Thank you for your comments Lillie and Lou. I agree with you Lillie that going to counseling by myself would probably be helpful. I just haven't been able to get motivated to do it as I don't really know where to start.
I mentioned yesterday that I need some help coming up with ways that I can distance myself emotionally from my wife without coming across as cold and angry. What makes that so hard is that our relationship is already so much like nothing more than roommates that I'm afraid distancing myself from her any more would seem like an obvious attempt to "get back at her" for the way she's been treating me. Does anyone have some suggestions? I've already stopped initiating sex and I never attempt to kiss her romantically as I got sick of always being rejected. I'll list a few ideas that I have for the sake of feedback. I've tried some of them before, but I'm interested in what everyone thinks.
1. Whenever my wife and I get off the phone we each other, we always end with an "I love you". I actually like doing that, but I think it might be one of those things that continues to make my wife feel like we have a close relationship, even if we really don't. If I ever get a wild hair and just say "bye", it seems to bother her. I definitly don't think I should refuse to return an "I love you" if she says it first, but maybe I should try to avoid saying it first and just get off the phone with a goodbye whenever I can without seeming like I'm making an attempt to cut it out altogether. Or maybe I should cut it out altogether?
2. While I don't initiate sex or romantic kissing any more, I do occasionally cuddle up to my wife, or at least attempt to, in bed. I assume that's an obvious thing that I should stop doing.
3. About the only time I ever get a kiss (nothing more than a quick peck on the lips) is when my wife leaves for work in the morning. Like the "I love you's", I don't think I should turn my head and refuse to kiss her as that would be too obvious, but how about if I never initiate a goodbye kiss myself and, when possible, try to be unavailable (i.e. in the shower, brushing my teeth, etc.) about the time she's leaving for work?
4. How about if I stop calling her during the day just to say hello and to see how her day is going? I could also stop calling on my way home from work to let her know that I'm headed home and to ask if she needs me to pick anything up.
5. On gift-giving occasions, I always find her things that I know she'll like as I pay attention whenever she indicates an interest in something. She used to do the same for me, but now I seldom get much more than a card. Should I fail to get her a gift, at least on occasion?
These are probably not the greatest ideas, and some of them may not be any good at all, but please let me know what you think and offer some other suggestions if you have any.
I understand you not wanting to be "too obvious" about your withdrawal, but if your objective is to let her know something is up, you're going to need to make your message clear. What you're talking about is guerilla warfare... or really, bioterrorism, as in, "Gee, I (your wife) am starting to feel bad about the R, is it me or is my H putting nerve gas in the heating system?"
How about a cheerful speech along the lines of, "You know, I'd like to try an experiment. I think we would make better and happier roommates than lovers, kwim? So for the next two weeks, I'm going to practice relating to you like a roommate and see how I feel about that?" (Okay, that's pretty far-fetched )
As for motivation to see a C, you don't need motivation, you just need to pick up the phone and call a few people. There have been some good suggestions on the board )from GEL, I think ) about how to interview a C over the phone to do a first-level compatibility study... don't have time to search right now.
I’m sensing some similarities to my sitch. I’ve not bothered to read trough your previous threads, but let me ask you this – you say your wife does a lot of work with the kids, volunteering at school and such. Do you have the impression she gets a lot of her positive feedback, sense of fulfillment and gratification through the kids and the work she does at school? I’m thinking she has to, since by what you say, she is not getting it from you. How much do you help out around the house and with the kid’s schoolwork? Does she have any resentment toward you about this?
You mentioned that before you got married, she used to “hang” on you. I assume she has a certain emotional need that you met at the time. Did she seem to need emotional security, comfort? Does she have any fears of abandonment? I suspect she may since you say she is bothered if you don’t tell her you love her at the end of your phone calls.
Quote: mentioned yesterday that I need some help coming up with ways that I can distance myself emotionally from my wife without coming across as cold and angry.
You are looking at your relationship and what I said about emotionally distancing yourself through the wrong end of the microscope. What I was trying to indicate is that it from reading your post I got the impression that you have successfully emotionally distanced yourself. You don't sound cold or angry or miserable. What I am suggesting is that the reason you have been able to get along fairly well for the last couple years in your relationship is that you have to some extent, perhaps unconsciously, accepted the ways in which you are low drive for sex. What I mean when I say you have accepted the ways in which you are low drive for sex is that you have acknowledged that your drive for sex is lower than your drive to be a father who lives full-time with his children and your drive for sex is too low for you to want to try to have sex with someone who has indicated that they really don't want to have sex with you. I don't think there is nothing wrong with this. In fact, I feel pretty much the same way.
If you start making a plan to work on your relationship by doing things like not saying "I love you." on the phone with the hypothesis that this behavior on your part will lead to increased sexual behavior on the part of your wife, you are telling yourself that your sex drive is high enough to make you behave as someone who is willing to try to have sex with someone who has indicated that they are not interested and your sex drive is high enough to warrant engaging in behavior that may lead to a situation in which you will not live full-time with your children. There is nothing wrong with this either.
So, what it comes down to is that you have to figure out how high drive you really are in order to proceed with integrity. For instance, on your anniversary do you give your wife a card that says "You are the love of my life. You have filled my world with passion. I hope to spend eternity by your side.". If you do, I bet you feel kind of cr*ppy about it because you're a big fat liar. It's the HD partner's equivalent of faking an orgasm. Be nice, but be honest or at least be honest with yourself about your dishonesty. Be honest and give your wife a card that says "Thank you for being such a good mother to our children and a pleasant companion." or choose to give her a card that says "You're the greatest wife in the world" but at least acknowledge to yourself that you are making things worse in your relationship with your wife by being dishonest because the relationship with your daughters is more important to you and you are unwilling to risk it by honestly expressing your feelings.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
To put it in a nutshell, I think if you were honest with yourself and your wife you would tell her "I can't be in love with a woman who does not want to have a sexual relationship with me without being miserable, therefore I am no longer in love with you. However, I have been and may remain willing to be a loving companion to you while we raise our children together. I can't predict what I may choose to do as the children get older or if the void in our relationship leads to me falling in love with someone else, but I will do my best to treat you with respect and honesty because I won't be able to respect myself if I don't.".
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Thought I'd reply to you first since I can answer your questions pretty easily. First, yes I think that my wife does get a lot of fulfillment from her involvement with our girls and their various activities. But I wouldn't say that she doesn't also get some fulfillment from me. We have a very good relationship with the exception of romance, and obviously if she were looking for romantic fulfillment I'd be glad to oblige. I've tried very hard to do my fair share around the house and with the girls. But I'm sure there are times she'd disagree. I could probably become "Super Husband" and take care of everything there is to do before she gets a chance to think about it, and I've tried that to some extent in the past, but I think that she'd just take me for granted even more than she does now.
With regard to your question about emotional security, when we first started dating I was fresh out of college and regularly ran around with my close friends while she had a lot of acquaintances but not many really close friends. She seemed to need me more then and was probably more afraid that we'd break up and she'd be left alone. Now, with two kids, I seldom do things with my friends and I'm sure that my wife is fairly confident that I'm not going suddenly leave her. I think that she does still need me to meet her emotional needs through little things like the "I love you's" as those kinds of things seem to make her think that everything is still okay between us. Does that make any sense?
Your posts have a similar "theme" so I thought I'd reply to both of them at once. You've both given me some things to think about and it will take me some time to decide how far I'm willing to go in hopes of ultimately making my marriage better. At the moment, I'm more or less playing devil's advocate with any advice that I get as a means of determining what might actually work best for me. So if it seems like I'm saying "I don't think that will work", I'm really not. I think that you've both given me some good advice.
Lillie - my only concern about being too obvious about my withdrawl is that my wife is quite sharp and I'm afraid she'll view what I'm doing as nothing more than a ploy. If nothing else, I need to make sure that I think things out pretty well before doing anything. I do get your point though about making my message clear.
Mojo - I had to re-read that first post of yours about three times before it made much sense. But you'll be glad to know that I eventually caught on to what you were saying.
As a side point, I thought it was interesting that you mentioned anniversary cards. I always have to go through a lot of cards at the card store on occasions like Valentines Day and anniversarys because most of the cards say something about being lovers or something similar. I would feel ridiculous giving her such a card because it wouldn't really be true, and she knows that as well as me. As a result, I usually have to settle for a humorous card. It actually kind of makes me sad as I'm reading through the cards realizing that they must apply to some people's marriage relationships, but not to mine.
Your second post got right to the point. I definitely love my wife very much, and three years ago when I started posting on here I could still say with certainty that I was "in love" with her. Now I'm not as sure about that. She still has all of those great qualities that I was seeking in a wife, but I never would have fallen in love with her if I didn't also feel that she was in love with me. (That may not be completely accurate as it begs a "chicken or the egg" kind of question, but hopefully you get the point.) Anyway, now I don't feel that she's in love with me anymore and it's changing the way that I feel about her. So what you've suggested that I say to her may very well be true. However, I do still love her and, even as miserable as I am, I don't want to hurt her. Maybe that's what I'll have to do in order to get through to her, but it's not something that I'm looking forward to. If there are ways that I could make some progress without going to such extremes, that would be my preference.
Man, this board sure moves a lot slower than it used to. Could that be due to the fact that Corri hasn't been very active on here during the past week?
On a side note, while in the interim period of deciding how I'm going to move forward, I stifled the withdrawl a bit the other morning and initiated with my wife as we were waking up. I had to ask twice (with a little time in between) as the first answer I got was "I've really got to get up and get to work", but she eventually gave in and I got to have sex for the first time in more than two months. It wasn't particularly romantic or "connected", but when you're starving even the tiniest morsel is somewhat satisfying.
OK Sooner, I'll bite, in an effort to stir things up around here a little bit.
Quote: On a side note, while in the interim period of deciding how I'm going to move forward, I stifled the withdrawl a bit the other morning and initiated with my wife as we were waking up. I had to ask twice (with a little time in between) as the first answer I got was "I've really got to get up and get to work", but she eventually gave in and I got to have sex for the first time in more than two months. It wasn't particularly romantic or "connected", but when you're starving even the tiniest morsel is somewhat satisfying.
This is exactly the kind of "chase" that I grew tired of, and ultimately made me just decide to stop pursuing my LD/ND wife altogether. Sure, I'd get my rocks off, but it just became too damned sad, too humiliating, to ALWAYS have to pursue her this way.
"Gave in"??? "Got to have sex"???? Ugh.
Don't get me wrong, I know EXACTLY how you feel, and have been exactly where you are. But I'm sorry, I'd rather keep my pride intact and be celibate that chase after those kind of morsels.
Quote: This is exactly the kind of "chase" that I grew tired of, and ultimately made me just decide to stop pursuing my LD/ND wife altogether. Sure, I'd get my rocks off, but it just became too damned sad, too humiliating, to ALWAYS have to pursue her this way.
"Gave in"??? "Got to have sex"???? Ugh.
Believe me Choc, I feel exactly the same way. Although I was trying to "look on the bright side", I've got to admit that it was unsettling to say that my wife "eventually gave in". It's definitely humiliating.
