First I will say that this is a really good place to bounce ideas and set yourself straight.
I read your sit, sounds like mine and a few others of us here like hairdog, superdave, cemar, and tim47. These are the male HD regular bullsh!tters. We all have similar issues but are each in different places as far as resolving things. If you can filter our BS, there are tidbits of good things in our posts. Corri is the resident expert on a variety of topics and will set you straight when she detects that you are off track. I have found an approach that is working with my W right now despite my Ws motivation. It's still a very painful process because you will find yourself working your ass off while she will appear to be doing nothing. At least it is in my sit.
Anyway, your W sounds like mine...doesn't take C seriously and probably doesn't want it. What ever you do....DO NOT TAKE ANY ACTION UNTIL YOU HAVE HEARD FROM AT LEAST ONE of the LD women here. I nearly dropped a monster-sized bomb on my w based on cemar's and hairdog's advice...but Corri busted my chops in a big way and despite it being a very painful thing, I gained great insight and actually did the right thing.
Also, seriously hold back on any action until you post here for a while. In a matter of 2 weeks, I'm approaching W in a completely different way now than I was when I first came here after reading SSM.
There's some techniques that are not mentioned in SSM that I think will help you.
I'm telling everyone new here to do this first...
1. Define the Vision Collaborate with W on a "vision" for what you BOTH think a good, healthy relationship is. This keeps things looking into the future instead of the past. It's also easier to "dream" about a relationship where you are ML 3 times a week at some arbitrary time, 5 years from now. But consider all the love languages when doing this. Make sure that she gets to ask for the things she needs. When embarking on this journey, you will both be burning your fuel faster than you are now and will both need "refueling" more frequently. Along with the love languages, check out marriagebuilders.com and see their "love busters" and their version of what makes "love" work. This way, you shoot for a better a relationship which also happens to include more sex. The SSM book sometimes oversimplifies this and boils it down to 1.understanding feelings and 2. just doing it more.
2. Develop Principles From your vision, you can define a principle. An example would be..." "Time together is important" "ML is important" Then, every time you get a babysitter to go to a party, you might run though your list of principals and see that time together at home might be better (in the long run) than a party.
3. Define the Rules of Engagement examples.... * No referring to the past, past behaviors, etc. * Do "blindsiding" with an issue. 2 "i'm fines" and that's it...topic closed. * No yelling, swearing or interrupting. * Keep it positive * Always say "I would like...." instead of "you never...." (that's referring to the past...not allowed). etc.
Anyway..I could go on forever...this is just the beginning. Look forward to hearing more. I know we all seem to have a lot in common but despite the logic of this and the books, you will find that you and your W are very unique and will need to find your own style. Hopefully you can learn from some of us.
