Well, today is my birthday. I started the day with the knowledge that my H thinks he doesn't love me. He told me that last Thursday. I don't know why he seems to be spiraling downward. Maybe it's as Lily said above, now that he doesn't have to concentrate so much on my feelings he's having to start really doing some soul searching. I think he's asked himself once to often, "how could I have done this if I really loved Matilda." He also said he didn't want to stay married feeling the way he does. If I remember correctly, that goes back to his feelings about himself, what he's done, and how it's so hard to have to face me still. During this conversation the lights were on in the bedroom. He asked if he could turn them off. I said, no, I wanted to look at him while we talked. He told me, "you don't know how it makes me feel to have you look at me."

Anyway, we talked about how we both had work to do on ourselves; how the love is probably still there - just buried under all the crap. H seemed to grab onto that one. I also mentioned the analogy of if there is still an ember of love that it can be fanned back into a flame, and then into a roaring fire. That also made a lot of sense to him.

I told him I would try to take the pressure off of him by not saying ILY or expecting anything at all from him. I'm not sure he liked that too much.

H - "Are we supposed to just live together?"

M - "No. I think we just go on the way we've been, but each knowing where we stand." I told him this really took the pressure off me, too, because sometimes I've done or said things that I haven't really felt in order to make him feel better about himself. That gave him pause, also.

I tried to explain to him that we should try to act-as-if we had those feelings again and that maybe that would start making us think differently and really BE in love again.

We went to a wedding out of town over the weekend. Before we left, H gave me part of my birthday present, as he thought I might want to take it with me. I did. He also gave me a very nice B'day card that said how much he loved me -- he just signed it "your hub." Always in the past he's signed it "ILU." Almost started crying, but I held it together.

The weekend was wonderful. H was very attentive to me, and I to him. Everything was "normal." Saturday night I was a little drunk, and I told him "I like you." (Instead of ILU). We laughed. We made love.

At the wedding, he was in charge of video taping so he didn't even sit with me during the ceremony. He felt bad about that, said, "At least let me escort you to your seat before I get started."

H HATES to dance, but he put down the recorder several times during the event in order to dance with me. The first time was to a very romantic song and the DJ called out all those who were "In love." We danced. Maybe he felt obligated because of all our friends and family being there watching. During that dance I looked up at him and said, "I know I said I wouldn't say ILU for a while, but I do." He smiled and kissed me!!

Another time they called for all those in love to dance and H was waiting for a drink at the bar. I don't think he heard what was going on -- I know my H!! My youngest S said, "Hey, where's dad? You guys should be dancing." I said, "That's okay. We've danced. I need to go out for some air anyway."

The wedding was on a ship. I went out on the back deck to cool off. H came out and said, "Let's dance." I told him that wasn't really necessary. He took me in his arms and said, "we'll dance right here."

A couple of other times while dance H kissed me.

We were exhausted when we got back to the hotel. H had a pretty good buzz on -- made a couple of comments (won't go into that now - blushing), about how he'd like to do "stuff". Things started heating up when our friends knocked on the door and said they were taking left-overs from the wedding out to the pool to eat. They wanted us to join them.

30 minutes later, we did!! Had a nice rest of the evening out there with friends and family. Went back to our room, took showers. I was really exhausted by then. H apparently wasn't. Finally got to sleep 2 hours later [Eek!] .

Oh, another thing. We bought a car on Saturday. It's 1 yr old. Beautiful Chrysler 300M. H was really excited about the great deal we got on it (and it truely was). Bought it from a private party. We picked it up on our way home from the wedding Monday afternoon.

H has mentioned repeatedly what a great car this will be for "us." That if we just get 3-4 years out of it, it will be great. How much fun it would be for "us" to drive to Vegas. How it's not "his" car, but "our" car.

This morning he kissed me three times and told me happy B'day before leaving for work. He called when he got to work. He asked me what I'd like to do for dinner -- go out or have him fix dinner. Last night he wanted to know if I would like for him to bake me a b'day cake.

I don't know what you guys think, but this doesn't sound like a guy who doesn't love his W.

Oh, and I forgot, during the talk I mentioned above, he did say he'd be lying if he said he didn't have ANY feelings for me. I think maybe that' why he got excited about the idea that his love for me was just buried under all the other negative stuff he's feeling right now. Although at one point he did say he hasn't felt he's loved me for a long time (probably before the A). Isn't this pretty typical?

I got the lastest issue of the Marriage Builders newsletter yesterday. It had some interesting thoughts about getting those loving feelings back. I don't know how to link up to it. Maybe someone else can figure it out.

But #7, Just a Thought, was especially interesting. Spoke about how most of us fall out of love at some point and feel we will never be able to get those feelings back. But they can come back. We need to have a plan and stick to it.

It was written much better, of course. Hope you can link up and read it.

I e-mailed it to my H this morning. I hope I didn't put more pressure on him. I'm just trying to give him something to think about!!

I'll fill you all in later about the rest of my day.

Matilda