Persistent Endurance (Part 4)

[curtis7]

For a woman, it doesn't matter how long it has been........if she doesn't feel the attraction, it's more simple for her just to buy a vibrator. Unless the W's primary love language is physical touch, then I suspect the longer periods of time the couple has no sex while living together.....the less she will desire him (considering there are no health issues with one of them). Here's the thing, if her H has not spoken in her love language, and her emotional needs weren't met.......then eventually, she's going to feel neglected, hurt and resentful. If it continues, those negative feelings will breed disrespectful feelings for her H. And once her respect starts dropping......her attraction/desire level is going to drop as well. The longer the disrespect continues, the less she'll want him. Plus, she eventually puts herself at risk for some OM who comes along as speaks her LL.

My W took the LL quiz about a month after BD and shared the results with me:
Acts of Service (8)
Quality Time (7)
Words of Affirmation (7)
Physical Touch (6)
Receiving Gifts (2)
Reflecting back on our MR in recent years, I suspect my W felt that my Acts of Service were not given freely and that I expected something in return. Quality Time was lacking as the kids have been the priority and the R was routine especially since D4 was born. Words of Affirmation also was not one of my strong suits, but I’ve done a 180 in this area post-BD. Physical Touch has been there, at least on my side. I always made myself available for her as this is my primary LL and to me she is the most attractive woman in the world and I let her know that often.

She did become vulnerable to OM, but I don’t see how they can speak her LL of A of S. The two OM are 25 year olds (she’s 38), sure they may have met her needs for QT, W of A, and PT, but it seems she is more enamored with the attention and feeling younger being wanted by these boys.

I maintain that waywardness is a choice. Nobody forces someone to be wayward. At the same time, I feel many H's are feeling your pain, b/c they just didn't just didn't know what they didn't know.

Yes, it’s sad really that so many of us LBH’s were completely oblivious prior to BD. I never in a million years thought she was so unhappy to want a D. The perfect storm was brewing in the background. I didn’t make her feel appreciated, resentment grew, she went to IC without my knowledge, she received attention from a co-worker in an EA, and BFF got divorced giving my W courage to take action. In retrospect, it’s a shame that I wasn’t connected to her enough to see it and feel the deterioration.

It’s true that we don’t know what we don’t know. I sometimes use a similar phrase at work when evaluating the risk of changing something in a product that is working fine. I say there are unknown unknowns. Meaning you account for all the risks that you can identify; however, those may pale in comparison to an unknown risk that you have not identified which could have dire consequences.

Men always see this as rejection, and often times a W will go through the sex act, just to live with him. Otherwise, he gets an attitude, and then she's going to get one.....and you have bedroom problems. As a woman, I try to see how men take it so personally. But I'm going to go to another level and tell you men that sometimes, we women just get tired of hearing how you feel so rejected b/c we didn't want to have sex. Here's how the R starts to deteriorate, b/c for mentally well women who were in love when they M (not one with a sense of entitlement, a bully, etc.) there came a point where she felt neglected (rejected) and devalued (rejected), too. She tries to push this feeling down, but it is not resolved. It turns to resentment, and goes from there.

Sandi, you nailed this one, no pun intended. I think she did feel neglected and devalued and held most of it within. When she did attempt to raise her concerns the message was lost either from me not listening or in the way it was communicated.

So, if her heart is cold, then he needs to start by commanding respect under his own roof and see if it brings positive results. Rather than sulk for a days, he should get busy examining how he has allowed her to show disrespect to him. Now, notice I didn't say she "felt" disrespect, but showed it. B/c if she takes advantages of his nice-guy ways (and she will), that just one little example of disrespect. It's his fault if he ignores it and doesn't address it.

Think back about all the times your W took advantage of your good nature. How many times did you think it would soften her heart if you gave in and did her work....or whatever she was after. A woman will not respect the person she can take advantage of.......especially her spouse.

Nothing has seemingly worked so far. Leading with love and trying to nice her back hasn’t helped break her out of the fog. I’m a bit torn on this because she has stated that I was a prick in the MR. Treating her right, respecting and honoring her was another 180.

I do maintain a fear of her filing, because if the D is finalized, then I think that would be it and I would move on for good. The fear is taking a hard stance and commanding respect will cause her to take swift steps to end the MR. Who knows, maybe that’s better than the slow death of limbo. I’m conflicted on taking action to gain respect versus giving her time and space right now. I just feel our R is at a fragile point and there is some hope of reconnection if she sees that the grass is not greener in her separation home and how these OM are using her.

So if you recognize that you enable her bad behavior, doesn't it make sense to stop the pattern? 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 doing her favors. That would be a starting point. Stop rescuing her.

Sure does make sense. I know how to stop. I haven’t been strong enough to stand up against her bad behavior and rescue herself from her wayward choices.

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

S8 and D4 are two very intelligent and intuitive children. They may not understand the disrespect right now. They do see the emotional toll my sitch has taken on me, I’ve broken down in tears with them a few times. I don’t want this to have long lasting effects that results in them going to IC or repeating history with struggling MR’s of their own.

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.

No doubt, this is for certain. I really need to proofread some of my posts a few times and think about how they could be interpreted. The perils of typing these long responses on a 5” smartphone display...

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 don’t know, LH has been awfully tough too. In fact, R2C, AS, and Steve have all doled out some tough responses. They were warranted and I’m learning. I have grown so much in being able to understand what it takes to have a healthy relationship. Thanks Sandi!