New to Piecing

[amd]

Adding you to my faves, COG. Glad to see you here!

[COG]

Update: Well our "fun nights" have been going pretty well. She's agreed to one night a week for some romping in the hay. While we have'nt made it to home plate, we keep getting closer. The nice thing about it, for her, is that she has six free nights to do what she wants and not have to worry about me wanting some. It's definately taken some pressure off. She happily cooperates come "fun night".

Last night as we lay in bed I just popped off and said, "someday I would like to ML to you", and she said, "OK". She would'nt respond like that, unless she was serious. So, I'm looking forward to ML to her someday and I think it will be sooner than later. She keeps warming up, and I keep playing it cool. We're getting there, that place in the middle where we both feel comfortable. Praise God!

Love,

COG

[cherrishher]

COG,

So sorry to bust in on your thread but I really could use your input. My latest thread can be found at my sitch

W and I have been separated for four months. The usual begining...pursuit, etc. We then moved onto being great friends and I could have sworn that things were more intimate than "platonic friends" but it has come out that my W is done, wants someone different, never should have married me, she's let go, wants to move on, doesn't want there to be a chance for us, etc.

She says the "intimacy" I was feeling was just us being good friends. She now seems so done....before, she didn't know, now she says she feels there's no chance and doesn't want there to be a chance. She says she wants to date and find someone else.

You have suffered the long road....can you offer any advice or perspective. I have asked God for strength and patience but I am currently feeling like there's no hope. It seems that in your case, your W "wanted" things to work but was just waiting for the changes. My W doesn't want it to work out, she says she sees my changes but they're too little, too late.

Please help!!!!

[seb71]

Cog,

I really like your thread and will keep up on it.

Keep it up and I smell a home run for you in the near future, I am in a similar situation and would love for you to pop over and read up on my sitch.

Thanks.

Cherish, your thread seems to be locked... Will you start a new one?

[st]

Cog,
Not sure I am quite ready for Piecing (still in newcomers) but on the verge (I think the glaciers are retreating faster). Many similarities between us.

Have you found any reading material? Been through the usual books over the past 18 months but haven't found anything like -once the D is busted now what? I can see this is not going to be the same as courting her 20 years ago. I would hate to screw this up in all my mighty ignorance like I did preDB.

st

[COG]

st,

Thanks for your response.

Have you found any reading material?

No, not much. I've been reading some spiritual writings. I don't think there's a big market for couples that have reconciled.

In some ways I feel like we're just dating. There are some definate boundaries that resemble those of when we were dating. I definately work hard at acting like a guy who's just dating her. The most important thing I've learned is to respect her. How she feels, what her priorities are, how she does things. I'm behind her all the way, I obey her requests, and compliment her regularly. I'm no doormat though. I have my own priorities, and desires. I'm getting better at communicating those to her in ways that are non-threatening. It's a different world for us.

God Bless,

COG

[COG]

Cherishher,

Your thread is locked, but I read through some of it. I read your W's first post.

Sounds to me like YOU need to change, your W is OK. Hopefully you'll know why she lost feelings for you. If not then read her first post again. That's enough to make any woman fall out of love.

See, you can't hit a person in the face with a baseball bat, then come back the next day, say your sorry and expect everything will be OK. It's going to take that person a VERY LONG time to trust you again, let alone have intimate feelings for you again. Better plan on YEARS to pass before she'll have real feelings for you. The sooner you make the changes the better, and they have to be real changes, not just temporary. Every time you fall back into old behaiviors you're falling back to that start line again. It's a long road, hang in there.

God Bless,

COG

[SvenTheRed]

COG, st,

This gave me a bit of a chuckle - it does seem that there are plenty of "manuals" to help you "fix" something to get it to the point of "working" but not much in the way of reading once you get there. Might be because each situation from there become's pretty unique...

But, COG, I think you put it well. When you learn how to "interact", A/V, listen, and DO - While having your own goals/ambitions that you are willing to share, it seems to get better and better. And, you ARE onto something with the not being a doormat. Good stuff.

One book I DID like - and it will give you ideas for keeping it going is "How to Date Your Wife" by Cronin. Simple and based on survey responses. A lot of "duh, I know that" stuff, but also has some unique ideas as well.

Hope that helps.

Sven

[COG]

Hi Sven,

Thanks for dropping in and for the book referral. I have a book to recommend also. It's called "The Power of a Praying Husband". There's also a companion book of prayers. It's good stuff.

So W was giving me some grief last night. See, we each have our own camera's. Hers is a point and shoot, mine is an older style 35mm that you have to adjust and play with. Well, I don't take a lot of pictures and sometimes my film will stay in the camera for 6 or 8 months and I'll have all kinds of different events and such. She's very organized, I'm not and it frustrates her that my pictures are hard to organize.

My son and I were going deer hunting and she was grinding on me, wanting me to just use her camera instead of mine. She thinks it's silly that we both have our own camera's. Says most normal family's only have one. So she's being pretty pushy with me. I just let her vent, did'nt want to get into it with her. Picked up my camera and left.

So, in the old days I would have told her she was being a selfish tyrant. But these days, I know to think things through. I could just get rid of my camera, and give her what she wants. But, then I might just resent that. Besides, I LIKE MY CAMERA, and her not wanting me to use it makes me want to use it more!

So, now that I've allowed about 18 hours time to pass. I think I will bring up the convo with her and explain how much enjoyment I get from my camera. See if I can't explain it's an enjoyable thing for me, it's not a struggle for power over the film and picture industry at the COG household. It's just that I've always had my own camera, you know and photography was my Mom's hobby growing up. Besides, I take pretty good pictures with this camera.......Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah.

Well, maybe I'll just offer to get rid of the camera.

I'll let you all know how it turns out.

COG

[COG]

OK well you won't have to wait long to find out about the camera issue.

Went home for lunch today and W was there. After some small talk I brought up the camera subject. I told her to please explain where she was coming from because I did'nt get it. So she went ahead and explained that it's a pain to try to organize one set of photo's let alone two sets of photos. She said that she did'nt mind that I had the camera, but that it was just more complicated like, if I went to the soccer game and took pictures on my camera. Then next day she goes to a play at school and takes pictures on hers. The chronological order gets screwed up because sometimes I leave my film in the camera for months. It would just be easier if I would take her camera. She said it's fine for me to take pictures of anything I want, but for family type pictures and stuff, use her camera.

Anyway, bottom line is she said that it takes her too much time to organize her own pictures let alone organizing two sets.

My response?? I smiled a big smile and said, well, I'm going to do everything I can to minimize the amount of time you'll have to spend organizing pictures, because that'll mean you'll have more time for me. We smiled at each other and hugged and kissed and life is good.

COG