Hi. Over the past four months, I've been writing about my situation in the walkaway wife forum. Now, my wife and I are working on restoring the marriage, and other concerns are emerging. Maybe it's time to discuss those concerns in another forum? Like here?
The WAW situation has a strange dynamic that is hard to describe to people who haven't experienced it. But it typically seems to involve a wife who has already separated herself emotionally from her husband. She is ready to move on. Maybe another man is already in the picture.
My wife and I were at the brink of divorce. I won't bore you with all the details (check out my story, if you're interested, by using the link in my signature), but we decided to work on the marriage again--mostly because we have a daughter. We had never really made a total effort at forging a satisfying marriage. We were both aware from the very start that our love lacked passion. Still, we loved each other, and thought what we had was good enough. As time wore on, though, the lack of passion became an obvious sign that something was amiss.
As we grew apart and considered divorce, we both had to consider the options: 1) start over again with new mates (sort of scary because of our 9-year-old daughter) or 2) attempt to restore the marriage and make it everything we wanted it to be. We chose the later. So it was time for us to stop being lazy about the marriage and to start making it a satisfying union.
I was disgusted with myself for the way I had wasted 16 years of my life without really trying to make the marriage satisfying. I was now going to do everything I could to make the marriage work.
One of the problems we had always faced was in the bedroom. My wife would almost never accept my sexual advances. She would deny this. She would say I always chose the wrong time to make advances.
But here are the rules -- She won't make love on weeknights: She's too tired. She won't make love on Friday nights: the week has worn her down. She won't make love on Sunday evenings: She's focused on the week to come. This leaves Saturday evening as the one-and-only day of the week we can make love. I'm not happy with that situation, but as long as I know the limitations, I can try to work within the limitations. So now I focus on putting together date nights on Saturdays. We now have a babysitter we can rely on. Glory hallelujah! (We didn't have one for the first nine years of our daughter's life.) Our daughter now sleeps in her own bed. Glory hallelujah! (She slept beside my wife for the first nine years.)
As my wife and I started working on the marriage, I started initiating lovemaking. She accepted and even initiated lovemaking herself. Around Thanksgiving, we even made love three times in one week. That's a record for us. (I know, I know, it sounds lame, but that's a huge step forward.) But since then, we've started to drift back to old patterns.
We had a nice date night this last Saturday. However, she was getting tired. It wasn't late, but she had mixed several types of alcohol and was reacting like someone had slipped her a Mickey. So I had to drive the babysitter home and then get back to my wife as fast as possible. It's like I'm playing Beat the Clock.
This wasn't an unusual Saturday night. This is par for the course. She won't accept my advances unless it's the very last thing that we do on a Saturday night before falling asleep. THAT is the window of opportunity. It's such a brief window. And it can close because she drank too much, because she's tired, because I have to take the babysitter home. (No, waking my wife for making love is totally out of the question. And making love during the daylight hours? She says that's absurd. The morning? You've gotta be kidding.)
So I've read SSM. I've tried some of its strategies. But it would help, I think, to just lay out my situation and hear what others have to say. (And no, going to a marriage counselor is out of the question. We tried that for a couple weeks. She didn't like it.)
I could give you lots more details, but you probably already feel like I'm writing a book.
I know I can't really change my wife. I know I'm the only person I can change. So I've worked hard at changing myself. The marriage is really the sole focus of my life right now. (I've eliminated many outside activities.) I have a new wardrobe. I have a new haircut. I take much better care of myself. I try to be attractive. I'm not an ugly man. But neither do I really inspire a lot of passion either. I'm a nice guy but ...
I'm doing my best to be a good father. I'm involved in my daughter's life. We play games and watch old movies together. We sing and joke.
But something isn't right with the marriage. I don't know if it's fixable. Don't misunderstand me--my wife isn't complaining that she is unhappy. But I can't believe she's really content either. She has had multiple affairs in the past. Yes, here's the real contradiction: she seems to have low-interest in sex; however, she is the one who has affairs, not me.
Maybe this is just the situation with a WAW. Maybe I just need to be patient. I know it takes a long time to bring back a wife who walks to the edge, like mine did. She isn't back emotionally all of a sudden. It can take a long time. That's what I've heard (over and over). I just need to be patient. I just need to be patient. I just need to be patient ...
And just the fact that she is making love with me once every couple weeks might be miraculous enough in it's own right. It can take months for intimacy to be re-established with a WAW.
Maybe I'm expecting too much. Maybe I should just consider myself lucky and continue working on the situation. Be patient. Be patient.
Still ... she rarely gives me her lips when we make love. She insists the lights are turned out. I can't see her eyes. And while this isn't totally satisfying ... maybe it's all I can really expect right now.
Your thoughts? I'd like to hear from you.
me: 50 w (waw): 45 daughter: 9 m: 16 t: 19 bomb: 9/26/08 status: physical separation for 7 weeks, then work-in-progress R
Eerily similar to my situation, minus the affairs.
Two questions for you to begin with.
1. What is making her so tired all the time?
2. Does she complain about you at all now (doesn't respect you, or like certain things?)
Spellfire aka Mike
"Women do not like controlling men. They respect and are attracted to men who control themselves. They ultimately are repelled by men who allow themselves to be controlled." -S&A
You asked: "What is making her so tired all the time?"
Her job isn't easy. She is a teacher of kids with behavioral problems. It can be pretty draining. I know she feels lots of anxiety about her job. She lets it bother her. She doesn't sleep well. She has problems with insomnia.
You asked: "Does she complain about you at all now (doesn't respect you, or like certain things?)"
Rarely, she doesn't really complain, although she has never really complained much throughout our marriage. She becomes dissatisfied and stews silently. She doesn't want to talk about how the reconciliation is progressing. From her point of view, it must happen without any ongoing analysis. So there will be things that are bothering her, but she doesn't say anything until the behavior continues for several weeks. I've made it clear that I would like for her to talk to me when there are problems, but this rarely happens. We almost never have arguments, but when we do have discussions, I tend to argue my point with a little too much conviction. So rather than deal with that, she just clams up. (I need to learn to back off. It's not important to "prove my point" during all discussions.)
me: 50 w (waw): 45 daughter: 9 m: 16 t: 19 bomb: 9/26/08 status: physical separation for 7 weeks, then work-in-progress R
And Spellfire (aka Mike), give me a day or two to read over your situation and respond in your thread. If our situations are similar, maybe I'll learn something.
me: 50 w (waw): 45 daughter: 9 m: 16 t: 19 bomb: 9/26/08 status: physical separation for 7 weeks, then work-in-progress R
Sure thing. If you need links to my threads let me know. I am letting them fade out in case someone I know happens upon this site.
Spellfire aka Mike
"Women do not like controlling men. They respect and are attracted to men who control themselves. They ultimately are repelled by men who allow themselves to be controlled." -S&A
Number four just opened in this section, you should have no trouble finding it. W is also a teacher btw. The whole Sat night deal is all too familiar.
Spellfire aka Mike
"Women do not like controlling men. They respect and are attracted to men who control themselves. They ultimately are repelled by men who allow themselves to be controlled." -S&A
My marriage was similar to yours, in that I was married to a nice guy, yet I had multiple affairs. Most of my A's weren't full on PA's (only 1 was a full on PA), but that doesn't really matter. They were all wrong, either way. Anyway I just thought I would chime in, in case I can help you at all.
I think there may be some different dynamics at play in your marriage than there was in mine so I will state a disclaimer: I have just recently realized that I am a sex addict. I never understood this term at all when I was younger, so I never even fathomed that it could apply to me. But now I understand that sex addiction can look totally different in different people.
In my case, I was and still am addicted to sexual attention. I always thrived on getting the type of attention you get from a man who wants in your pants so bad you can both taste it. I know that sounds so awful, but what I have come to realize is that in my current relationship, I can get all the attention I need from ONE PARTNER. So my addiction doesn't have to be fueled by a variety of men (although in some sex addicts I assume that variety is part of their need), I can be very satisfied and happy with the attention of just my partner. When I was married, I never understood this about myself at all. All I knew was that my husband wasn't "doing it for me". So when someone else started paying me that type of attention that drives my addiction, I would follow in their direction and not even want to, but feeling unable to stop myself.
My ex-h is/was not a very passionate person. He was also not a very sexual person, although he loved sex and wanted more of it from me. For many years I struggled to understand myself and explain myself to my H. I did many things to try to get him to pay me the kind of attention that was getting me into trouble outside the marriage, but he couldn't seem to find that within himself. From the time we met, I was the one who pursued him, which I know undertand is a poor relationship dynamic (ie: the man should pursue the woman because if she pursues him, he will eventually lose interest in her, per Mars/Venus philosophy).
He wanted sex, but he didn't want to make a priority out of finding out what turned me on. He just wanted simple sex, not much in the way of passion, and he didn't really have great skills, either.
So we were stuck. He couldn't turn me on yet I had an insatiable need to be sexually admired and attended to. I wished and wanted for my sexual needs to be met by HIM. I did not want to go outside the marriage. I never wanted that. I felt like an A-hole and just stewed in guilt for 15 years.
Had I understood these dynamics at play, we could have possibly fixed this issue.
But first, he would have had to do like you are doing and begun reading and understanding (or trying to) what it takes to be passionate, what happens when its missing, and I needed him to study ME and find out what makes ME tick. I think he was always intimidated by my sexuality (there's a lot of it in me, LOL!) and so he just didn't even try. But he would have had to try if we were to make it, and in retrospect, I know now that we might have.
So I don't mean to alarm you or make you afraid that you will end up D'd like I am. I just want you to hear from another woman who is maybe similar to your wife (though I'm not sure about the sex addiction in her, I haven't read enough of your sitch to understand that part yet). I want to say that I never ever wished to hurt my H, even though obviously the things I chose to do couldn't do anything but hurt him. It is a very strange dilemma when you are in the middle of it.
The one thing that is different in our sitches that is maybe not a good thing, is that she doesn't want to talk about it.
In my case, and its still the case now, I will ALWAYS want to talk about relationship issues, ALWAYS. Even in my current relationship and every thing is good right now, well then when we talk about relationship issues we talk about how good it is and what we are doing right! So good or bad, I always want to talk about it. The fact that she shuts down and won't talk is very unhelpful, and if she is to reveal herself to you and help you understand what is within her that lights her fire, how can that happen with no talking?
Can you tell us anything you know about her A's as far as, is there any pattern you can see? What was she getting out of it? Do you know anything about what actually "happened" once they entered the physical part of the A? I'm sorry that these questions might really hurt you to think about, so just skip them if its too painful. All I am really trying to do is get an idea of what she keeps chasing outside the marriage and help you to develop whatever "that" is, so maybe she will chase you one day.
Yeah, and if you read my story, you will see the part about moving our D4 into her own bed and room also.
Do you go to bed at the same time as her, or do you stay up late doing your hobbies like I (try really hard not to) do?
Spellfire aka Mike
"Women do not like controlling men. They respect and are attracted to men who control themselves. They ultimately are repelled by men who allow themselves to be controlled." -S&A
