This is interesting...i realise now that i treated my W with "love" in a way in which i "expected" / "wanted" to receive love - believing that to be the only way - and confused and hurt when she didn't return in the same way...
Only recently, 2 years post bomb and probably 4/5/6 years since she started losing respect me - that being the slippery slope to our current situation, do i realise that i was going about it all wrong - that people have different "ways" of feeling love and that what applies to one does not necessarily apply to another...i was busting a gut trying to show love which was meaningless...or at best wide of the mark.
But the flip side of this was that because of this belief, i didn't feel it necessary to say anything to my W...just thought i had to try harder doing the things that weren't working - that maybe i wasn't trying hard enough...
I know now that what i really need are words of affirmation, admiration, to be needed to sort things out and thanked for it - a pretty traditional male (sadly) pov - to be my W's hero - I'm not sure if I'm getting contrary here - but i think my W's needs are for honesty and openness - something that was pretty lacking in my childhood - not cos of any deliberate act or malice - rather because of the death of my disabled brother when I was 5 and i think because of my parents' determination to move on and actually to protect me from their sadness - but also because there was a stigma associated with having a disabled child in the 70s - in fact i remember well that we got a wheelchair provided by the local authority only just 2/3 months before he passed away (when he was 11) - due to pneumonia - and this being the first time I had seen him out of his bed and some other kids that I played with then not even knowing that I had a brother...
I'm not sure where this is going kalni - but to conclude in some way - when W and i first met and in the years following that i think we had the flush of love between us - but as time went on - and i was trying to express love in my way and she in hers...neither fitting into the gaps of the jigsaw puzzle of our lives we had inherited - and neither smart enough to talk about it cos we didn;t realise it was important - that's where things started to fall apart - i had my needs, and expectations, my W had hers - she had a difficult time (bordering on abusive) too ... but neither of us was smart enough or emotionally intelligent enough to talk about it...
i'll leave it there - because typing that out has caused me to drag up some upsetting memories...apart to say - in response to BJ's post above - I think it takes an awful lot of soul searching and introspection for a person to figure out "how" they want to be loved...I venture this - generally folks think that how "they" love is how their partner will return love...generally (apart from people who have a DSM disorder need love) they may need that love in a different way though - thats where the control comes in - suppose for a minute that everyone, generally needs love, and roughly in the same quantities as everyone else - then when there are problems in a relationship where there is good intent there must be 2 answers - either -
the person giving the love is wide of the mark but well intended
the person receiving those well meaning and loving intentions is frustrated because the do not "hit the spot"
And both doing exactly what they think is necessary...
...but that's exactly what the 5 LL's say - so there's no royalties coming to me! LOL!!!
Take care - GFI
Me: 40ish W: 40ish Together: 20 ish years Married: 10ish Years
