Thank you all for your words of support and kindness. It makes me sad to know that I spend more and more time away from here because I know you all have helped me through my trying times. I will try to make sure I help you in turn.
Example. This weekend, I knew we would ML. She wanted to, I wanted to. We even planned on it for Friday. It didn't happen. I COULD have gotten upset or moody. I USED to react that way anytime things didn't go according to the "plan". I started to feel that coming on Saturday morning but I decided to just let it go. I made the CHOICE to behave differently and not let my emotions get the best of me.
Then Saturday night rolls around...again, nothing. She was tired. I started to get that "uh-oh" feeling and stopped it cold. She WAS tired and so was I. I worked all day and she did a ton of stuff with the boys. Then, add to that, our plans for the day to go somewhere fun with the boys kept getting pushed back until it was too late to enjoy the wonderful weather. I DID get moody and snapped at my W a couple times but then I realized what I was doing, stepped back and made the CHOICE to relax and make the best of things. When I did, my W admitted she was feeling sick and thanked me for understanding. Before that, because of my "snapping" and such, she had been on the defensive, not telling me if/what was wrong.
EVERYTHING is a choice. You can choose right now to process what you are feeling. You can choose to be happy, you really can and that leads to...
9) I learned to choose to be happy. I learned that my emotions, mostly the negative ones, were mainly my uncontrolled reactions to her...
10) And this should be #2 or #3, I learned to truly detach. I learned that detachment could be done with her living with me, and that it was something that could be done for life. Detachment is NOT discontinuing love. It is actually loving more. It is all about learning to have my OWN set of emotions that could live independently of her. I never did that and thus was always side-by-side with her in the trenches of her depression/gloom instead of standing above her, in a more "happy place" (God, I hate that phrase) ready to help her up from her sadness if/when she wanted my help/support.
I saw a post of yours on another thread earlier today. You remind me of myself, but I'm the wife. I wondered if there is any chance you could give me some advice, or direct me to where I could find some good tips on how to handle the following... H's A was just revealed Sat, he's not been home for about a month, he has called me today and wants me to call him back about "how we're gonna work stuff out" (his words, but felt they implied separating everything between us).
I haven't been very successful at getting the advice I felt I needed, but maybe I'm asking too much. Since I've been through this stuff before, I know just how important this "point in time" is. I want to set myself up the best I can, so that this might be a turning point, rather than drag things out longer than needed.
I have been guilty of anger, but I've also been betrayed alot. I don't know the right thing to say to him right now, if/when I call him back. We never properly recovered when we got back together 2 yrs ago. I've worked on myself, but not enough. My DBing was weak until the last few weeks, but I started on it long ago. I feel much better with my anger, even at this stage of the sitch. Just thought I'd fill in a few of the blanks.
Any tips or advice would be so helpful and much appreciated. If you want to check out my thread it is here... forever21's 2nd thread Today's post at 5:38pm EST is about the msg I got today.
Sorry to hijack. Thank you. f21
Me: 37 M: 14 yrs Separated 10/06; Filed for D 12/07 Life is good.
Grasshopper, I read a post that you did in newcomers and it really hit home for me. One of the things that you said on this post was:
Quote: I worked VERY hard to change that because I knew inside I had all the feelings and desires to BE that man she wanted. I knew that under the boring, routine crap of how I lived my life was a man that was equally unhappy with how things were and I wanted to change, for me first but for her too.
Well, if you get a chance I would love to discuss this with you as it is a huge issue for me and my W. Let me know how to get ahold of you if you would be willing to take the time to share with me how ya'll overcame this obstacle. I am just looking for some advice on this particular topic and have read many of your posts so I would value your input.
Nothing personal but I would rather discuss things in this forum unless there is some specific reason why you don't want to do that. I do post an email address that I check every now and then at the bottom of my posts. You could email me, but I find that I am more productive/attentive if the discussion is on the board.
Fire away if you have any questions or else I may just try to offer what I can in the next post...
I can't really tell you specifically how I overcame the intimacy issues in my marriage but I know it had a LOT to do with OT and her advice to just DO IT.
I am a talker by nature. I talk EVERYTHING to death. My W hates this so I had to learn how to take action and risk not knowing what the results may be. I guess you could say I had to learn to take risks where my W and our intimacy was concerned.
The book Passionate Marriage also gave me a HUGE boost in terms of my understanding of just how flawed my thinking had always been about sex and related matters.
I always sought approval and "permission" from my W when it came to expressing my sexuality. I always thought that was being respectful, and to a certain extent, it is but the way I did it, I was totally deferring to her and basically making our intimacy, or lack thereof, 100% her responsibility.
I had to learn how to just express what I wanted, clearly and without expectation. It wasn't like saying "Honey, I want to ML tonight..." and then sitting there like a puppy waiting for her to respond, crushed and in a mood if she avoided me or said no.
It was more like walking up behind her and whispering in her ear, with the kids 5 feet away, something specific I wanted to do with her that night and letting her know I was game if she was.
I wasn't demanding anything from her. I wasn't reaching for a breast and if she let me touch it, TOUCHDOWN, I was being direct, open and SPECIFIC. The first part, the directness was a HUGE thing for me, a life-long passive/aggressive person, to master but as OT always pointed out to me, painfully necessary. Women seem to HATE when men play games. Games may seem "passionate" to us guys, but not to our women, or at least my woman. She wanted to feel something from me. She wanted to KNOW it was HER I wanted and the way to do that was...to be Specific. My W seems to be driven crazy when I talk to her about our intimacy. Call it talking dirty or whatever, but it works almost 100% of the time now. She LOVES it, and she says it's because it's about her. It's not just me being horny, it's about me being turned on by her, and thinking about HER, not just getting some.
The openness part comes in by me sucking it in hard and getting over my shyness when it comes to all this. I have always been painfully shy when confronted by intimacy issues. I HATED that I always had to initiate. I never realized that I DIDN'T have to always physically initiate but a few words here and there were enough. Now I don't feel nearly as pressured to initiate because I also got rid of my fear of rejection.
Fear of rejection to me is all about having expectations and that is one of the huge keys to all this; abandoning expectations when it comes to the actions of others.
Look, if you are like me, you WANT to express yourself to your W, you just feel like the time is not right, or she doesn't want to hear it. I suppose I was like that too and that's where each sitch is different. You have to decide when the time is most right (and I say MOST right because it will NEVER be right) and just go for it.
Here is the kinda chronology to my getting past all this stuff.
1) Started working out after I lost a bunch of weight. I wanted to get in shape so I felt confident. 2) Detached from my W's moods. 3) Read Passionate Marriage. 4) Realized that I had the passion inside me but NEVER expressed that to my W. 5) Started doing little things to let my W know how I felt. Mind you, the affair was over and we were supposedly reconciling at this point. 6) One night, for no real reason, I just went for it, telling her just want I wanted to do and that night, we did it...and the next night...and a couple nights later.
Ian, I would say that the key to ALL this, even more than the other "keys" is to be direct. Teasing is fine, but beating around the bush is not sexy.
I hope this in some way addresses some of what you want to talk about. If not, well, then it was more journaling for me and I will await your question.
Hey GH, it addresses a lot of it for me, I could relate to most of what you are saying. Finding the right time may be the issue for me. I don't know if you read my post in the "Sexual Issues" forum or not, but it explains a lot of what I am trying to deal with. My W has actually told me at this point that it is the only reason that we are not reconciled yet. She doesnt feel that passion from me and know if she ever will be able to.
I know that I have it inside of me, my god every time I see her I know it to be true. I just have never been able to express it to her and have struggled over the years with maternal issues with my wife. I guess I am trying to figure out most importantly how to express top her at this point in our sitch that I can be that passionate man, that she does not turn me off, that I want her more than anything and am willing to try and figure all of it out. I started seeing a sex therapist 2 weeks ago to address my issues with our intimacy, she does not want to go. So how do you pursue the corrective action alone?
Bottom line, I know that my wife loves me, I know that I love her, I also know that the intamacy issue has to be dealt with and am struggling desperately to know how to show her that I am ready to be intimate with her on every level and can be different than I was before. I don't know how to get her past her struggles with how I made her feel during our marriage. She said to me that for the past few years she fealt like her H (me) was disgusted by her. I of course have assured her that it was anything but, and told her that the only way to make it clear to her would be to show her when she is ready. I just am stuck and don't know what to say or do to get it through to her, any suggestion or advice there?
I hate to make this sound simple, but I truly feel it is. It's just like sky diving, public speaking, etc, at some point you have to just do it.
The problem with me was that I always was SO afraid my W would reject me, laugh at me, not take me seriously when I said/did certain things because I was CONVINCED that she didn't see ME as a sexual person at all.
Just like your W, my W was sure I wasn't turned on by her. She has body issues to begin with and projected them onto me, thinking that I must not be attracted to her because of how things were (not much sex, kissing, intimacy in general). I only found all this out after things turned the corner. Before that, I simply thought she just didn't like sex and was so beaten down by what I perceived as her rejecting me all the time (come to find out you actually have to TRY to do something before you can be rejected). Nothing could be farther from the truth.
My inability to express myself either physically or verbally came off to my W as a lack of desire for her and when I did manage to weakly do the "Here, let me rub your back...oops, I touched a breast" move that was my calling card for "I want sex now honey", it made her feel like a piece of meat instead of the object of my desire.
To make her feel that I wanted HER, I had to just do it. I had to just learn to RISK telling her what I felt, KNOWING (not really) that she would find me ridiculous as hell.
Shocking to find that when I did manage to express myself, taking a HUGE risk, she would have appreciated 1/4 of what I managed to get out.
I think you seeing the therapist is a great idea and I hope it helps.
As far as how you go about doing these things on your own, well, I would say it's VERY possible to do. She just wants you to be passionate towards her. If my W's reaction to me FINALLY doing that is any indication at all, your W SHOULD react positively to what you do.
I can't tell you exactly what you need to do. I can't say "pin her against the wall and kiss her like your life depended on it" but I can say that in my opinion, based on what I read, and what I recently experience after a decade of being someone terribly uncomfortable with intimacy, it will take a risk by you to get this going. It will take you showing her that you are unafraid and unconcerned with how she reacts to your expression of how you feel, whatever form that takes.
I think in your W's case, and mine, passion is all about a demonstration that we are willing to risk it all, i.e. rejection, in order to show them how we feel because I know my W felt I didn't feel anything at all.
Move her Ian. Move her and don't be concerned if she stays moved. Kiss her without expectation. Tell her in explicit detail what you want to do to her tonight and don't flinch if she laughs. Follow through on it if she's game.
MAKE her give you a chance to show her how much she is the sh!t for you.
That's all I ever came to want, ONE chance. I knew that if she gave me that chance she would not regret it, and so far, so good.
Well, out of the blue, W came to bed last night crying. Long story short, I guess OM is still calling. We didn't get into the how's and why's of it, like why she doesn't block his calls, or just doesn't listen to the message/talk to him.
She said she was just so tired of it and wanted him to go away. I told her I thought it was totally over in terms of him contacting her and she said it was, that he'd only called once lately but something he said must have set her off.
She repeatedly said she just wanted me to know how much she appreciates me for the man I am and the fact that I would never hurt her, the implication being that either he did, or was trying to do so now.
I got NO sense that this had anything to do with them still seeing each other. My sense is that he is either threatening her with telling me something or maybe even physically threatening her. She seemed clearly disgusted with even the thought of him so I don't think it's her feelings for him that is making her upset.
She didn't really want to talk much about it so I let it be. I will probably talk to her tonight so maybe there's more to post, who knows.
)
I wondered if there is any chance you could give me some advice, or direct me to where I could find some good tips on how to handle the following... H's A was just revealed Sat, he's not been home for about a month, he has called me today and wants me to call him back about "how we're gonna work stuff out" (his words, but felt they implied separating everything between us).