Thanks anc, Basement not done. Ssoo much kids homeowrk and sport and clubs and music. Three hour increments is what i need to be productive and i just cant string that together.
Ive done everything from demo to cutting the floor, framing, insulating, electrical, plumbing, drywall, cabinets& painting. I am working on ceramic tile about 650 sqft left.
We have designed an awesome space...tv/family room, gaming table area, wet bar, fitness room, bathroom, laundry and storage rooms. I have to do all the final wiring after.floors, doors and trim are in. Then ceilings. Then bathroom fixtures...all roughs are done. Getting close, but oh so far.
Maybe i need to just immerse myself again for 6 months, really break away for a while, idk.
Sorry the basement won't be ready for your family get together.
How are things? I'm guessing it is still a mixed bag. I don't post much lately but I check in on you and a few others.
Happy thoughts my friend
R 25 years M 14 years S11 & S13 Working on it alone since Oct 2014 M in trouble a lot earlier (~2 years) Feb 2016. 1st R chat in a yr. Next R chat Aug'17 Still together
I have typed messages to you, elly cherry, mut, roiste, vanilla and even cali...but deleted them, they just didnt feel right, maybe too much anger in there...too much frustration and doubt from me. I will revisit those posts this week to see why i felt that way.
Went as a chaperone to s13 science club overnight in indiana and as doon as we got back, we left and drove up to minnisotta last week to visit a friend whose husband passed away this past fall. We all had a great time. This week tho wife and both boys sick and house has not been 'warm'.
Try todo what i can to help them all feel better, but nothing reaally to do to truly help. I always get down because i cant make them better, you know the control freak mantra.
Qe exchanged gifts yesterday, i really liked the things she bought for me You could tell she put thought into them and shopped early (not last minute or no thought like some years, or at all for others).
I will do a reflection post in the next week about this past year and how truly blessed i am to have my family with me.
For now i want to express some feelings of gratitude, i need to put thigs into a better light than thebway i have been feeling last coupke of weeks. (i dont know why i am crying right now but i am):
× family still together
× great job when appreciates me still, even in my current diminished capacity.
× my familys overall health is strong, (colds are colds). My mom going through some $hit, but she looked better last night.
× two beautiful children i get to wake up and see every day.
× wife is trying, certainly feels like it some days.
× grateful for you all to help carry me during thiae times i am just not strong enough to go alone. Thank you.
Thanks for the update. The other week I dreamt meeting you. And we chatted and walked like old friends. Then I started wondering about why you were in my home town and other logical stuff and I woke up disappointed.Anyway thinking of you and wishing you all the best.
R 25 years M 14 years S11 & S13 Working on it alone since Oct 2014 M in trouble a lot earlier (~2 years) Feb 2016. 1st R chat in a yr. Next R chat Aug'17 Still together
Zephyr, you know you can post even when you're in a funk, right? That's part of the benefit of having your DB family. We care, and want to help you. You don't always have to be the strong one. I bet that's been your role for a really long time.
I was floored by your comment. simple yet direct and well, when something stings there is usually truth in there that makes us feel uncomfortable about ourselves...well that is something worth looking at.
Yes, I do not ask people for help. I have always had to be the strong one. <from what I've been able to gather, that Reads as controlling behaviors BTW> I have tried to be self sufficient my whole life. as a middle child whose brothers ALWAYS demanded attention for one reason or another, schooling - no help, job - do my best or else, my marriage - never asked for help...tried to carry everything.
Looking back I have felt that asking for help was a sign of weakness, something I could not show. I was the skinny, ugly kid in school that people did not want to be around. I could not show weakness, else I end up in the dumpster or shoved in a locker or whatever.
Then I fell in love with a woman, she saw me differently than all the rest. looking back, I know now that I was picked because of that self-reliance and show of strength - to be a better provider of security for my wife. I was the protector that would provide for her, without fail.
anyway, I have been working on being more open with my needs and trying to get help when I can't go it alone. I've even tried IC about a dozen times in the last 2 years. I just can't do it at home too much, my wife is incapable it would seem, of providing that support that I need from time to time. is it that she is just assumes that I can handle things on my own, is it that she is truly incapable...without empathy, is it that she does not want to help, or is it that she thinks she is already doing enough...this is something I can not understand - through all of the years, I just don't know which it is.
So all I need to do: be more self reliant, to meet my own needs for happiness and fulfill my own emotional security BUT I also need to figure a way to seek help with those same needs.
IDK, I am swirling and not making a ton of sense. Maybe I am missing something.
Z - I don't think you're missing anything. I think you're on to something! I have learned, over these past few months, that I did completely rely on H to make me "happy", to make me feel strong. When did I forget to do that for myself? No wonder I lost all sense of me and became someone else.
I'm not sure about your W. I don't think you are either. But, I don't think your problem is that you need to become more self-reliant. I think it's that you have a need that is not being met. I get the sense that saving your M/R is extremely important to you, but that all your needs are not being met in that R. What is it you think you need to make you happy? How do you become emotionally secure?
I think the answer to the second question lies in the answer to the first: What makes you happy? What is it you need? These are things you can tease out on your own, or with the help of an IC. If you are missing something important from your W, you need to figure out what that is, and come up with a way of addressing the situation. If she is ultimately unable/unwilling to provide whatever it is you wish you had from her, you need to get to a point that you can be okay with that, and find what you need in yourself.
You are making sense - I feel your thoughts swirling as I was reading. It's interesting that my question "stung" - I was only reaching out, but somehow hit a nerve. That's really compelling - what is in there that caused a reaction?
You may really have stumbled on to something here, Z. Let's keep digging, and see what we find. For myself, I'm on the path to being 100% happy in my own skin. I'm about 50% there...lol I know what I need to work on, and I'm doing it - but it is a process. You've been at this longer than I, so you know what I mean. I think once I can be completely happy with who and what I am, other things really won't matter. I won't "need" anyone else, and feel so lost without them.
I don't want to be alone, however. I just want my own fulfillment to come from me, so that discontent isn't bubbling away somewhere it my subconscious. It really changed me as a person that it was - and I had no idea! I see it now - thus my journey.
Please keep posting. I miss you when you're quiet for too long!
Z not all needs can be met on your own. Yes you need to take charge of your needs and your happiness, but I am not sure substituting needs or gap filling will solve this. You have been doing that.
We are all here to save our M but not just to stay M. We want a good fulfilling M/R. That is normal. Two years ago I would have been happy just knowing we'd spend our lives together. Today that is not enough. I want love, romance, affection, complicity, fun and all the other good stuff. We have researched and studied married life so much that we know how good it can be, how good it could be and how it should be. Early on in the process our wives are on a pedestal and we see perfection ( or at least perfect for us).
I believe that during this process we also put our M on a pedastel. If you could wipe your memory of everything you went through the last few years and just looked at your M without comparing it to this ideal M, it probably would seem pretty good. Better than many at least and definitely better than most of us here. I do not say that in a bitter way. I am happy that you have made progress.
I am not belittling what you feel. I am not saying you are wrong to feel that way. Over our time here, I sence that you do better when you focus on what you have and not on what is missing.
I don't have time to finish rambling so I'll sign off. I'll be here for you next year. Happy new year.
R 25 years M 14 years S11 & S13 Working on it alone since Oct 2014 M in trouble a lot earlier (~2 years) Feb 2016. 1st R chat in a yr. Next R chat Aug'17 Still together
I believe we are all talking about the same things here, whether it is my life or yours. there are needs that are not being met. how can we meet those needs or is there something inside that needs to be changed because of a longing for something more from ourselves.
You are right, my marriage appears to be everything a man could want. There is companionship, support, sharing, respect and we do an awesome job with my boys. There is even a physical aspect to our marriage that many good relationships do not have. i have heard so many times, women ask my wife or me, how we do it (paraphrasing). We would appear to be a great marriage, except for one small detail...LACK OF REAL INTIMACY.
Anc,
I think (and this has been in the back of my mind for a long time) that I have had this need to be wanted. My whole life I worked hard to gain than sense of accomplishment, not because it made me feel good to succeed, but because those around me that I had a desire to accept me, would. That was my family, friends, employers, teachers, whomever.
I know better now, that I don't need approval from anyone, nor my sense of accomplishment is my own fuel to be who I want to be. I know my worth, I know my capabilities and my value to my family and to the community. so what is it?
There was my wife. like so many here, we met young...I was 17, she was 15. She wanted me for me. she found me amongst the weeds, the flotsam, the cast away souls,
Without getting too much into the shadows of who I am...what am I missing...I want to feel wanted, mostly as a man. I am already needed as a provider, an employee, a father, a banker, cook, chauffer, whatever...but I am not needed as a lover or as a confidant. that intimacy has been missing from my life for a long time, and me sharing myself with her has largely been denied. If that is a natural, healthy desire...which I believe it to be, then it continues to be unfulfilled, and will be potentially forever, right?
Nothing I do as a person will ever fill than desire to be wanted. not me going out and joining a softball team or going to a rock concert or playing cards with the guys...none of it. I will not seek it out from another woman as long as i am married, it is not who i am. I want so much to be welcomed home because I am missed, not because the toilet is busted and It needs to be fixed. I want my clothes to be torn off because she wants to share herself with me, not because of obligation or having an base-urge, but out of pure desire to be together. i want for openness to return for her to share her emotions with me as her soul-mate, instead of only daily grind, doubt or silence.
it is as if she has decided that no matter what, she will not meet those needs or that she can't no matter how hard she appears to try. it is not like she has not heard them from me, not as complaints, even...but as requests.
If this is all an illusion of what my life could be? Am i being too idealistic, too greedy for what i already have? It felt like that was how it was before. But no, there has been that something missing for so long and i am not sure that it could ever be recaptured with my wife, for long anyways. Maybe it is me hoping to hard that it can, maybe it is me being too stubborn that it will never happen. Maybe it is just taking a LOOOONG time for her to regain her mojo from all that has happened. I don't know.
The Other (less crazy, more grounded) Side of me says, If i look back 1 year ago from today, i would bet that i would be ecstatic i am where we are. I am a different person than i was, a better man...that is for sure. Roiste is spot on with that. progress, right...as long as there is continued progress i need to stay patient. I am tired. So I will say to myself, "Mark, STFU and keep it going"
I have a short outing tonight and then all my boyz come around tomorrow for college football, drinking, and poker!!!!
My Hawkeyes are in the Rose Bowl tomorrow, so I will be paying attention for that game.
