Here we are again, another new thread. Someday I may have to either move to a new forum or actually make some progress.
Anyway, like I said in my last post, there is not much to report. I am growing more frustrated by my sitches lack of progress and oscillate between feeling I need to DO something and thinking I need to renew my commitment to DB and refocus on myself.
Truly our life has returned to pre-affair normalcy, something that many of us say we will NEVER allow to happen. Well, it has happened to me. This is not the first time I have said that, nor the first time I have spoken of the frustration that comes along with every other part of "us" being normal, even better than ever, but the physical intimacy component missing completely.
If I am looking for small things, W did come to bed with me last night, something that she rarely does, or ever did for that matter. She usually finds some reason to stay up late. Also, I MAY be able to take some credit for that because after we put the kids down later than usual, and finished watching the World Cup match we'd taped from earlier, I didn't run upstairs to do work or play on the computer. I stayed down, watched some news and talked with W.
I am starting to realize that I may have been missing something all this time. I always thought W didn't want me hanging around downstairs all night, that she liked her "me" time. What I may have figured out is that she SAID that only after years of being FORCED into "me" time by my absence many nights, either physically or even when I was in the house, but otherwise occupied. She MAY have just decided "Know what? If he's going to leave me alone like this all the time, I am just going to embrace that and learn to like it." Of course, that thinking probably lead to the beginning thoughts of an affair...
So, I am going to work on acting "as if" she is feeling guilt but not necessarily that she doesn't want me around or doesn't want things to progress. I still may initiate a R talk sometime but as it stands, it will happen in the flow of normal conversation, not as some pre-arranged, conscious effort.
As always, I thank all of you who have been with me for any length of time. I am still here because I have found a great deal of help among you. I may be piecing but until I feel my relationship is beyond this limbo state, then I will likely stick around this forum.
Quote: I am growing more frustrated by my sitches lack of progress and oscillate between feeling I need to DO something and thinking I need to renew my commitment to DB and refocus on myself.
I realize, re-reading my post, that I present these as opposite, mutually exclusive options when in reality, DBing IS doing something, just something different.
What I meant to say was that I feel torn between initiating R talks and somehow forcing the issue or laying back, as my C recently suggested I do, and allowing time to do it's thing. Most of this inner conflict is caused by my lack of understanding about where my W's head and heart are right now and what, if anything she needs/wants ME to do to help her get back to "us". I think this is more of my "fixer" personality coming out and it's likely that my efforts to fix her are backfiring in some way. I know she can feel my frustration and I'm sure it doesn't feel good to her. My anger is back up again, taking the form of yelling at the kids and the occasional sarcastic remark to her (much less on both counts then before though).
I guess in the end, I am not really torn. I need to DB MUCH better and THEN set my sights on whatever talk I think may help, if any. WAY too much "normal" life and not enough self-improvement going on these days.
GH, I am SO at the same place you are, frustrated and stagnant and not knowing if I should initiate an R talk or let this ride and let H deal with his issues while I concentrate on me. This has been going on for so many years that I am plum out of fresh ideas, and the old ones didn't work. Do we get another ticket and keep going on the merry-go-round?
Quote: I guess in the end, I am not really torn. I need to DB MUCH better and THEN set my sights on whatever talk I think may help, if any. WAY too much "normal" life and not enough self-improvement going on these days.
Sounds easy, what are your ideas for "DB MUCH better" and self-improvement?
Live your life while you are still living. Riding the trail less traveled.
GH and WCW, I too am tired of being frustrated and stagnant. If anyone from the outside were to look at my family they would think we were "normal". If they took a closer look, like in our bedroom, they would see that we definitely are not.
I too am a "fixer" and I believe this could be actually hurting our sitches. Your W and my H are getting the impression from us that something is wrong with them and we are trying to fix them, like we are perfect. We need to turn this around and actually "fix" us. Imagine how unhappy, unfulfilled and frustrated our spouses must have been (and probably for a very long time) for them to seek out an OP. We wanted a happy marriage as well as them. Let's focus on how we contributed to the "unhappy" M. This will force us to be completely honest with ourselves and look deep into our souls. Are ya with me?
Quote: GH, I am SO at the same place you are, frustrated and stagnant and not knowing if I should initiate an R talk or let this ride and let H deal with his issues while I concentrate on me.
Sorry (sorta...I guess it could be MUCH worse) you're in the same place. It is hard because like I said about my recent C session, now there is no clear rallying point. There is no really battle to fight. There is only a wide open realm of possibilities and we have to try to navigate our way towards the "right" thing to do.
I know there is no such thing, and that we should not put so much pressure on ourselves, but it feels like we are faced with answering a multiple choice quesion with 1000 answers...only one of which is correct.
Quote: This has been going on for so many years that I am plum out of fresh ideas, and the old ones didn't work. Do we get another ticket and keep going on the merry-go-round?
Years? Wow, I don't know if I could do this for years. I am having trouble with one more day at this point. I commend you on your tenacity and strenth. As for the additional ticket, I guess I look at it this way; divorce is not going to solve my problems and neither is dating someone else. If all I want to do is that, I can wait.
Quote: Sounds easy, what are your ideas for "DB MUCH better" and self-improvement?
As always, I am my own worst critic. While I think I have done pretty well to this point, I know for me, settling back into this complacent life is a LOT more of the same, and decidedly NOT very DB-like. SO, for me, DBing better would be...
1) Acually finish DB...and PM while I am at it. Then apply any new things I learn from them.
2) Detach a bit more. I am still sucked in by my W's frequent mood swings and her bouts with indifference.
3) Be happy more often. I am back to being somewhat moody myself. I wasn't this way during the affair months. I trained myself to be happy, and learned what made me so. Then when my W "came back" I promptly started linking my happiness to hers and the sitch. Wrong answer. Gotta do better at not doing that.
4) General PMA.
5) Keep building my self-esteem. I have serious issues in this department that my C and I are working on.
6) Re-learn to dispense with my expectations. I have let them creep back into my life and it's starting to affect me. I need to have a beginners mind.
7) Realize that no matter how bad this seems, most people on this board, and ME, 7 months ago, would KILL to be in this position and I should not discount that fact at all. I need to be grateful that I have a marriage to work on at this point. Not that I should be grateful for her gracing me with her presense, but that I have the opportunity to do the right things now, however hard it may be to figure out what that may be.
8) Work out more. I went on a big exercise kick as part of my GAL and now I have gone back to no working out. I had an injury that prevented me from doing my normal workout but I need to get back to it now. I am going to try to take Tae Kwon Do classes with S6.
9) Smile a lot more.
There they are. 9 things I can do to make myself better.
Just a general state of the union. I have been doing less of my "introducing intimacy" stuff lately. It hasn't worked and frankly, I am getting frustrated. I am going to give it a rest. I am reading stuff in PM suggesting that my pursuit could be causing her to retreat even more. I know there has been a debate about whether I should be more or less assertive. For now, I am going to go with less. I DON'T want to be seen as flip-flopping on this issue, but then again, where there's no cheese, I shall not go.
W also seems sad these days. She's never really a bubbly person but she's even more tired than usual and less animated. I want to ask her what's wrong, but last night, as a bit of a test, I let her mood go. I resisted my HUGE urge to ask her to talk about "whatever". To my surprise, she pulled out of the mood a bit and was more happy later. I guess my "fixer" needs to be put away more often. So too does my attachment to her moods. I found myself pulled down by her again. Gotta stop that.
To me, the test on whether to talk R or not talk R is if you can manage to not have the stuff you're thinking about contaminate your daily life, especially your interactions with your spouse. In my case, I am still maintaining, but it's getting harder by the day. I am becoming more angry and frustrated and holding it in is not going to work much longer. I KNOW I should either be able to get past that or express myself directly and honestly, but I don't think I have anything new to say to her. I still want more intimacy, something I have communicated in several different ways. I still want, well, just MORE and she knows that. What would ONE MORE TALK do?
I have to find a way to take my C's advice to lay low for awhile and see how things play out. That advice, coupled with what PM is talking about in terms of the person that LEAST desires sex in the marriage controls it, is leading me to believe that all this preoccupation I have with "what's wrong" with us is causing me to be WAY too negative. I need some PMA in a big way. I know I sound like I have some, but these days, it's really hard. I WANT to sound upbeat and happy but sometime in the course of my time at home, the bad thoughts creep in and I find that I'm not happy anymore. I DO often catch this, but I know W knows something's up.
I guess the REAL issue here is that while she SAYS she is back in the marriage, and we have both agreed on things that need work, especially in the intimacy area, I don't see ANY change in her behavior despite a change in mine. She is still very cold and seemingly uninterested in me in any physical way.
Ah, the familiar refrain. Someday I will bump the player and get the needle off that stuck record.
GH, you know I can relate to you on this issue. I agree with your C to back off and lay low. Without realizing it, we are probably coming off as needy and desparate (which we are) and that is scaring our spouses off. They have to WANT to be with us, we cannot force them. It needs to be spontanious. Imagine if you were to get together and her heart wasn't really in it, how terrible you would feel.
I'm glad to see that you didn't get sucked in by her mood. You broke the cycle and in turn she cheered up. Way to go!!
I was thinking about this yesterday so I'll just throw it out there to see what you think. Instead of thinking about what is wrong and what needs to be fixed can't you think about what was or is right and build off of that?
I was thinking about my sitch and I was going around and around about what was wrong with me, with her, with our R. So, being that that wasn't working or helping, I decided to think about what was right, what was working.
Well, right now in my current sitch, not much is going right in our R. But, thinking back to when we first met and started dating I could see a lot of things that were right and were working. Now I just need to see a way to bring that back into my R.
That's where the DB comes in I think. It is what I hope will give me my second chance to bring our R back to life. I am looking at it like it's CPR for my R. Don't know if I'll be able to revive it, but I have to give it a try.
What I'm saying is that instead of focusing on the negative I'm trying to focus on the positive.
So what do you think? Does this kind of make any sense or am I just rambling?
"Our life is what our thoughts make it."
Marcus Aurelius
Alright, GH, it just dawned on me. This is so simple: you are focusing on the "problems" too much. You said it yourself recently. Focus on the great parts of your R - the parts that make you happy. Don't fix problems, the best that can get you is from a negative number to 0 - do you want a R at zero or at 10? Build on strengths.
I think the lack of intimacy is not a problem anyway, it's your expectation and desire for it that's the problem, because you haven't been able to negotiate it into reality. So you have two options - 1. negotiate, beg, plead, manipulate the desired outcome or 2. genuinely enjoy what you have in the R now and build on these strengths until IT happens. The more happy you can be in the R, the more likely both parties will want to share that happiness in a physical way.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. ” – Albert Einstein
