Thanks for the input! Yes Kent, my H says he's committed to our relationship. Last month my H was leaving for work before I got up and coming home after I went to bed--the poor guy was pretty sleep deprived--and we had very little time together. When this happens as it will continue to every now and then our relationship suffers. Michele and most other experts agree time together is an important factor. My H is struggling with his career and hopefully will turn a corner at some point and have a chance at a more reasonable life

Here is what happened. I won't even talk about all the yuck and history that surrounded the weekend, it would take up too much time and space!!! but believe me on numerous fronts it was tough. HOWEVER, after giving him a very nice birthday, I expressed some needs the next day. He was majorly bummed. However, you'll never guess, after a couple of days of keeping distance but being nice to him we started having a better time together a little bit at a time. For two nights in a row now we've even had great sex !!! Last night we still talked about his work longer than anything else but there were 4 or 5 other subjects and he didn't repeat himself quite so much.

Here is one of the reasons why talk about work bugs me: sorry if this seems like a step backwards to go here but I'm hoping to just get it off my chest so I can breathe: he and OW didn't talk about work--they were co-workers so they should have been but they talked about their relationship, their fantasy future I could use a little romance myself!!!!!

Anyway, the bottom line is that the last couple of days has convinced me that he is trying in his own way and it's going to be OK.

I still would like to find a better way to talk about needs because even if this way worked in the end, it hurt him and I don't want to do that.

MF I will try stories like you suggest. I think that's a great idea. Part of it is that if I can keep my creative juices flowing then I don't get down in the dumps. My dear H gets very depressed pretty easily when I'm unhappy. Anything I can do to stay upbeat is a plus.

Kent wrote
"The question is how to reach him. This is where "trying something new" still comes into play. I still communicate my needs to my W. However, I have changed my approach. For me, less works better than more. I decide what the message is that I need to deliver to W. I take time to prepare it, decide if it is really important, fine tune it and then wait for the opportunity to deliver it. It may take weeks for me to complete the communication. Then I let it go. It's kinda like planting a seed. I try to assure I plant it in moist fertile ground and then wait to see if it sprouts."

I'm going to meditate on that and try it!

Here is the gold prize alright:

"The trick is to discuss OR stuff in a spouse friendly manner."

Hmmmm how to do that? There must be hundreds of ways.

[ October 10, 2001: Message edited by: alottolearn ]