Putting it back together, but SSM issues linger

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Journaling here as much as anything else.

After a long roller coaster ride, W and I have been putting things back together. After a terribly low low, we had a generally positive recovery period and piecing, and I feel like we're now anxious to establish a new "norm" but haven't figured out where that is yet.

So what's going on? I have figured out I have issues, and I'm working on addressing them. I'm doing a ton of reading and going to IC. Intellectually understanding these things is one thing, actually making life changes to address them is something else, but I'm trying!

I have figured out that my primary love language is "words of affirmation", I feel loved when W compliments me, tells me how much she loves me, etc. I also want to feel needed, both in the relationship, and sexually. I have identified that I'm needy in this regard -- I need to get better at being OK with me, without W's validation. I am a "giver" and I am driven to please, and to be acknowledged for my giving, which is ironically a selfish act in many ways.

My W has low self esteem issues, but copes with them effectively. She puts up a wall and doesn't let people in, because she doesn't want to be "in" herself. She comes across as very together and business-like, while under the surface, she's dealing with feelings of inadequacy and anger.

Consequently, she is not giving. She does not give "words of affirmation", she does not seek to do the things she knows I like. However, it's very important that I not be disappointed with her. She will essentially neglect my needs until the point that I start to get sad, and then she'll have a breakdown and cry about the fact that she's not worthy, and start to make an effort, but when things level off, the effort disappears. This is hugely frustrating to me -- the pattern of NOT doing something, then getting upset that you haven't done it. Why not just do it in the first place?

When things happen in our marriage, or there are decisions to be made, her criteria seem to be (1) how she feels about it and (2) making sure I accept how she feels about it. My opinion is ok if it supports her feelings, but if it doesn't, then the only thing important about it is how it makes her feel. I believe this to be narcissism, but I'm not a professional and probably not qualified to conclude that.

This doesn't have to be major things. I like spending time with my W, and I also like being out of doors. I like to bike ride, swim in the ocean, go sailing, go skiing, kayak, etc. My W will not do any of those things with me. I admit I get resentful -- what would it cost you to go on a 10 minute bike ride with me? You don't like to ride a bike, but doesn't the fact that I'd like to share that experience with you matter? I have made an effort to spend quality time with her doing the things that she enjoys, but she doesn't really engage in any activities.

Sexually, we've had a desire gap since we had kids 13 years ago. As detailed in my other post, this contributed to many negative issues that eventually derailed our marriage. I read SSM and identified with it completely. I insisted that W read it as well, and to her credit, she did that for me. I know that my situation was not nearly as challenging as other people on the board, some may not even consider the marriage sex-starved. What I picked up with in SSM is that sex-starved doesn't have to do with frequency, it has to do with desire gap. If one person wants it 7 days a week and the other wants it 4, and the gap *bothers* the 7 day person, then you have SSM issues.

After her EA, she did not want me to touch her. She wouldn't kiss me, ML was out of the question, etc. This made me feel rejected and worthless, but I kept at it -- I would DB, give space, not pursue, etc. Eventually this paid off as W slowly started to come back emotionally. We agreed that I would not escalate physical affection, and that she would initiate all ML, with the understanding that we'd try to keep to a once per week schedule (Ideally I'd like twice per week, W would like once a month or once every couple months).

This worked really well for a while, and twice I felt that W really "wanted me" and was enjoying the experience. This unfortunately delivered exactly what I have wanted for so long and established how good the experience can be.

W has never had an orgasm while ML. I have often thought that if I could deliver that for her, she would like ML more and our experience would improve. I have often asked her to tell me what makes her feel good, what I need to do to get her there, etc. but she is entirely unwilling to discuss. She says that even talking about details of ML make her want to cry. (???) I have tried oral, hands, etc., but mainly she's very rigid and obviously uncomfortable with anything but more traditional ML.

She says that she does enjoy it once we get started, but it's hard for me to understand because she never indicates when it's good for her versus not, and I can definitely tell that in many cases she's just not into it, and that makes me feel dirty and badly about myself afterwards. Our marriage was characterized by my W's passive aggressive behavior and attitude toward ML for so long that I'm definitely scarred by it. I never want to be in a position where I feel I am "taking" versus being given.

I have stayed with the "no escalation" policy religiously since we agreed to it. A few weeks ago, I did indicate that I'd like to go on my schedule for a while with regard to initiating. That was a big mistake -- I couldn't handle it. I would feel guilty whenever I started, I felt like I was "taking" when I wanted to be receiving. I eventually told W I couldn't do it and needed to go back on her schedule, and that's where we are now.

I have been reading "Passionate Marriage" which is a very interesting book. What I've taken from this is that there is nothing I can do to make sex better for W if she will not let me. The reason she doesn't enjoy sex is that she doesn't feel good about herself, and there's nothing I can do about that.

I have also identified that I feel a lot of anxiety related to our desire gap. For years I was always afraid that each time we ML would be the last. Passionate Marriage talks about a "trained chicken" syndrome with low desire. The LD spouse will eventually consent to sex when they feel sufficiently guilty because they have rejected so many advances. This can condition the HD spouse to initiate much more frequently than they would really like, because they have to get enough initiations in to get the guilt level high enough.

He likened this to a chicken trained to peck a lever to get a pellet. Initially they get a pellet each time they peck, but over time the pellets get less frequent, but still come after "enough" pecks at the lever. In this scenario, the chicken's cage can be full of pellets, and they'll have pellets in their mouth, but they'll still furiously peck away because they don't know how many lever hits it's going to take to get the next one.

I definitely did not "over initiate" historically because I couldn't deal with the rejection. I waited until things were so bad for me that I had to initiate, and that would make the rejection so much worse. I did, however, identify with the anxiety issues above of not knowing when your next ML was going to happen and not being able to deal with that. It makes me fixate on ML, which is not a healthy dynamic in our marriage.

My DB Coach told me that my W may never be giving -- she may never meet my needs in the way I want them met. Therefore, she said that I have a choice, I can either decide to leave, or I can accept things as they are and try to make the most of them.

I've opted to stay and work on accepting, but I want to get to a place where I'm happy, satisfied, and am not projecting an aura of unmet needs to W. How do I do that?

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