Sorry all, once again, I had a post typed up and must have closed my browser before sending it...yesterday.
OT, I am nowhere near complacent. I KNOW there will be tough times ahead but I think they will be more in the form of our "real" issues that we have needed to work on all these years and I sincerely think we can work those out in time, especially with what we learned through all this crap.
Thank you all for your responses. Sometimes I hate to write those things because I don't think I know any more than you do but when they come to me, I write.
OT, you can say I told ya so as many times as you'd like because you did. I can also say I told ya so because I KNEW I would do what you were asking me to do, I just needed a bit more time to gather myself.
I can't thank you enough for your persistence with me in the bad times. You and the many others supporting me made all the difference in the world.
Now, I want to stop accepting my Oscar and get back to work. I just wanted to acknowledge all your nice posts over the last couple days.
Hey, look, I'm gonna jump on the bandwagon and thank you, once again GH, for boiling it down for me and so many others. I'm really happy for you and I always believed that you would get to this point for a variety of reasons, but chief among them was your willingness to adapt and make the changes in "you" rather than trying to adapte and make changes to your wife. Very good stuff....
Your post really hit me today, especially, because I've been struggling with some of those tough issues....but the point is, you are absolutely dead right on. I almost started to lose sight of this in the last few weeks....thank you.
Keep up the good work!
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
Welp, this is another point where I wonder how much good news to post. I feel bad that so many of you are not in as good a place as I seem to be but I can only hope that my positive experience can help in some way.
Over the weekend, and really for the past couple weeks, my W has been a different woman. I think I can honestly say that she/we were never this way before. I really think there is a lot of truth to the thought she had that we were never "in love", or at least that we didn't express it with unbridled passion. We got married much more because we were great together in general and the sex/intimacy was ok too. It was never a raging love affair. It is now. Our intimacy level has always been low so I am still in shock at how a little "priming" of my W has resulted in a 180 of such magnitude. I hate to rub it in but not only did we get "intimate" twice yesterday (well, 2 1/2 but I won't go into detail), but once it was her initiation...IN THE MORNING no less!!! We have NEVER done that before, and with the kids playing in the room outside our locked door! A quickie??? From MY W??? Will wonders never cease.
Anyway, back to the point I have been making since all this started. I never had a CLUE how right OT and some of the other women here were. MY W WAS NOT THIS WOMAN TO ME before. She was NOT the woman who liked to be "taken" nor EVER the woman to initiate ML at 8:00am on a Sunday with the kids within earshot but she is that now and much, much more. It's to the point now where I am struggling to keep up.
Sure, I have thought about the idea that it could be overcompensation for what we went through, but I don't think so. I really think this is who she wants to be in a R and when she spent 10 years being a reserved, almost prudish wife and mother, she broke, sending her almost on her way for good to a man who's only real positive attribute (her words) was that he brought this side out in her and she liked the hell out of it.
Like I said, just thinking about that, THEM, could send me into a funk but I just can't muster it. I am SO freaking happy with this way of life we have now. My W is no longer the sex-hating woman I thought I was married to. She's a direct, open, passionate, sexy woman who knows what she wants and isn't afraid AT ALL to let me know.
For my part, I am SO much more comfortable with myself and my confidence has never been higher. That has 100% to do with this site and you all. The work I put in really paid off big time because there have been times when I would not have known how to handle myself, paralyzed by fear of rejection, doing the "wrong" thing, not doing the "right" thing, etc. Now I just do what I want, what I know SHE wants and we have achieved an intimacy level, throughout our entire life now, that I never imagined possible.
It's not been ALL perfect. There was a time last week (and a few other times but this one was the best example) when I felt a shift, not anything major at all, but just a slight cooling of her mood. The old me would have been on edge, wondering why she seemed distant, less interested in being close. There's where reading pays off. I remembered in Mars/Venus it talked about sometimes women are on a wave, rising and falling in terms of their desire for certain things. I just let it go, in effect detaching from her mood.
Turns out that she was getting sick and it had nothing to do with me or not wanting to be close to me. It had all to do with her and how she felt. Like I said, the old me would have at least made an issue of it by getting all quiet or pulling away from her. Now I simply waited, going about my business and guess what, we ML that night pretty much at her insistence! Even she was surprised, saying something like "I don't know where this is coming from, I never used to be this way but I just love it so much!"
Now I want to work even harder but not because I am afraid of losing her, or failure, but because I know we can be even better, or at least sustain this for longer than a couple weeks.
Yes, there is still the possibility of tough times ahead but with any luck at all, it's the kind of tough times that require a little blue pill and not a stack of paperwork.
Great news! And it is really great you are posting about it. If you can help other men at least question whether they really know their wives sexually, you will be helping a lot of women and marriages.
I don't have time to make a long post, but it all goes back to a lot of women feeling trapped in a false sexuality because they fake Os, don't want to injure the male ego, need to be "good" women, etc... This is not all the fault of the Hs, but the Hs can help A LOT with the problem, as you are finding :-)
Quote: Great news! And it is really great you are posting about it. If you can help other men at least question whether they really know their wives sexually, you will be helping a lot of women and marriages.
Well, I hope so. Like I said, part of me feels bad, like I'm rubbing it in, or trying to say I now know it all. I'm not, and I don't but I do know a lot of things because of this experience that I can't help but think are somehow universal, especially where our "sitches" are concerned.
Quote: I don't have time to make a long post, but it all goes back to a lot of women feeling trapped in a false sexuality because they fake Os, don't want to injure the male ego, need to be "good" women, etc... This is not all the fault of the Hs, but the Hs can help A LOT with the problem, as you are finding :-)
I TOTALLY agree. I was going to post something in response what I thought you may ask/suggest about my W's exuberance. I was going to post that there are some things you can't fake (won't go into detail but I think you can use your imagination) and if she's faking anything, well, she's REALLY good at it. Hell, there's no reason, or very little reason for her to anymore because she knows she doesn't have to. She seems VERY willing to make sure she's satisfied.
One of the things (to get a little more graphic/detailed about it) that has been a 180 is that my W now asks me to do certain things I didn't even think she liked. She even asked me to "do" for her and I don't think she had any intention of returning the favor...at least not right then. I had NO problem with that and you know what, she DID return the favor.
If this is the woman my W truly is, has always been inside, then I can see why she would have been miserable in our "old marriage". She even said to me "It's great to see you're not afraid to ---- me." Wow. Did I mention wow?
I guess to her, all these years it must have felt like I was afraid. I was SO timid because of all my years being trained to think I needed explicit permission to be intimate with a woman. I think this one aspect of my thinking almost surely killed off 95% of my W's drive. She even tried to tell me that many times but she miscommunicated (or I just didn't hear her) and said that she wanted me to be the instigator all the time. That's not what she wanted, she wanted me to WANT her in a very real and visceral way, a way that I was incapable of expressing a year ago.
I have found that I can set my W free to be the woman she wanted to be all this time but had given up on ever being with me. I can't blame her and she has to be the most surprised of all to see that not only can I be that (because I DO feel that way about her, always have) but I can do it with a flair that she didn't expect.
As for her feeling trapped in a false sexuality, I think that WAS the case but no more. I think she is now expressing her true identity in that respect. As for faking it, well, I KNOW she faked it last night (the FIRST time, lol) but I think that was more because she thought it added excitement to my experience rather than she thought I NEEDED her to.
I could continue to get more detailed but suffice it to say that the proof is in the pudding and there is a TON of pudding around my house these days...um...er...ick...sorry.
GH, How wonderful for you that you and your wife are experiencing such joy!!! I have to say that I am a bit jealous as this is the one thing that is still lacking in my sitch. Although to my H's defense, your wife is a little farther along in this journey so I think all in good time.
Keep posting, we love hearing about the good stuff!!
Thanks Mama. I will keep posting. I regret not having time (or more honestly, making more time) to post to other people's threads but I will when I can.
Thank you for your support, as always. Your time will come.
Wow, I take a little break from the boards and you've become a regular Casanova.
DO NOT feel guilty for being happy or worry that it is rubbing it in people's faces. It's important to share the good times as well as the bad. You have every right to be happy.
Grasshopper, I have been reading a lot of your posts to Confused mess and it is obvious that you have some great insights. If there is any way you can, please hop onto newcomers and read my last couple of long posts. I feel that I am on the brink of either recovering my M or losing it. Your input would be greatly appreciated.
but not only did we get "intimate" twice yesterday (well, 2 1/2 but I won't go into detail), but once it was her initiation...IN THE MORNING no less!!! We have NEVER done that before, and with the kids playing in the room outside our locked door! A quickie??? From MY W??? Will wonders never cease.