I've been away for awhile dealing with my own "crap" and I've been thinking about everyone alot, wondering how you all are and WHAM! look what Chrome is up to.
I have to say that I am speechless. I'm going to have to think on this one for awhile.
I will say this for right now. I do understand the need for love and adoration. I understand how easy it is to seek out that emotional connection from the opposite sex and how easy it is to get wrapped up in an EA. BUT, it's your decision to make. You've been in TWO EA's since being on this board. You need to say right now that you don't need love, adoration, etc. from anyone BUT your wife, children and family. If your R not doing it for you, LEAVE YOUR WIFE and have some respect for her and your kids. Not only do YOU DESEARVE to be happy, but she desearves a husband who is content with her the way she is.
On a softer note. I have really come to care about a lot of people on this board and worry about them and their stich's. You are one of them. Thinking about your sitch is what brought me back to check on everyone. I know you'll get through this, whatever it may bring. Please be honest with yourself and your wife. Doing what's right isn't always the easiest thing.
Nicky
"There are two types of people -- those who come into a room and say, 'Well, here I am,' and those who come in and say, 'Ah, there you are.'"
Frederick Collins
Hope you are still around. I didn't forget. I've been in Boston doing research and the room I'm in has no privacy, so its hard to post on a forum called the Sex Starved Marriage without attracting unwanted attention. I did skim to see the good news from Karen though.
"So how are you doing on the AD's?"
Can't really feel any difference. I'll probably need to go back to see the doctor again and/or make an appointment with an actual psychiatrist at some point. Still have way too many moments of sadness. Was talking to my W on messenger earlier and she needed to leave and I've just been wallowing in sadness ever since. Maybe my dosage is too low.
"Yep, but I think you can decide how much importance to assign them (feelings, emotions)."
That is the key, and what I have a hard time with. I tend to focus on trying to feel the "right way" and instead I need to focus on responding to my feelings the right way.
"That one kind of hurt to read. I know my XH used to think this way too. Even though he didn't say it out loud, I could read his disappointment. The result was that I felt that I could never be enough or do enough for him and I resented having to try so hard and then watch him still be disappointed that I wasn't his idea of perfection. He certainly wasn't mine either, but I did try to get to a point where I could appreciate what he WAS doing."
I know, being happy with what you have is the right way to be. But how do you take a situation in which you are unhappy and make it better WITHOUT pressing the issue. The key is to press the issue without it coming across as judgemental or seeming like you demand nothing less than perfection. But for a person who is stuck (or content), any pressure for change can be misinterpreted as demanding too much. Hence comments like "you are trying to change who I AM" will be spoken.
I will say I do my best to validate my W, but your comments that I may be giving off subtle clues about my disappointment is helpful to me. I guess in this case I need to actually focus instead of defocus. Hmmm, seems like there might be something worth remembering here. When you are sad about something, defocus, look at the bigger picture and see that things aren't all that bad (hopefully). When you are happy about something, focus on that and not on some larger goal or issue that will leave you only wanting for more.
"There were no PDA's between my parents."
Oddly, the same is true for both me and my W. But I have an intense need for physical affection, while my W does not.
"I didn't really allow myself to have fantasies. I could never come up with one when asked. I was too worried about what people might think of me. Got to keep up the appearance of good girl."
I think you and my W are very similar in that respect. In many of our discussions she often says "what would others think of that?" When I talked with my C about it, he said it was a shame-based OCD very common among rural Southern women (although definitely not exclusive). The constant worry that someone will think ill of you if for example they see your house in "disarray." Every party we have ever had is preceeded by several days of foul-tempered worry about making sure the house is "right." It almost doesn't seem worth it having two or three stressful days for just a couple of hours of fun.
A revealing story about the college break-up Bear. Sounds like it is still a very painful memory for you.
"My needs were not being met, but I was people pleasing in a big way. I started to really resent that."
I guess the question I would ask was, did he know what your needs were? When people are in people-pleasing mode (believe me I know all about that) they can completely hide their needs from others. And while the resentment builds because the needs aren't being met, nobody really knows what the needs are, even the person hiding them. That was in large part how I was prior to my EA. The few times I tried to let my needs show, I'm sure I wasn't able to express them very clearly.
"Even when things were going well, I knew it wouldn't last for long so it was hard to invest 100% in it."
That comment strikes a chord with me because it is one of my major problems. I tend to look ahead during a vacation to the time it will be over and start thinking about how much I will miss the "fun" instead of having fun.
" also heard Dr. Phil talk about a man's sexual needs in terms of if your H woke in the middle of the night and needed a glass of water, wouldn't you get him a drink? Why would you deny such a basic need as sex? I also had a back injury at this time and was in a lot of pain and XH would give me back rubs. We had gone down the road of "Why can't a back rub be JUST a backrub?" but when I was in a lot of pain, it was just a back rub even though I knew he wanted more."
Another chord struck. One of the issues we have to deal with in our sex life is pain during IC. It is hard for her to get in the mood when she is thinking "this is going to hurt." So I can see it as a reason to deny a basic need. Which is one of the reasons I want to explore all of the non-IC forms of sexual pleasure more than we do. While I do get the most pleasure from IC, I would definitely be ok with making that infrequent. But one problem is the "good girl" in her says that anything other than IC is for "sluts" only.
VERY cool step with the massages, very inventive.
"But I realized during this process that his enjoyment was working to get me going too."
I think that is one of the keys. Enjoyment is infectious, especially if the enjoyment of another is in your "hands" (no pun intended). Many times when I am sitting there stewing over something or another, the thought will intrude "well she certainly isn't going to be attracted to you while you are like this!"
"Trust was key here because if I didn't want to do more than the massage for whatever reason, he didn't resent it or act like he was disappointed. KWIM? What I was willing to give was good enough and he was happy with it."
This is another key, and as you mentioned earlier, one I have problems with. I guess the problem is that so long as I knew that SOME backrubs would end up being more than others, I would be happy with some backrubs being just backrubs. It is when you wonder whether or not any of the backrubs in the forseeable future are going to be more, that it starts to intrude on the enjoyment of the just backrubs. I hope that makes sense.
"Ok, gotta go put together a treasure hunt for my daughters pirate party tomorrow! Have a good weekend."
Hope it went well. I am definitely looking forward to doing stuff like that with my daughters soon. They just turned 3 and are starting to really get into pretend play-time and stuff like that. Well, at least prenteding that has some logical sense to it, so that something organized would be fun for them instead of just letting them play with random toys.
"Reverse the roles and figure out what you aren't providing for her (what she really needs, not what you think her needs are) and try to start there."
I am trying to do that. But the problem is that when we do talk about her needs, they are things I am already giving her (which she readily admits) such as a nice home and stable income, or things she already has (children, lives near her extended family), or are things I can't provide or have nothing to do with me (time alone to herself in the evenings to unwind, a spotless house). We have been going through His Needs, Her Needs, and the results have been strange. I have found a strong need for all of the needs listed (both the male and female side, while she has expressed little need for the "female" needs (affection, conversation, etc.) AND for the male needs (sex, recreational companionship, etc.). But as I have stated several times already, I am hopeful that this is mostly due to a combination of me not being a good husband and her being overwhelmed by young children. I am hopeful for a better future.
"Either that or present her with the massage idea."
Well, she doesn't like backrubs, only foot and leg rubs (so long as I don't go too high on the leg). She instead like back-scratches. Don't know why, but I'm not complaining.
Chrome
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
Thanks for the comments, even the harsh ones. I know I screwed up ... bad. I wish I could take it all back.
"but she desearves a husband who is content with her the way she is"
Should I be content with her the way she is? I'm not content with me the way I am. And although I still have a LONG way to go, I have been making progress in areas. I actually consider myself a better person than I was before the EA. That may sound shocking. I've made some pretty bad mistakes over the past year, but I look back on my M prior to the EA and I see complete emptiness. There may be pain now, but there is hope for the future.
"On a softer note. I have really come to care about a lot of people on this board and worry about them and their stich's. You are one of them. Thinking about your sitch is what brought me back to check on everyone. I know you'll get through this, whatever it may bring. Please be honest with yourself and your wife."
Thank you for those caring words.
"Doing what's right isn't always the easiest thing."
No, in fact when that phrase is uttered it is almost always the hardest thing ... in the short term anyway.
Chrome
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
Hey Chrome, Good to hear from you. I was wondering what was so fascinating IRL that would keep you off the bb.
Lots to respond to in your post but I may have to cut this short for now.
AD's I was on them for awhile and they didn't seem to do much for me. I guess when I first started them, there were a few times when it seemed almost like I was able to step outside myself and not get so upset by something that happened. I remember XH being in a tizzy about something and blaming me for it (of course) and just thinking "Wow, that probably would have really pi$$ed me off before." Not sure if it was the AD's or if I was just able to detach from his drama.
Dang it. Gotta run for now but I meant to ask you, how is your W at expressing anger? Being that it's not an "acceptable" emotion. Sorry if you have been over this in earlier posts. Guess I should go read up more on your sitch. It just struck me that anger and desire were always difficult things for me to express before. Some of it due to "What would people think?" and some of it due to "Is this really worth it?"
More later...
Bear
The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
--Marcel Proust
Apologies for taking so long to get to this. Just got really involved with some IRL stuff and are just now able to get back to it.
Let me see if I can summarize what you said earlier and we can go from there. There was a lot of back and forth comments on Corri's thread that may need to get restated as well. Anyway ...
Your main point seemed to be that it was FOO issues that contributed most to the conditions leading up to my mental state being open to an EA. And although I was working on a variety of things in my M and my self-esteem, it was the avoidance in dealing with the deep FOO issues that caused me to effectively not change my internal propensity to create a situation in which the EA would persist and another EA develop. And you also see that if I do not deal with those issues, another EA remains a future possibility. That basically no matter what I do in my M, my FOO is a "monkey on my back" that will constantly sabotage my efforts until I consciously deal with it. Is that close?
I am intrigued by this idea, because I did think I was dealing with my FOO issues, but perhaps it was only tangentially. I can see how my efforts at improving my self-esteem could have been focused on the here and now and not with how my self-esteem got so low in the first place. I guess you might say I just put new wooden boards over the old rotting ones instead of trying to figure out why the old boards were rotting. My C and I did talk about my history, but we really haven't delved deeply into it.
My question to you would be specifically how could my FOO connect with my internal failings re: the propensity to create EA situations? This is a question I plan to ask my C in our next session, and I will pass along his advice. The next question is what do I do about it? If it truly is my FOO that is kicking my legs out from under me, I want to stop it from doing so. Is just being aware of the problem enough to allow you to make a conscious decision to stop it, or is there something more?
I'd like to talk about this if you are willing.
Chrome
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
I hate to interrupt the regularly scheduled programming here... but I am in a condumdrum about the weakness of gravity, and I'm sorry, I just really need to bounce it off of someone.
Okay, in my recent travelings... I got to reading this science journal... cuz I was bored and it looked interesting... so I picked it up and started reading about this new theory that Newtonian Physics is not holding up at the galaxy level. Nothing proven yet... but has serious potential.
No one, not even Einstein, could figure out why gravity is such a weak force, but it is theorized, that gravity is woven, somehow into the space/time theory... the fabric of the universe.
So I got to thnking. At the quantum level, gravity does not behave as it does at the macro level. This consfused Einstein. K. I get that.
So... what if... gravity defines the closed system? And systems within systems? What if it is merely an indicator of they system with which you are dealing, rather than a manifestation of the system?
For example... bodies that have mass exhibit certain levels of gravity that will always be pre-empted by the stronger forces, such as EMP and strong and weak nuclear forces.
But... if gravity were any stronger than it is... how is it... that we would even be able to survive? If gravity operated at the quantum level as it does at the Newtonian level, how it is that you and I would have the ability to think? To walk upright... to have a neuron fire?
Photons have no mass... why, then, would gravity have the same affect on them that it does on say... a planet? Why would gravity have the same affect on a galaxy that it does on a planet? If it did... the whole big bang would never have happened... yes? No?
WHY WOULD gravity operate in a dense field, like a black hole, the same way it would in empty space... if it did... waht sense would THAT make?
Can you help me out here? Sorry for the dodge... just been wondering...
I did skim to see the good news from Karen though. 
