A Little Epiphany - (and a newbie delurking)

[Dia]

Hi, folks,

Just a drive by tonight. I'm working late and may not get back to the forum until tomorrow morning. I will check in on everyone's sitches then!

Cheers,

Dia

[Butterfly1]

Looking forward to it - thanks so much for your support today!!!

[Dia]

Hi, GAG,

Thanks for stopping in. H and I did our own paperwork - no lawyers. So it was all on me to get things filed and sent back. Our papers got kicked back several times for various reasons, so I had ample opportunity to stall by simply not fixing the problems with the papers when they would come back.

During this time, I had started asking H if he wanted to reconcile, and he kept saying No, the D was 'for the best', etc. On the last round with the papers, I told him I would submit them again even tho I didn't want to, but if they got kicked back again, I wasn't going to re-file because it meant the universe didn't want us to get divorced. And that's where we are now - they got kicked back again.

Saving face - if you have lawyers involved, I think the only thing you can do as ask for a stay to do MC, or you can ask for a hearing and when the judge asks if you think the M is irretrievably broken, you say No, you'd like to do MC or Retro. Then the judge might order it.

Are things too dicey in your sitch for you to straight out ask your H for a little more time?

[Dia]

Hi Dia,

I haven't posted to you before, but I have been following your thread. It is going to be hard to get past all the hurt that he has built up. But I agree with the others that the fact that he is talking about it means he is thinking about letting it go. It is all a trust issue. To have trust you have to earn trust. So keep doing what you are doing, because it is definately working. But there is one thing missing from your list of goals....

Hmmm, what's missing? If you mean LM, I left it off on purpose because kissing comes first.

[Dia]

Call from H just now...

FIL, SIL and baby are arriving today and staying thru Friday. This is going to turn several things all caddy-wumpus.

1) H may not be comfortable sleeping in the same bed with me in front of FIL and SIL. Acid test for H.

2) Got no clue how we're going to accommodate everyone since we have no functional guest room at present.

3) Expect major pullback from H as he's not going to want his cake-eating to be seen by his family.

4) No clue how I'm going to be able to work either since I work out of a home office.

A warning, Gentle Reader - I'm about to wander into some intimate territory. Not sure what the board tolerance on this is like, so I'll be direct, but reasonably delicate. If that's TMI for you, best to move along and these are not the droids you're looking for.

H and I continue to take tiny baby steps forward in bed. H is holding the line at not kissing me on the mouth and not having intercourse, but we are petting a bit more each night. I am holding the line at keeping control of my own climaxes. I'm just not comfortable giving that to him under current state. (I would get too vulnerable, plus I'm not sure I like the comfort level HE might have if he thinks that reasonably satisfying me sexually is a fair compromise for not breaking it off with OW.) Last night, however, I let him watch after I backed him off and took matters into my own hands. I was a tad worried he'd see that as rejection (i.e. him doing it 'wrong'), but he enjoyed the show regardless.

Why am I telling you this, you wonder? Well, other people's threads have been immensely helpful to me in getting through various dynamics, especially those involving the ol' relationship push-pull dance. My intent here is to help others by showing them what to expect when things get to this area. But if folks object to the level of detail, let me know and I'll draw the curtain over it.

So afterwards, I got very cuddly-clingy, which he *loved* and encouraged. There were some lovely, soft words of welcome and come hither. I had to bite my tongue to keep the ILYs from flowing. He also responded very well to the line of nips and kisses on his throat and earlobe - so well that he stopped me.

I am not finding this at all frustrating on a physical level. I don't mind the start-stop stuff physically, and yes, we are making progress. Emotionally, though, I'm tired of the walls and limitations. It's the love and commitment I want. The sexual aspect is just icing on the proverbial cake.

Patience.

Patience.

Patience.

[undrdg]

Hi Dia
I have been following your thread. That last post you made is spot on.
While I do not have your control over your own desires, i have found myself in the same situation as you even though i am a male.
The first time my wife and I ML, it was bitter sweet. She started crying in the middle of it, saying that she was weak and just gave in. I was patient with her and let her know that i was there and hurting just as much as she was. It was intense for me, but in my mind I thought the more intimate we were the closer we would get. My words helped and we continued to ML. But over the course of the next few weeks she started retreating emotionally.

However this morning it came to fruition again and we ended up making love, for a brief while before the kid walked in.
The strange part is that before the kid walked in i whispered in her ear, "what are you thinking about" and she told me that we shouldn't be doing this but it felt too good to stop. I told her several times i would be more than happy to stop and attempted to only to have her pull me back.

It is strange the things, we allow ourselves to do and then regret it after. Before I left for work, I made sure that I kissed her as gently and passionatley as possible and she reciprocated. This to me doesn't seem like regret.

Its the love and commitment i want too, but dont you think that love making is also part of the cake and not just the icing on it?

[Dia]

Well, yes, I *do* want a marriage with plenty of love-making in it, so I suppose it is part of the cake. But I'm not willing to have the sex part without the love part. It's the ol' male/female thing, maybe?

Making love makes a man feel close, but a woman needs to feel close before she can make love?

Part of me wanted to give in to him last night thinking it would make him feel closer to me, but I'm not willing to be that tactical with things involving my own boundaries. Not at present, anyway.

[undrdg]

That is a keen observation. I wonder if that is why she started crying the first time.
She said something that almost stung me but after a second it made me realize what she was saying.

She said, she caves to me too easily. Then she said its a funny thing how she caves to her own husband and continued to hug me.

I want her to want me too, but I am not sure if i should go you route Dia.

[Dia]

Hmmm, spell it out for me - what is 'my route'?

Though in your sitch, what you are doing seems to be working - so keep doing it. Also, remember that there is an OW in my sitch. I might be a lot less self-protective if there weren't. I am a sexual abuse/assault survivor, and while all of that is ancient history I have to be careful of a few triggers or I suffer for it.

Not letting someone have unbridled access to my heart and body unless I'm 100% safe is a big-deal boundary thing for me. And with OW in the picture, I am not 100% safe.

YMMV

[Dia]

And just FYI - sometimes crying during love-making is just catharsis. It may not always have to do with the situation immediately at hand. Sex for many is about bringing down walls and barriers. Sometimes when those come down, it's hard to predict what will slip out.

When it's really intensely good, sometimes I cry. And when I do, H has been very, very good about holding me, comforting me and not taking it personally. On the upside, there are other times when its intensely good that I am overcome with deep laughter/giggles. He tends to prefer that response, at least after he established long ago that I was not laughing at *him.*

Since I'm in a self-revelatory mood today, I'll tell you that the reason I didn't let him finish things last night is that I knew I would cry. Neither one of us was ready for that.