Ok here we go

[Cw_wc]

LL's. This will take some time to process

Not hearing each other not saying or doing what the other needed. No wonder this came to a crashing halt.

Over 20 years W told me she loved my sense of humor and no one could make her laugh like me. She told me this a thousand times. But she never once said I'm beautiful handsome or sexy. I've been told by women that the ability to laugh is huge in a relationship. I think I would have liked to be told I'm beautiful once in a while also

[Cw_wc]

Somewhere there is a chapter/book/article about new love and enduring love that describes how all those crazy intense feelings you had for your wife in the early days are essentially hormonal, and once you choose to make her your life partner your task is to morph from hormone crazy to nurturing and sustaining a deeper love. That's what's meant by "love is a choice." That's why affairs can be so exhilarating too.



Now that I can wrap my mind around. That I can understand. Thank you for putting like that. Love is a choice when you look at it from this angle.

( for the record. I was always hormonal for my W. That part for me never went away. ;-)

[Cadet]

Now that I can wrap my mind around. That I can understand. Thank you for putting like that. Love is a choice when you look at it from this angle.

( for the record. I was always hormonal for my W. That part for me never went away. ;-)

YUP men are sexual pursurers and emotional distancers

Women are emotional pursurers and sexual distancers.

Now you may need to start a new thread soon as DB wants to limit each thread to 100 posts and you are at 114.

You can then link and lock your threads.

[Cw_wc]

Thank you cadet. Will do

[Cw_wc]

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2458695&#Post2458695

New thread

[GoatGal]

I just got on there this morning and I cw, I see you have been doing A LOT of reflecting.

Just from skimming all of this, I find myself saying: "He's getting it! Yep! RIGHT!!!!"

It's wonderful to read that things are sinking in for you. That it takes two to tango.
(Sure you can dance to your own drummer, nothing wrong with that, but it's more fun when there's somebody there with you!)

It also sounds a LOT like my marriage.

Now, everyone here knows I'm new and certainly no DBing expert.
But what I really know a lot about is my marriage, how I felt, what happened.

I don't know all the "whys" yet, but I've got the history down.
And a lot of what you're saying is setting off bells.

My husband has said that he will not discuss any of his feelings or reasons with me.

That he is "done" and as far as he's concerned, I've gotten my "closure".
He is going to divorce me.

End of discussion.


And I keep thinking, "IF he had only talked to me, shared with me... and even now... tell me something that makes sense."

It's not happening.

But we never really fought.

Ergo, I assume everything was A-OK, right? WRONG!

We never fought because he wanted to avoid any strong emotion or conflict. anything, (I think) that would make him look deep inside instead of blaming me..


So, cw, there's my "short" response! (Hahahaha! )

I'll read and post more later.

Good morning to you.

---GG

[GoatGal]

BTW--

I believe one of the many reasons this board is so effective is that it allows all of us to really bare our souls and spill it out, giving and taking criticism and support, without all the normal emotions and constraints that color our real-life interactions.

I was just thinking, cw, that if I'd met you on the street and we got to talking about your marriage, I never would have said 90% of what I did (being "nice", wanting to be "liked", not stepping over my social boundaries),

and you probably wouldn't have listened to a word I said, much less taken it to heart!

[Cadet]

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2458695&#Post2458695

New thread

Goat Gal use the thread linked above this one is about to get locked.

[ericmsant2]

Damn dude….I came to check back and you are up to 12 pages. Holy Chit.

I'm the one leaving because I couldn't stay.

Why couldn’t you stay?

I don't know anymore.

More confusion from you – yet you are moving forward with a D. Why? Is it because…

I'm hollow. I just got to the end of my rope and lost faith.

I get that you feel hollow. Did you expect your W to always “fill” you up? Was your expectation of HER maybe a bit too much for HER?

Faith buddy…by the way is not based on anything that you see or hear – it is based on an internal belief that is not dependant on anything else or anyone else except YOU.

She thought I had affairs, I didn't.

Did you give her reasons to believe that you were having an affair? If you did, can you see why she may have been cold and distant. Affairs leave huge scars man…scars that take a LONG time to HEAL.

She said I was cold and distant, maybe, but truthfully I think that was the result of years of being pushed away.

Based on some of your earlier posts….i can see how she felt you were cold (personally I would have used the word condescending). You also say she pushed you away. Once again, that put all the blame on her. Com’on dude – own your chit here. She may have pushed BUT YOU COULD HAVE PULLED HER CLOSER.

But after marriage w stopped being w. She changed. And the changes weren't good. And the changes weren't easy to see, they were small and slow but they were there. And after 17 years she wasn't the person I feel in love with.

Once again…your posts are always about HER. Always about what she did wrong.

She didn't grow with me as a couple

Notice a patter…”she didn’t”

Dude, she did not have to GROW WITH YOU…. She needed to grow….you needed to grow….. You could have grown separately and then met in the middle. Lemme ask you a question…how often where you home? How many hours was she alone while you were working?

but the c agreed that I at least needed some individual work first. I have been in ic ever since.

Does this ^^^ tell you something? Have you thought for a second what the reason was that your IC said you needed individual work “first”.

Putting feelings into words is a bit of a struggle

Funny….you have a hard time putting feeling into words…yet it seems pretty easy and consistent for you to write about everything that your W did or didn’t do. Are you starting to see a pattern here?

I don't want to be a victim.

Then don’t! I think I have said this before….

A MAN OWNS HIS CHOICES

A BOY BLAMES OTHERS

I met my wife and fell in love within seconds. Not minutes not weeks not years seconds. She is /was( please for the love of god don't crucify me on this) first and foremost my very best friend. She was( I can say was now) my lover my support my confident. Everything.

YET you are willing to throw it away.

But as our marriage progressed it FELT TO ME that she new I couldn't voice my wants and simply took advantage of that and did as she pleased.

First you are making or made an assumption that she “knew”. Second……”and did as she pleased”… Can see how that sounds? Did you expect her to stay home, take care of the kids, have sex when you wanted and just nicey nicey wife? If you did, it is actually quite normal for men of our generation to feel that way – probable is…women have changed and the way/manner in which we taught to treat them was flawed. She is/was entitled to do whatever it is she wants to. You do not OWN her. Remember…..she was (your words)….my best friend.

But my worry my fear is that I have lost all the feelings and they will never come back.

Faulty relationship thinking - …first FEAR is just that FEAR. It is not a fact. In terms of the feeling never coming back – I am believer in never saying never. You nor I know what the future holds…unless your God. The feeling CAN come back BUT it take WORK. Just like any relationship. Us men seem to think….as long we pay the bills, don’t cheat, have sex every now and then….that it should be enough for our wives. It is NOT. Never was. The difference between now and then is that women are more comfortable talking and dealing with there needs. So yeah…the feeling can come back. IF YOU WANT THEM TOO.

Recent events which I am not ready to share have also caused me to loose my trust.

Now this quote kinda pissed me off. It is a veiled dig. What is she sleeping with someone else OR is that how YOU feel?

F*#k I swear these post aren't me. I can do better then this

Then do better.

Cadet
I'm going to disagree with love is a choice.

So what is LOVE to YOU? Define it. How do you receive it? What makes you feel loved? How do you give it?

Reading that she saw me as weak. It made me angry. I spoke to a friend last night about it. Those words had sent me to a very dark place on Friday night. He said this might hurt a bit but I need to know, " are you hurt because she wrote those words or are you hurt because you think they may be true?" It was a slap across my face. I didn't know or have an answer. Still don't

So you have seen what she has written about you and NOW you are angry. I wonder how she would feel if she saw what your wrote about HER.

But on the other side there were things I voiced as important to me. She ignored them.
How do we correct this in ourselves??? I understand I need to take responsibility for what I didn't say but how do I take responsibility for the things I did say but were never heard?

Give examples.

Here is one I will give you…. I love steak. Love a big rib eye on the grill. So….I ask my partner to cook steak at least one day a week. She doesn’t. I can….

a) Sit, stew and build resentment or
b) Go buy and cook my big steak myself. When she asks why I am doing it, I simple express that I wanted a steak.

Can you see the difference. You can and should not EXPECT that your W always does EVERYTHING YOU want.

My w was a sahm. But our home was always a huge mess. More like a frat house then a home. This wasn't just the case while kids were in diapers but the norm even to today. I told her repeatedly that coming home to a clean house made me feel good. It was important to me. Her response was always "you want it clean then clean it. I'm not that type of person." It felt to me that she didn't value my efforts to provide her and the kids with a nice home and nice things. I felt like I was taken for granted

First…when you are a SAHM…it is not easy. Kids running all over the damn place, the minute you clean they make a mess. I can relate that what you were looking forward to. Lord knows I am a very neat person (no comments Mach)….What I see though is you trying to CHANGE her instead of ACCEPTING her the way she was. So…could you have hired a cleaning lady to come in once a week? I remember having this very same complaint about my ex. And FTR, she is still a slob. What she did bring to the R though was different. She was a good mom, a good cook, she was “simple”…My point is that she had a lot of positives that I CHOOSE NOT TO LOOK AT – in part because I allowed resentment to build up. Can you see where you may have done this?

Clearly most of the responses seem to indicate I'm the one who should change. Why is change only expected on one side? Thoughts please!!!

Would you rather by HAPPY or RIGHT?


Think about it….for a second…on one hand you wanted to provide your W and kids with the best you could, you wanted to be home and spend time with the family – these are YOUR words.

Remember we talked about WORDS and ACTIONS


You now want a D, chances are the income now has to support two households…so you going to have to skimp on giving the kids the “best”….. did you spend as much time with the family OR where you emotionally unavailable and distant – in part because you were depressed?


My point, is that as DB teachs….”re-frame how you look at things”. Yes maybe the house was a mess, maybe you could have turn it around and offered to take W out on a romantic get-a-way or just a night out, then throw on some candles and have a little porn star sex. If you always look at the NEGATIVES….you will never see the POSITIVES.

Ok enough bs
Here we go
I can walk into the most dire of situations and take control. As an emt I have done that from everything from drug beating car accidents cardiac arrest and deliverying a baby. No issue here. As long as it doesn't involve me I'm solid strong and capable.
But the minute it's about me. My wants my choices. I revert to the child who only wants to please everyone and be liked. At 46 I am still the child I was taught to be. It ended my marriage. It built up bitterness and self loathing. And it made me feel weak.
So now I'm here. A starting point. I have an ic. I have friends who I've said this to and who are working to support my changes. I am on step one.

BEST FU*KING THINGS I HAVE SEEN YOU WRITE!

So how do we get to Step 2?

And it's not about changing who we are. It's about improving who we are. Being better for ourselves. Usually these changes improve all different relationships in our lives.

Bingo ^^^^ Hey CW….I asked an old poster this and according to him….it help clear up things.

Would you want to be married to YOU…the way you are today?

If NO – keep posting and working.

If YES – stop posting.

I invaded her privacy and read her words. I saw a truth about how she saw me and was destroyed by it. In that way she was right. I am weak

WOW that is pretty f*cked up. A little controlling if you ask me and creepy. What I find interesting is that you are invading her privacy yet you say you have no feeling for her. Personally, I think you still love her and really want this to work. Personally, I think you just may be using this forum to communicate to HER, which honestly is a little manipulative. I think CW….your actions needs to start matching YOUR WORDS.

When we finally started talking about problems at the beginning of S W said she stopped the physical because she didn't feel loved.

Write this down – she stopped “feeling loved”. This BTW is a hint for YOU – how does she want to “feel loved” – You’ll need this if you are to try and reconcile.

And she need to feel the emotional to give the physical. I didn't understand exactly because I can have one or the other or both.

Women are very different than men – emotionally connect with her and her body will be yours. The key is to understand how to “emotionally connect with her”.

CW…I asked earlier in this post…how you receive and give love. This is going to be key. I believe that YOU like many men (myself included)…give love the way we want to receive it. I have since learned just how selfish that is. We must learn our partners. Learn how they want to receive love and then disperse our love in a manner that they can receive it. For example: I love to be talked to, engaged emotionally…that is how I receive and “feel loved”. My fiancé “feels love” when we are physical. In many ways she is more of the traditional male in our R. My point though is how do YOU think your W receives love. Apparently it was not the physical – otherwise you would not have not had sex for 5 years.