Rekindling

[Young at Heart]

First of all, Congratulations on what you have done and are doing. Working on saving your marriage, protecting your daughter all all wonderful things that no matter what happens you will be proud of. I also congratulate you on your reading list. I assume that "LL" is the 5 Languages of Love, if it isn't that should also be on your list.

Bagheera has a sticky threat at the beginning of this forum entitled, "The four phases of SSM Recovery." Stage 1 = Heal yourself, Stage 2 = Learn to meet your spouses needs, Stage 3 = Get your spouse on board, and Stage 4 = Working together. It is a really good set of observations. Your spouse also needs to go through all four stages as well.

Stage 1 involving heal yourself involves forgiving your spouse, coming to grips with your responsibility for the current SSM situation, reading about relationships and Getting a Life (GAL). I feel that based on my experience that GAL is really multiple things. It is focusing on changing yourself to a new better you, but it is also a demonstration to your spouse that you are changing, have goals and are headed somewhere and they need to change to keep up or let you go.

To me GAL is all about me, but it is also an indirect "in your face" statement to your spouse that you are committed to healing yourself with or without them. It is a strong statement of change that they cannot ignore.

SSM and No More Mr. Nice Guy are great sources of GAL information. I have been losing weigh, working out to get in shape, taking care of my health, increasing my hobbies, and participating in formal running events. My wife knows I have physical fitness and relationship goals, I have shared with her. She knows I am making huge progress toward acheiving my physical fitness goals and came to the conclusion that I could easily find another woman to meet my physical/relationship goals if I divorced her. She knows that I am determined to met my goals with or without her. She accepts it and has decided she wants change to remain with me.

I also think that anyone who is in an SSM and gets counseling, should work with a board certified sex therapist and not a general marriage counselor. Anyone in an SSM has a "sex problem" in addition to marriage problems. You need to address the sex problem that is eating at your heart and self respect. Board Certified Sex Therapists can help you and your spouse deal with the sex related and rejection related problems that marriage counselors may or may not be skilled in handling.

You are facing a fairly common problem.

You are doing many of the important right things.

My suggestion is for you to 1) heal yourself, 2) work on meeting your spouses needs (through her primary languages of love, not yours), try to get her on board and then work with her on resolving your relationship issues. However, you need to understand that it will take a while and most importantly she needs to make saving your marriage, her decision and her priority! You cannot make her do anything, either she wants to save the marriage and work at it or she doesn't. If she doesn't you marriage is likely doomed, unless you do a really great 180 that snaps her out of her problem and realize that you are about to leave her.

Good luck to you and God bless you, yours spouse and your daughter.