It seems I do not want to examine how much I don’t feel the way he does.
Quote:
This is the time to start looking at those needs and wants you have put to the side for a time. You do have to be careful with this. We can't have it all. No relationship is going to provide us everything we need. There are things my W does or doesn't do that I would like her to. They aren't "deal breakers" for me, so for now I look past them because the foundation of our M is what I want. Have you looked and examined your emotional needs? This is something we must to and work to build effective enough communication with our S so we can approach them as well with things we want and desire for our emotional well being.
The needs and wants that S supplies for me are:
Need to feel loved, this is quite big for me, even if I’m not sure of loving back I still need to feel the love from the other person.
Need to feel physically close to someone, cuddles as well as sex
The side that is not fulfilled is the mental/emotional closeness. He off-loads his emotions onto me whenever he needs to (which is often). I am not allowed to do the same back. There is very little mental relationship. I realised this quite early in our R, back in year 2 or 3. Initially we had been work colleagues so there was plenty to talk about but once that went there was little mental stimulus in our discussions. We do not shoot the breeze, he hates to be kidded, political discussions end in him laying down the law or getting angry that I dare contradict. A couple we know and are good friends with are always up for a discussion about anything and I feel like it is good sport. I don’t get that mental exercise with S and I miss that in a partner (yes even after 12 years I miss it). I accept that it will never be the case, he is not wired that way, but I miss it nonetheless.
Even just writing this has got me close to tears. I miss batting that ball around, having an opinion and being allowed to defend that opinion without rancour on either part. Often I have started talking about stuff (feeling like I am just getting out the raquets for a decent thrash around) and I see him glaze over, switch off – it tears my guts outs.
Quote:
I feel like one day I will meet a soulmate and maybe it will even be H, maybe it will be someone else and maybe it will be a girlfriend but I don’t feel in any rush to do that.
Quote: That is quite the lofty expectation for your husband or anyone for that matter. Do you truly feel there is one and only one exact perfect person for you on this earth? How would you ever expect to find this person if he or she exsisted? It is totally unrealistic. You would never demand such a perfection from a close friend so why from your H?
I think you misunderstood what I meant by soulmate – maybe I got it wrong – no I do not believe there is one and only exact perfect person for me but I do believe that there is someone out there that I can have a strong mental relationship with, that I can speak my mind to on a number of different issues and they can pick the ball up and run with that. I can bare my soul to some extent but also just talk on many levels. They do not have to be perfect just someone who acts animated when they are in a conversation with me but also who I feel intimate enough with not to hold much back on what I feel.
Quote:
Heck I will even ML with him (he only seems to need it couple of times a month, and I need it too after all).
Quote:
I wanted to only ask if his reply to this would be the same. You say it only seem like..., this again can be detrimental to the R. You need to be able to communicate with him to find out if he truly feels this way, and not actually "acting as-if" with you as he can sense you don't want to be that close with him.
No it is true there have been occasions when I have (gently) turned him down. He could probably do with it more than twice a month. However there have been numerous occasions when I have been interested and he has not. I guess I mean when the two coincide is only about that often. When we have talked about it he will joke that he needs it every night. This is patently untrue. He is quite a low-energy person and is often whacked out by bed-time and not in the mood. So the truth of the matter lies somewhere between the two of us. I have been turned down by him and he has been turned down by me. Over the span of our whole relationship apart from the early days I would say 2 or 3 times a month is about average.
Quote:
I want him to be a strong brave hero-like person. That is not the person he is, it has never been the person he is or is ever likely to be.
Quote: Have you allowed him the chance to be the hero for you once and a while? In my mind DB'ing has to slowly fade away as you build a true relationship. I don't know for certian, but I sense you continue to DB, while not allowing your true feeling to be shared with him. You can't do this all at once, but you have to begin at some point to live true to yourself in the R. Maybe let him know it would be nice to be "saved" and then give him a chance to do so with something specific. He can't read your mind, tell him a way he can help you and be specific.
I can work on this and I can see a great deal in what you are saying. However there have been a few occasions when we have been faced with a crisis and I have been the one to pull us out of it. I do not have any faith in him as our protector and hero. He does not stand up to the fight. I am beginning to worry that even at work he is starting to flake out
Quote: God places people in our lives for many reasons. I don't know if you are religious, but some contemplation on how Jesus would accept people would be of some help. ..
I don't mean to sound harsh, but you can have what you want. From what you have posted your H seems to be to the point he want to be all you want. Just give him the chance to be and let him know slowly how he can do that, and then let him do it. He has all the power to be what you want, let him in rather than hold him back.
I will try to do this, it is our only chance. However I do feel that when I look back at our best times even then I was accepting less than what I wanted. I do not wish to place blame on him for not coming up to the mark, how was he to know what my mark was. I am in the wrong for accepting someone who could not be all I wanted. I really cannot complain that I have the bronze, because back in the day I went for bronze.
thanks again for your input
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
