turning inward

[sage]

Hi Lee,

Happy to see an update from you (tho' of course not happy to see that it's to unstick you!).

I fought so very hard to recover this M. I applied Dbusting and it worked, but now i often wonder if it is what i want. H is trying so very hard to make this M work. He has done everything i have asked him to do and then some. He has come so far personally and i think it's great and i'm proud of him for doing it, but........

This is so great!!

I find myself in a strange place. I think i might be getting a touch of WAS syndrome. Is this because of the walls i have built myself, the distance and detachment from the M i put there inorder not to be hurt?

Well, clearly, I have no easy answers for you but I do recall that after "crisis mode" was over for me and my M, I found myself having my own "mini-crisis" -- all of a sudden I was depressed and wondered if the M was "holding me back" or "what I really wanted", etc.

For me it was because I had spent SO MUCH time looking outward and focusing on getting the M back that I had neglected many of the things that made ME feel good about ME (in fact, since I had scrutinized every area of myself and my life in the DB'ing process I think I had lumped some positive things that I had in my life under "potential suspects for driving h away" -- do you know what I mean?) So...I found that I had to reset on ME and MY LIFE and MY GOALS, etc.

Did you also stop doing the things that meant much to you during DB'ing?

I rarely find myself looking at my H and think 'what a good looking man, i just want him!!', i used to feel this all the time. Now i don't think this about any man. Sure when we have sex, it is great, but rarely do i feel the like i can be bothered! I know that i have love for my H, but what does that mean?

I dont' want to get too much into "analysis" mode but I'm wondering...is it possible that you are angry or resentful of h for what you guys went through and that's blocking the positive feelings?

We talk via email and phone a lot, but we run out of things to say on the phone, whereas i can talk to my sister and friends for hours! What does this mean?

If you and your h are anything like me and my h is just means that WORDS don't really cut it for you...that ACTION and BEING TOGETHER is the glue...and so the distance factor may be impacting you and your good feelings (whereas I can chat forever with sis or friends but not NEED to get together to feel good).

I don't know how to feel the love he is giving (H shows love by buying presents)

But is that how you FEEL love? Have you read "the five love languages"?

How is it that i could apply dbing so well to myself, but now that i have an R again i can't apply it to that?????

I've felt similarly...I've struggled for months now with goals to "improve" the R -- I'm finding that it just takes time to really refine them to be workable...

I really do think that i'm so very distant from him, i don't even know what to get him for an anniversary gift, i have no idea of what would show him that i love him and make him feel that love..... but then i don't know of anything that he could get me that would convey that to me.

I just feel a little lost in the whole thing.

Hmmm...is it possible that you're grieving for your "old" marriage? IOW, I really struggled with the "I'll never be in a m that has been completely faithful" and for some reason that REALLY bothered me...it took me a while to respect the "new" marriage that was stronger for the storms it had weathered...

But i don't want to wait, i'm sick of being patient and waiting for things to get better, i want them to be better now. I want to feel love for my H, i want us to never run out of things to say, i want there to be passion between us always. I want to know what i have to do in order to get this!!!!

When was the last time you felt gleeful about being with h? What were you doing then?

Sage