Well some of those meds raise blood pressure and my W wants to feel sleepy. She naps during the day and doesn't sleep soundly at night like I do. Sometimes my breathing wakes her up. The dog snores, that wakes her up. A car stops on the gravel road, that wakes her up. The news paper is thrown against the storm door, that wakes her up.
We did the separate bedrooms for 5+ years and the R went down hill. I got more and more checking out of the M feelings so pushed the marital bed concept for more than 3 years now.
Sometimes I wonder if being Mr. Sandi2 is a workable alternative,,,,,, No that won't work either.
Compromise and make adjustments till I find something that works, that is my MO for now.
Thanks for the CLARATIN idea. BB was a med nurse so anything I suggest has to be much better than what she prefers at the present time. Top her top in meds, isn’t likely to happen. I voice my concerns to BB but that is about it.
yik. So what you're really saying is: she chose the meds to avoid having sex with you :-/
sounds like she suffers from major anxiety. i'm sorry. obvious suggestions here: get "double-paned" windows for the bedroom, and lock the dog up downstairs/other side of house ;-) but also... wonder why she's so nervous
Quote:
Compromise and make adjustments till I find something that works, that is my MO for now.
Good for you you're a good husband.
My current status: june 2006. Wife ran out and filed D. Finalized Jan 11, 2010, after 12.5 years M. 3 wonderful sons caught in the middle
So what you're really saying is: she chose the meds to avoid having sex with you :-/ No. she chose the med so she can get to sleep because sleep is much more important than sex. It has been that way for a long time and is a common event in LDW's behaviors.
get "double-paned" windows for the bedroom, and lock the dog up downstairs/other side of house ;-) I have double-paned windows with storm windows and live on a country road.
I understand the, dog sleep somewhere else than near her.
What are you? Some kind of animal killer/hater? That is what BB might say.
No, her animals are more important than most people to her. She wants then all on her bed. I enforced the one animal on the bed rule as a compromise. When she slept in the other bedroom w/o me, she had 3 dogs and 2 cats in bed with her some nights.
She complained they kept her awake but wouldn't think of making them sleep on the floor except on a few occasions when the animals snapped at each other several times.
In the 5 years we slept in different rooms, I think she booted someone out about 2-3 times.
Her standard answer to someone allergic to pets is to have the SO-allergic person, move out or do the best they can using allergy shots and meds. First priority is the R of the pet lover and the pet.
Now, could I force BB to give up her pets or say the M is over? Maybe, but it wouldn't be a M if that happened. It would marital combat.
But before you decide about if you tell your wife or let her find out from the neighbors....why don't you re-read the chapter of the last resort technique in Michelle's DR book. B/c IMHO, it should all tie in together. If you have come to this point in your life that you are ready to move on and are on the verge of asking a lady out on a date....then I think you are ready for the LRT. You have nothing else to loose, right? Tell her that you had hoped that she would come back and make a home for the the three of you and work the marriage problems out together. However, if she doesn't feel that she can do that, then you have decided to move on and make the best out of your life. Tell her that you will always be a part of your son's life and that you wish the best for her, but that you plan to have have a life that includes making new friends....which, of course, will include dating other women. (I'm so sorry sweetie, but for the life of me, I can't remember right now if you told me that she has already filed for D or not.....it's been a long day!)anyway....if she hasn't....maybe that should be your next suggestion....or the first, whichever will lead you into the conversation the easiest. But, again I encourage you to read that chapter on the LRT. Her reaction may tell you a lot when you give her this news. If she hasn't already filed for D and you think it would even be more effective, you may even suggest that YOU go ahead and file so that the two of you can get on with living. You might practice what you will say to her, b/c you will need to choose your wording carefully. Be very sweet when you talk to her....sincere and soft spoken. If somehow, you could still make her feel kind of "special", (but that in her heart she knows she has brought this all on herself?)....that will hit the right spot to be effective. I once saw a show where the divorced husband went to his first wife to tell her he was going to get married again and that he wanted to be the one to tell her before she heard it from somebody else.....after all, he said, she was his first love and owed it to her. Now, that would get a girl in the heart! How could she be mad at him after he told her something sweet like that? The only person she could be mad at would be herself. Oh, and be prepared for the possiblility of tears. However, don't let her toy with you and "work" you. Keep your resolve and don't melt right then and there.
I don't understand this visiting the neighbors that live on each side of you. Now, are these neighbors...."couples" or just women.....or single men? Was she close friends and visiting them all the time BEFORE the separation? If not, that tells me she is wanting to make you jealous or else she is trying to get information about you from them. If they were "that" close, why doesn't she just call them on the phone? Why does she want to make her presence over there known? (Hummmmm) Most women would not want to be in the neighborhood of the man they were S from.
Well, if there is a "spark" left, you will find out when she discovers that you are going to start dating again. Be careful about your son. Depending on his maturity level, (sorry, can't remember how old you said he was....oh God! I'm awful today.) anyway, sweetie, I think you may owe it to him...unless he is just too small to understand, (and I think I do remember he isn't that small), to explain to him that you are going to make new friends, etc., but that he will always be the MOST important person ever.....and that he will come first before anyone and that he can always count on you to be there for him.....no matter what the future for you or his mom holds. Don't wait for him to get his mother's side of the story....that wouldn't be good. And, don't assume he already knows all of what I just said....I'm sure he does, but boys need to hear that from their dad's.
Okay.....back to me....ugh! No, I've not told him I want him to draw closer. I have told him that even if he can't see what I'm doing....that I am working very hard to get through some things so that I can work toward a better marriage with him. I told him that I was still going through withdrawal from the OM, but that it is getting better. I think he is resenting me spending too much time back here on this board every night....but I tried to explain to him that it is my therapy since we are not seeing a C (which he refused to go see). I told him I didn't know if we could work through everything WITHOUT a C. He knows I have bought a lot of books b/c he is still being very nosey! I even asked him if he was still checking out the internet to see every place I've been and if he had read my posts here on the board. He admitted he had and it made me mad. I know I hurt his trust, but I don't like him reading what I place on the board. (He seemed to think it was all very boring!) It is like I have no privacy at all and that is very important to me....always has been. I rebell big time when I think he is snooping! I would not be surprised to find out that he is still going through all my dresser drawers, papers, books, whatever he thinks he can find that I might place something.
It is going to take a long time, I'm afraid, to overcome the damage that has been done. But, we will, I really believe that. And.....yes, I know that most of it will depend on me and that right now I am my own worst enemy. Last night, I felt so tired and just plain "weary" of it all and thought maybe I should do like it was suggested to me and take a day or two away and stop thinking about the R and the lack of sex, etc. Just get my mind on something else.
I'll be okay....it's just going to take time. But, if I know I've got friends like you in my corner.....I won't give up and I'll keep on until I get there.
Talk to you later.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
(Why do you think he reacted that way? Did he feel like you werent "into it" or something? Do you think you gave him that impression sometimes when you were together?)
Beats the heck out of me! As I've said, he never would talk about anything like I would try to get him to do. That is why a lot of it was "guess work" on my part. But, he admitted that to agree to have sex whenever he wanted it....just wasn't "good enough" for him. That was before I even had a chance to "show" him what I was talking about. So, I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I was shocked at him acting like he did b/c I truly thought he would be happy to know he did not have to dread being "rejected" (like he always said he was!) anymore. BTW, he was not always rejected!
No, I've not done much more toward anything else right now. I've not asked him to hold me.....and to tell you the truth...I don't know if I at that point of wanting him to. That is what is driving me crazy and making me ask myself these questions. Why? Why? Why? Why can't I want him to?
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
He has always been the "darling of the family"....the good guy in every situation. I, on the other hand, wasn't. In raising our two children, a boy and a girl, I had to be the one that spanked or used any kind of discipline.....not the good guy...heaven forbid. When the kids were little and got sick?.....well, I would hold them down to force the medicine down them......do you think he would do that? Not on your life....and I was a bad mother when I did it. But, that was the difference in how we saw things. I wanted my kids to get well and knew they had to take the bad tasting medicine.....as they got older, however, I was still the one having to give them the discipline.
In reading my story, if you read most of it, you probably saw where I talked about how I was the one that always did the fun things to keep the excitment in the marriage. Women my age, back then, were taught this. We were taught that it was all up to us to keep our husbands interested in us and so they would not turn to other women. We had to make coming home so much "fun" that they wouldn't think of going anywhere else! BS! It didn't keep him from going to his Mama's every day straight from work....before he came home to his sexy young wife and two little kids. (Yes, I was a sexy back then.) I tried everything I thought I could think up. I even wore "costumes" for his homecoming in the evenings. Sometimes, I planned something really farout and would plan for the kids to stay at the grandparents. He would come home and I may be cooking supper with nothing but an apron, beads, and high heels on. Or, I may have shorts and a halter top, and black fishnet hose.....just whatever I could think up, but I never dressed....indecent in front of the children. Sometimes, I would have something very plain on, but I would whisper to him that I wasn't wearing any underwear. (lol) Someone else on the board thought that was their idea.....but I had already tried it about 30 years ago.
Then one day, I had a cute little number on that I thought the kids wouldn't "catch on" but he would .... and then he told me that the kids shouldn't see me dress like that....they wouldn't "understand"....that it would "blow their minds". What the.....? Well, it embarrased the devil out of me, so I stopped.....until a few years later I thought I would get up my courage to try it again. (Oh fool that I was!) One day, nobody was home but the two of us and both the kids were in school. So, I put on a see through sexy nitie and high heel shoes and paraded all around him while he sit at the kitchen table reading. He never said a word amd pretended not to see me. So, I got a cup of coffee and sit down at the opposite end of the table. Finally, he said I should put some clothes on before a neighbor came up to the house and saw me through the window! That was the last time I tried any so-called "costumes" to wear for him to "be sexy".
Oh, I tried all kinds of things.....like after Christmas one year, and the family relatives had gone home (this was after our kids were grown and had left home) and I went in and wrapped myself in gold Christmas tensil that covered just the "right spots". I looked kind of cute if I do say so myself! Than I asked him if he was ready for his gift? Oh well, I could go on for hours about things I used to do. But, he never did one thing to help initiate a thing. His only idea he could come up with was to go out to eat dinner and then go have sex. Big deal! If we got in a "rut" or had a fight....then it was go to another town and go eat dinner and go to a motel and have sex.....same thing....just a different location. Just once, I would have flipped my wig, (as they use to say), if he had just come in with some bright fun idea for us to do! God, we never even with to the movies! All he ever wanted to do was go to his mother's house or to sit and watch TV. Oh, yeah, and have sex all the time whenever I would let him.
For very brief periods of time in our M, we would have a couple as "friends". We never went anywhere or did much except maybe eat there and then have them over somethimes. Of course, we had very little money to spend and that kept us pulled down a lot, but if you have a little imagination.....you can have fun without too much money. He never enjoyed any kind of sports, hobbies, games.....nothing. I used to love everything! But, now, I don't want to do anything.
I guess you can tell that when I start remembering back on our M that it just makes me mad all over again. Sorry, but I know I am resentful. It does still make me mad at times. I don't know what to do about that. I know.....I know....I need to forgive him and all that stuff. I have......or at least I think I have and then it rises up years later....like NOW! I am experiencing anger, lately, that I thought was gone years ago!
You know what gets me? He feels like he has been done so badly. In other words, what I mean by that is that b/c I was "frigid" and did not want to always give him "some" (God, I hate that expression he always used!)....well, anyway, he feels like he was mistreated or he "missed out" on ......whatever. I finally took all I could one night and exploded. I told him, "What are you complaining about? At least YOU always had a climax....that is more than I ever got!" That was mean of me....I know....it was curel...but I had just took that for so many years until I couldn't stand it anymore.
Maybe I had something similiar to what you said. I thought maybe God had finally "fixed" me b/c I had begged Him (God) for years to do something to help me! Anyway, I had surgery and had a hysterectomy and finally was beginning to feel like a human being after 24 years of terrible endrometri.....(oh-- ever how you finish spelling it)(felt like having child birth every month)anyway...... and I thought that I might actually have normal sexual feelings! Yeah! (I thought) Well, guess what happens to Mr. "I want sex 24/7"? He couldn't get it up! And, after about the second time he tried that he couldn't get it up....he just stopped coming to my bedroom.....not a word....nothing. So, how's that for irony? You know what that is called? Impotency? Nope.....it is a male being frigid! Oh, people everywhere have all kinds of sympathy for men that have impotency problems, but give hell to women that are frigid. Well, tell me what the difference is? The only difference in the world is one.....the man can't "fake it" like a woman can. B/C he has to get something up to work and she doesn't.....but inside....where the heart is...it is all the same thing.
There was another problem. All of our married life I begged him to please just go to bed with me and then if he wanted to get up and watch TV all night....that was fine....but I really needed him to hold me and just "talk" to me (that was the bad word I must have used....the "t" word). You see, that was what I needed to fill my emotional needs at the time. But he never, ever, compromised.......never. I even told him that it would lead to sex, if he would just talk to me.......please! But, unless he wanted sex, he never went to bed with me at the same time. Then, we had sex and he got back up. One time I told him to just leave the $2 on the dresser on his way out. He even had the nerve to start telling me "thank you" after we finished and he would start to go back and watch TV. Can you believe it? That made me feel more like a prostitute!
So, if I sound a little more than just "bitter"......I hope you can understand. The last time he touched me intimately was March 1996. I was 49 years old. But guess what? He had stopped even sharing the same bedroom with me back almost ten years before that time in 1996. When I asked him about it, he used some lame excuse that just didn't measure up. I figured he just rather fall asleep on the couch watching TV than to sleep in the same bed with his wife.
After he couldn't "perform" that couple of times, I think he blamed me for that also. You know.....if you don't use it "enough"...you loose it. I heard it for the entire time we were married up until 1996 and frankly my dear....I didn't want to hear it any more, so I didn't talk about it.
Want to hear something else ironic? After he found out about the OM.....he informs me that he CAN still get it up! How interesting. He also tells me how that I have committed adultry in my heart, etc. Well, I have to deal with that, but I feel like if my emotional needs had been met a long time ago.....his physical needs would have been met and than years later maybe I would not have been so desperate for male attention that I would have gotten on line and started flirting with strangers. But, we could play the "blame game" all day and it wouldn't solve our problems. I only said that to say this.....that it took both of us to make this marriage have problems and I refuse to take the entire blame. However....and brace youself for this......he said he has tried as hard as he knows how and nothing seems to satisfy me.....what the.....? (Is he kidding me? This is from a man that hardly goes to work any more?) (Another story another time) And...he doesn't see ANYTHING he has done wrong! So, being a woman, I'm sure you can identify with just how much that makes me want to jump in bed and have sex with him.
Oh my gosh, Sandi...I do not even know what to say after reading all that. Holy crap, woman....on one hand I want to smack your husband and, God forgive me, on the other I want to tell you to run. There is just no way the way you have lived is right...you've put your pride down so many times...this kind of thing makes me angry with God. How can it be okay for you to make so many sacrifices while your husband does nothing? Is he not held to the same standards in God's eyes? I am of absolutely no help to you. If I were you I would have been gone. What are you supposed to do? I hope to hell someone in this forum has the answer. To have lived this way for so long...and only had the recent thing with the online guy, is a miracle in itself. I am not familiar with this type of longstanding issue. I sincerely hope these folks here can help you. I'd have raised the roof years ago and told him to get out. You are a better woman than I am. And your husband is an incorrigible snot.
My heart is breaking b/c you are right. I think you are abosolutley correct about my husband. Oh God!
I read your post about 6:30 tonight and It is almost four hours later and I'm still thinking about it.
My H does love me. He has always adored me! He doesn't know how to be romantic and he doesn't have brain storm ideas of how to have fun evenings, but my God...the man is crazy about me and always has been. DomR, you are right too, b/c I don't know the answer to what was asked me. That is what is killing me. I don't know what my H can do to or if there is anything he CAN do at this point in time to change anything. One day, I try to think positive and tell myself everything will get better in time, and then the next day, I have serious doubts that it will get better and that I will have to settle for this R from now on. My friend, imLin, said that I made my H what he is today. Man oh man! That was hard to swallow. I had to think about that one a long time.
At the risk of repeating myself, and if you all don't mind me just kind of talking out loud to myself for a minute or two....the emotional breakdown came immediately after our wedding when I learned that he could not talk to me. By that I mean he just did not know how to express his feelings into words. Well, feelings was what I wanted to talk about all the time. Also, immediately after the wedding night, we had problems.....as I have already explained. But every time we ever talked about anything.....no matter what the subject may have been at the beginning...it always ended up being that if only I would wanted to have sex more....then everything would be fine. Over the years, my emotional needs went unfullfilled while his sexual needs were not being met. My sexual needs were not being met either, but I really did not realize it at the time and would just fantasize mine away. I can look back and see where I filled my head with unrealistic images of TV and romanitc novel characters that I compared my H to.....and I don't even know if I had the good sense to realize what I was doing. I don't think I truly expected HIM to be like they were in the movies, etc., b/c I knew he wasn't going to be.....but I just dreamed of being in love with somebody like them. In my fantasizing or "dreaming"....I also had to become somebody else just as great as the hero was. I suppose a C would say that I led a "double" life over the years.....my "real life" and then the "make believe life" that only played out in my mind. I never discussed this with another living person b/c I was afraid they would think I was insane. Then just a couple of months ago, I found a book in the local Christian book store where a brave woman wrote the truth.......and it was as though I was reading my own life. I cried and cried b/c I kept thinking....."Oh God, if only I had had this book when I first got married...before I did so much damage to my R." The make-believe affairs that women have in their minds are very serious. The EA we women have are very serious! It does a lot of damage to our H's and to ourselves.
I don't know why I am going back over all of this again......I just feel so....empty and hurt and like I have ruined a perfectly good man that would have been a great husband if I had had enough sense to know what to do with him. If I had been more mature and if I had been a better wife.....I always knew he deserved much better than me!
Yes, I have told of my pain and frustration where he is concerned, but I never failed to mention that he was a good person or that I knew he loved me. That is or never has been the problem. What can he do now? I don't know......I sincerly don't know! It scares me to death. I am so afraid that I have completely fallen out of love with him. When I gave him that speech....you know which one....about being out of love...he did not accept it. He said he did not believe in falling out of love. Well, I do. I think it happens all the time. People on this board are the results of folks falling out of love. I didn't say the ones on here are to blame......I am just saying it does happen....IMO. I think we are capable of "killing" the love. I'm talking about the sexual love. I don't know if I can change or not. I am waiting for the book I ordered last night. I ordered Michelle's SSM. So, I am praying that it will be just what I need to do the job.
Some of you have gotten tired of hearing me say that I "want" to love my H. You think if I want to badly enough that I will do something about it. Maybe you are right. Perhaps I just don't want it badly enough. As you can see, I am very down tonight. My heart is heavy and I am responsible for a lot of pain in another person's life. However, I still refuse to take 100% of the blame and I still say it took both of us to break down the R and to build up the walls around us. Not that that does any good to proclaim that.....I'm just making a statement.
Do I "want" him to hold me? I don't know. I honestly don't know. There were so many nights I cried to be held by him. I was so lonely and yet I felt that he "chose" to sleep on the living room couch in front of a television rather than go to bed at a normal bedtime with his wife. Perhaps he never saw "my side" of the things I tried so despartely to talk to him about over 41 years....but then he never picked up a book to read or go talk to a pastor or see a C either.
After talking like this I was asked what were the good things about him....so then I tried to explain what his good traits were. Anyway, we both have good traits and we both have bad traits....we are just human like everybody else. I'm not trying to make myself look any better or any worse than him. I am like the rest of you all are....trying to find answers, if possible, and trying to make my life better.
One of you asked me if I just went through the motions of having sex or did I make love. I did love my H. I tried to relate that through my love making but perhaps I did not do a very good job. Like BB, my H feels that I had to have everything around me "perfect" in order to have sex. I didn't see it that way at all......so there you go....two sides to the story. We have hurt each other so badly over the years. I don't think we will ever divorce....now. But, I don't know if things will ever reach the place where we will have a sexual active MR again or not.
Well, thank you all for your concern and your posts to me. As always, I appreciate it.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
)
you're a good husband.
That is what BB might say.