her gritting her teeth - is already burned into my mind. Even the words that Cobra said in his first post today about not taking this personally, can't stop that wound from bleeding.
I can understand the pain of wanting someone so bad, but you can’t. That’s torture for sure. I’m glad Nop posted the summary steps of his marriage recovery. I’ve been meaning to ask him to outline his methodology, to link together the different advice he has been offering lately.
Here is the abreviated sequence of events:
1) I lost the anger.
2) I told MrsNOP that I would no longer live in a sexless marriage.
3) MrsNOP and I started having "just sex".
4) Emotions ran high.
5) The situation escalated when I was not satisfied with the "just sex" I was getting and we started a schedule for even more "just sex".
6) Take all of the above and put it into an emotional blender and then spend many hours and days decoding the result.
7) Eventually we began to understand and appreciate each others perspectives and needs.
8) We now make love very often (daily, sometimes more). We still occasionally have "just sex", but the gnashing of teeth is gone.
You see step 6? That is the core of where you need to go. That is the heart of the crucible, where everything comes out, both people level with each other, without pretense, and tell it exactly as it is, I have had to do this very thing many times with my wife. There is no avoiding it, IMO. The interesting thing is that EVERY TIME, we came out for the better, with some understanding and acknowledgement of each other’s needs.
Steps 1-5 are completely variable. They can be anything you want to make them, because they exist only for the purpose of getting to step 6. If you start to dance around the crucible, and feel uncomfortable dealing with step 6, then no matter how hard you work on the other steps, the marriage will never be on solid ground.
One question, though, to make sure we're on the same page here: what is it that she wants? I'm thinking she wants distance, but you seem to be saying that she wants to respect me. So, you think she'll respect me by me being disgusted with her lame offer? I hear Cobra saying, that ain't gonna work, and I tend to agree, but, as I said, I'd appreciate a clarification if I'm getting off track.
I do not think she really knows what she wants. You have asked. She says she wants to be left alone, to have a platonic sort of love. I think she truly believes that. There are lots of holes in that belief, but she doesn’t see them. So you have to look to her actions. Read the signs. We have pointed many out to you in the past. They all seem to say the same thing - that she does not want to D.
I think she is just as scared of going to step 6 as you are, and I do think that scares you. I really think you need to focus on THAT. What are you going to say to her when you get the chance. What are you going to reveal in the crucible to prove your trust in her and make yourself vulnerable? What are you going to demand (yes, demand) in return.
If you can’t demand something while in the crucible, you’ll never be able to demand it anywhere else. That doesn’t mean she will give it to you, but it is important for the both of you to hear you say it.
So if you need that mental image of her gritting her teeth to steel you for the crucible, then great. But know one thing – it is YOUR choice to require such strong medicine before gathering the strength to step into the crucible. You have the ability to change that threshold. You can decide you will move right to step 6 on much lower provocation.
She will likely see any use of logic, pleading, cajoling, whispering, or sighing as a personal attack, as pressure, as manipulation.
This is a good example of you letting her set the bar for what it takes to confront her. She reacts to anything, and pre-empts you from expressing your wishes and desires. She creates the impression that moving to step 6 is at great risk, that if you challenge her on some as minor as the “use of logic, pleading, cajoling, whispering, or sighing” then a real and direct confrontation with her will be like a nuclear war.
And yes, she asks sometimes quite frequently if "a sigh is just a sigh" or if it is my way of displaying my anger toward her. Or displaying whatever.... While there was actually a time or two or three that I actually did sigh to express exasperation with a situation, I tend to sigh now as an exercise in tension relief. I learned it from an article and it really seems to work for me. So, when she asks that question, I'm often surprised by it. "No" I answer, and quite honestly so.
And you play along with her.....
So I ask you again She has already told you that she is getting tired of all this right? So what is SHE going to do if you just keep up this level of pressure? Have you noticed that is the one issue she has nicely dodged?
