Quote: Besides, fear should never be the reason for a spouse to stay faithful.
Fear of abandonment should never be the reason for a spouse to have sex, either.
Quote: But I do expect my wife to care about my well-being and happiness. I think any spouse in a healthy marriage cares about the other.
There's that dirty 'E' word again. What if she cares about your well-being and happiness, but doesn't feel responsible for it? What if she is acting in what she thinks is a caring, loving manner the best way she knows how? What if her definition of a healthy marriage is different than your own? Is she wrong? Are you? Could you both be right? Could you just be seeing the same thing in two different ways? What then?
Quote: And I am not going to go cheat on her if I don't get what I want.
Really? Haven't you already done so? Or have I misunderstood your posts, and you have only contemplated an affair?
Quote: After reading SSM, my wife told me that one of the biggest turn-offs for her are my unrealistic expectations, and my desire to analyze what is wrong. She felt she could never be the woman I wanted her to be.
I know that feeling very well. Before I read SSM, I thought I was trying as hard as I could, and it just wasn't enough. My H would still complain. I felt devastated. I felt like I was the biggest failure a woman could possibly be. That feeling got to be so profound that I literally just 'gave up.' I had never felt so worthless in all my life.
Quote: I really just wanted her to enjoy being sexual.
No, you wanted her to enjoy being sexual the way you enjoy being sexual...as you have defined it.
Did you ever know anyone when you were a kid that you maybe played a sport with, who had a parent that rode them so hard on everything from their performance to their technique, etc., that sport was no longer any fun for them? Even went so far as to quit and never play again? And the parent would say, "I'm just hard on him/her so he/she will be the best player they can be." Best player they can be for whom? The kid was probably out there originally having the time of his life, and probably was okay with his/her level of playing. But in the name of love, the parent rode them so hard that it wasn't fun anymore, it was a chore, and finally, feeling as though they would never achieve the level of performance expected of them, the kid just gave up....no matter how great his/her potential was for being a great player.
I'm not saying you ride your wife constantly, but there could be something you've said/done that makes her feel as though, no matter what she does, she will never achieve that level of expectation you have of her. Her dearest wish is probably that you could love her exactly the way she is...I'm willing to bet that there is a part of her that is convinced that you don't love her.
Quote: It is classic irony that my actions had the exact opposite of their intended effect.
It isn't irony. It is an expectation gone askew. You are not seeing the data. This is simple physics. For every action there is a reaction, yes? You continue to repeat the same action, yet are perplexed why you continue to get the same reaction. You get it because that is a law of physics. If you change your action(s), you will change the action that follows. It can happen no other way.
What the challenge here is, you may think you are changing your actions, but all you have to do is examine the reactions to gage the success of your experiment. If you continue to get the same reactions, you have not significantly altered your actions enough to warrant a changed reaction.
You and Johanna have both said that all you are expecting an affair to be is a gratification of physical needs. That's usually what it is for most people. It fulfills whatever is missing in the marriage, whether it's a physical lack or an emotional lack, or whatever. Just because you don't 'love' the other person doesn't make it any less damaging or hurtful, does not justify it, does not exhonerate it.
In my opinion, an affair is the easy way out. It keeps you from having to do the really hard work. An affair is a temporary treatment of a symptom. It is not the cure for the disease. If you continue to just treat the symptom, then eventually the disease is going to get you. I can promise you, treating the disease is a whole lot more difficult.
What I personally think goes on in a SSM, is that you have one person starving for emotional fulfillment, and the other is starving for physcial fulfillment. You have two battered, bloodied prize fighters laying dazed and confused, each in their own corner, each wondering if another round is really worth it. But no one ever asked why they started 'fighting' in the first place. No one can figure out why they are in the ring to begin with.
But what clicked for me in the book was I figured out that my H and I were speaking completely different languages. That's why the fighting started. I was laying, broken and bloodied, in a corner speaking greek. He was in the other corner, broken and bloodied, speaking french. And we wondered why the hell we couldn't communicate.
Period.
The reason I changed, the reason I could pick myself up and try again, is because I had something completely new to try. I started learning to speak french. I had never tried that before. Or, I hadn't tried hard enough and long enough to bumble my way through it. You HDers here are my french/greek dictionary.
I personally don't feel he is trying real hard to learn greek...and that really hurts...but that doesn't stop me from learning french. It doesn't stop me because I am doing it for me. It is an incredibly heady feeling to know you have the power of change. It becomes even headier when you start seeing results. It makes ME feel good. I am glad that the changes I am beginning to make to myself are making him feel good as well. It's a great side-effect. But it all stemmed from a decision to change myself. Not him. Not my marriage. Just me.
That statement "Well what about them? Why do I have to be the one try, yet again?" Hey, I've said it. Believe me.
And guess what? It's an anger statement. All it gets you is a stand-off. My shrink used to say to me, "do you want to be right, or do you want to solve the problem?"
And of course I would answer that I wanted to solve the problem. And then he would tell me that the only way I was going to solve my problem was to get rid of my anger, or move forward despite of it, and get busy trying. And keep on trying til I found something that worked. Until that time, he could do no more for me.
You, my friends, are pissed. Justifiably so. I understand it. I have been, too. I could get real pissed over the fact that I don't believe my husband seems willing to learn greek. But I can't control him, and I can't do it for him. But I can get real good at speaking french.
So. Do you want to be right and/or pissed, or do you want to solve the problem?
