How to rekindle love?

[Rose888]

Rose, thank you. My posts were to help sr9, sounds like you've done a lot of thinking on this.

Obviously there is a two way street. He needs to own his behavior. Part of that may be what he provides to you to meet your needs. Part of that is to manage through his fears and insecurities. Part of that is to accept that we don't get everything we want in life.

One of your needs is to feel safe, that you have a man you can depend on being there. He needs to realize that his fear of being sexually unfulfilled is a trigger for your fear he'll walk. It's really tricky to work through this as a couple, because when you or he voice your feelings and needs it is liable to wake up fears in their partner. It's hard to work as a team through this without help. Ideally the same way that you are doing what you can to accommodate him, he should be doing what he can to assure you that he isn't walking.

And he needs to understand that he won't always be sexually fulfilled every moment, and that if there is a tough week or month or bad night, he can't overreact and extrapolate and blow that out of proportion. Finally, the part about not getting everything you want is critical too, because a man's appetite is insatiable and there will always be hunger for more. This next sentence is important to me, I've never found a way to express it before so here goes: Sex isn't important to a man because it fulfills a sexual hunger, sex is important to a man because it's his partner's way of acknowledging and validating the pain of living with constant endless unquenchable desire. So he needs to still live with that, that's just part of being a man.

Just remember one thing Rose...maybe he is trying to assure you he isn't going to leave. But then when he voices his fears, you get afraid. Or he assures you that he won't leave...but you stil have your doubts because he seems distant at times, or one day he spoke with a viewpoint that he used when he was in the fog. My point is that it's eerily parallel to his need for reassurances and his fears. So to some point you will just have to work through these as well, and accept that it won't be perfect, and that you'll never have the absolute trust and commitment that you crave because that isn't possible in this world.

I'm getting dizzy. I think I have some clarity and then it gets so complicated I sometimes lose the thread. Maybe I am murking up the waters. I guess I could've just said you both have to do your best and accept what that looks like, and trust that it will get better as months turn to years and your track record becomes better and better. I don't know your sitch well, I was drawn here by another poster I follow...but I'll keep up now. Keep it going Rose!

Thank you so much for this post, Zues. You articulate things that I've been slowly clarifying in my own mind.

I think H IS trying to reassure me as much as he can while being honest about his feelings and needs. There is nothing in his behavior now that indicates he won't be around in the future. He talks about plans for us once the kids are grown.

And yes, I have to learn to deal with the lack of absolute security. Because let's face it. Life isn't 100% certain anyway.