Quote: I would hazard a guess that she NEEDS to become more of a giver for her own satisfaction in the R. I think that in order for her to feel more fulfillment from the R she needs to give more love through her actions. I think there needs to be a balance struck whereby both partners are reciprocating these roles functionally. Just because you can go without, and perhaps thrive on giving, doesn't mean that this is ideal.
HELLLLLLLL YES. THANK YOU MUDDLE.
This is one of the biggest "light-bulb going on" moments I have had in my sitch lately. I KNEW this but it took you saying it now (I have heard this before in my sitch) to really drive it home.
I REALLY think she wants to give but I recognized through my C that I have rejected her SO many times, in SO many ways when she tried to "give" to me in the ways I want, that it may take a LONG time for her to get over HER fear of rejection.
To explain that a little more, after a few sessions, and when we first started talking about intimacy issues, my C started talking to me about how things normally went between W and I in terms of intimacy. We actually started talking about the bedroom first and from there, we saw the same pattern in almost ALL of our "intimate" encounters.
Because I like to give, and because I am/was TERRIBLY codependent, when my W would try to touch me in bed, I would resist, instead trying to "do" for her. I thought of it as a nice/good thing to do. Since I already thought of my W as a "taker" (a rold my C would later dispute a bit based on what she heard of our history), I figured she was just touching me to make me happy but would rather have me touch her instead. Since I didn't value my own pleasure/happiness as much as hers (f--ked up in hindsight) I figured we were both getting what we wanted.
I don't know how long this went on, her trying to "do" for me, or touch me, and me "rejecting her". I never saw it that way until C told me that's likely what W felt...damn, I see that now and that must have been REALLY hard for her, making her feel like I didn't like her to touch me, or that she was doing something wrong, when all I was trying to do was make her happy.
Like I said, that kind of thing was not exclusive the bedroom. Pretty much any sitch where one of us could do for the other physically, it was always me doing for her because EVEN WHEN I ASKED HER TO rub my back or whatever, I would stop her after a few seconds and either say "it's ok, I'm good" or actually start to rub HER back.
C said this dynamic, one of me constantly rejecting W, coupled with what seems like a low-ish self-esteem going into the marriage, probably made W TOTALLY self conscious and unwilling to enjoy our encounters.
I never got that at ALL. I was floored to realize that from my W's perspective, this is almost surely what my actions felt like. All this time I thought by me giving and her taking, since it seemed like we both liked those roles, that things were good.
I'm pretty sure OM didn't have any of those hang ups on "receiving" from my W and it's very likely that she really enjoyed being the giver instead of having a boy-servant always waiting to serve her without giving her any way to reciprocate. I am ok with that understanding and really think I can learn from it.
Muddle, thank you for pointing this out. I think that's why she was SO reluctant to cut my hair or shave for me, because first of all, I never ask her to do anything like that for me, and second of all, when I have in the past, I actually made her feel like she did it wrong by asking her to stop soon after she started.
The fact that I sat there and enjoyed the attention I think laid the first brick of her trust in ME that I will not ALLOW this to be one-sided anymore and beyond that, I will actually ask her for attention... and then LET her give it to me. I don't think you can understand how fundamental I believe this to be in my sitch, and how much I appreciate you for bringing it to the forefront again, where I think it will now stay for awhile.
My W DOES need to give and I have to allow her to do that.
