hope you love her, cause you're stuck with her now

[MichelleLT]

I thought it seemed pretty balanced as well. A great mix of best friends with benefits lol. Now he says we're just best friends. Except, now, we're not best friends anymore either.

I waffle on whether I want him to give things another try. When I am feeling down and drained, it seems like way too much. Other times, I have no doubts that it could be great.

Mostly I am dark where it doesn't concern the dog. I guess I am in LRT both for myself and the possibility of saving the relationship.

It is good of you to drop in though. Glad to "see" you!

(((Kalni)))

[MichelleLT]

So....I replied to Roger's last e-mail from last week.

I shouldn't have. I was and still mad about what he had said.

But I did.

Text below...

I did some therapy during the separation/divorce about a year before we met. I found it totally useless. I have instead been doing a combination of solution-based therapy and cognitive reprogramming on my own.

As for understanding why you think you had to call it quits, I understand you felt unappreciated, that you didn't feel loved or passionate right now. But no, I don't understand why you had to dump me. I have never abandoned someone that I have invested love and time in without a fight, actually a lot of them. And I can't understand why anyone would, the concept is totally foreign to me.

I sensed your withdrawal, but you blamed your moods on work, finances, the house, needing to work out, being in pain, reactions to your medications, etc etc etc. Nowhere did you ever say it had anything to do with me. In fact, "us" was the only thing that you weren't complaining about, so that obviously meant we were fine as far as I was concerned. So it was a complete shock to me when you dropped the "we need to talk."

There were plenty of other options from talking to me to asking to do counseling together. We could have done a Retrouvaille workshop (there's one next month in Sac), a relationship enrichment seminar (also one next month in Sac), couples counseling, set up a time to talk each week, etc etc etc. There are a million options that weren't explored. So drastic a measure was not required to get a reaction out of me, you had my attention and my commitment to working on improving things. But you had to tell me something was wrong with us, I'm just not that good a mind reader.

You tell all your friends about the importance of communication and trying different things. You coach Kevin on how to talk to Kim, actions to try when dealing with things like her problem with remembering to bring her lunch containers home. You coach Annette on how to talk to Mike. Maybe you should try taking some of your own advice sometime.

[MichelleLT]

Just for journaling, his e-mail response from last night (I didn't read it til this am)

I know that you did some therapy and have been doing your own work. Do you think it helped? Do you feel that you had been able to communicate to the best of your abilities?
In my opinion none of it did. If you feel the need to retreat during any argument, It almost sounds like what you told me about Neal was about you. You stated that every time a disagreement came up he felt it was a fight... I am quoting you.. and then you say you recoil at conflict.... Could you also be referring to yourself? I am asking because now i am confused.

Perhaps you misunderstood me. I didn't feel unappreciated, actually the truth was I felt greatly appreciated. I also felt very loved; however you are correct in saying I felt no passion from you.
I am sorry that you feel abandoned. In all honesty do you really feel that I didn't fight for passion? Do you feel i didn't put any effort in? Did I not tell you that of all the relationships I put the most effort into this one because it meant the most.
As for my reasons for leaving. Do you think it would be fair to you if I stayed with you while I my passionate feelings for you had all but completely dissolved because of my feelings of rejection?
This may seem very gruff and totally mean to say but I have done my best to communicate with you how i felt about things and us.
I had brought this up on numerous occasions and you saying that i didn't communicate to you how i felt is a bit ... absurd.

My withdrawal began due to the "moods, work, finances , health, house etc"... but they also had begun when I started feeling like a friend and not your lover. I attributed all of my feelings to those things that you felt and that's when i began speaking with MY therapist about it. That's when i realized something else was wrong. I tried working through it and realized one of the most important things was missing from my relationship. My partner did not physically desire me. You and I again talked about it. Your response was "then let's do something about it. All we do is talk about it but never do anything about it. That's when I said to you "it doesn't work like that for me. Talking about that gets me upset and it's difficult to become aroused when I'm upset" Then it went right back to nothing again.

The conflict within me was another reason. This conflict was between my feelings for you and yours for me. You loved me deeply. I loved you as a dear companion and friend.
I realized that I wasn't in love. I felt like an old married couple after 2 1/2 years. Yes I did consider going to couples therapy but then i asked myself one very important question...
"Am I in love with her? and If i am not then why try to save a relationship that has lost all of its passion?...
Michelle... for 8 months I worked on my own personal garbage, thinking it ws keeping me from falling in love with you. Apparently I was wrong.
I wanted to love you and fall for you but as time went on I fell away. IS that fair to you ? Or would you rather I come back and live a lie?
Which leads me communication...

I did try talking to you numerous times about our issues with sex... You asked what I like... I said Lingerie. So you went out and spent 140$ on Fredrick's when afterwords you said that it was "outside your comfort zone"... Was that my fault? I had spoken with you many times about how you fell asleep on me so that made me feel rejected. Your mom actually cleared that up. She said "Michelle was an easy baby all i had to do was rub her back and she would fall right to sleep." I nodded to myself thinking "yup". I had also given you numerous pointers that sex needs to be given and received from both sides. Each person needs to give as much as receive. Because most of your experience has been with men who do nothing but take, I felt the only way i was going to get you to initiate was to ask you ... So I did
Where's the spontaneity in that?.. That got old very fast

Next for communication. You had told me that any time we spoke about something you retreated because of your reaction to conflict... I got more out of you the night we broke up than all those nights that we tried to talk and you shut down. How is that fair to me regarding communication. I tried to talk things out the beginning but i lost my patience very quickly because I felt like I was the only one who ever initiated sex or conversations on issues.
Now... why didn't I decide to go to counseling with you? Because I thought it was my issues that were clouding our issues. So I worked on my issues.
As for you backing off and giving me the space I needed, I did appreciate it but I thought you were trying to avoid me going into a depressive tailspin... Perhaps you were...

That goes right back to fairness. How is that fair to you that all of my issues become your burden?
You are right about one thing. I wasn't all fair to you. I didn't give the ultimate effort that you deserved. i could have but unfortunately I gave up when I got frustrated.
But honestly... Would you want to be with someone who didn't love you as much as you loved them? Where is the fairness in that?

I am sorry that I hurt you. I never intended to. I did try to the best of my abilities and that is the god damned truth.

[JCJ]

Michelle it sounds like he is doing a lot of blaming onto you and it is not you. This isn't you, it is him. If he felt you were 'just friends' then he was the one that let it become that way not you. These are his feelings and he should take ownership of them instead of explaining what you did to make him feel that way. It was his choice to feel that way.

You said he was on anti depressants? Could they or the reasons why he is on them be something to do with his lack of passion? 

There seems to be not a lot of point in discussion as he feels the need to defend his position and that makes him more rooted in it. Personally I would say, fine if that is how you feel I accept it. Then go dark, even over the puppy. You are being very kind to him at the moment and treating him like a friend reinforces his friendship idea in my opinion. 

It is just me but i would just simply not respond to his ims and things, he needs to feel what his life would be like without you. It is his loss.

[MichelleLT]

He is on anti-depressants, anti-seizure meds, and prescription pain meds for chronic pain. All of which have sexual side effects. So yes, I believe that has something to do with these issues.

[MichelleLT]

He has been doing a bit of blaming. Ironically, I found this response less blaming than I expected, especially considering how b!tchy I was in my e-mail to him lol.

Definitely his loss lol.

[kml]

Yes, a whole lot of blaming going on on his side. But one BIG kernel of truth:

But honestly... Would you want to be with someone who didn't love you as much as you loved them? Where is the fairness in that?

If he's not capable of sustaining and nourishing that feeling of being in love (and no it doesn't HAVE to dissipate into friendship, I felt "in love" with my ex for the entire 26 years we were together) - then it's NOT fair to you. You deserve someone who loves you as much as you love them. End of discussion.

[BeginningAgain]

Exactly what Julia said. He needs to experience life without Michelle which means no contact with him unless it is 911 worthy.

[mishka422]

Preach it kml!

Michelle, you absolutely deserve someone who is just as passionate for you as you are for them. His loss - big time!

I do have a question though. Did you not initiate sex, ever? That seems like it was a big deal to him. If not, why not?

[MichelleLT]

You know that bit about always remember to never use always and never? Of course I did. He is just focusing on the times I haven't. He also insists that he's only rejected my advances a handful of times over the last three years. I can think of more than 5 times in the last 6 months let alone the last 3 years.

If you've read SSM, when MWD says "In fact, they're noticing that for some people, sexual desire- the urge to become sexual- doesn't precede feeling aroused, it actually follows it. In other words, though you may rarely (or never) find yourself fantasizing about sex or feeling a sexual urge, if you're open to becoming sexual with your spouse, you will often find the sexual stimulation pleasurable and therefore feel the urge or desire to continue." That's me a lot of the time.

There were also times where I would have every naughty intention and the first words out of his mouth when we saw each other were the beginning of a 20 minutes rant about work or whatever. Total turn off. Needless to say, nothing would happen after that. I'd go work on dinner instead.