...Hope is very powerful and although I do waiver, I also am an optimist.
...I have tried to understand what he needs and offer that to him, but I don't get any positive responses when I initiate ANYTHING. I only get rejected... just like all the years of unintentional rejection he received from me. (I was sexually abused as a kid... yadayadayada)
...He thinks that he is bad because he wants to have sex with other women, and that I deserve more than he can give me.
Sorry for the ramble, but I don't get this out much! LOL.
Have a great day!
Don't be sorry. Why don't you start your own thread. I have found that posting is great therapy as it provides a cathartic release to what is eating at you emotionally. It may work for you. That way we don't hi-jack someone elses thread. Because the Newcomer section gets more traffic, you might want to post there and them put a link to it in this thread.
With that said, yes, hope is about all we have. I don't know if you are familiar with "affirmations" and self hypnosis, but you might google it and buy a CD to put on an MP3 player to listen to either when you exercise or when you get down.
As to understanding a spouses needs, being rejected and not wanting to put yourself out there again for rejection, that is hard. I have been there. What I can tell you from my experience is that unconditional love is very powerful stuff. Unconditional love doesn't require your spouse to reciprocate affection. Recieving unconditional love, in the right circumstances can heal deep pain and build an appreciation for a relationship that you have that may spark back into love.
For men, there is something Glover calls being a Nice Guy (NG). A NG is a man who builds his life around pleasing a woman, but only from his point of view. In reality it is a relationship where he is making in "his mind" covert contracts with the lady of his affections. He is telling himself if I do X for her, then she will do what I need. It is a sure way to have your heart broken as it usually won't work and when it doesn't work the Nice Guy just doubles down on his bet and does twice as much X that still won't get him what he had hoped for. In many ways, stopping all conditional contracts and just giving unconditional love and learning how that feels to give, can stop all the problems associated with being a NG.
As to his having sex with other women and his wanting you to have more than he can give, that could be very sweet or very ugly. If he honestly beleives you don't want to have sex with him or that you can't be satisfied by him, then he may feel that way as a projection of his desire for you both to be happy. It also raises red flags that you need to work really hard (if you believe it) that he has and can satisfy you and that you really convince him that you want to please him and make him become happy.
What our sex therapist did was to ask us what we visualized as a happy marriage and what role did sex play in a happy marriage. Our sex therapist then told us that sex should be fun, playful and not be taken too seriously. In an SSM, each sex act is a starving meal for one of the partners and is taken deadly seriously. It was hard to make that transition and not put too much emphasis on any particular night where something didn't go well or one of us accidently said something that hurt the other emotionally (old habits die hard.)
You might want to take advantage of the holidays and do a few things (180's in the words of MWD) to get things moving. You might get the MWD SSM book read it and give him his own copy for Christmas and tell him that the book apealed to you and you want to prove to him how much your really love him, but you know it will not be easy, that it will hurt both of you at times, but that you think it would be worth the effort as you love him and you desperately want to make him happy (assuming you do).
Alternately, if you really want to shake things up, give him some love coupons that he can use whenever he wants. Things like regular massage/backrubs, a massage with a happy ending, a night of sex where you will do a specifc sex act he use to like (but you weren't too keen on but can handle), a night where you will wear any outfit in bed that he wants you to wear (or nothing at all). Some coupons that make him wonder if you are still the same woman he had writen off as a sex partner, that is assuming you can actually handle what you put on the card.
Again, good luck. Start your own thread and get on with living the good life. You don't need to stay stuck in an emotional hole you don't like. It's not like you are the only person who has ever been in an SSM.
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
