Oh, and here's a thought that's been haunting me the last couple of days.
The wives of LD husbands here have mentioned how this BB has helped them. Well, my wife doesn't have the support of other women in her situation. One of her complaints when we were in counseling diagnostics was that all the information she'd seen so far was from men. She wanted to see what women had to say. (Actually, then the therapist gave her a list of books by women...I don't know if she ever read any of them.)
But my point is, her peer group is full of women married to HD husbands. And, she is not looking to work on this marriage. At least our friends are uniformly in favor of us working things out. Given that, it does seem that I really (man, I've said this before) need to show her a man that could meet her needs.
So, it's nearly 2am. I've been to a party (with my kids) with one half of our friends ... and I think she probably went to a party with the other half of our friends. Last New Year's Eve I watched her and my SIL get wasted beyond belief. I tried to play the supportive husband and just keep her out of trouble. But truthfully I felt very alone, like I have at most events over the last couple of years, like she was pushing me away, trying to reclaim her lost youth.
I was happy to not be in that role tonight. Happy not to have to worry about her being too drunk in front of the kids, and happy not to feel the rejection of being with a woman who seemed to think I was a stick in the mud.
But I was sad when I remembered the good times, and when I saw other couples and thought how things could have been, could be with us.
I had a brief talk with one of our female friends, a great person, who pressed me for details, and finally got out of me that my wife wants a divorce and I don't. She echoed the feeling that most of my wife's friends have that they just hope she'll snap out of this. I, of course, didn't tell her about our sex issues, but I did find myself, once again, sticking up for my wife to a certain degree, saying that she had valid issues with me, and that we were both responsible for where our relationship was.
Crazy as it may seem, at this point I just feel like taking out an ad in the paper to get it over with. "Rigley has always had trouble keeping it up." I almost wonder if making that public information would take some of the pressure off of her.
No, I'm not going to do anything close to that. I'll just keep trying to avoid looking like the "good one."
As far as talking in more depth about my sex issues with my wife, the time just doesn't feel right. She doesn't really care about me right now. She's written me off. She doesn't want any excuses or explanations. She's too mad.
But what woman doesn't want to know a man's got the hots for her ... as long as he doesn't make her feel unsafe?
