38 years & I need physical connection with my wife

[Young at Heart]

Where to start? My head is spinning right now. On Sunday I thought I had had a heavy discussion and connected with my wife and had partially blown things. Yesterday I feel we may have made real progress or I may have again blown things even more. I need to slow down and now I understand that.

My update:

On Monday, morning after our talk on Sunday night about the SSM book, I felt my LD wife was avoiding me and very distant. I tried to talk to her, but she wasn’t having any of it. She even avoided coming downstairs while I was having breakfast. She only came down after I opened the garage door. We only crossed paths as I was taking out garbage, prior to leaving for work.

Monday night was much different. I now suspect that she had done a lot of thinking and actions at work. I got home from the gym a couple minutes late and as I have added weight machines to my treadmill/elliptical trainer running routine and it takes longer. She had dinner read to serve, when I walked in. I complemented and thanked her for that. She has said that she shows me she loves me by doing things for me, such as cooking dinner and having it ready when I get home.

At dinner we talked about how the other couple we had gone out with on Sunday were doing. My wife commented on how the husband’s eyes looked like a defeated man who had given up on trying to heal himself from a recent mild stroke and how his wife was trying to remain optimistic about their future years together. I told her that it is so important to try to protect one’s physical health as things happen and the ability to regain health is fragile and one doesn’t need any additional barriers to recovery. My wife complemented me on how impressive my weight loss and lifestyle control was in getting my blood glucose levels under control. She also told me how proud she was of me for the way I was exercising and going to the party with her on Saturday. She told me how someone had taken her aside at the party and said that I was wearing a really nice looking tie. I almost felt like my wife was buttering me up and I shouldn’t believe her, but I loved it. She told me that she had made an appointment with the Doctor I had suggested the night before and it was set for early January. She apologized that she couldn’t get anything earlier.

My impression was that my wife had reviewed her actions from the previous discussion and the way she treated me and found that she had behaved badly. I felt like she was trying to make up for her behavior.

After dinner she asked about the latest shipment of books that I had gotten that day in a box from Amazon.com and another from Barnes and Noble. I showed her some of the books. I got a book “I’m not in the mood: What Every Woman Should Know about Improving Her Libido,” a book on self hypnosis (for me in my exercise and weight loss), a book entitled “Why Talking is not Enough: Eight Loving Actions that will Transform your Marriage, three books about couples/sensual massage and a couples massage video DVD that I told her contained no nudity. I told her that couples massage was something that I wanted to explore with her so that I could get the touching I needed.

I now know that she probably was overwhelmed by all of the books and saw it as my pushing way too hard. I will temporarily stop buying books, as it is going to take a while to read these and it is something that she seems to be monitoring pretty closely now.

She just exploded and told me to just go out and get a massage. She asked if it was that hard to make an appointment. I felt like she was telling me to “man-up” and get what I needed in life. I said that to me, touch is special and that I really want her touch. She said she had had a massage at a spa on our last vacation and I should just go out and do it if I need to be touched. She also said that I needed to hide all of the relationship books when our adult children arrive for the holidays, as she doesn’t want them knowing about our marriage problems.

Shortly after that, my LD wife told me that she had had too much wine with dinner. I don't know if that was her way of apologizing for her blowing up at me or not. She then went up to bed.

I feel that she is really conflicted on how to act toward me. I feel that the No More Mr. Nice Guy book has helped me become more of a leader and “man” in her eyes and that she likes that, but is deeply afraid of relinquishing any control to me. I wonder if this is a deep emotional fight that is raging within her and pops up in our discussions. Alternately, based on Jim’s observations this could be a fear of intimacy issue and it could be my pushing too hard. I will lighten up the pace/pressure for her to changes.

I finished doing the dishes and cleaned up a little bit downstairs, which are some of the chores I do around the house, as acts of service, that make her feel loved. She was still reading a romance novel, when I crawled into bed. I told her that I loved her and felt that she had been a little distant. She put her book down and complained that she felt that yesterday I had been too remote, removed and detached. I told her that I was trying to work through things to become a better person and to try to fix our relationship.

She then turned out the light and lay down. This time however she rolled over and really hugged me. It felt so good that I completely broke down and started to cry and my whole body shook. I told her that I loved her and that it had been five months since she had hugged me. I think she was shocked at the power of a hug and its impact on me. I literally shock and cried for 5 or 10 minutes. I told her how much I loved her and how I thought that I had lost her. She told me she thought that I had been pushing her away. We went to sleep with her really holding me close; she was pressed up against me, hugging me and holding my hand all at once. I woke up around 4 AM and found that she had her body pressed closely against mine. It felt so good. I felt loved again and hope for our marriage.

This morning when the alarm went off, my body was sore from the weight machines I was using for the last two days, but I reached over and started to rub her back. She rolled over to expose more of her back to me. After a while she went downstairs for coffee. When she came back to bed to drink her coffee, I touched her leg as a sign of my affection. She put her feet under my leg and smiled at me. I went and showered and started to get dressed. She asked me to take her out to dinner tonight. I agreed and told her I would meet her early at local bar and grill that we both like.

I think that she wanted to build upon our feeling of closeness from last night, but I may be reading too much into things. When she got up to go to take her shower, I walked up to her and kissed her on the lips and told her that I loved her. She seemed happy and pleased.

While I am waiting for the next explosion of emotion from her, I feel so much better. I don’t know whether my breaking down from the hug last night was a “No More Mr. Nice Guy” failure or something she will view as positive. I just feel like we may have taken a step forward. It has still been almost 5 months with no sex, but I feel hopeful.

I need to keep my heart in check and review the lessons I learned from the No More Mr. Nice Guy book. I also think that I need to lighten up on some of the pressure I have been putting on her.