Putting it back together, but SSM issues linger

[Accuray]

Thank you Captain,

She has family members who are bi-polar, so I believe there is some of that going on.

The issue with being the more expressive partner is that my love language is "words of affirmation" and I do not get those from her. Words of affirmation actually make her feel badly when she receives them, so she doesn't give them. The only way I "get my love tank filled" is if I become less expressive, she'll step up and be more affectionate, but it comes with a price in that she starts to panic. I'd like to be able to get the words of affirmation without making her think I'm angry at her or withdrawing.

Thanks, I look forward to more of your thoughts, you are very helpful. Let me know if there was more I needed to take from your exercise.

Accuray

[Accuray]

Thank you Young at Heart,

My situation is a bit different than I think I've lead you to believe. We had "the bomb" which tore everything down, and we've been piecing back to together. Therefore, the historic anger / communication / withdrawal etc. issues have been addressed. My W claims to be very happy with me and the marriage. The remaining issue is really mine -- that she is not an engaged sex partner. That doesn't seem to be based on the fact that she's angry with me, and I am making sure to keep her love tank full. The other areas of our marriage are going very well. The last elephant in the room is that I'm unhappy with our sex life, and the fact that I'm unhappy makes my wife unhappy.

The root issue is that she's unhappy with herself / has low self-esteem and this combined with other unknown factors has given her very low sex drive and latent negative feelings about sex. The challenge is that she is not willing to work on improving this situation, and I'm not sure if I can resign myself to being "given" sex as a gift, versus participating in sex with a partner for the rest of my life. Make sense?

To be clear, she's not withholding sex, she is providing it, but in the context of gift giving versus engaging.

I get your point about "NMMNG" -- I read that book and honestly I do not see myself in it. I don't do things for my W in order to get things in return -- nor do I feel I'm "owed" good sex in return for acts of service or quality time. If I felt that way, I'd be satisfied with receiving sex as a gift and I'm not -- I'm looking for partner engagement and mutual satisfaction.

Where I'm coming from is that we've just gone through a horrible crisis in our marriage. In putting things back together, we've gotten the chance to hit the "reset button" and define a new path for ourselves. Among the dysfunctional dynamics of our now dead prior marriage was an unsatisfying sex life.

Since we're putting in all the effort to make our new marriage stronger and better, don't we owe it to ourselves to address this issue along with all the others? From all my reading, a good sex life complements and reinforces a good marriage and vice-versa. Why should we put together a great marriage and settle for a mediocre sex life? That's really how I'm looking at it. Ok, we've mutually done all of these things to improve our marriage -- I'm frustrated by the fact that she's not willing to work with me to improve our sex life, and I'm having a hard time understanding and dealing with her explanation for why not.

I am not playing games, and I am not being untrue to myself -- quite the opposite. I've observed, however, that when I'm the more expressive, affectionate partner, that my needs do not get met and my love tank does not get filled. If I dial that back, she does step up, but does so with a "panic tax" that doesn't allow us to establish an equilibrium there. It's like MWD's analogy of a teeter totter in DR, if one partner is pursuing the other is not.

Our "norm" so far has been that I pursue, I fill up her love tank, she feels good but does not reciprocate. My tank runs down, I get frustrated by not having my needs met, then she gets upset because she feels she's not living up to my expectations.

To boil it down to a simple example. THIS IS A CONTRIVED EXAMPLE, I DON'T REALLY DO THIS, NOR DO I NECESSARILY WANT THIS:

1) I tell her "to fill my love tank, send me a text once a day and tell me you love me"

2) She tells me "to make me feel loved, talk to me for 30 minutes every night"

3) I talk to her for 30 minutes every night, and I enjoy it too, we connect. I don't view it as "for her", it's for us.

4) She never sends me the texts

Eventually she'll notice I'm not happy. I reiterate that sending the texts would fill up my love tank. She gets upset that she doesn't meet my needs, tells me I'd be happier with someone else, and starts to cry.

***Instead of getting upset because you haven't sent the texts, why not just send the texts?***

That's kind of the million dollar question for me right now.

Really I don't care about texts -- that's just a silly example -- but it DOES apply to words of affirmation, physical affection, a good sex life, etc.

I have spent a lot of time talking to my IC and my DB coach about whether I'm setting sky-high expectations or being unreasonable or overly needy, but to the contrary they are telling me that my needs are modest, that I'm asking for things that would be expected from any marriage, and that if anything I'm overly understanding about my wife's unwillingness to deliver.

I understand your point about setting a goal and making a timeline. I have thought about that a lot recently. In the end, though, I really love my W for many reasons -- so I really want this to come to a happy conclusion where my W agrees to work on herself and seek some therapy. I am confident that she will enjoy her life more as a result -- I'm not being purely selfish. We all either enhance or diminish the moods of those we interact with. That applies to me and my children in the case of my W. If she's happy more often than sad or angry, then she has a net positive effect on us, and that's selfishly what I want, but altruistically, I want her to be truly happy herself.

What I've been thinking about the last couple days with the help of the Captain is that I have two paths forward -- (1) drop this and cope with what I'm giving -- take it off the table as an issue in our marriage and be happy with what I am getting or (2) drive this to a crisis to precipitate a change.

The first option scares me because I don't see a path to personal fulfillment and happiness there.

The second option has two resolutions -- W agrees to see a therapist and work with me, or she doesn't and the marriage ends.

Obviously I want the outcome where she works with me, but she's made it very clear she does NOT want to do that.

Accuray

[Young at Heart]

Sorry, I did misunderstand things.

It sounds like you have made incredible strides.

As for me, I think I understand what you are saying. I have in my life opted for the settling for what I have for the moment, but continuing to mover forward with my GAL and self improvement.

As an older man with adult sons and a wife of 40+ yesrs of marriage, I want to savor what I have for a change, even if it could be more, as life can be much shorter than we expect. Perhaps that is also a reason not to settle.

I feel that in the future (while neither of us has any health problems now) we will face real challenges and that will give us opportunities to have some crisis bring us closer together. My hope is that we can continue to evolve together. I know that I intend to continue to evolve and become a better person.

You definately have a choice of dropping the changes you want to push for or driving things to a crisis. I do think that there may be a third alternative and that is to take a short breather, but promise to continue your improvement so that you continue to build a better marriage. Once you are achieving change, the idea of taking a breather may sound like stopping and just learning to cope with no further progress.

I feel that there can be a commitment to a better future, even if one takes a breather. Good luck to you and congratulations on all that you have achieved.

[Accuray]

Thanks Young at Heart, it's valuable to get the benefit of your experience. My IC actually recommended something similar. She said that we tend to assume that the way things are now is the way they will stay -- but that's usually not the case. We continue to grow in our marriage, and the marriage continues to grow through us.

You may be right that my best course of action is to cope *for now* and put a check-in point on my calendar in six months to re-evaluate how I'm feeling about things.

My W and I definitely fell victim to this thinking historically, where one of us would say something once, and the other would take it as fact now and forever. If we had instead brought the point to question again, we would have found that the other person had softened or changed their mind entirely about what seemed set in stone before. I've made it a point now when discussing how I'm feeling with W to say that "this is how I feel now, I may not always feel this way" because I recognize the value of keeping the door open to continue to re-evaluate divisive issues.

Based on these posts and further reflection, I'm going to assume my W is not willing to work with me now, but that doesn't mean she won't be willing to work with me ever, and I'm going to let it ride for a while. Everything else really is going quite well (with the exception of lack of words of affirmation) and we're by no means done "retraining" each other how we're going to react and respond in this marriage going forward. Over time we may build more trust and comfort, and that may open the door to a willingness to be more vulnerable and take more chances.

I really, really hope it does. In any case, I will put the date on my calendar for June to re-evaluate.

Accuray

[adinva]

YAAAAAYYYYY! Accuray, wow! I love that thinking. Good good good!

You have hit upon a great approach to my dilemma about people striving for excellence crushing those they want to help. Just BE for a while. Then check back in. I think it's the constantly being evaluated and falling short that is so draining.

You're right. My T has mentioned lots of times that what you think and feel NOW may be different later and same for your spouse. Focusing on the moment frees you from worrying about the future. Try to be completely happy for the moment with the good things you DO have.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Thanks, I look forward to more of your thoughts, you are very helpful. Let me know if there was more I needed to take from your exercise.

Your answers reveal to me that you've thought through and conceptualized some of these conditions based upon your experiences so far. And they also reveal a number of similarities between the way you and I think (a recognition of another person with views/experiences that are similar enough that they are recognizable at somedeeper level).

For example, I can relate to your perception, at a personal level, of sex versus making love. You could probably make a similar distinction between love and lust.

There is a certain before/after quality to your writing as to where you started piecing things back together. Having survived an affair (the marriage did not but I did) and to put away the anger, there can occur a perceived point in time where the past becomes the past and there is only "now" and "in the future." I know where and when that was for me. You might not know where and when that was for yourself and yet to someone reading your words, I think it would be evident to them.

However, I also picked up something else...that "before" and to a large extent even now, left to her own, your wife would not engage in sexual activity. It seems that whatever that is, it does not have much to do with you. It does not surprise me that she didn't notice (though she probably did with some feeling of relief) or might otherwise deny not only the infrequency of sex/lovemaking but that it was so infrequent or non-existent at all. Even before my past 14 years with the explicit demarcation of no sexual activity, there were long periods where my current wife just did not seem to notice absence (and when I finally did start pointing it out, there was lots of anger returned).

A similar occurrence in my first marriage except much more dramatic and my first noticed and worried about it at first, because we went from making love about 16 times per month (before our son was born) to 16 times in 4 years after he was born before we went our separate ways. How did I know? Wasn't it just a perception? No, I journaled and kept records (marked a calendar that only meant something to me)...just so what i was thinking or feeling wasn't different from what was and was not actually occurring.

So, been there done that.

Here's what I notice from your response in the period "after" you've begun to rebuild:

You identify a level of anxiety if the sexual frequency falls below some minimum. You both have that anxiety in some form (you because you don't want to be a non-sexual person in a marriage, her because she now thinks "something's wrong" once the issue was put into the spotlight). At one level you are attempting to fulfill an old Doobie Brothers Album title (What were once vices are now habits). At some level, though, you are probably going to need to transition away from the avoidance of anxiety to a point where you are engaged "for" something in your marriage.


There is an interesting article written from Laurie Gerber's POV that you might find interesting, in that you look like you are attempting to put some of these into place.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-gerber/why-my-husband-wont-cheat_b_1121177.html

The Captain

[Accuray]

And they also reveal a number of similarities between the way you and I think (a recognition of another person with views/experiences that are similar enough that they are recognizable at somedeeper level).

Agreed, I believe that's why your original advice really spoke to me is that I recognized a kindred spirit.

there can occur a perceived point in time where the past becomes the past and there is only "now" and "in the future."

Yes, I know what you're saying, but I also know I'm not quite there yet. I feel like I'm approaching it in 50% increments which means it seems like I'll never quite get there, but the distance keeps getting shorter and shorter to the goal.

To some degree it feels very surreal -- my W is back in many ways "as I remembered her", or as I perceived her character from the start. I did not believe that person was capable of cheating on me, so now that she's "back" the fact that she did seems somehow unbelievable again. I don't know if that makes sense. I do still get triggered to think about the betrayal now and again, but where I "go" emotionally when that happens is night and day compared to how it used to be.

I used to get severely depressed, whereas now I feel slight anger, greater frustration, and still predominantly sadness. It's getting better, but in many ways it's still hard to believe this has happened to me. If not for the positive changes I've made for myself, I really do wish I had a mind-eraser to block that knowledge out. In many ways, I have healed, but there is still more ground to cover, and this relationship will never be the same, there will always be a scar.

I have come to the realization that if she told me she was going to leave now, I would be much better prepared to handle it. I would know what emotions to expect, and what the path looks like. That knowledge is a comfort -- it will allow me to detach if I need to. At the same time, I believe that the realization that our wedding vows are not "sacred" has driven a wedge where the marriage cannot be a place of safety and security like it once was, and that's a regrettable loss.

However, I also picked up something else...that "before" and to a large extent even now, left to her own, your wife would not engage in sexual activity. It seems that whatever that is, it does not have much to do with you.

Yes, the fact that it does not have to do with me is intellectually understandable, but emotionally challenging. As I've covered ad nauseum, this is an issue for me and not for her. Before getting married, I did have a few other longer term relationships, and at least a couple of them were really good sexually. However, in each case, many other things were missing. My W is the complete package for me in all the areas that matter *except* this one which unfortunately is quite important to me.

I think of it like a different model of Maslow's Hierarchy. At the top of the pyramid are the crucial issues in your marriage. These have to do with if the other person is "on your level" intellectually and in terms of emotional development, if you are genuinely attracted to the person physically and otherwise, and in my view, if you are sexually compatible.

The next layer down the pyramid may include your views on parenting, your politics, views on religion, etc.

Farther down might by hobbies and interests, musical preferences, what you like to eat, neatness, etc.

Ideally you're aligned with your spouse up and down the pyramid. If you're not, there will be conflict:

From my perspective, the things at the top are your "walkaway factors" -- that if those don't work out, you can't continue. The next level down are going to be divisive issues in your marriage and may be an ongoing source of tension, but probably won't end it in and of themselves. They will however simmer and cause ongoing angst if not resolved.

The lower level layers may lead to conflict in the moment, but they're minor annoyances and not things you dwell on.

In my situation, my top layer is very good with the exception of sexual compatibility. That's not so bad *right now* that I'm in a walkaway position, but it has the potential to become that important.

The next layer down (politics, religion, parenting, financials, etc.) we are almost 100% aligned, this has made our marriage virtually free of arguments.

In the bottom layer, we are more diverse, and these things are annoyances for both of us, but they're on the bottom level of the pyramid so they're just not that important.

At one level you are attempting to fulfill an old Doobie Brothers Album title (What were once vices are now habits). At some level, though, you are probably going to need to transition away from the avoidance of anxiety to a point where you are engaged "for" something in your marriage.

I don't understand what you're saying here, although I do like the Doobie Brothers, can you elaborate?

There are a lot of things I'm engaged "for" in the top and second level of my pyramid described above. If all those things weren't good, I wouldn't care about the sex because I wouldn't stay in the relationship.

I very much enjoyed Laurie Gerber's article, I hadn't heard of her before. I would LOVE to have my W read it, but that would be contrary to my new pledge to give it a break and see how things unfold.

I will see if Laurie has other articles that I might share with her along the lines of the non-sexual.

Thanks Captain,

Accuray

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

A quick reply on vices and habits and other odds and ends.

If sex (ir something else) is a "vice" and you practice it often enough, it becomes a "habit" (rather than just a vice. There is a bit of twisted humor in there.

Remember, as I occasionally have to remind myself, that anger is just fear expressed. And there may be a time where you just let it go.

You asked several posts back why I stay given my situation and why my wife stays given her choice. From my POV, she stays because she mostly has the relationship with me that she wants. I'm not mean, disrespectful or uncaring of either her or others around me. She can mostly have the life that she wants to share without me dictating how it should or has to be.

Why do I stay? Because I made a promise or more than one and it is personally important to me to keep them. I and others have questioned the wisdom of making them and whether they should really be set in stone. This is not the relationship I hoped for, it is not the relationshop and marriage of my dreams, and as I have told her, if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't, simply because I feel I've given up so much.

Mostly the anger/frustration has dissipated simply because hoping for something to change in the presence of no-risk just hasn't produced any results. Although she says she sees things somewhat differently than the way I portray them (meaning she didn't really want a non-sexual relationship, she can neither bring herself to give me permission to sexually engage with her or just make an advance of her own.

notice, for example what Laurie said in her article about that about being permissive about her husband and sexual issues. I don't have that and pointing out that I don't does not make any difference.

So, I've settled in and accepted a non-sexual marriage until death do us part.

The Captain

[Accuray]

Need advice:

My W went on a business trip Thursday night and came home last night. If you've followed my sitch, you know my W had 2 serious EA's with coworkers in the past. When she returned, I asked her about the trip. She flew to another city and connected with her company's salesman for that territory who she works with mainly remotely. Friday they had a meeting together with a client and then she flew home.

Here's what happened:

Before she left she told me she would call me to check-in Thursday night when she got to the hotel. She volunteered this, I didn't request it. She asked how late she could call. I told her up until 11:00 would be fine.

At 9:45 she texted me and said she was running out to get some food and would call when she got back to the hotel. At 11:10 I sent her a text telling her I was really tired and we could connect tomorrow.

When she got back from the trip last night, she told me that Thursday night she and the salesman had gone out to dinner together. The concierge gave them a restaurant recommendation that he said would be good and reasonably fast. She said as it turns out, it was a very fancy Italian dinner. She said that the salesman is a bit younger than she is, and is "old school" with his manners. He would take care of all the travel arrangements, taxicabs, etc, hold the door, etc. He also asked her what she was going to order and ordered for her. She said that he is a "metrosexual", very fastidious, a "foodie", etc.

She said that's why they got back to the hotel after 11:00. The next day they went to the business meeting. The customer was there shaking hands with everyone at the start of the meeting, but gave my wife a big hug.

A few things: my wife is fiercely independent and very much an advocate of women's equality. She doesn't let me carry her luggage for her, etc., so I was very surprised she wouldn't have an issue with the salesman ordering her dinner for her. I asked her if she thought that was appropriate, and she said he's just "old school", and that she liked it.

What am I to take from this? Was this story designed to make me jealous, to make me feel inadequate, or was it innocent and I'm being crazy?

I acknowledge that when we haven't had sex for a while I get "dark" and I'm there now. Last night made that worse. Should I say anything to her about how this made me feel, or blow it off? I definitely don't want to be needy.

Accuray

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

So, what does your intuition tell you, with tone and the words she chose? Does it tell you this situation is something that was far too enjoyable in an inappropriate way?

Or, is it just an attempt to be open in the context of your past?

You are going to be in for a long slog on issues of trust and only you know how reliable your intuition is.

The Captain