I purchase the top two on the list and frequently pass them out to people. Every time I read the second one, I get something new from it. I bet I have read it 20+ times.
Awesome, thanks, starting with that one then!
A few updates from my side…
I finished 5LL - boy, what an awesome resource! I figured out a few very valuable things: 1. My primary LL seems to definitely be PT. At first I thought it was QT, but after reading on how to differentiate, I realized that even though I highly value our QT together, the lack of it does not make me feel miserable as much as having no PT. And by PT I don’t refer to sex primarily - I just realized that physical contact in general (hugs, touches, kisses, holding hands etc) really fills up my LT… Which is probably one of the reasons why I figured out something was wrong just now and not before - because PT reduced dramatically recently. 2. However, I do still have trouble in figuring out my W’s primary LL… (which is probably one of the reasons how we got here). I definitely ruled out PT and RG - I was always the one who was more into PT and we even have internal jokes on this… She likes to give gifts to others, but she’s never been a great receiver throughout our R, and I still get stuff for her often. I would rule out AoS as well, because I usually do a lot of stuff - I maintain our cars, vacuum, clean the house, cook etc. She does mind when I get “lazy” occasionally, but I haven’t noticed a big difference between my “lazy” and “hard working” periods when it comes to her behavior. So this leaves me with WoA and QT… I’ve usually been praising her a lot, and even in the past few months, so I would be surprised if that is the one. QT is the one that we’ve been lacking most in the past couple of years. And this weekend we spent a lot of time together, and I felt her “softening up” after all that time. We even had sex (at her initiative again), which was actually pretty good this time for both, or that is what it seemed to be. It was very hard for me not to think afterwards if it was a torture for her and she was only acting, but I kept my mouth shut and did not want to initiate any talks around that. So my plan is to work on QT, and spend a lot more of it with her in the upcoming period to verify if I got it right. 3. But I do have a question here - Dr. Chapman in most of his examples asks the couples to communicate to each other and “reveal” their primary LL. He asks them to “describe to each other what the ideal spouse would need to do to make them feel loved and have their emotional tank full”. Is this something I should consider asking my W, or you think it would drastically minimize the effect of anything I do to improve?
Other topic that started pressuring me very hard these days is the effect that “No More Mr. Nice Guy” has on me. I started reading the book, and - that is definitely me, a “Nice Guy”. The more progress I make, the more miserable I feel. It really sums up what I am, have been, and made me realize my personality better. Which also made me understand why she probably started feeling the way she feels towards me… Now I see that I’ve been struggling with my “Nice Guy” syndrome in the past (wasn’t aware of it back then), and that it probably took me to IC in the first place. And it could potentially be the core trigger that made her feel less and less sexually attracted to me. But going through all of this at this point, makes it emotionally very hard for me to even read the book, not to speak of actually starting the process of becoming the “SoB” instead of a “Nice Guy”. I feel like I need to take one step at a time, and focus on getting her emotional tank to a decent level, start the therapy together, and then work on breaking the “Nice Guy” apart… I don’t feel like I have the strength for that until we make some progress in improving how she feels for me. And it sounds to me that for that process I would need a “safe person” to help me, which is pretty hard now with Covid and us avoiding meeting other people as much as possible. Or you thinking this is actually the first thing I would need to tackle considering it might be the reason for getting me where I am?
And finally, there is one more thing I would appreciate to get your thoughts on. Even before we had THE talk and I realized what is happening - for the past few months I noticed that she was struggling with starting her day. She would stay in bed for longer than usual, she would have days when she is really distraught, and that is still happening. It looks to me like slight signs of depression. Normally, I would ask her what’s going on and see if I can somehow help (“Nice Guy” again…), but now I am not sure if I should do that… I don’t want to make her feel even more miserable, especially since our “situation” might be the sole reason for that. But the behavior did start significantly before we had our talk - so either I picked up the right timing to start asking questions, or she has some other issues that I am not aware of… I do have the urge to ask questions, but I also feel like that might be the completely wrong thing to do at this stage…
And that’s it, my days are pretty much roller-coasters and mood-swings, but trying to keep this to myself and not let it show on the outside. She really praised me for my behavior for the past week and the weekend, and said she had a very good time with me and our D.
Oh yes - I got back to reading SSM in parallel with Nice Guy, plan to switch my focus to that one now.
Me: 33 W: 35 D: 2 Together: June 2010 Married: June 2016
