Emotional Connection and Attraction

[Accuray]

Thanks for the summary! It was a good summary, and there are several parallels to my sitch although I'm sure many of these things unfold the same way.

Have you gotten treatment for your anxiety / panic disorder and do you continue to go to therapy for it? That is on you -- you owe it to W to take care of your mental health and not to rely upon her to be a crutch. This is a treatable illness.

My hear t sank. OMW had obviously just found out (a year later) about A. And I was angry, firstly because my W promised during BD that no pics were sent, and secondly that I was dealing with her A again.

Yeah, that's brutal, ghosts of the past knocking you back several months of progress. You can't know everything, you never will. There are things W has forgotten about, things W doesn't think are significant, and things she just won't bring herself to tell you. Gotta let that all go unless it starts up again.

If you take a long term view, you had a recent trauma that shook the two of you up, but you are both saying you want it to work out, so IMO the best thing you can do is do nothing to "work on" your marriage for the next 4 weeks. Just "be" and "let things happen". Take the focus off sex and affection, no R talks, just take a break and be. You can share this plan with W too, I'm sure she'll be relieved. Put a date on the calendar and stick to it, then reassess.

Here's my opinion for what it's worth -- marriages need balance in order to survive.

In a WAS/LBS situation, the relationship "balance of power" shifts to the WAS, almost 100% where the LBS can become servile in trying to meet the WAS' needs, not calling them on the carpet for their BS, etc. GAL is supposed to counteract this effect, as are Sandy's 37 rules, but when you get into "early piecing" this is a very easy trap to fall into, where you put your needs aside and focus on her needs exclusively.

If you think about it from her position, there are two problems created: (1) you're putting a lot of pressure on her to rise to the occasion of this new marriage you're "working on", and at the same time (2) you're putting yourself in a "one down" position by making the bigger committment, and "wanting it more"

It's the second one that is the "attraction killer", and the first one that puts up the defenses, or the withdrawal, for fear of failure. If she's afraid she won't measure up to your new standard, it's easier to blame that on you, or just not try, or otherwise withdraw.

One thing MMSLP did have right is that you tend to partner with someone who is at the same level as yourself. This is also discussed in "Passionate Marriage", that we tend to marry people who are at the same level of differentiation, or self-actualization, that we are. It is this balance that makes the relationship liveable.

The biggest challenge in piecing, therefore, is that the LBS needs to reassert their equality in the relationship, which is very tricky business indeed.

As an LBS, you can have no expectations, because you're not in a marriage and the WAS feels they owe you nothing. As a "piecing partner", however, you MUST have expectations, and you must have boundaries around having them met that you enforce ruthlessly.

My observations about your summary above is that the times you told your wife to "beat it" are the times you made the most progress. I believe that this is because you are making an implicit statement of your value, and therefore reasserting your place in the relationship as an equal -- that you will not tolerate or accept bad treatment.

Fear of losing your WAS keeps you in a one-down position. It makes you the first one to give in when there is an argument, it makes you the more accommodating one. When you lose the fear, and decide that you will be okay with or without the marriage, you actually relieve the pressure on your spouse, and make it safer for them to re-engage with you as an equal, and once again give them something to value.

My very best prescription for you is to take the four week break and just "be". That implies staying away from this site, and anything else that is going to prompt you to dwell on your sitch. Dwelling on it becomes an addiction, and over a long period of time it doesn't help. Do what you want to do, without first thinking about what you "should" be doing.

At that point, after the break, read SSM and have your wife read it to IF sex is still a problem.

You have correctly identified that your wife goes to the "no attraction" place as a defense mechanism when she feels she's failing, and then re-frames her prior positive efforts as "trying". The reality is more than likely that her positive effort were genuine, and the attraction issue is a reaction to relationship pressure and fear of failure. Let's try turning down the knob on that for a while and see what happens. In the long term view, four weeks is nothing for a meaningful experiment. Are you up for it?

Acc