A time to heal and hope

[Julie33]

H and I have been talking. First, I apologized to him. I have been taking a long, hard look at myself and did not like what I saw. There are many things contributing to his feeling of being engulfed beyond the emotional and physical neediness. It was not easy, but I apologized to him for bringing some pigheaded, half-baked notion of feministic independence into our marriage, because he did not deserve that. I was and still am not easy to live with.

I apologized to him for a period in our lives about 10 years ago when I pushed him to do some things that he was not ready to do (moving, job change). I wanted him, and I also wanted some things for my life and career. I realize now that I was too afraid of losing him, and in not making a choice, I took away his choices.

I apologized for disrespecting him.

I asked him if he was bitter about any of these things, and he said that he did not hold any grudges. I pointed out that things do add up, and he agreed. He said my apology was accepted and I did not have to be sorry any more. I think he was more uncomfortable with this conversation than me, because he kept interrupting to make silly jokes.

Last night, I told him about some of the realizations I have come to recently. I am pretty much right on the money with regards to his feeling overwhelmed by my need for closeness, both emotional and physical. In his words, he sometimes feels like he is drowning. We talked a little bit about what things make him feel crowded, and that he puts sex, touching, emotional conversations in the same bucket.

We talked about our conditioned responses. He agreed completely that he has an automatic negative response to my initiating sex, due to our history. He agreed to think about it.

At one point, I asked him if he was comfortable with the way we were living for the past ten years. He said yes. I asked him if he knew how miserable I was. He said yes. I mulled over that for a few seconds and told him that I knew he did nothing out of an intent to hurt me, but only out of self-preservation. I told him that I recognized that he had tried many times to accommodate me, but we both had no idea about boundaries or how to enforce them.

I told him that I was very hopeful. He told me that he wasn’t. He said that he sees us on opposite banks of the river, and that I am trying yet again to change him. His analogy is that I am conditioning the line to try and increase its bandwidth. He said that he will only allow it to go so far before he will snap again.

I told him that I understand why he does not trust me, and thinks this is all some sort of elaborate ploy to get what I want. Fair enough. I have certainly tried all sorts of ploys in the past to get what I want. Time will tell him that I am not playing a game this time.

Regardless of what he says, I am still very hopeful. We are coming along just as predicted. I think the ball is now in his court. He knows this. Meanwhile, I am in no rush. I can wait for him to confront himself. What I will tell him unequivocally is that just as I am not willing to stay in denial, or stay in a sexless marriage, I am not willing to stay in a marriage where he willfully withholds from me.

The remarkable thing is that there was no anger. At one point, I started to lose it a little bit and he pointed out that I was being accusatory. I agreed, and we moved on. There is a lot of hurt to work through. I told him that he had to stop denying what he was feeling and think about it, because there is nothing unmanly about that. I think he smiled, but I’m not sure!

J

[NOPkins]

Good job!

Just remember that as you recognize your contribution to the problem, you don't forget that he has had a part in the current state of your marriage as well. It is fairly easy to go too far in the opposite direction in an effort to repair the relationship. The both of you should discuss equitable boundaries and then stick to them.

I am excited for you, Julie!!

-NOPkins-

[Julie33]

NOP,

Thank you for pointing that out. In re-reading what I wrote, I guess it sounds like I am ready to lie down and let him walk all over me! If you knew me at all, you would laugh. I do ball-busting b!tch much better than I do wimpy wimp

Seriously though, I have been in serious denial all around. I'm done with that now, thats all. There are amends to be made.

J

[MJontheMend]

I told him that I was very hopeful. He told me that he wasn’t. He said that he sees us on opposite banks of the river, and that I am trying yet again to change him. His analogy is that I am conditioning the line to try and increase its bandwidth. He said that he will only allow it to go so far before he will snap again.

What smart Hs we have! I think he is telling you that he believes that you still haven't given him a choice. You are handing him a trick penny that will come up "head" or "tail" every time.( Someone must give me credit for the worst pun ever ). He thinks you are being manipulative rather than differentiated.

If I were you (By recommending this action, I am giving you credit for being less of a wimp than me), I would make it completely clear to your H that you have options for happiness that do not include him choosing to have sex with you. I don't mean that you should taunt him or describe Hank at midnight in detail, just honestly express that you are at a juncture which makes it necessary for you to make some choices for your future happiness. Tell him that your first choice for your future would be the two of you cooperating in working towards a passionate marriage, but staying in a SSM is not choice 2 or even 3,4,5 as far as you're concerned. I didn't come right out and say this to my H but I believed it and eventually he came to believe it too (I think this happened at about 3 PM on Monday. Then he tried to talk himself out of it and tried to call my bluff by turning off his cell phone, but my cards were on the table and the game was over).

By taking your share of the blame for your past problems, you threw some more cash on the pot of emotional connection between the two of you, but you're going to have to show your hand sooner or later.

This was a rather lame analogy. I think the one about the little girl that I posted on SM's thread was much better.

[Julie33]

Oh, he's a smartie all right. But he didn't marry no dunce either.

He thinks you are being manipulative rather than differentiated.

Mo, this is exactly what he believes. I am willing to give him some time and space to realize that he is wrong.

I want him to meet me halfway. I am not expecting him to change his very nature. But I will not put up with him withholding, because we are then back to the power struggle. What he is trying to do right now is wrest control back from me (for he thinks I am in control) by telling me that he is doing the minimum we agreed on and if I ask for anything more, he will cry foul.

Btw, I have made it very clear that we will never go back to the old days, so he can forget his comfort zone. I think this is slowly starting to sink in.

He is supposed to get back to me with some thoughts, so we'll see how it goes. No confrontations right now.

J

[SolidMechanic]

I want him to meet me halfway. I am not expecting him to change his very nature. But I will not put up with him withholding, because we are then back to the power struggle. What he is trying to do right now is wrest control back from me (for he thinks I am in control) by telling me that he is doing the minimum we agreed on and if I ask for anything more, he will cry foul.

Dear Julie,

What makes you sure he is witholding? Granted, sometimes people will punish each other in this fashion, but the reality is usually much more banal, like he just doesn't think of you sexually.

Why did you bring up the past stuff? Was it an attempt to illustrate to him that you are sufficiently self aware of the bad things that you have done that you will not repeat those patterns? If so, good. Did you do it to cleanse your conscience? Well he probably doesn't care unless he is a priest. No, wait, his libido is too low for him to be a priest .

Why shouldn't he suspect your motives? You object that you only want him to meet you halfway, but this means he does have to change and you both know it. If I were you I would be alarmed that you have been miserable while he has been content with your marriage. It's the same marriage! !

Is he really so emotionally disconnected with you that your misery has no effect on him? How can you emotionally connect with him? Maybe if he can emotionally connect with you, change will make more sense for him.

SM

[sat567]

All great points, Solidmech. You are hot tonight, dude! How more RED can the warning flag be when you tell a spouse how content you are, and they tell you they are MISERABLE!?

And, I have to warn you pal, when you talk about priests' libidos, you're tempting fate - HP is Catholic, pregnant, undersexed, and uncomfortable. She's liable to come after you with one of those incense-burners on a chain.

Hairdog

[Julie33]

Mechie,

You ask some tough questions. Keep ‘em coming. I don’t know if I have all the answers, but I’ll try.

What makes you sure he is witholding? Granted, sometimes people will punish each other in this fashion, but the reality is usually much more banal, like he just doesn't think of you sexually.

He thinks of me sexually. He thinks of me sexually less frequently than I think of him sexually. This I accept. I believe he is withholding because this is what he has always done, and he is telling me as much now. He has cracked open the door, but he is afraid that I am about to rush in and start redecorating the room, because that is what I have always done. Its going to take him some time to realize that I want to mostly just hang out with him and maybe convince him that he could use a big screen TV. I don’t plan on painting the walls or ordering all new furniture. How’s that for a terrible analogy?

Why did you bring up the past stuff? Was it an attempt to illustrate to him that you are sufficiently self aware of the bad things that you have done that you will not repeat those patterns? If so, good. Did you do it to cleanse your conscience?

Both, but mostly because I wanted to tell him that I recognize a certain pattern of selfishness and disrespect in my interactions with him. This was not overt, intentional or constant, but it was there. He has tried to point it out to me in the past, and I never accepted it. I do now, and I wanted to apologize for it. Did it clear my conscience completely? No, only making sure that I do not repeat it will do that.

Well he probably doesn't care unless he is a priest. No, wait, his libido is too low for him to be a priest

LOLOL

Why shouldn't he suspect your motives? You object that you only want him to meet you halfway, but this means he does have to change and you both know it.

He has every reason to suspect my motives.

My point is that he needs to examine his own responsibility in this. Until he does that, we will always remain at impasse. As long as he maintains that he is ‘giving in’, we are just a fine line away from backsliding.

He’s scared, Tony, because he feels inadequate. He is afraid to give it his all, because wife (ver1.0) would have told him it was not good enough. There is nothing I can tell him that will help him overcome this. He spent years telling me that there was no need for me to feel insecure, that he truly loved me just the way I was. It took a lightbulb to go off in my head before I started to accept it. He has to work toward his own lightbulb

I recognize that none of this will happen overnight. It takes time to make changes and build trust. We took many long years to get ourselves into this fine mess, it sure as hell is going to take more than 3 months to get out of it. I want to give us both all the time we need, but I also want us to go into it knowing that it will take work, that there’s is no quick fix.

He sees us on opposite banks of the river. But he needs to define where his bank is. How else can we draw any lines in the middle?

If I were you I would be alarmed that you have been miserable while he has been content with your marriage. It's the same marriage! !

I’m not alarmed. This is my honest H telling me his honest thoughts. He did say that he didn’t think it was right, but he didn’t know how to fix it. He offered me something, I always wanted more, and so I got nothing. This has been the pattern.

Is he really so emotionally disconnected with you that your misery has no effect on him? How can you emotionally connect with him? Maybe if he can emotionally connect with you, change will make more sense for him.

I am taken aback by this question, because I never thought we were that emotionally disconnected. Maybe we have been. But I think its getting better. He has made a lot of changes. I come here to vent, so sometimes I tend to focus on the negatives.

You know, my brain is so cooked that my libido seems to have gone south. Earlier this week, when he initiated LM, I was very ambivalent. He spent a couple of minutes nibbling my face while I struggled with my feelings. Finally, I decided to ‘Just do it’, and he met me more than halfway with his desire, passion and compassion. so, yes, he is trying very hard.

J

[SolidMechanic]

Dear Julie,

Why did you bring up the past stuff? Was it an attempt to illustrate to him that you are sufficiently self aware of the bad things that you have done that you will not repeat those patterns? If so, good. Did you do it to cleanse your conscience?

Both, but mostly because I wanted to tell him that I recognize a certain pattern of selfishness and disrespect in my interactions with him. This was not overt, intentional or constant, but it was there. He has tried to point it out to me in the past, and I never accepted it. I do now, and I wanted to apologize for it. Did it clear my conscience completely? No, only making sure that I do not repeat it will do that.

---

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. This is what we do when we want things from our spouses and we don't know how to get them. It takes a while (if ever) to figure out that what we are doing is making things worse. I doubt there was ill intent on your part.

He’s scared, Tony, because he feels inadequate. He is afraid to give it his all, because wife (ver1.0) would have told him it was not good enough.

This gives me a better understanding of how the two of you got where you are. I can't speak from personal experience, but I think low desire in men is frequently related to their fear that they won't measure up in the eyes of their wives.

It reminds me of my own need to be patient and to recognize when my wife is behaving in ways that are positive and are moving in the right direction. She says that she is not physical, yet when I hug and kiss her now, she doesn't pull away, and she engages me more warmly. So even though she can't say that she will commit to me the way I want her to, her behavior is actually leading a little bit.

Your H articulates a dour vision of separateness. But he also acts like he is trying to get closer. It's more important to watch what he is doing, than to listen to what he is saying.

He offered me something, I always wanted more, and so I got nothing. This has been the pattern.

Still, if you recognize the little things that he is doing, he'll feel better about doing them, which will decrease the risk of backsliding. It's called positive reinforcement. Dog training is not a metaphor. It is what we are doing with both our spouses and our selves. Your H is not a dog, is he?

I'm sorry about all of the tough questions, but you give such thoughtful answers, they help me think more clearly about my own situation. Tomorrow morning, after I hug my wife, I will thank her for hugging me back.

Sincerely,

Tony

[Julie33]

An update:

My H and I have come a long way. We have continued to ML once or twice a week, and I am thrilled with the quality. We are laughing and connecting more than ever before, and even experimenting a little bit. In our case, sheer frequency is a meaningless figure of merit. My H has told me repeatedly, and in many different ways, that it takes a lot of effort for him to make himself emotionally available during sex. That he is doing so is something I appreciate very much. Last week, when we were ML, I saw an expression on his face that I have not seen for a very long time. My H has a special smile for me, one that is a mixture of love and exasperation. When I looked up from what I was doing, I saw that lazy smile and his half-closed eyes, and realized in an instant both how distant we had become, and how far we have come in the last three months.

Our conversations, and even relationship talks are relaxed. We are both less defensive, able to laugh at ourselves and able to tell it as it is. This weekend, we drove about 4 hours away to visit my sister and her family. This gave us some time to chat along the way. The kids even co-operated by sleeping most of the way!

After reading all the discussions regarding desire, passion and arousal on the forum, I asked my H a very open-ended question about how he would describe his own sexuality, and how I fit in. He started out saying that I give him more credit for thinking deeply about these things than is due, and he is really pretty shallow. He told me that sex was something he thought about and fantasized about a lot in the early years, but over time, it has diminished in importance. He listed the physical attributes that turn him on – big boobs, a nice butt, generous curves, dark hair, among some other things. He says I fit in perfectly well because I have all of those attributes. This it true - he pretty much described me to a tee He told me that it is not common for him to walk by me, or any attractive woman, for that matter, and be instantly turned on. He said that provocative clothing helps, and made some suggestions to me. Basically, he is not saying anything new. His arousal threshold is a lot higher than mine, his drive is mostly physical and he needs strong visual stimulus. When I used those words with him, he teased me about whether that is what the books say? When we can laugh about what the books say, progress has been made!

My H told me that he really appreciates the fact that I am trying to understand and accept him, and that a lot of women would have thrown up their hands in the air and left. He accepted that he had been putting me on the bottom of his list for a long time. He told me that his sex drive was lower than when he was a teenager, and I had nothing to do with that part of it. But he also said that for long stretches of time, he simply did not enjoy sex with me because of who I had become, and the state of our relationship. He told me that he has always admired my drive and ambition, but somewhere along the way, he started to resent the fact that I was pushing him and trying to change him. He told me that he does not feel inadequate. On the contrary, he has accepted his strengths and weaknesses, and feels comfortable in his own skin. I believe this to be true. When I first met my H, he was an 18-year old boy, unsure of himself. It took him longer to find himself, within the confines of our relationship, but he eventually did. Today, I have tremendous respect for him, not only because he is successful by any standards and did it at his own pace, but also because he had the quiet confidence and strength to draw his line in the sand long before I did. Despite what he says, he is far from shallow.

He told me that he no longer feels like he is ‘giving in’ because he sees that I am genuinely trying to make some changes in myself. I do still believe he is withholding, not sex necessarily, but he is withholding himself because he is not ready to be vulnerable yet. We both agreed that it will take us some time to rebuild trust, and we are both playing ‘wait and watch’ to some extent. And yes, he said that he does enjoy sex very much now, lol!

For my part, the needy behaviors were laughably simple to cut out once I made the conscious effort to do so. Most of it was just sheer habit.

Our emotional connection is slowly coming back. We are both stopping to appreciate the things that we do actually do for each other, instead of constantly trying to prove that we were each doing more for the relationship. My H is seeking me out more. A few days ago, he sat by my bedside and ran his fingers through my hair when I woke up in the morning. Yesterday, at my sister’s, he told me to sleep in because I had been up with the baby at night. When I woke up and wandered into the kitchen, he opened his arms wide for a hug, in front of other family members. These are small gestures, but tremendous in significance because they had been missing for a long time. Sometimes, it is really hard to know just how bad things have become until they are restored.

I asked him what it was specifically that got through to him this time. I thought the answer might be useful for other people here. He told me that it was two things. He realized just how important this was to me when I shared with him that I was in deep pain and that I would consider leaving the marriage if something didn’t change. He realized why it was important to me when I described it from the love language point of view. The latter surprised me because I thought I had been trying to tell him that for years.

Currently, he just decides that he is going to do it and goes ahead. As NOPkins recently said, I am accepting this as an expression of his desire for me. I must add that once we get going, his desire, passion and urgency are unmistakable. I see it in his eyes and feel it in his touch. Once we are done, he switches off just as quickly! I am starting to accept this too.

Many years ago, my H wrote to me ‘I find solace in your body, mind and soul, though not necessarily in that order.’ I thought I understood what he meant, but maybe its only now that I am beginning to get it.

J

PS. Tony, if you are lurking, I must tell you that I dared. I dressed up for him a couple of weeks ago. Fishnet stockings, as requested, and an outfit to go with it. For good measure, I tucked the condom into my thong. I have never seen my H sit up so quickly. He was verrrrry appreciative. He complimented me on my role-play. He jumped my bones again the next night and said. “Surprise, right backatcha.” He let me know in no uncertain terms that this did it for him. My sweet H….who would’ve thunk???? Guess I need to get in touch with my nasty side more.