where I can go to the pool hall every Friday and get my fix whether my wife like pool or not. If your spouse doesn't want sex as much as you then that's just the way it is and you have to cope with it - this can cause a lot of resentment. Pile on there a spouse who is not comfortable talking about sex and will never try anything outside a vanilla safety zone.
The one thing that has helped me the most is that my business is booming. This is so rewarding and does so many things to me - confidence, stress, security, etc - that I forget how long it has been since we had sex.
Another thing playing in my favor is that I am currently training for a physical test in 20 days. When I do this I drop about a pound a day and my overall appearance goes from tubby hubby to fit man. She is really into physical appearance - every time some broad shouldered fit man comes on TV she starts panting.
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