The dominant male mindset/posture works. Period. As does quickly shutting down any overt signs of rebellion or disrespect or refusing to take take any B.S. To wit: "I really like it when you put your hand on the back of my neck when we're out somewhere, and when you go to kiss me." Ditto with taking charge in the bedroom. She's also responsive to being led around by the hand or elbow, now. And I do WAY more "Standing in her space" than i used to, and she clearly responds positively. In terms of stopping the BS we've seen it a couple of times, now... once in the first MC session we had when MC brought up the possibility of me revealing my "intel" and W biting at that, then after our subsequent skype session with the MC where W "spilled" about her over-sharing with the doctor. Both times, immediately afterwards, W went back to being very solicitous and deferential towards me, and her humility, etc, increased.
And now this past Thursday...
Coupla things happened thursday evening that made me at least raise my eyebrows, and also called to mind some things historically about W that i had forgotten.
Thursday, she met me at my outdoor watering hole after work, the place where i'd been hanging out every thursday basically since BD1 and i started GAL-ing. Very scenic outdoor patio establishment with good live music, and this was the first really nice afternoon of the year. Sometimes buddies of mine will meet me there as well, and this day one of them actually showed up later, after W did. For most of the evening we had a REALLY great time. I'd forgotten how good W "meshed" in social situations with me and my friends-- W is in many ways a very "girly" girl, likes pretty clothes, jewelry, shoes, dressing cute, BUT, she also doubles very well, and always has, as "one of the guys". She loves sports, played several sports herself in HS and then basketball in college, and has an edgy sort of humor and can appreciate the male sense of humor as well. This is one of the reasons why she can come off as a "flirt" or a "tease", and professes and always has professed that that is not what she is trying to do... that she thinks girls should be able to hang out and talk to guys like that without worrying about subtexts and such and that its the guys' problem if they get the wrong idea from something as simple as a smile or a conversation. (I'm not agreeing, just reporting). Point is, she can be very fun to hang out with and is not a drag when hanging out with one's buddies-- she doesn't start rolling her eyes or saying "when can we go" or start looking at her phone or whatever. So, Thursday, me and her and my buddy from college, a recent divorcee and longtime friend who my W has known for a hwile, hung out for a good long while... longer than intended... listened to music, and had a couple of drinks. At which point i stopped, and then W asked if I'd mind if she had another, so i said "sure, ill drive", and so she did (and then part of a fourth.) I might have gathered us up and left sooner, but she'd had a really rough day at work (she's making more noise about quitting... said she'd even rather tend bar or wait tables) and thought it would be good to hang and talk and blow off some steam, especially since we were having such a good time. I go off to the can at some point and come back and she has struck up a convo with the couple sitting next to us (just the kind of person she is)... who it turns out are from her very small home town, two states away. Know alot of the same people. Small world. So i get talking to them as well and then after a bit W has to hit the restroom. On her way back, i see her stop at the corner of the bar and start talking to a couple of dudes, prolly ten years or so our junior, late 30s early 40s. This doesn't really create any issues for me as she knows a ton of people and seems to run into them wherever we go... but... she stays. Talks to these guys for, idunno, 7, 8 minutes. Now, I had been talking to a couple of the lady bartenders who were there as patrons when she (W) came in, but quickly turned my attention to her once she arrived, and I stopped to talk to a fellow (male) regular at one point after W arrived for maybe five mins. But this chat with her stretched on prolly close to 10 mins, and she's laughing and joking and smiling with these guys, and at one point one of them puts his hand on her shoulder under guise of leaning in to talk and then takes it off. And then after another minute W signals me over. Turns out these guys are two friends of another dude who W and i had seen there before and "talked about." W and i play this game where we say "that guy looks like so and so" or "she looks like _________" (Usually someone famous) and the guy in this case who was friends with these two dudes was "Keannu Reaves" to us, and we'd had a good laugh a coupla weeks back as he had been hitting on an OBVIOUSLY much older woman who was OBVIOUSLY not playing very hard to get, and somehow W recognized these two dudes who were his friends and had stopped to talk to them saying "Hey, you're Keannu's friends". So we all talk and laugh about their friend for a bit (who turns out is, even according to them, kind of a sleaze) and then go back to our spot at the bar. Now all of this, IMO, is JUST shy of anything improper. W didn't do anything obviously flirtatious, though she did linger a little long and didn't obviously object when guy touched her on the shoulder... though it wasn't on overtly sexual or come-on type touch (even as we all know that the "art of touch" starts with simple ones like that). And then of course she called me over. Still, under the circumstances, i thought she lingered too long, and, indeed, probably could have come back to me FIRST and then approached these dudes together. What was significant for was two things: 1) That it called to mind something i had forgotten. Namely, that, even back in the distant past, i HAD in fact been irked from time to time that W would be so chatty with other guys when we were out, even though nothing overt or obviously flirtatious was going on.. just because she was so approachable and guys just ate it up and she JUST NEVER GOT THAT. "I just never understood why people down here think you want to go to bed with them just because you smile and wave or that you'd take a second to chat with them." Whatever... but, now, with us in this phase, it struck me that that actually had been an issue for me in the past... even as i have professed, somewhat stridently, in counselling over the past few months that i was very confident and never worried about her interactions with other guys. Turns out i was misremembering. Second thing: The more comfortable she feels she is with me the more she pushes the envelope. Maybe this is her testing, or maybe it is as JRuss said and once we start getting closer she does things to push away. IDK, but it wasn't enough, in and of itself, to get stretched out about IMO.
However... Car ride home, after four and a half drinks (and she is a small woman, 5-3 125-130 maybe). Almost out of the blue she says something like "You know, about the gym a couple of weeks back... you saw that one thing, OM driving into the parking lot (actully I say him walking in to gym, but whatever) and you jumped to all these conclusions..." and she followed that with something else that was just lost in the basically blood red rage that i did a completely admirable job of tightly controlling. I said nothing for probably a full minute, then stopped the car a block short of the house and turned to her and said, in a completely controlled and soft tone of voice "This great night we just had, and now you're gonna come at me with this bull$hit?" And she tried to explain herself.. something like that "well, if you hadn't come by there, if you hadn't known, i'd have still done the same thing and made the same choice for us and now we'd be further along because you wouldn't be so angry and hurt". I won't detail the rest of the conversation, but it was brief and i let her know I was "still here" despite her betrayal because of the remorse and sorrow she'd shown as well as the willingness to work and work under my terms, but that i absolutely knew now that i could walk at any time and be just fine, and that if there were ever any change in her willingness to work and cooperate and be accountable for her past actions that i would do just that. Further, she seemed to be under the impression that i "assumed" that she and OM had been involved in much more than just phone calls and the one meet up, and that that is why I "walked" and i said "no, no, not at all. I didn't need to think or assume any of those things to make the decision to walk. All i needed to know was that you were seeing him, that it was intentional, and that you had obviously been in contact with him probably by phone... which you confirmed. That's all i needed to know. Under the circumstanes i consider that just as much a betrayal as if you'd slept with him."
Boom. She didn't say anything rest of way home. In bed, she became very apologetic. Tried to cozy up to me but i was like, "Really, no."
NExt day, Friday, we talked, and she asked "What exactly she said because she couldn't remember, just that it had been about OM and the gym." So i told her, and we discussed it, and she became, again, very apologetic, she knows it was wrong what she did, she knows that it hurt me and that she was sorry she said that... didn't know what she was thinking. She then texted me all day, very friendly, very solicitous, etc., and has remained so since.
H53/W51, R-ing 4/'18
"Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires"-Sg.of Sg 2:7
"So oftentimes it happens,that we live our lives in chains, & we never even know we have the key"-Eagles III 1:3
Well, good for you. Stopping the car and dealing with it right then & there, made a bigger impression than waiting to get home and it becoming a yada.....yada.
I can see her responding positively to male dominance.
Quote:
Now all of this, IMO, is JUST shy of anything improper. W didn't do anything obviously flirtatious, though she did linger a little long and didn't obviously object when guy touched her on the shoulder... though it wasn't on overtly sexual or come-on type touch (even as we all know that the "art of touch" starts with simple ones like that).
Do you plan to bring this up in a MC session? I don't mean this particular incident, but your W's attitude of it being the man's fault if he reads something else in her friendliness? It's not just men who are watching her body language and her over friendly ways. Other women see the same thing. Whether or not your W wants to accept responsibility, it's still on her.......b/c it's her actions. It's as if her attitude says, "This is the way I am, and to hell with anyone who wants to make something more of it".
It does not matter how naturally social your W is, or how she can be one of the boys. It does not matter how easily she can strike up a conversation with strangers. I do not see this as you feeling threatened, a sign of insecurity, or jealousy. It goes back to what I was saying recently. She needs to live by a higher code of conduct. It blows my mind to think she would have this type of interaction with two guys she didn't know......considering that her H walked out on her just a few weeks ago!
Her poor view on codes of conduct was one of my concerns about the wine downs. Especially when she's had a rough day and needs a little extra wine. If she would act this way with two strangers, and with her H watching..........how would act with someone more familiar, and in H's absence?
I have a friendly, outgoing type of personality, too. However, I would not approach two men in a bar that I'd never met......to chat & laugh it up for ten minutes. Obviously, the stranger who put his hand her shoulder must have read something there for him to feel it was okay. It should have been a red flag to your W, the second he placed his hand on her.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
Well clearly Ginger had a lot to say on the subject. Lol
I really wonder if your wife doesn't require constant validation? Perhaps she craves it? I don't think this as much consious as subconscious. She's not looking for anything to happen with these guys - only qwell her need for acceptance and validation. She needs to feel attractive and interesting - especially to guys 10 years younger than her.
DonH Midwest Me 56 WAW-EXW 55 Met 11/95 / Married 5/00 Bomb 6/20/05 / She Filed on 6/2/06 / Divorced on 10/9/06 4 who'd qualify as GF since D & dated about 25 women since D
