Over the Shock and GALing 6

[Thinker]

Thinking and realizing...

Things that you know, but don't understand how they apply to your own sitch...

Things that you don't see that become so obvious in retrospect...

Cheeseless tunnels that you realize you have been stuck in...

I am realizing today that although I have done a lot of things right, I have not addressed the core issue in my M. Not even begun. In fact, I may have made it worse.

I stopped pursuing, I got a life, I worked on myself. I detached. I am genuinely happier with myself and with my life than I was 10 months ago. I am more aware than I have ever been.

I have addressed a laundry list of complaints that my W had regarding me and our life together. I am more involved with the kids, I help out more, I respect her more, I am less critical and less rigid, I have fun more. I no longer obsess over work. These were her long time complaints, and they are gone. I don't hear any of them any more.

But the thing that I heard for the first time with the bomb, the thing that I didn't understand and therefore dismissed as purely a result of the EA and OM, I haven't addressed. I assumed it would be corrected by space and time and loving support from me. It hasn't. In fact, it seems to have gotten worse.

With the bomb, for the first time I heard "I'm not attracted to you any more"

Several times during the following months I heard "You don't understand. You're not listening. I'M NOT ATTRACTED TO YOU!!"

Then in April or May I heard (and dismissed as ridiculous) "I am afraid that you are secretly a homosexual"

And then I heard it again last week.

...you would think that sooner or later I would listen...

It seems obvious now, but I am adept at avoiding the painful obvious.

The CORE issue in my M is not the EA or my working hours or the amount I help out around the house. Those are all issues or symptoms, but not the core.

The core issue is that Mrs. Thinker has decided that Mr. Thinker is not man enough for her. So much so that she no longer even want's him to give him a chance or to let him try.

OUCH!!

OK, so there it is. It's my problem to fix - for myself if for no other reason.

It's not physical.

It's emotional.

It's in the dynamic between us.

I can't fix it by taking back the bedroom or the house or dating other women (the normal options proposed in similar situations) because we are still living together and in the same bedroom and are not separated.

I started the process by now being the one who periodically proposes getting on with a D - when I did so in our last argument she responded with "Oh Stop It!", so our roles are reversing there.

I am sure part of it is sexual. She has controlled the proverbial "keys to the bedroom" for so long that I became tentative and hesitant after years of repeated rejection. This has to change, but I don't think I can change it now. She is not at all open to the idea.

So it has to start elsewhere. In our dynamic. In our family life.

I am not sure where or how. Here is where I get a bit lost and confused.

For me, this is uncharted territory.