Young At Heart: How did you come to realize that you and your wife were both behaving in a way that hurt each other, that she needed to feel loved and that you needed to treat her differently? It sounds like that was key in changing your relationship. I'm pretty sure that my H will not be wanting to read the books that you read, but...I'm searching for a way to help him consider our problem differently.
I don't know how to help you get to where you want.
Reading books, helped me understand that I was probably partly to blame for the problems, but I didn't believe that, as it was clearly her fault. Ultimately, I didn't want to explain to our adult children that we were getting a divorce, but I also was not going to allow myself to be emotionally hurt by my wife anymore. The only choice left for me was that I was going to take responsibility for my life, for making changes in my life so that either my wife or other women would find me desirable. My wife could either work on making me happy or in a year, I would divorce her and find someone else. At every point I told her and really meant that I would prefer her to be the woman in my life, but I was going to not be hurt, I was going to find sexual satisfaction with or without her.
At the same time that I decided to change myself, I decided to try to make my wife feel loved in her languages of love.
As things progressed I came to understand that some of the things we argued about were our differences in how we felt loved. In particular my wife use to go nuts when she would work on making me a great dinner and I was late from work. I finally realized that she was showing me her love through her making a fancy dinner, and I was rejecting her offer of love by not being there to accept it.
I can really understand how affairs happen. I decided I would rather divorce her and be honest than have an affair.
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
