I'm doing okay right now - still pondering some of the things that I've learned over the past few days. I've started writing a new letter to my wife which at this point I don't even know if I'll ever give her. Putting my thoughts down in writing sometimes helps me to understand them better, but if it turns out really good I might end up asking her to read it - we'll see. This letter is nothing like the letter that I talked about writing last week. Instead of trying to explain my feelings and needs, it's more aimed at truly understanding hers. I'm trying to communicate that I'm starting to grasp what she told me the other day (with a lot of help from you and MPT), to validate how she feels, and to assure her that I will be supportive as we try to work through our "communication" problems. If I ever do finish this letter and give it to her, I'll probably run it by you first if that's alright.
My wife has a second interview today with another company. I don't know if the job is the right one for her, but she hasn't ruled it out yet. She's to the point where she'd take nearly anything just to get out of her current situation. She has a few other prospects out there as well, so hopefully one of them will be a good fit.
Quote: When you ask her to elaborate on how she is feeling -- if she ever starts to struggle verbalizing that and reverts to the 'Oh, I don't know, can we drop this?' -- ask her to think about it some on her own, and make a date to talk abou it again two or three days from now.
What if you took a similar approach with initiating sex? When you try to get something started and your wife doesn't respond or moves away, you say something like "Well, it may not be working out this time. We can try again another time." Calmly and compassionately said, of course. And don't respond to any angry outburst from her or attempt to get the sex argument started. That will just be a way for her to try and get the issue to disappear or deflect responsibility all back on you.
The message you want to send is "I'm not angry or hurt or blaming you. But sex in our marriage is not going to be going away. We are going to deal with it."
It is a confident, strong message. (And we know how sexy those qualities are, in men and women. )
But he IS hurt, and do you think that he should have to minimize or ignore his feelings? I agree that there may be another way he can communicate this to her so she doesn't feel defensive... but having a sex conversation at the point that he has been shot down I don't think is the best time to have it. She won't hear ANYTHING he says because she is in defense mode.
Nope. I think this is a message he may want to give to her outside an actual sexual situation. In a sexual situation, I think he should go with the less direct approach to communicate that the issue will not be going away.
Quote: But he IS hurt, and do you think that he should have to minimize or ignore his feelings?
I've found that I get closer to my goal more often by putting my feelings to the side for the moment, yes, sometimes even minimizing them. Then I focus on the other person, their feelings, and their needs. My turn comes in another conversation OR I find that addressing their feelings and dealing with their needs results in a change in the behavior that is causing me problems. Then those feelings of mine don't exist anymore. There's more than one way to skin a cat.
It depends on what the primary goal is: Getting the behavior to change or letting the other person know s/he caused me pain. It's easy to get distracted by the second one. But, for a variety of reasons, the second one can sometimes interfere with the first.
Gotta evaluate each situation and figure out if expressing the feelings is going to help or hurt.
Thanks for all the discussion back and forth that at least started with my situation. I've been away from the computer since mid-morning so I just got caught up. It seems like there were some things that I was going to comment on from your earlier posts, but right now all I can think about is that saying and cats. Obviously I am not in the enlightened group. I've got to take my dog to the vet now, so I'll figure out what I was going to comment on later.
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