? for the Men

[SDFoundGirl]

Read up on attraction. Women who are in love don't share themselves with other men. Women leave their fathers and brothers for men who make them feel alive and excited. How do you change how she feels about you?

Can one really change what others feel? Aren't women responsible for their own feelings, thoughts, actions, morals?

I can only speak from my own experience, but I think I understand what Coach is saying. He's saying that we need to act in ways that are attractive to our spouses, and that women are attracted to certain traits in men. It's no different from what attracts men to women; the traits are just different.

My H was the WAH, but I walked away emotionally long before he bombed me. I had completely lost all attraction to my H. Before we married, my H was a strong man with clear boundaries. In fact, the main reason that I called him to get to know him better was because he said, "I have a job where I get to do work I believe in and no one expects me to do anything against my principles. If they ever did, I'd leave." (I placed the only personal ad of my life, and he responded to the only personal ad in his life by leaving a detailed message in the voice-mailbox the paper set up.)

Every man I'd ever dated before my H gave in to me, and my H was someone who held his own. I am definitely a strong personality, and I knew that I could never marry someone who gave in to me all the time.

Well, my H lost himself and his boundaries. He didn't stand up to me after we were married, and I lost all respect for him. Yes, I own my part; I could have just gone along, but he would never, ever express his own preferences. It was all about keeping me happy, doing what I wanted. He'd say it was fine...but since he's the one who eventually bombed me, it clearly wasn't.

In any case, I reached a point where I was literally repulsed by my H. A woman cannot respect a man who doesn't stand up for himself, who doesn't lead the way sometimes, and if she doesn't respect him, she can't love him. I avoided sex and spent more time with my friends and doing things on my own.

Well, that all changed when H bombed me and told me all the things that he'd been holding on to all of those years. He told me he wasn't sure he could get the feelings back. Of course this was precipitated by his attraction to someone at his work (a one-side on his part EA), but he would have never been tempted if I had been acting in any sort of an attractive way to him.

Suddenly, H was the most attractive man in the world to me, and he earned my respect. I KNEW he should have set boundaries with me years before, and it was finally happening. In my mind, him actually standing up for himself and being clear about what he wanted and what he would and wouldn't accept was a sign that our M was fixable. It's not healthy to roll over for the other partner or not speak up and communicate, yet that's what had been happening for the duration of our M.

H didn't see it that way for many months, but I got to work on making myself attractive to him. I did my 180s, but I also gave him tons of space. I GAL. GAL was particularly good for our M because after our move to a new state, I was pretty closed off to going out or meeting people (I used to have severe social anxiety.) H saw me doing those things he always wished I'd do, he saw my behavioral changes, and he learned to trust and respect me again too.

Women cannot be attracted to men who roll over. It's not sexist, it's just that we want someone to lead. I am *definitely* not the subservient little housewife either. My mother raised me to be very strong and vocal and self-sufficient. Yet, as a woman, I want a man who holds his own. I need my husband to weigh in equally on decisions, and I need him to tell me when I've crossed the line. I don't always like it, but I respect it, and that's good for our M.

SD