This is such a heartfelt post and something in it makes me want to reach out to you. You say that your wife at one point made some heartfelt changes, but reverted back to being LD. I would guess that she was LD all along, and reverted back to not trying anymore. That being said – what was the reason she stopped trying?
Did she slip back into old behaviors because she got more comfortable and forgot about the changes she was trying to make? Or did she hope that the issue would go away? If that is the case, it is your responsibility to keep the issue in the forefront. Or to redraw a boundary.
Was it because she was resentful that there were issues of hers not being addressed in return?
Was it because, having given it her best, you let her know that it wasn’t enough or that you didn’t want what she had to offer?
Sure, she feels pressure. Only she can rise above the pressure. However, something has to motivate her to rise above the pressure, and there must be clues to her motivations in the conversations you have had over the years.
Julie
Julie,
Thanks for your kind response. Since my wife was definitely the HD partner during the first two years of our marriage (she used to climb on top of me in bed, and say "C'mon, you don't REALLY want to go to SLEEP now, do you???"), and also temporarily each time I HAVE reached the end of my rope, I can only assume that there's an HD girl in there somewhere.
Julie, I have wracked my brain -- and even prayed -- for wisdom as to why this "epiphany" soon faded, after SUCH an intense conversion. If I had to guess, from the choices you presented, I've have to say it was probably "Did she slip back into old behaviors because she got more comfortable and forgot about the changes she was trying to make?" with a little bit of the following thrown in:
I think I maybe overwhelmed her. A hungry man -- a starving man -- once he finds food, probably forgets his table manners a little bit. I was SOOOOO happy, and SOOOO horny, that perhaps I scared her off? I do think us HDs sometimes make the LDs think "no matter how much I give him/her, I can never do enough to make him/her happy." I never SAID that, mind you; I would only say "you've made me so happy" and "I really enjoyed last nite" and things like that, but I know my wife's personality and she tends to "project", and worry, and get overwhelmed easily.
I wish I knew. I've wished that I could go BACK to that glorious six weeks, and do SOMETHING differently again. I tried to get her to talk about it back then, about what it was that made her realize that changes needed to be made, why she had avoided me for so long, etc. Like another poster here (I'm sorry, I forget which one of you guys it was), I wanted to KNOW, so that I could do the positive things again that she was now responding to, or NOT DO the negative things that perhaps I had done that had been pushing her away.
No luck; she HATES talking about such things, and would only say things like "I don't want to talk about it anymore; let's just focus on the future."
The thing she DID say, more than once, was that she FELT herself moving away. She knew the R wasn't right, but -- as a sort of defense mechanism -- she would move away even FURTHER to help her cope with the guilt. I'd LIKE to say that that's "whacked," but I myself like to listen to sad, depressing songs when I'm feeling down, so that I pull myself WAAAYYYY down, so who am I to judge?
