Persistent Endurance (Part 3)

[sandi2]

You’re right that I have to get stronger. W takes advantage of me regularly. Case in point, she’ll send me texts in the afternoon asking if I can feed her horse at night. I always do the favor. Then she goes to hang out with OM or divorced BFF. I’m enabling her bad behavior.

Yes, you are! So if you recognize that you enable her bad behavior, doesn't it make sense to stop the pattern? Do you feel like you did when you started showing her affection last time, and once you saw her reaction you didn't know how to get out of it? (I find that very hard to believe, when you persisted in pursuing.....but maybe it's b/c I don't understand how you mean.) Do you feel you have allowed her bad behavior for so long, that you don't know how to stop it at this point? You can stop do her favors. That would be a starting point. Stop rescuing her.

My kids won’t be witnessing this indefinitely.

Curtis, your children should never witness their father being disrespected, and him do nothing about it.

I would echo what Alison said from a guy's perspective. I have struggled with much of the same types of issues in my own MR. I had a couple of rules: if she ever said no, that was the end of it. (That doesn't mean I didn't pout or whine or complain or get resentful, which also was not good, but I didn't PRESS her on it in the moment.) If she reluctantly said ok, but I sensed any sort of resistance, I would not continue either. (Again, not that I handled it well afterward.)

I'm glad Steve and Alison brought their thoughts on this subject. The above quote was from Steve, and it made me think of how a W lets her H know she doesn't want to have sex, or doesn't welcome his touch. Since I was a W who fell in this category, I'll have to admit that I don't remember ever just clearly telling him "No". I would either make some excuse, or give him a cold shoulder. I wonder how many wives don't actually say the word, "No"?

I've never feared violence, but I have been worn down to the point of tears by sulking etc. It feels easier in the moment to let him have the hug (and just to be clear, I am not talking about my current H - who has many flaws but this is not one of them) but what grows in my heart in that moment is contempt. And contempt is the absolute kiss of death to respect, love, desire, friendship - every single scrap of the good stuff. It is THAT important.

Yes! Hear Alison's words. Contempt is a strong word, but it describes how I felt, too. I got pregnant right after the wedding, and being a newly wed young man.....my H was eager for bedtime to arrive. As the pregnancy progressed, I began experiencing pain whenever we had intercourse. I told him it hurt, but I didn't just come out and say, "Stop" or "No". So, he didn't stop, and the physical pain was bad enough, but the emotional pain set in motion the resentment. I don't mean to sound as if he raped me. He didn't. He is the most gentle man, but I felt as if he was taking what he wanted at the expense of my pain. I had this experience until the seventh month, and was so relieved when I told my H the doctor said no more sex until I delivered. Never had that pain with my other pregnancies, but years later this came up when my H and I were having one of our talks (or my talks) about our SSM. He admitted he thought it was just an excuse to not have sex. There I was pregnant with his child, enduring what felt like a butcher knife, for his sake........and he thought I was making it up. Well, that didn't help our SSM. This is like I was telling Curtis about men and/or women don't know what they don't know about the other gender. We aren't the same, and yet we act as if we think that is suppose to change without us attempting to learn our differences.

Saying that I didn’t care was a poor choice of words. In hindsight, I think it was my way of rationalizing the rejection to myself. I do care about her feelings and certainly want them to be filled with more positive than negative feelings about me. Your POV follows R2C’s and Sandi’s. This point has been belabored. I regret attempting to hug her now had I been able to foresee that she wasn’t going to be receptive to it. Moving on from that mistake.

Bless your heart, I bet you do feel that it has been belabored. Honestly, I am not picking on you or just wanting to go back over an old incident. This is how we learn, by picking these experiences apart and understanding why they failed. If you use a poor choice of words with our bunch......my the Lord have mercy on your soul, b/c we are going to spot it. You have been very good, as Alison pointed out, to take some tough responses. (And, I have been the toughest.) I hope you'll read our posts as if gathering information to grow and have a better relationship with your W, or whatever woman is in your future.

I have developed a much deeper appreciation for how women attach emotions to negative experiences and never let go of those memories. It builds walls and resentment that are extremely difficult to bring down. My belief is that time and consistency of positive behavior can chip away at the armor guarding her heart and that will be when she is open to R. The things we learn after crisis...I just hope and pray that one day I will be able to show her that it will be different and not repeated.

I hope it happens, too. There are many good books written about women's emotional needs, how it affects their MR, etc.