One more thing, where did we as a society come to believe that the passion of a relationship the the feeling of being "in love" was something that was supposed to be everlasting???? That bothers the ever living daylights out of me! It does not and cannot JUST HAPPEN, you have to work at it, cultivate it and work at it again! It has it's really really highs and it's abnormal lows, and when it's at it's lowest points giving up is NOT the option!
Me - 30 W - 28 M 4 t 6 ILYBINILWY #1 Jan - 2011 Band-aid Jan 11' ILYBINILWY #2 7/28/12
I want you to read this very carefully, b/c I'm afraid you are deceiving yourself more than your W is. As long as she has (I believed you called it a fantasy) of another man, she will not feel romantic sparks for you.
You keep trying to convince us that there isn't a third party, but there is. Even if a woman fantasizes about some man she's never met in real life, it has a negative affect on her R with her H, b/c so much of her feelings give way to the fantasy that it doesn't leave room for romantic sparks with her H.
There have been other men come here who didn't seem too concerned and would refer to their W as having some a fantasy over some "friend" or coworker or whoever. But sooner or later they had to find out that they were mistaken not to take it seriously.
Regarding the anniversary card.......the fact that she did not get you a card should tell you that she doesn't care to receive one either. She's just not "there".
I don't think going on dates is wise at this time. It's just not the way to get her interested.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
I want you to read this very carefully, b/c I'm afraid you are deceiving yourself more than your W is. As long as she has (I believed you called it a fantasy) of another man, she will not feel romantic sparks for you.
Sandi I rarely disagree w/you and am reluctant to do so without knowing all the facts. And I don't have all the facts so let me state that up front. But let me parse this sentence above^^ a bit...
I have at times fantasized about OMs...NOT men in my real life, at least not consciously. But guys on TV or athletes, and literally a guy I made up when I was a teenager whom I still have dreams of every few years. I don't see that as a threat to my m. There are times when my h has bad breath or isn't as attractvie to me at the moment but I rarely reject him physcally and sometimes I need to think outside the box. I do know I'm not alone in this habit. And my feelings of love/attraction for my h, DO return in time. But when there are gaps, it seems safe to have a way of handling that lack of attraction without rejection. Don't know if I'm being clear about this, it's pretty personal and intimate.
You keep trying to convince us that there isn't a third party, but there is. Even if a woman fantasizes about some man she's never met in real life, it has a negative affect on her R with her H, b/c so much of her feelings give way to the fantasy that it doesn't leave room for romantic sparks with her H.
If she's fantasizing about OM as her husband, maybe no sparks are left. But a man she's never met has a negative affect on her R with her h....every time?
I'm not on board w/that opinion, but maybe I'm wrong. Speaking for myself, I think where I get the appetite isn't as important as making sure I come home for dinner...however, I will read this thread before going further.
But to be clear, I'm not comfortable with fantasies about real men in her life that she has conscious thoughts of.
Some MEN CAN do that w/women in their life, and they assume women are the same (eg that they are separating the sex from the r) and I disagree. For most women, We dont' separate our emotions from sex for long, generally.
There have been other men come here who didn't seem too concerned and would refer to their W as having some a fantasy over some "friend" or coworker or whoever. But sooner or later they had to find out that they were mistaken not to take it seriously.
Regarding the anniversary card.......the fact that she did not get you a card should tell you that she doesn't care to receive one either. She's just not "there".
I don't think going on dates is wise at this time. It's just not the way to get her interested.
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
I have read this sitch entirely (and posted here before) and I saw nothing about her fantasies of any OM.
Is there another thread? What am I missing?
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
First I am soooooo glad to have you all helping me through this terrible life event. It happened once before and I did NOT take it as serious as I should have. This time is much more severe and I am taking it as serious as a stroke. Let me lay down in step by step yet abridged detail my sitch.
1) 18 months ago wife says ilybinilwy. She says she feels like we have been in a rut for a while but she wants to get back on track. She goes to an IC several times alone and we go a few times together at the request of the IC. W gets a list of books and advice from IC and sends us on our merry way never really getting to the root of the issue. Things are fine fOr a while as we read these books and she uses some of the advice points from the IC. This turns out to be my biggest mistake because as soon as we got "busy" in our lives and things began to change for the worse I attributed it to us being busy and we would get back into the swing of things eventually. DID NOT happen.
2) lifestyle transformation. We had a very large house with a very small yard 2 yellow labs and stupid high taxes. The two of us decide we want to sell our house and minimalize to something smaller, pay off all our debt and live as free and clear of the banks as possible. Our house sold for asking price in 5 days. We had found two properties we really liked but all the offers we put in fell through couldn't find a place to buy that fast and we didn't want to lose the good fortune of selling our house that fast so we decided to just rent and then look for our house with land. Meanwhile we became debt free with the exception of a small credit card debt.
The place we are renting has NO Internet so we decide that it would be best for me to set up my office in the family business. I do and for a while things are good, in the midst of all the change and chaos we didn't even realize what we were settin ourselves up for. Then the bad stuff begins to happen. My trading strategy begins to take a nose dive, I cannot bring in the money I had been for years prior and our savings begins to take a hit (I make the mistake of not manning up and getting a better paying job). We stop looking for houses because without a VERY consistent income being self employed the bank won't touch us with combined income only hers. She finds our "dream" property and because of the income issues we get denied for the loan amount. She starts to spiral.
3) accelerate the unravelling. During this troubling time 3 things are happening which I believe directly contributed to speedin up this process.
We had been trying to cOncieve since we were married unsuccessfully and she decided to go see an alternative medicine practitioner which costed an decent amount of money and yielded no pregnancy. Through this most recent time of trying to cOncieve sex seemed forced and never in tune like we used to be. My wife gets extremely discouraged from this try try try with no results.
We stopped working on us.
We began working, eating, relaxing and sleeping together EVERY day. I am talking about full on 20-24 hours a day together. On top of that my sex needs are not being met so I am super needy, not making money, not working on finding solutions to our "plan" and all the while building up resentment from the lack of sex.
4) The bomb. I know something is wrong when I wake up and my wife looks at me with tears in her eyes and says we need to talk. She goes into great detail that she has been feeling the same way and worse that she did I've a year and a half ago. That she feels the spark never truly returned. That if we were ment to be together this "spark" shouldn't be so hard to find. She says she has though about us splitting and that it seems all the circumstances aligned to allow a clean separation. No house no debt and no kids except our two dogs.
She said that it was all boiling up and the tipping point came when she met a relative of a close friend whom my W works out with regularly. W's close friend asked my W if there was anyone she knew who she could set her nephew up with. W said she felt a "spark of attraction" that she had been missing from our first few years as a couple. She catches herself thinking about him and looking him up in Facebook. She says that's when she knew she had to come forward and disclose all of what had been happening and how she was feeling. During this conversation a sort of miracle happened inside of me. I normally would have aggresively battered her with hundreds if questions and sold her on "us" and beat her up over this OM fantasy. But somehow I didn't. I didn't let her see I was even a little worried about us, our M or the OM. Instead I thank her for her honesty and loyalty, I tell her it took lots of courage to tell me everything she did. And the only questions I asked was whether she felt done or wanted to keep trying. She didn't answer but because we are going to an MC, doing things together and still. Aking future plans I can only assume she has not given up.
Now for the updates, W decided she wanted to go together on a family reunion camping trip in my side of the family. I never asked her or made mention of it other than in passing and I was going to go.
W wants to get snowboarding gear and seasons passes together to the local mountain. (this was a huuuuuge part of her past time and a massive part of her person and she had sorta given it up because I had "other plans with our money"). I tell her I am all for that idea and when she asks me whether I am all for that idea because of our R I tell her absolutely not which is the truth. I want the passes not only so we can go but so I can go by myself as well as with friends.
W and I spend a few hours on a no strings attached mountain biking picnic yesterday. It was the most fun we have had together in over a year, we laughed we talked we laid out in the grass looking at clouds and I made no mention of our relationship. Nor did I backslide.
I did NOT give her the card and I think it was the right move. She didn't get me a card and she felt awkward getting one from her parents so I felt it was not time.
Wife made the next appointment with the MC. I am hoping the MC digs deeper into the question of whether W sees me as a choice partner to be with in her plans for the next 5 years.
Still no physical or verbal affection from W. It is helping me detach though. If I were to be getting any of those things intermittently it would be next to impossible for me to detach and GAL.
I GOT A JOB! A kick butt exactly what I was looking for job. Wife was really happy and excited for me and I know it will help get us the separation we need right now.
I am also starting a business venture with a partner in the pyrotechnic industry. The ideas we have will revolutionize the industry and I am super excited about the potential there as well.
Soooooo after reading this novel if there are any questions please ask them and feel free to leave feedback.
Me - 30 W - 28 M 4 t 6 ILYBINILWY #1 Jan - 2011 Band-aid Jan 11' ILYBINILWY #2 7/28/12
Hi 25yrs. I always respect your point of view. I think I get what you're saying about fantasies. I believe that's what some call healthy fantasies.
I probably did a poor job of trying to explain what "I" meant. (I have to use quotation marks to emphasize b/c I can't use my underline.)
I try (but obviously fail) to put in my statements the words "some", "can", or even "most".....but not talk as if "all" people are one way. I do have strong beliefs about how fantasies can have very negative effects on a R. I believe it can be a seed of destruction.
I feel that when the woman feeds her fantasy of a man (real or fiction) to the point she is comparing her H with the OM....and he comes up short.....then there is a very real problem.
I believe I read on his first page that his W admitted to having a fantasy of a man she met through family members. To me, that is the beginning of an EA.
I don't think that is the same as what you were referring to, but IDK. At any rate, if his W felt that she should admit what she had been thinking to her H, then the way I see it....she must feel guilty about it.
(ugh.....I can't use my smiley pictures on this computer, either!) Anyway, I don't see you telling your H about one of your fantasies out of guilty feelings, 25. (lol) However, I do see you sharing something you believe might add spice to your already great sex life. You are to be envied my friend.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
