This is from Monday night. I never completed the posting process.
Doglover wrote,
WB,
I second what others have said about the need to talk with your W about your needs. I would just caution that you seem to have built this up in your mind to a monumental task. It might help if you could consider babysteps toward your goal. Multiple small conversations might be easier all around.
Mrs. NOP wrote (in a post to hairdog):
It's the "if something went wrong I must have been responsible for it".
Rethink this throughout the rest of your relationship.
If you discover that you are invariably the one who apologizes, retreats, is in the dog house, on the other side, always wrong - then unless you really are the biggest a$$h*le in the world - rethink the positions you are automatically taking, or to which you allow yourself to be assigned.
I think less agressive people who don't have an interest in controlling the relationship, controlling their spouse, being right all the time, forcing their preferences on others, etc. are at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with a spouse who *does* have these attributes.
When you're capable of accepting that you could err, could get it wrong, might have not been clear, might not have understood - you're a one-legged man in a butt-kicking context when you're dealing with a spouse that comes from an opposing place. Because you are usually open to the possibility that you're getting it wrong, doing it wrong. Match that type up with the type of personality that is seldom if ever open to the possibility that they could err, the spouse who can accept that they make mistakes will be the spouse constantly accepting the responsibility/blame.
In many relationships there is a give and take. An equality between partners where each acquieces to the other at times. If nothing ever acquieces your way - YOUR NOT ALWAYS THE ONE AT FAULT.
Mrs. NOP your post definitely applies to my sitch. This is why baby steps seem so important to me right now, as well as the way to proceed at least short term. Before we started getting along within the last two months, every time we would have a discussion, it would turn into an argument, and she would tell me, “It’s all about you. As always, it’s all about you.” This, of course was laying a guilt trip on me, and also a great way to end an argument with her having the upper hand.
What I don’t really understand is this. Here she is the LDW telling me, the HDH how I’m always the one who gets things wrong and needs to be straightened out? To me, this seems to be a HD spouse response to a LD spouse. No? But then again, I’m OK with being wrong. A new term here (to me at least), HCW = High Controlling Wife / LCH = Low Controlling Husband.
I finally got what she was saying a few weeks ago. Her saying that it was all about me, was absolving her from any guilt in the R because if it was all about me, not one little part of what was going on that was negative or conflicting, or contrary to her vision of our life together was in actuality, her fault! It couldn’t be her fault if everything was about me!
Thank God she has stopped saying that to me. Now we can talk. But I’m sensing that I’m not entirely over that period in our R, so I want to take it at a baby steps approach.
So this past weekend, some baby steps, as well as some big steps… Friday night I told my W how pissed off I was about her canceling our “date” the Sunday night before. She accepted that, but said she thought I sounded pissy. We talked further about it on Saturday afternoon and I told her that I wanted to reschedule our Sunday night dates to Friday night, even though it meant that she would probably have to come home on Friday afternoon after her work week was over and take a nap in order to be “up” for our date later that night when my 2nd shift job let out. She thought about her recent dilemma with Sunday nights, getting up “fresh for work” Monday AM vs. napping and dealing with Saturday AM (work at home cleaning, etc., not her profession) and agreed to Friday night dates. When she agreed that we could change our date night from Sunday to Friday, she joked about not having to have a Sunday night date this weekend. I just let that comment pass for the moment since I was happy she was agreeable to the date night change. (Baby steps; be thankful for the progress WM.)
Then she went on to tell me out of the blue that she had gone to the “Y” three times last week to swim and work out, and that she’s trying to lose weight again. Doing so would not only help us in our R, it would help her live a healthier lifestyle. (Aside note: according to AMA standards she needs to lose 40 – 50 lbs. I need to lose an additional 10 lbs.) My standards say she only has to lose enough additional weight for her to feel comfortable about ML with the lights on (I enjoy doing her orally that way better than in the dark). And I don’t require that all that often. During the course of our conversation, I gave her a big hug, kissed her, and told her that I loved her. In response she looked at me with that funny little look of hesitation, so I helped her, by coaxing her to say the words in return, “I love you, too.” This was a MAJOR step, as a matter of fact, the defining moment of the entire week and weekend for me. She has not told me that she loves me for years!! WOA is my secondary language of love, PT coming in first.
We made it through the rest of Saturday w/o more intimate conversation, except when I asked her if she would want to ML that night after we watched a movie together. That was so I would know upfront whether or not to take my Vi@gr@. She said yes after huffing and puffing a few times.
So the ML went like this…We put on a sexy CD up in the bedroom, we had a candle lit, we had other soft lights on. Lots of kisses, hugs, and holding her close to start things out. Then I kissed her neck and she giggled like a little girl and told me to stop it. I was tickling her. Got past that, went lower, got her into it, did the things I’ve learned empirically over the years and gave her a very satisfying O.
Then it was my turn, I was already in her and feeling good and randy. I kept climbing for a while, and then sensed I was at my plateau rather than continuing to climb. I relaxed a bit on to my side, turning both of us, thinking that would help me regain my feelings of passion that I was so into a few moments before. But instead of feelings of passion returning, the feelings of anxiety that have been creeping in to our special place recently showed up.
When the anxiety that I was no longer climbing struck, I was done in once more. Even though I had taken my Vi@gr@ earlier that night, my body couldn’t override my anxiety and soon I was climbing off of my W and laying down next to her in a state of confusion. I was thinking Vi@gr@ couldn’t be failing me(?); yet all the books I’ve read stating that sex is 90% a function of the brain seemed more accurate at the moment, because here I am and I’m dealing with all of this “You aint going nowhere once you’re stuck on that plateau.” anxiety stuff.
So there you have it, she popped, I did not pop; the ML act is over for now; so what do we say to each other? Do we have this heart to heart discussion about all the details of this most recent event? Do I share my thoughts of what was happening to me while I was losing my “thruster” to anxiety? Remember, I am still in my mindset, because we don’t wash away the events of days-gone-by all that quickly dealing with, “It’s all about you. It’s always all about you.” No. Instead, I took a baby step and got her to hold me down there where I want her to hold me while I am climbing or starting to plateau, so our ML outcome could be more mutual. I tell her how good it feels when she touches me and holds me there. Now I’m trying to forget about, “It’s all about you. It’s always all about you.” Also in baby steps. And trying to focus on her words from Saturday afternoon, “I love you, too!”
On Sunday night, we almost got together. Sunday was the hottest day of the year here. Earlier in the afternoon, we went to a graduation party for a friend who just got her MS degree in Education. Then we came home and I changed the sheets on our bed and made dinner for all fours of us, D23 and S19 joined us.
After dinner, which was late (too hot to cook earlier), I didn’t know whether or not our Sunday night date was still on or not because she went up to our BR which is air conditioned and put on the DVD “Ray” which is over two hours long. I mentioned that I smelled and needed to take a shower. She took that to mean that we were having a Sunday night date after all once I showered, while I understood her putting on a two hour DVD as meaning she was having a date with “RAY” instead of me. Baby steps backwards, I guess.
