If you don't mind my asking, what is your wifes love language? Have you directly asked her if she was happy? Ask her, how she would feel if you stopped speaking her love language.
Hard to figure her LL. Sometimes it is acts of service, which I think I provide plenty. Sometimes it is quality time. She's the one who is busy most of the time, so I am almost always there to give quality time when she desires it.
She says she's happy -- except when I'm "pressuring" her.
As for how she'd feel if I stopped speaking her love language, she'd say that she'd "cope" because she is strongly independent.
I'm pretty convinced that nothing I do, short of having her committed to a mental institute, is going to have an effect on her.
If your W doesn't think sex and love have anything to do with each other, then why don't you suggest that you stay married to her but have sex with someone else? If they have nothing to do with each other then why would you love her any less just because you were getting action elsewhere? According to her philosophy, this should be just fine. You should call her bluff. Tell her that you don't believe that she thinks sex and love are unrelated. Tell her that her tr belief seems to be that one can only prove true love through heroic acts of celibacy, therefore she is linking love and sex more strongly than the average garden variety HD. She wants you to slay the dragon of your own sexuality in order to win the princess.
The reason you don't want to have an affair is that you believe that sex and love do have something to do with each other. You could tell her this.
The trust issue is a red herring in my opinion. Why don't you try using her brand of logic regarding this issue. You could say "If I thought you could lose your trust and sex drive over such minor issues than we might as well end it now.".
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Thanks for chimin' in JJ. I have told her that I won't have an affair because it is against my moral code. I've told her that the only woman I want to ML with is HER. I've told her that I feel distant from her because we don't ML, and that ML with another woman will only make me feel closer with that woman, not with her. I've spelled this out to her time and time again. How can a woman (or any spouse) hear this and not have their heart melt? My W ain't buyin' it.
I really liked the "heroic acts of celibacy" comment. Maybe I'll make myself a medal.
Someone (who she trusts, e.g., not me) needs to kick her ass, emotionally. As in, "you're 41 years old, get over the abandonment issues that happened when you were a pre-teen already."
You know, HD, I was thinking that life really is one big emotional abandonment. It happens to all of us in different ways and we handle it differently. Your wife, in fact, is emotionally abandoning you. I think sex is so important because it is the most intense way we can connect to another human being as an adult. It's sad that we are all missing out because of fears, insecurities, perceptions, etc. I don't know what it will take to get through to your wife, or to any of our spouses, but I think we are all in pursuit of something very wonderful. Keep at it.
So, among other things, here's a convo from last weekend: W: You have something to do when we get back home. H: Hmmm. What? W: It's one of your favorite things. H: Oh Yeah? W: You get to do it once a year. H: Great! I get to have hot sex with you?! W: (seething). It's always about sex with you. NO. You get to put up the Christmas lights outside.
Now folks, if you're new here, here's the deal: I'm Jewish. When I met my wife, she was Episcopalian, and recently has converted to/started calling herself Buddhist. Why should we be putting up lights at all? I really want to tell her that I have no desire to do this, that it makes no sense for us to do this, and that we are going to be out of town from Christmas to New Years' anyway.
I understand that this is not, as JJ would put it, a sex-for-services deal. I'm not offering to put the lights up if she has sex with me. Rather, I'm just saying that I don't want to put the lights up at all. She's free to try to persuade me in any way she wants (as if), but I don't want to put the g.d. lights up.
Quote: Tell her that her tr belief seems to be that one can only prove true love through heroic acts of celibacy, therefore she is linking love and sex more strongly than the average garden variety HD. She wants you to slay the dragon of your own sexuality in order to win the princess.
This is interesting. In this warped way of thinking, wanting to be with someone WITHOUT sex is more noble and heroic than wanting sex with them. This sounds a bit like where honey's H is coming from: If he can be with her and "rise above" his sexual urges, it's more a proof of love than simply giving in and having sex.
It's almost like the "courtly love" of medieval days. Here's a quote on that subject:
Quote: Chastity was another characteristic of courtly love, but it is a subtle concept in this context. From ancient Rome to the Middle Ages poets enumerated the "five lines of love":
gazing, speaking, touching, kissing, coitus;
they may be understood as five degrees of intimacy. Courtly lovers were permitted all except the last, also known as "the gift of mercy" or "the reward." Even here we must draw finer distinctions, for in some cases coitus without ejaculation may have been permitted. The rationale was that ejaculation quenches desire and, especially if pregnancy results, transfers the relationship from Eros (eternal longing) to Venus (procreation).* ...Given the practical and spiritual dangers, abstinence was probably the safer course for most couples. So long as desire persisted, Eros was present, for it was desire that allowed divine union, according to the Fedeli d'Amore. Therefore, in courtly love desire had to remain unsatisfied.
*I guess this would explain the disappearance of sex after babies.
Oh come on. The hot sex joke was funny. Does she have no sense of humor or does she just not respond to your sexual jokes?
Yeah, I'm with you on the confusion over a blended Buddhist/Jewish family putting up Christmas lights.
I think I would respectfully tell her that although you mean to cause no trouble in her world, you don't want to put lights up this year, as neither of you celebrate the holiday and you will be gone anyway. Then lovingly detach yourself from the ensuing drama, cause you know it will come!
Say, I had a conversation with my H about a week ago in which I relayed some of the thoughts I had after reading Lillieperl's Begrudging Respect thread. I told him that, though he took his religious fervor entirely too far, eventually I came to respect his devotion to our faith. The fact that I could not budge him from his devotion made me stand back and say, Wow he is really something! I will not bore you with the details of the conversation but at the end of my speech, he turned to me and said, "You respect me for that?!?" He was so surprised! And delighted.
I'm sure that he never envisioned hearing me say that in a million years. All I have ever said to him about his faith were negative words that mostly involved how his faith took him away from me, etc.
So keep the faith that your W might one day view you in a different light, with begrudging respect.
