It really is creepy how much you write like me. I didn't understand how striking the commonalities are back when PuppyDogTails and Bagheera and others were telling me the same thing I'm telling you now.
I have to run to the gym, but just a quick note: I am not telling you to give up sex, even as a 180. I'm just saying that you need at least one 180 and not more than three. One or two is best. Not initiating sex is one good 180 you could do in your situation. There are others. Let me think about what I did.
1. No sex. 2. No apologies unless I could articulate to myself what specific wrong I had actually done. 3. Returning to hobbies I enjoy, like shooting and writing. 4. Regular exercise. 5. No more asking my wife where she wants to go. If she wants to go somewhere or do something, she brings it up. If the date/outing/trip or whatever was my idea, I take her where I want to go.
As you can see, some are major and some are minor. Some only seem minor. We used to have the standard pattern of deciding where to eat: I asked where she wanted to go, she told me to decide, I suggested a place in a questioning tone, she refused to go there. Do that two or three more times, and we ended up settling on the place she had decided she wanted to go anyway. Now I simply say, "Let's go to that Mexican place tonight." If she objects, she can name an alternative or we go there. The thing is that she rarely objects to my first choice anymore. It was never a problem with the restaurants--I was suggesting places I knew we both liked--but a problem with the servile way I made suggestions and asked questions instead of simply taking my wife out to dinner.
In one of my old threads, I described having a kind of sickening epiphany while reading a book of women's erotica (yeah, that's as much fun as it sounds, but I'm a compulsive reader) that I'd gotten for my wife years ago to see if it would start anything for her. It didn't, by the way, and if I'd known then what I know now it would have been obvious that buying her a book of other women's fantasies wasn't going to make any difference, but at least I got something out of it. This is from about two years and a month ago:
Quote:
Now that I've talked to all of you for awhile, things I never really noticed are blaring out at me. It's often an odd sensation. Years ago I bought my wife a book of "women's erotica" written "for women, by women" and edited by a Ph.d. I know; who could have guessed that this would not be a good way to awaken passion in my wife? A dirty book edited by a Ph.d should be a surefire thing. Anyway, a few days ago I found it as I was clearing the bedroom and took a look through it. There was a story about a slightly older woman working with a college student described as "stereotypically handsome." She's excited by him but worried that he thinks she's too old. He tells her he's going to take her to a local beach because she can't leave without seeing it. She demurs, but he answers every excuse firmly and continues to driver her to the beach. Eventually, of course, they have hot sex on a blanket. But that's not what really stopped me cold. What got me (this would be a day or two after S&A's long post) was this line: Quote: "She had been dating an appropriate man, a lawyer her own age. He never took her anywhere; he was forever asking her where she would like to go."
There was no other description of this loser; clearly the author was confident that mentioning this one aspect of their relationship would be enough for (female) readers to get the message that it was awful. This could not be good. This guy was obviously written in as the unnamed throwaway boring guy the heroine is going to dump as soon as she gets home. And the description of him sounds like a description of me. Never "take her to" the movies, dinner, a park . . . . always ask her where she wants to go. I was so sure that was the right thing to do, I thought I was being such a good husband. But here this author can sum up the archetype of a terrible relationship by casually mentioning the way I treat my wife. Not good at all.
I'm not going to tell you that my marriage is perfect now, but I had maybe the best sex of my life last night. Top two for certain . . . deeply, totally connected to my wife and exhausted us both. It felt like I was in total control of my body and hers, as if I could make the two of us feel anything together. But that's the result of a couple of years of sloughing off that old anger like snakeskin, hitting a few plateaus along the way, and then rededicating myself to making changes. And it's also the result you get when your wife joins you and commits to making the marriage right. I can't guarantee that your wife will do that, but I can tell you that I was far from sure that mine would. Today, if she tells me all the things she told me back then about her eternal love, I believe her because her actions speak for her.
