need help, sex or no sex??

[25yearsmlc]

Mystia,

Read your sitch, and wanted to say a word or two. RE:the deployment. I'm thinking that the divorce should NOT be rushed at all and you would be wayyyy better off slowing that thing down.

You are correct that the EA won't last/wait the way a wife and family would. It will give him time to reflect and he'll hear other soldiers saying stuff about their wives and gf's and some of the GF's will be moving along and cheating...but very few wives will.

I think if you are as loving as you can handle, (meaning don't do anything that makes you uncomfortable or cheap) and you write supportive letters to him, without pressure, you'll benefit with time.

As for ML, many of us face this issue. A spouse has walked away (WAS) and the spouse left behind doesn't want to have their boundaries crossed and that makes sense. Plus, the idea that WASs are getting to eat their cake and eat it too, and or the respect issue, etc.

OTOH, there is the fact that for whatever reason, intimacy was an issue in your M and you own at least part of it. So how do you show him that the M would be different, if you don't "show it"? That's the dilemma. Plus you want to contrast the negative images he is using to justify his actions, with positive images that you create for him BEFORE HE LEAVES. Don't fuel his marital revisions.

Can you do this thing for the next 5 weeks? Be as loving and as physically expressive and do as many 180's as possible for that amount of time? Stall the divorce ('what's the rush?") and do the 180's to counter the negatives he is trying to come up with, with your new approach. Then continue this behavior in written form, the positives and the GAL issues where you present yourself as interesting and busy (not too busy for him of course) and essentially you become "a woman only a fool would leave." Show him his data isn't real.

I faced similar issues in our M (but not b/c sex was the issue. However since h lived away from home w/o my consent, it raised the same issue) and so I thought, "why on earth would I sleep with him and let him also act like a single man?"

At one point I thought the same things you are thinking and wondered. But I had a DB coach (I highly recommend you get at least one session before he goes) and she said some of the things I'm saying here. "Contrast the warmth/laughter, love and fun of home w/ the place H is" and I think the same could apply to your sitch.

Very few men go back to women b/c of the great sex they never had. So, you need to show your h that you are letting go of the past, whatever that means, and are not going to be angry at him forever. I KNOW you are "Right to be mad" I get that. But ask yourself, do you want to be right, or happy? Has the anger at your h gotten you anywhere?

At some point, you'll have to let go of the anger or two things will happen: 1) your m will suffer and likely fail, and 2) you will be consumed by the anger.
You lose on both counts. When my h would purposely work late, (for "glory" or for money or pleasing his boss, etc) I'd "greet" him when he got home, with my arms crossed and heart closed. I thought if I were to be "nice" to him then, he'd do it even more and I'd really lose and he'd take me for granted, etc. The thing is, my approach was punitive. AND it didn't work!! And I still did it for years, b/c I felt I was "right". And the really idiotic thing is, even if I was "right" to be upset at h, what did it get me? Why did I repeat the same failing approach to changing our m? Why didn't I greet him warmly with the kids happy to see him and with a nice dinner ready and really make him happy to be home? Why didn't I see that making the home welcoming was far more likely to get him there, than being pissed for his absence was? B/C I was focussed on being "right and justified". NOT HAPPY or successful. And that can lead to the "LBS"ers trying to force the departing spouses to see the consequences of their choices, but as my DB coach said, "It's not the LBSers' job to show them the consequences of their choices, Life will do that for them ". When we talk of showing them that we are "right", we are often being punitive. Is that our job as a wife? No, it isn't. So, see if you can figure out an approach that works for you and your family.

Hope this helps. Good luck,
(( j ))