Corri: I'm going to respond to you here, so as not to tie up Jenny's thread. Thank you for taking the time to write all that out.
Quote: he doesn't really feel needed by you. There is nothing he can do that you can't... except determine when you'll have sex. That is the ONE thing you need him for because he knows you won't go take care of yourself. Yet... you try to control the sex thing, too.
Very astute. I really can't say that I don't need him. Imo, we are actually a good match. There are so many things I don't know how to do (or am just flat out not good at) that he is in charge of. When we first married, he had to totally take over the finances cause I had made such a mess of them. He is finishing our basement right now and is really doing an outstanding job, which I let him know at every turn. However, what you are talking about is whether it is his perception that I do not need him. Maybe so. He very well might think that I don't. I'll say this, though Corri: He WANTS to not need me more than I ACTUALLY don't need him. I have no idea if that made any sense but it does to me as I type it, lol.
Here is an example of my neediness: D2 poops, decides to wipe herself, (I am nursing baby and hollering "stay seated, I'll be right there!") and stuffs dozens of wipes in the toilet and clogs it up. Then she stands there and flushes repeatedly and causes poop water to shoot all over the bathroom. The water was running out of the bathroom and threatening to go in the hall, that's how much there was of it. I should add the MOST important detail of all here: My H threw the plunger away about two years ago because "they are gross". (dumbass, but I digress..) So I had no choice but to plunge my ARM down the toilet, grab the wipes and a stray turd while more poopy water is spraying me. That didn't work. Finally, I fling open the lid of the toilet and manually make the water stop, though it was still hopelessly clogged. Then I loaded 3 kids up, drove to Walgreens and bought a dang plunger and came home and fixed it in about 4 seconds. Then I began Operation Cleanup. But not before I called H and absolutely BAWLED him out on the phone. You wanna know what I was most mad about? I didn't know what to do! After I calmed down and H got home, I said the following to him, channeling my inner little girl as best I could since he reacts to her much better than the beotch who called earlier: "H, I'm sorry I called you at work and screamed about the toilet. I was just mad because, H, I am not a plumber. I don't KNOW how to get the water to turn off even on a simple thing like a toilet. The plunger is the ONLY way I know how to fix a toilet. You take that away and I am left to fish turds out with my hands and sop up poopy water with towels. I am here 99% of the time to deal with these crises, you are not. I understand that plungers are gross, but that's my 'tool' to fix these things." It was hard for me to: 1. Be nice about it. 2. Admit that I haven't the foggiest notion about plumbing and I knew that what I did was making it worse. But I did it. So I don't think that my H would have much of a case about not being needed, but again it might be his perception. (incidentally, you can bet your sweet ass--and I know it's sweet, LOL--that I will be getting a book on Basic Plumbing next visit to the library)
Quote: The two of you have got the psychological tug-o-war going on over who is going to control the sex in the HP Household.
Oh man do we ever. We would both agree wholeheartedly with that statement.
Quote: You are not starved for sex, dear. You are starved for control and WINNING, and for whatever reason, you LOVE beating men at their own game. You will match sexual steps with any man or die trying.
You're right; I'm not starved for sex and I haven't been for a long time. But I once was. And yes I do love control and winning even more, but I am not a type A personality--maybe an A minus, lol. I am not driven in any area of my life except this one. This is my pet project these days. As far as keeping sexual steps with men, NO WAY. This thought process is just not something I possess. It has never even occurred to me, and nothing about it resonates with me whatsoever. I really don't care what men do; it is, unfortunately, much more about my own vanity and how DARE my H not find me attractive. While I was working, I had no desire to one-up the fellas. Again, it was more about ME and wanting to advance myself in the workforce and less about proving anything to the gents. If anything I was much more competitive with the other ladies I worked with.
Quote: By turning this into a control issue, especially with the type of guy your H is, you are effectively contributing to the demise of his sex drive.
Corri, truer words were never spoken. This is the part where I hang my head in shame. I know this, I know this, I know this, and yet here I am like a dimwitted battering ram, charging forth with my humungous horns blocking my view of what I'm bashing--my own husband. It's like I think I can somehow convince him that this is the way to go, but really all I'm doing is forcing him to take his toys and go home.
Quote: YOU may see it that way, but your H certainly doesn't. And I'm willing to bet you have control over darn near everything -- even more than you realize. Your H loves you and would climb a mountain for you, and that scares the hell out of him.... he's scared of losing himself to you, lock, stock and barrel.... because if anything ever happened to you or your kids, it would destroy him.
Control over darn near everything, huh. Well, I really DO have control over the daily things..what we buy to eat, where we go out to eat, what clothes the children wear (or he wears, for that matter) but these are things that he doesn't care about. The BIG things in our lives--finances, cars, etc--are all him. He pretty much makes the big decisions unilaterally, and I don't like it, but not enough to make an issue of it. After all, he is eminently sensible and I mostly agree with him. The times when I haven't, well, I lived with it--I DO realize that I will not always get my own way, despite how I usually sound on the bb.
The last sentence: well this is the truest part of all. My H once said to me, "You love the kids, and I love you." This was rather enlightening to me, because in my mind I am the one hankering for his love, not the other way around. But I did realize that what he said was based on fear of: what will happen to me/us if something happens to her? Now, don't get alarmed..we've had the Sinking Boat discussion and, yes, he would save my children before me (or get drowned by me afterwards, lol) but I think that he feels, as you said, that he'd be destroyed without me.
Now, let me go back to the last sentence again:
Quote: because if anything ever happened to you or your kids, it would destroy him.
Here is where I get lost. After all, something IS happening to me and it is, quite honestly, not destroying him. I feel unhappy when my sexual needs are ignored and yet it is not destroying him. Is it that need thing again? Does he have a need to feel needed at such a high cost that he'd let everything go down the tubes just to make sure that I still need him? Am I the only one who thinks this is a risky and downright dumb strategy?
HP: I'm not going to make any comments about the convo you and Corri are having, except to say the obvious: pay attention. Save her comments so you don't have to go searching too hard to find them when you need to read them over. I have a file I keep of "corri's bullseyes." 'Nuff said.
What I am going to comment on is my deep gratitude to you for making coffee nearly spray out of my nose as I read your toilet story! My GAWD, I was laughing so hard, I was crying, which is not a good thing to do at 8:15 in the morning at the office. I'm pretty handy with plumbing, and can't understand why he (dumbass) threw out the plunger. They don't call them "plumber's helpers" for nothing.
This house we moved into was built in the era of the water-saving toilets, and I usually end up using the plunger about as often as I use toilet paper. I know, too much info...but the other day, my W accused me of leaving a toilet unflushed and clogged, and I said, honestly, that I didn't think I had done that, but if I did, I was sorry. DS15 stepped up and confessed, and said that he didn't know how to unclog a toilet. W looked at him and said, "oh great. Now we have two "men" in the house who are going to clog the toilets." DS15 smiled and said, "cool. Now I am a MAN!"
Oh my god, the toilet story... my stomach hurts from laughing so hard... you're certainly more woman than I am... my arm would NEVER go down a poopy toilet, water filling the entire house or not...
But in all seriousness... whether you think you handled that well or not, you handled it. You may have had a meltdown afterwards, but you handled it.
And everything your H does, he does for you and the kids. I don't care if it's finances, or cars, or repairing the roof, he's doing it all for YOU. That means, YOU control him. He's doing it out of LOVE, even if he grumbles and moans and complains while doing it. If he didn't LOVE you, you can bet your bippy he wouldn't do it unless he felt like it.
Quote: Corri: He WANTS to not need me more than I ACTUALLY don't need him.
Never a truer statement uttered. Now. This is going to make no sense, but this is what we humans do when we are not consciously aware of what we are doing. And Schnarch talks about this, too. Your H wants you to NEED him, but your H doesn't want to NEED you. It scares the hell out of him, for all the reasons already explained.
So in his effort of trying NOT to NEED you, he actually pushes you away -- the very thing that will destroy him. It's like he has one hand held up asking you to come closer, and at the same time, the other hand is held up demanding that you stop. Problem is, he doesn't realize what he is doing.... which is why he is doing this...
When my H and I were in counseling, we discovered that one of my H's number one fears was being abandoned (i.e., me leaving him. He'd already been through one divorce that darn near destroyed him and he wasn't going to by God go through that again). However. Keeping emotional distance from the person you claim to love is the exact thing that will drive them out the door and leave you facing your number one fear: being left.
So in a sense, my H wanted me to give my all to him, but not return the favor because he was protecting himself for the day when I might no longer be there... yet his very actions were the thing that was driving me out the door.
You cannot create intimacy that way, no matter how you slice it.
If I've been reading you right, you don't need sex everyday, but you do need to know that your H sexually needs you everyday. You need to know that he thinks about you, that you are important to him, not as the mother of his kids, or as the wife at home, but as the girl your H fell in love with.
We ALL NEED THAT. We need to know that we are important to the person we married outside the daily routine. And like most HD's say, it isn't about frequency of sex... it's about frequency of communicating the desire (i.e., you are important to me) you feel for your partner. Sex is a major component, yes, especially for those who express themselves in physical ways...
But your H, I think, is afraid to let you know just how important you are to him, because that will make him vulnerable to the ultimate hurt.
Of course this makes no logical sense, and it can't, because this is not a conscious thought for him. This is below the surface. It drives his actions and his inactions, and that is why he'll say to you he doesn't KNOW why his drive is lower than yours. He really, truly doesn't know. It is buried. For him to admit it would, again, make him vulnerable.
So... if he can keep you NEEDING him, then he has the confirmation he needs that you LOVE him, without making himself vulnerable or NEEDING in return. (Which is horseshiit, but he doesn't KNOW that).
One of the things I have discoverd with my H is that if we have sex too frequently, it just isn't.... good. It's OK. And I swear, OK sex is worse than no sex at all. Now, on my end, I was thinking... but this is what he said he wanted... until I discovered that no, that isn't what he wants. Us having OK sex is more damaging to his sensitive side than me telling him no... what my H needs, everyday, is to know that I love him, I need him, and I desire him. I need a really horny H to get my engines revved (like what Atl. Dave was talking about) to have the wall-socket sex we both love. Saying NO to him, if not done too frequently, revvs him up. It gets him horny. It contributes to fantastic sex, provided I am not rejecting him in the process... which means that I still communicate my love and desire for him. THAT'S what he wants. He wants to know that he is loved and needed without having to ask for it.
Which is what I think you pretty much need, too?
And my point is, you will NOT get this through the full-frontal sex attack because he doesn't 'get it.' Not yet. He doesn't understand what it is you are asking of him, and he doesn't understand how his OWN BARRIERS are the very thing standing in his way of giving you a very simple thing, which at the same time would provide him with the reassurance he is seeking that you are not going to leave him.
Oh. I forgot to add. When you are too efficient... it creates doubt in the mind of your H about how much you really do NEED him. When you compete with your H and WIN, it creates doubt about how much you really do NEED him. That is why power struggles are so dangerous in relationships. It makes one person feel oppressed and the other person incompetent. The one place competition isn't healthy (97% of the time) is in an intimate relationship. It is one area where TEAM is crucial so that EVERYBODY can feel good at the same time. You can't do that when you are competing.
Were you riding in the car with me and my H last night. I swear he was saying pretty much what you just said but in his own way.
Question - I'm not familiar with your situation. Who needed to develop the "full frontal attack" in your relationship and how did you achieve that?
How do you propose that HP help her H "get it?" My H is right there with hers although we aren't ML regularly yet. I will write about our current sitch in my thread.
Karen1
PS HP - LOVE the toilet story. Sounds a lot like my life.
Glad I could entertain you kids with my toilet saga. Truly, if someone would have told me 6 yrs ago when I was a hotshot in the workforce that I would soon know the feeling of intimately cupping a turd in my hand, I would have screamed. The fact that it is my own child's turd really didn't make it any more pleasant. Hairy, sorry about the caffeinated nose, dude.
Yes, I handled that crisis, but I can tell you that if H had been at home I would have taken one look at the Sh*t Fountain and shrieked , ****!!!!!!!! Fix this!!!!!!!! To those of you who are wondering why a man would toss the plunger, he is a bit of a germ-phobe and couldn't stand the thought of using (and re-using) a plunger that definitely had yuck germs on it. Even though I rinse it with water and spray it with bleach water (like I do most things in this house, dang germy little kids), it just creeped him out. So he chucked it. He did show up that night with a brand new plunger (he didn't know I had already bought one) and a small present for me from the store, so he did redeem himself somewhat.
Corri, I was thinking more today on your words and I couldn't wrap my mind around the needy thing. In our daily lives, it is evident I need him. I ask him to fix things, I ask his opinion, etc. Yes I am competent and efficient and he knows that. But I can't seem to see how he would think that I don't need him. What I CAN say without a doubt is that he thinks that I am smarter than him, more successful than him, just 'better' at life in general than he is. This is not true. I am more assertive than he is and I will find a way to accomplish what I want, but the things I really want are few and far between.
He has said many times that he is "no good" at sex. That "he sucks" at initiation. etc. His confidence is low and, while I can't say for sure about the needy part, I do know that he feels he is not 'worthy' of me. I can't imagine truly believing that of your mate. How odd. Now, I'm not some pollyanna type who thinks He is my perfect equal. He's not! In some areas (childcare for one, lol) I blow him away, and in other areas I completely defer to him. When we first married, he definitely was in charge of the sex. Or at least, he was in charge of the initiation. We both handled the content with ease. He did it frequently enough that I never felt the urge to say or do anything that would belie how much it affected me and to what extent I'd go to protect it (it being the amount and quality of the sex). I have no doubt that he sees this whole thing as a competition. Or a test.
To tell ya the truth, I'm really not sure how to work WITH him, at this point. At times, I think that is what we are doing and other times, I think we pay good lipservice to it but end up setting each other up.
Things have been going well this week but I think I might have a bit of hormonal weirdness going on. My body feels very odd and not as physically horny as it usually does. In addition to that, I have some changes within my milk supply. I have to tell you that the difference of dealing with an SSM while physically horny and dealing with it with that edge taken off (I'd still love sex and am looking forward to it tonight, hopefully!) is night and day. When my body is raging, my mind tends to do the same. Since I don't take care of myself I tend to get frantic for him to pay attention to that fact and freakin resentful if he doesn't. After all, if he wants me to "refrain from sin" (as he put it) then he has to be willing to help me out. I don't know....it's a weird dynamic. He wants me to come to him, and has asked me to do so, but then oftentimes doens't want to participate. So I get a mixed message from him. You really think this is related to fear of losing me? I don't know...can't it just be something easy like he's fcuking lazy?? j/k
