You are close, but I don't believe that it is GOd that she has replaced me with. She is not THAT religous. Maybe more along the lines of the KIDS and herself come before me. I am probably jealous of my kids, her family, and her friends, because that clearly are MORE important to her then me.
That's where Corri's arguement went south with me as well.
My wife also has LOTS of other things that come before me......very depressing at times, because to me, the reason you get married is so that (for the most part...there are pockets of exception) you can be "the first thing" for each other.
When you feel like you're last on the others list....you begin to wonder why they married you at all....
Tripod thanks for the responses. It would be easier for you to "surender" if your sense of masculinity isn't tied completely to sex. It seems to me that a lot of guys tie their sexual desire directly in their sense of their own masculinity and to "back off" can be a threat to their sense of self.
Edit re your last post have you heard of the passion paradox?
Its not really a feel good idea but a interesting look at the "game" of relationships, unfortunately it would seem that the solution to the paradox would be a race to the bottom.
Passion Paradox: Its not really a feel good idea but a interesting look at the "game" of relationships, unfortunately it would seem that the solution to the paradox would be a race to the bottom.
I know you'all are going to scream but isn't this where self-validation and differentiation can help too??
I think even in the same relationship couples can go back and forth between who has the deepest feelings for the other. If you are not relying on that person's constant validation of you to keep yourself "happy", then you can deal with their "reduced" love for awhile which in turn takes the stress out of the relationship which then allows the person to fall deeply in love with you again.
You know this might again be part of why I think growing up on a farm can help. During planting season and harvest my dad HAD to put farming as a priority and my mom did the same. It was common for them to comment that BOTH had forgotten their anniversary because it happened during harvest. They didn't see forgetting their anniversary as a comment on how much they loved or didn't love each other. Rather they saw it as "proof" of how busy and hectic their lives were.
Then that allowed them to relax and when things slowed down again they had more time like in the summer Dad would bring wild flowers to my mom and they would go on walks ALONE at sunset. They allowed for a SEASONAL aspect to their relationship which I believe strengthened their love for each other rather than weakened it as it seems to happen for many people. it would make sense that farmers would be much more in tune with seasonality in life as a whole so they naturally could apply it to their personal lives without even being conscious of it.
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
You are close, but I don't believe that it is GOd that she has replaced me with.
Does she view divorce the same way you do?
So. You are feeling jealous...let me take a little side trip before I continue...
I'm sure God is in the mix there, somewhere, for if He hadn't made all those rules about marriage, you wouldn't be having so many problems... and because of your faith, you probably stuff those feelings, for it isn't pious nor pure of heart or thought to be angry at God. But. It's safe to be angry/jealous of your wife. Now. That is PURE conjecture on my part... but perhaps consider it. I've seen it happen to many devout families.
Let me ask you this. Do you like/enjoy feeling replaced and jealous? I'm going to assume no. Correct me if I am wrong.
Those are two feeling you can get a grip on and change (not necessarily what's causing the feelings but the feelings themselves). Do you want to do that?
It is about the DESIRE for sex. And the reason why is because the DESIRE for sex impacts a persons personality in a huge way. I have said it before, when my wife went from HD to LD, it was like a complete transformation of her personality.
Cemar, it isn't about the desire for sex. Sex drive is not directly corelated with being affectionate, flirtatious, loving, emotionally generous, fitb.
I don't think that NOP would argue that his higher sex drive made him more than any of those things than I was. *I* was those things in a much more expressive way than he.
As our relationship suffered, as we managed to rack up hurts on each other, as the demands of life interfered, as we withdrew from each other, as we began to be unappreciative of each other, as we began to have fewer "positive" interactions and more "negative" ones, as we developed a negative emotional dance (he does this, I respond this way, I do this, he responds that way, ad infinitum), as we began to see each other as something of an "enemy" - a general attitude of *caring* for each other dried up and was seldom if ever expressed.
I'm not trying to hammer you, but as long as you equate *everything* about your wife as a result of her lack of sex drive, you are likely to never actually find resolution.
What sort of conversations do the two of you have? What were the last 2 things the two of you did together for fun. When was the last time you talked about politics, religion, current events?
I just picture the two of you walking through the day, carefully avoiding each other both physically and emotionally, and never making eye contact.
I think just about everyone on here who has ever posted more than a couple of times has shared interactions they just had with their spouse: conversations, arguments, blowups, rudeness, unkindness, disagreements - I cannot recall a *single* interaction you have ever posted about you and your wife.
So, can you tell us anything about the interactions the two of you had over the weekend, for instance?
Am I jealous, yes. I don't believe that GOd has replaced me, in fact she should need GOd more then me anyway. But the truth is that A whole lot of people have replaced me. The priority of people in her life is KIDS, Sisters, friends, other family members, DOG, Her Job, Her Activities, and then ... ME!
I could see where this would help, so long as the season of the relationship is not very long, as in weeks, not YEARS.
Maybe one of the problems is that the seasonalness of marriages seems to really impact LD people, while in many case, HD's don't EVER have seasonalness in the marriage. On top of this, we are all incredibly busy, which messes up the LD person while at the same time, actually makes the HD person evenr HIGHER in desire.
