Lin, I just wanted to add one more thing about what you said about your H finally exploding...
My H has been asking me for years and years to work on my sex drive. It was our most common argument. (We hardly ever disagreed about anything.) But he would say it, we would discuss it briefly, usually saying the same things as all the other times, I would work on it for a short time and be better, and then things would go back to the way they were before. Mostly my fault - I should have worked harder to sustain it.
Well, I learned through my research that it's so very difficult for the one with the lower sex drive to understand what the one with the higher sex drive is really feeling. To me, our life was fine. It certainly wasn't perfect, and I missed spending time with him. (We work way too many hours in our business.) But, to me, we were going to be okay. I HAD ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE that he was this unhappy!
He's told me that he was "ready to cash in his chips," that he was done with us. I didn't feel even remotely close to that! Then, I guess this A was our form of the "explosion." Instead of coming to me and explaining to me the depth of his frustration and that he was feeling like he didn't want to be with me anymore, he instead found it with someone else.
The hard thing for me is that he DID TELL ME that he was unhappy about our sex life, but he's been telling me that for years, so I unfortunately didn't understand that it had gone to a much deeper level for him. For him, since it's difficult for him to talk about R issues, it took every ounce of his being to even bring this up to me, and to that end he feels like he DID tell me that he was unhappy. For me, since he does not communicate the depth of his feelings, I honestly didn't understand that it had gotten this bad.
So now I just want the chance to do things better since I finally truly understand the depth of his sadness regarding this issue. But I don't want to just do it for him; I want to do it for me, too. Michele talks about how vital it is to have a vibrant sex life. I WANT that; I just need to keep working on my issues with it, but I WANT TO. He told me when we were away on our trip that he feels like I'm just ML to him because I think HE wants me to, not because I really wanted to for myself. I asked him if there was something I said or did or something that I didn't say or do that made him feel that way, and he said that he didn't know. Again, it's so hard because he doesn't know how to give me guidance to change...
He also told me during our love making session that it was really important for me to have an orgasm when we ML and that that's all that he's EVER wanted. He usually always says during ML that he wants that, but I thought that it was more in the heat of the moment. I now understand that it's REALLY important to him that I do, and so I WANT to do that, not just for him, but because it feels good, too!
Anyway, I went off on a tangent again, but I just wanted to note that similarity. He DID ask me to change, but I didn't really hear it the way I needed to. Then, the A explosion...
