I chose to conifide details of the review with him and he seemed interested and supportive.
2 months ago when I thought GF#2 was out of the picture I began to start telling XH more honest information about my life. Jody had suggested that I do this but use that info to show XH that I can deal with it all (so that my life didn't feel like more of a burden to him). For example, when telling XH about work stresses, she suggested laying out vacation destination brochures and asking XH to help me brainstorm about good places to take a vacation to get away from work for a bit......even though XH is still with GF#2, I have continued to be more open about my life --- different than DBing in the early days --- but I think that XH is out of crisis mode (not done with the storm as MHL put it) so I think that he is going to be more aware of "fake" happiness. I feel that in order to move toward more intimacy with XH, I need to be more genuine.....and to prevent this from turning into feeling like a boring "room mate" type R, flirting may be the solution.
This is what my intuition tells me. What do you think Cas?
Originally Posted By: Cas05
I have done the really subtle arm touching and hair brushing and the flirty asides. He hasn't shut me down in these circumstances and he's laughed and responded to the asides.
This is what my XH does too. I think that somehow we need to tip the scales to our advantage. I'm thinking seriously about treating myself with some extra skin spa treatments to give myself that extra glow (doing something nice for myself for once instead of just sinking money into house maintenance). .........Cas, do you have any ideas for this?
Originally Posted By: Cas05
I think my underlying fear is that all his needs are being met by ow who is a friend with benefits and me, a wife who brings limited pressure but plenty of wifely support. H is private person and that's probably about all he'll need.
I've thought the same thing myself about my situation, and I'm speaking from experience. At one point in my life in my 20s, I had an arrangement like this, except there were 3 men involved who fulfilled different needs for me. It was about 4-5 months before the friend with benefits was out of the picture. The arrangement wasn't very fulfilling. That was the first and last time I tried that.
Originally Posted By: Cas05
Ow must be resilient to handle all these weekends apart.
Yes, either OW has a lot of other things going on in her life or she has low self-esteem....
