Quote: I suspect everything is fine in your sitch.
I too SUSPECT everything is fine in my sitch but like everyone else at this stage of the "game" I want to KNOW it's fine. It's that old, evil unknown that is our downfall every-time.
Quote: It always sounds to me like your W needs to figure out what it will take in life to make her happy, and you just need to keep the focus on you and giver her lots of space.
Like I think Muddle and others can attest to, there are some people, like our wives, who, when given space, ask for you to take it back. My W perceives ANY attempt by me to pull back as some kind of immediate response to something she did or didn't do. I know I need to detach from that, but I guess we are stuck in the pursuer/distancer roles, the only difference is that for the longest time she didn't ask me to be "close" to her in any way, now she does. I see that as positive overall, but it makes it really hard for me to decide to give myself some space since all along I have been trying to get her to "pursue" me, something she is kinda doing now with her requests for "us" time. The problem is that that "us" time is on her terms for the most part, and does not include intimacy.
Most of me thinks that it WILL in time include more than it does now and she's just easing back into things. I will never forget what she told me a month or so ago when I questioned the fact that our progress was so slow. She said "I don't see how you think I can go from thinking for at least a year that our marriage was over, essentially having NO feelings for you to having feelings for someone else then back to having passionate feelings for you in the span of a couple weeks (in her mind, that's how long she'd been "trying"). She asked for more time to get back to "that" place. I guess that's still what's going on. It's just hard to not have my mind wander and think about the other reasons why she may be distant.
Quote: The only thing I can say to you, is whenever possible don't make the "pressuring" type comments like you did in the movie theatre about the love scene. I know that kind of indirect "why don't we ever..." is a real turn off to me. On the other hand, if you say "I want to try that out as soon as we get home, are you game?" with a little smile, that is more straight, direct and sounds like a man who knows what he wants and is on his way to getting it, one way or the other.
Thank you SO SO SO SO much for this. I KNOW she hates it too and will usually never say anything. I guess along with my PMA/GAL efforts waning a bit lately, so has my self-imposed ban on sarcasm and self-deprecating humor.
As for the direct approach, I do that too, but when it's mixed in with the sarcasm, I think it all comes off as insincere and unsexy.
Quote: She totally thinks you are waiting around for her. Don't ! at least don't make it seem like you are at her beck and call.
Well, call it codependent, dysfunctional, whatever, but we are kinda at each other's beck and call. It's that dynamic, as muddle is so clearly illustrating in his sitch, that when changed, i.e. me pulling back, that causes a lot of friction and accusations of me trying to prove a point, etc. I am not saying she's right or wrong, but like muddle is saying, nothing he does is ever for him in his W's eyes, it's because of her. My W is the same to an extent but she is always appreciative of what I do and usually is not demanding at all. I just think this is one of the dynamics (me being there to do certain things) that was not the downfall of our marriage. There are so many other more obvious, and talked about issues, that need addressing. This one is WAY back there. I know it's core to DB in terms of GAL and such but I am making up for lost time in a way because of how much I used to be gone.
If you look at CM's thread and her sitch of feeling like her H was never around just for "her", that's how my W feels. My pulling back now makes her feel the return of the "bad-old-days".
