robx.. You say it like it is.. Its also about growing the pair of " nuts" that are needed. It goes against my grain.. Its not who I am, but I realize what your saying.. I need to be counter-intuitive if I am going to have a chance at this.
It goes against your grain?! Its not who you are? Bull$hit. It is who you are but you've been trained and fed crap all your life that tells you being overly nice and dishonest about things when it comes to your wife is what will get you where you need to be and obviously that hasn't worked and I'll make a blanket statement (and yes it's a generalization) that it hasn't worked for alot of men on this forum - don't believe me, spend some time reading all the LBH's with WAW's and how they act, all nicey nicey, a$$ kissing, etc.
Listen.... Women are women (for the most part) Men are men (for the most part) Women like Men and Men like Women (for the most part)
When Men act more like Women than being more like Men, it screws up attraction and alot of relationships.
You're super nice (it sounds like it), you don't complain much, you do alot for your wife & family, go overboard I might say, supplicate her, buy her gifts, tolerate her crap treatment of you and you've done it for years. I would venture a guess that when you both started seeing each other, you were more masculine and she was more feminine but as the years progressed, those raisins you call balls (I'm being funny, relax) shrunk a bit, you became more feminine, more of a caregiver, homemaker, less aggressive, less assertive, put up with crap and don't rock the boat as much while your wife... she became more assertive, aggressive, more masculine, less feminine, less affectionate, less caring, less loving, etc.
Fast forward to today and your situation.
Tell me I'm wrong.
I wanted to offer another view. If the advice above help you and makes sense to you, then by all means, take it. But from my point of view, the idea that you need to act more like a "man" could very well send your wife much quicker towards a divorce and no reconcilliation at all. I think it's important for something as important as a marriage to look at your options from as many different sides as you can. In my case, it really helped me to hear from friends who thought I'd be better off divorcing (which is what is happening) but I also listened carefully and deeply considered the advice of friends who said we should work it out. In the end, the decision was made based on me being true to myself: I could not be married to someone who cheated on me.
But here's a way of thinking about it that might help. There's the advice that you need to "grow a pair" or act more like a man, or whatever horse hockey advice is being given.
Listen, it has nothing to do with your being a tough man and she needs to see more determination from you. If anything, if you are a soft-spoken, giving person, don't let the fear of her leaving you force you to change who you are, unless that change is something that you personally believe will make yourself better. Otherwise, you can fake being cold or indifferent for only so long. It might be long enough for her to return to you, but sooner or later, unless those changes are truly permanent, you'll go back to who are.
And it's because of who you are that she left you.
I *know* that hurts to hear, but it's important to make that distinction. If you fake who you are in the hopes that it will win her back, when and if she comes back, it will be under false pretenses and she'll leave you again. If you stay true to who you are and she doesn't like that, then you are better off not being married to her. Wouldn't you prefer someone who would appreciate the core of who you are - kind and nice - than the illusion and deceit of thinking, oh hell, what am I supposed to do here?
Another point I wanted to make is please, please, please don't get trapped into the caveman, lizard brain thinking of man-hunter, woman-gatherer bs. If your wife agrees with those terms, then it's useful. As a woman and having many many friends who are women, that type of thinking is exactly what pushes women away from men. Far away.
Plus, if that sort of thinking were useful, you wouldn't have so many women posting here who are SATM and having their husbands cheating on them. But here's another way of thinking about it so you can change your actions without getting into gender stereotypes.
I've seen this happen with so many people, that it's something I find hard to believe people don't talk about more. It sounds like at some point, you became passive - not because you didn't have "nuts" - but because you started to abandon your adult responsibilities. If you wife asked where would you like to go to dinner and you told her, where ever you want, that would be great...exactly 50% of the time. But if in most of the times she asked what you wanted to do and you said "you pick, wifey" then she's got all the decision making responsibility.
Or if you asked how should we spend our money or discipline our kids or what movie do you want to watch. A lot of times, I see one spouse letting the other spouse make all the decisions bc they "want to be nice." Being nice is just code for no decision-making. After a while, the "nice" intentions become a burden. Why can't you decide where to go for dinner.
But let me clear. If has nothing to do as a man or woman.
It does, however, make it seem more a parent-child or teacher-child relationship. You forget to pick up the groceries or do something that causes a rift and she gets p.o.'d, then she has to "punish" you, like a parent would do to a child. For example, probably for the past 3 years, our oldest daughter loves all things Disney. On more than several occasions, I would ask my stbx-H to get the latest dvd or stop at the mall to get costume-dressy stuff, or things for her. And lots of times he forgot. In fact, the only way he seemed to understand how important it was when we had an argument about it. In a sense, I had to "discipline" him.
The reason I bring it up is the common thread in all the people I know who are divorcing or trying to save their marriage was that one person had assumed the adult role and the other seemed more like a child. This is not gender-specific, as in my cousin, who's a guy, did the same thing for his wife, like giving her an allowance and trying to fix financial messes she got herself into. She cheated on him. It makes perfect sense that you can't have that difference in power, esp. since a marriage is about two, adult people helping each other. If they aren't it's like wanting to date your teacher. Not hot for teacher hot...just NOT hot at all (think of the teacher looking like Ben Stein from Ferris Bueller's day off...your wife probably thinks you look more like him than the romantic partner she wanted).
Does this make sense to you. Again, there's a lot of good advice here - particularly the part of doing things to make yourself happy and satisfied, whether or not your wife approves of it or not.
