I think you have posted the way many women feel, even some of the HD women. I am trying very hard to understand this. What you are asking for is not easy at all for a man to do. Men are VISUALLY oriented, women are VERBALLY oriented. Men do NOT express feelings, men do NOT "Share". This is what testosterone does to men. Men are literally "Brain Damaged", the conncetions between both sides of the brain are MUCH smaller then the connections for women. Men use the side of the brain that contains logic, while women use BOTH sides of the brain. I know that communication, sharing, or expressing feelings with my spouse is the HARDEST thing I can ever do. The only way I can see improving this is by sheer practice, probably hundresd of conversations before us HD guys can begin to feel comfortable "SHARING". I am going to go back and read the book "What Women want men to know about women". Buy it for your hubby and tell him to read it, or maybe read it together. It may help a bit.
Your post hints at what we ALL need to do. The man should help to draw out the women SEXUALLY. The women should try to draw out the Intimacy of the man. This is exactly what God intended. Men and women work best as a whole rather than as 2 individuals. You really have to put away individuality and think as a team at almost all times.
Maybe I need to print this out and ask my wife if shee feels this way. Probably does. I know I certainly do not have the in depth discussions like I should. I have read about people that actually make a ritual in this, they set aside 5-10 minutes each day to sit and only be with the spouse and to talk. I know that this would be very UNEASY for both me and the spouse, but we may learn to like it.
Dr. Laura said something the other night that made me really think. She said that men are entirely DEPENDANT upon their wives for their emotional stability. If our needs for sex and admiration are fully met by our wives, then we will literally DIE trying to meet our wives needs. However if our wives do not meet this need, because of the stoic nature of men, we literally will bottle this inside until we explode. We will not let on how much we truly hurt. So as Dr. Laura said, Women hold ALL the power to make their marriages great. I have to say I agree with her, if my wife was the physical person she needed to be, I WOULD GO TO HELL AND BACK FOR HER. I know some great relationships, and the women in these realtionships knows this. They have been following Dr. Laura's advice (and not even know it), and their marriages appear to be great.
Corri, in your last paragraph, you express many of the complaints that HD spouses have as well. We all feel "Used". LD spouses feel "Used" for sex. HD's feel USED for everything that is NOT SEX. We all want the other spouse to desire OUR passion. This is the great stumbling block. Our needs have to be met simultaneaously in order for the marriage to work. And by the way, I would give anything to be "USED" for sex. I LOVE that.
Corri, there is one problem that I see in our solutions, and I think many HD guys have seen this. If us HD guys become the men we once were while dating, or even 150% of the guy we once were, the women in our lives BARELY change. If we have changed back in to "Mr Perfect", then the women should change back into HD women. From everything I have seen, THIS VERY RARELY happens. If you women expect us to be the guy you dated, then why should we HD guys not expect you to turn completely back into HD spouse like you once were. Us HD guys get VERY pissed that we put all this effort into our relationships, and yet the change in our wives is barely perceptable, or even worse, the wives think we do these things because WE have seen the light and have changed (effectively changed into LD spouses). Some guys really bust their butts, and get nothing in return.
Corri, I thought this was a great post. Your post always make me sit up and take notice, because I know that I am getting a sneak peek into H's brain.
Here is one problem that I thought of when reading your message--the kind of emotional intimacy you are talking about occurs in HD people AFTER they have made love with their spouse. It is one of life's cruel mysteries, eh! An LD person can't get physical til the emotions are out on the table and the HD person can't get emotional til they have physically connected.
If their NUMBER ONE need is going unmet, and they approach their partner to talk about it, nine times out of ten you are going to see anger. Really, it's hurt coming across as anger. It is exceedingly hard to ditch that anger because the rejection they feel at their spouse's hands is staring right back at them. You are looking at the person who repeatedly rejects you and trying to think of a way to be tender and empathetic. It is VERY hard.
Having said that, I agree completely with what you said. It really does work. The times that I have bared my soul to H, in regards to our sex life, he listens to me and hears me. The times that I approach him with anger (hurt, really) he tunes me out and gets defensive. His behavioral changes vary, though. Sometimes he takes the Emotional Intimacy conversations and DOES something with them...makes changes. Other times, he sortof stores the info away like a squirrel and I'm not sure that he considered it much more than a really good talk.
Sooooo, in closing (lol) to all the LD people out there who are starving for emotional intimacy, I say to make a pact with yourself to get busy with your spouse 50% of the time and see where that gets you. I'll bet you see more intimacy from your seemingly angry or demanding HD partner. And to the HD people, try to meet the emotional needs of your partner and see if it gets you more sex.
Ah, sure sounds simple doesn't it! Well I know I am generalizing a LOT here but I know there is truth in there somewhere..
Some very good 'words on paper' here from Corri and honeypot. I'm going to snip these and present them to my W as they say much of what i feel and see happening in my M but I have been unable to get across. As you said above, it is very hard to get out the feelings of hurt without just coming across as angry...maybe your words can speak for me. Keep the good stuff coming, we're all reading along and it certainly helps..thanks
Your return posts to me make me smile. CeMar, you say simply, 'men just don't do this!'
Chew on this one for two minutes. As hard as you think it is to open up emotionally to your spouse, with no anger and no blame... and believe me, I know how hard that is... it is EQUALLY as hard for your LD spouse to open up to you physcially. So when I say this to you, and you feel your stomache constrict at the effort that is going to take... is exactly the way I feel when confronted with making our sex life better.
I can say to my HD Hubby, "honey, I'm just not that way... I just don't DO that..." and that doesn't make the marriage any better, does it?
Kids, this all takes effort, on everyone's part. We all understand the great paradox between LDs and HDs. CeMar, I don't think you should ever have to become what you once were and not have your wife make any changes. Conversely, you have that 'negotiation' attitude coming into play again... "I'll only do this if I get something in return for it..." and that just isn't honest giving. That's bartering.
Nope, that isn't fair. But I'm wondering if you made this effort, and she began to trust your changes as lasting and permanent and you just aren't trying to 'get' something from her, that she would begin opening up to you, and feeling emotionally close to you, and wanting to express that with you physically.
It's the same thing when you all tell me to keep up those 'small changes' that indicate to my H that I do desire him... you tell me that at first he probably isn't going to trust it, but that if I keep it up, his defensiveness is eventually going to come down.
This is where your own advice comes back to haunt you, hm? Same thing on the emotional side.
Chachi, if your wife is drowning herself in two hours of TV every night, there is a reason for that. She gets to share space with you, yet she is safe because you 'aren't' talking and potentially having a fight. (Because that is how she sees it, right or wrong).
Maybe CeMar's suggestion of just starting with 10 minutes of discussion each night is a way to begin. You must earn back your partner's trust in order for them to understand and acknowledge how deeply you are hurting and that sex for you is so much more than just getting off. Until your LD spouse truly understands that you are REALLY hurting, I'm afraid you aren't going to get anywhere. So I think your mission is, before uping the frequency, you must find a way to break through their fog of misunderstanding... and that is NOT with anger and yelling, and blame.
Chachi, I think I could make all sorts of suggestions to you on how you might proceed, if you think your wife is feeling something similar to me. Just let me know if you want to discuss it further.
Okay, I need more info. You have two children, 6 and 2? Is that correct? Are either of your children 'high maintenance children? Meaning, do one or both physically or mentally exhaust your wife or you beyond the normal parenting routine?
What time do the kids go to bed? When they go to bed, are they in bed for the night, or do they crawl in bed with you at some point? If so, at what point? What is the bedtime routine? Does she typically fall asleep with them and then later come to bed with you? You get my drift...
What are your work schedules? Meaning, when do you leave the home and when do you return? Is there over-time involved for either you or her? Do projects sometimes get brought home, do they frequently get brought home, or do they never get brought home?
What 'hobbies' does your wife enjoy? If you gave her 3 hours to herself, what would she do?
On a scale of 1 to 10, where does the house's neatness or cleanliness, especially the kitchen, rate -- one being low, 10 being high.
Who does the cooking in the house, you or her?
Is she responsible with money, or do you feel that she spends too much?
Do you have any pets? If so, who takes care of said pets?
What are her FAVORITE TV shows, what night(s) of the week are they on, and at what time? What time does she like to have 'lights out?'
Answer these questions, and then for the next two weeks WATCH her. Make SURE you really know her routines. Monitor her moods. She'll have good days and bad. Find out WHY. Write everything down, even if you don't understand it. Also write down your actions, words, and responses to her and the correlating responses, actions from her. Try to be objective and thorough. Don't SPY on her, observe her. Big dif.
If at any time during the next two weeks you initiate sex and get turned down, write EVERYTHING down. What you did, what you said, what she did, what she said, where it happened, when, etc.
In short, STUDY your wife. Her facial expressions, what makes her laugh, what makes her mad, what makes her sad, ALL her non-verbal cues...
I'm going to jump here with a comment as a long time lurker and not a very big contributor.
I think many of the guys posting here are around my age, lowerto mid-40's, and I was brought up in the era when guys didn't express feelings and you sucked it in and dealt with it without showing much emotion or even expressing it. This has left some of us with pretty much only having anger that we can express and even then a great deal of problems in communicating emotion. Even when things changed culturally on guys expressing feelings, some of us still have a great deal of trouble in that area. It's like people said it's ok to express feelings and we said "Cool, now what are those and how do I express them?" It is quite hard to try and communicate in a language that you never had a chance to learn when young and are trying to learn it as an older person. So phyisical communuication and showing love by doing things are a way many of us have used and now that doesn't work we're left lost and are trying to feel our way forward in an area that we are clueless about.
I think for many of us it's the frustration that the rules changed after we were started in the game and we're trying hard to learn the new rules, but are at a loss for even trying.
Scott
"Satisfaction is not guaranteed." Rule #19 Ferengi "Rules of Acquistition"
Yeah, I know EXACTLY how you feel as I feel equally lost and am desperately trying to feel may way forward in the area of physcial communication -- an area I feel equally clueless about!
This has been the hardest damn thing I've ever done because every action I need to take runs completely contrary to what *I* feel and know as truth.
Again, your enormous struggle, frustration, helplessness, et al., with expressing your emotions is equal to what I feel in learning how to express myself in a physical way.
So come on in, you can wade through the sh!t with me... we can struggle together -- even if it isn't over the EXACT same thing, we both want the same outcome -- to improve our marriages.
Corri, Have you ever made a log like what you were describing to the poster above? That would seem like a good place to start, in regards to discovering what it is that makes your H happy and feel satisfied.
If you have, what sorts of things did it say?
I have to say that I find this whole concept (write it down) very intriguing. It appeals to my urge as a kid to be a spy.
Corri, Thanks for the support. Nice to know there is a shared frustration between the LD's (the physical side) and the HD's (the emotional side(at least for some of us)).
We went to a Marriage Encounter weekend last October and for a while the physical picked up, but it's be 4 weeks since the last time we ML, not to mention getting only one good hug(I don't count the no arms one) in all that time. So I've been just a bit annoyed, especially since my reward for a couple of days working around to house to organize two rooms back to useability was a trip to the bookstore, .
Thanks for the call to keep at it.
Scott
"Satisfaction is not guaranteed." Rule #19 Ferengi "Rules of Acquistition"
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