Putting it back together, but SSM issues linger

[Accuray]

Thanks Adinva,

You are right, I do feel lucky to have the situation I have at this point, it was much much worse in July.

I'm not sure W will go for a schedule, there are some nights where she just won't be willing, and if that happened to be a scheduled night she would resent having to do it anyway. I appreciate the suggestion about trying to find a way to reduce the uncertainty and I'll think about what else I can do.

WRT the taking, I don't know what to do about that. It's a scar, you know? Like anybody (I think) it's nice to feel wanted once in a while. I never tell W it was "bad", and I don't think she ever feels I look at it that way. I'm never down or hangdog afterwards, I'm usually very happy. It's the next day that I usually get the hangover.

Accuray

[Accuray]

Thanks Greenblue, hope it was a good use of your time!

I have mix feelings about your wife forcing herself to have sex with you. Mine was doing something similar, eventually she tired of it, and stopped it. Yours sounds to be heading that way.

I don't think she'll do that. She really took the SSM book to heart, and she really doesn't seem to mind doing it, it doesn't make her angry or upset in any way. The issue is really mine, it bothers me that she doesn't enjoy it and look forward to it. She doesn't hate it by any means, she's just very take it or leave it. It would be nice to feel wanted or desired once in a while, you know?

Instead focus on reducing all expectations of sex. You mentioned OM seemed a better choice because there were no expectations. I think you should steal this from his book.

I've tried that many times over the course of our marriage. That usually results in sex disappearing and me getting resentful. Honestly we're in a better place when she agrees to a given frequency but I let her decide when. MY issue is really the attitude she is bringing to it more than anything else.

My W believes that whenever I do something nice it's to get sex. She can't see the love involved in the action or in the sex. My goal is to break this belief through actions not words. To make her feel loved AND desired.

That's not my situation at all. I do not have "No More Mr. Nice Guy" stuff going on. I definitely don't "give to get" and my W doesn't regard me in that way. She *knows* I love her. It's not that she doesn't want me to validate her. The issue is that she's got a quick inadequacy trigger, and it's easy to fire that. Being critical of ANYTHING around her makes her feel badly about herself. I don't criticize her, and she is not insecure in my love for her.

Sex is not an overtly divisive issue in our marriage, we don't argue about it. The tensions are more subtle.

Mine believes I only validate for sex, could yours be feeling the same?

She does not. My W does not feel good about herself, and wants me to accept that rather than expecting her to work on it. Same thing with sex -- she doesn't have a drive for it and wants me to accept that. She's not interested in having good sex, she's not interested in having sex at all, but she will do it.

In response to Adinva's post, she doesn't seem to take any pleasure from satisfying me in that way (or any way). She doesn't do things to make me happy. It doesn't seem to do anything for her to please me. That's not to say that she's mean to me -- she's not. She's just low energy / low affection / low enthusiasm. In insight my IC contributed is that the *reason* she doesn't do things to please me is her fear that it will never be good enough, that she'll be judged and found to be lacking. Any form of thank you or praise (to her) is a reminder of all the things she didn't do or is not doing.

That's a tough spot for me to be in, it's very "no win" from my perspective.

Accuray

[Accuray]

Venting...

So W is on a business trip. She left yesterday afternoon and is back after midnight tonight. We had a nice phone conversation while she was on her way to the airport. Normally she calls me when she arrives, but she told me she wouldn't be able to this time. I told her "no problem, just drop me an e-mail or a text". She said she would.

Woke up this morning and looked for email/text -- nothing. Checked e-mail periodically throughout the day -- nothing.
She must be in the air by now, so I guess that's not coming.

Really? You told me you'd send me a text and you can't say "I'm here" or something?

So frustrating.

I keep setting myself up to be disappointed because I feel like the things I ask for are so small, so insignificant, that they will take no time at all.

In the past when this kind of thing happened I would proactively text or e-mail and just say "hi" and not mention that she never came through, but I realize that would make her feel worse because it would point out that she didn't deliver, and would imply that a response might be nice, and she'd then worry that her response wouldn't be adequate.

Tough place to be.

I feel like I lived with no expectations before the bomb -- I assumed that what W was contributing was all she was willing or able to contribute, so I did my own thing to meet whatever needs I had. Because I was getting nothing, I really wasn't motivated to invest much either -- I withdrew and we lived in a "partnership" with occasional passionless sex.

That lack of connection made W so resentful that she went out and had an affair.

Ok, so here we are, I'm back to the table, I'm investing like crazy, and when I'm doing that *it's almost impossible to live with no expectations*. If I'm going to participate, let's participate together!

I don't think I "deserve" her participation, and I don't think I've "earned" it, that's not how I look at it. I don't feel I'm owed. I would *like* her to participate, it would fill a need I have to be involved in an intimate relationship.

Intimacy for one is no fun.

Accuray

[greenblue90]

You know had a talk with my W based on some of the stuff you mentioned, she too has the same type of fatalistic nothing will get better so why try beliefs.

I asked her if she thought I loved her, she said, sure...

I asked if she felt that my actions expressed it. She said she felt nothing.

I asked her to help me by letting her know when an action makes her feel loved, also if something makes her feel unloved.

I've since backed off all expectations, and have worked at making her feel cherished, through actions, not words.

I'll let you know how that works...

Dont discount the nice guy stuff, so easily. You've said many times you are a giver, yet your wife feels she deserves nothing. There is a chance she feels that your kindness is self serving, even if it is far from the truth.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Accuray: I read through your last post before finalizing this and while I know you were venting, I thought it was still important to post this. Your thoughts and internal conversation are playing havoc on your feelings. You probably know that at some level but it is a little like trying to jump around behind yourself to see your own back.

That said, know that what may seem to challenge and confront you directly is actually designed to have you think through and be aware of your own word processing and how it directly affects your view of the world. That may be important later this evening. So here goes:

I have mix feelings about your wife forcing herself to have sex with you. Mine was doing something similar, eventually she tired of it, and stopped it. Yours sounds to be heading that way.

I don't think she'll do that. She really took the SSM book to heart, and she really doesn't seem to mind doing it, it doesn't make her angry or upset in any way. The issue is really mine, it bothers me that she doesn't enjoy it and look forward to it. She doesn't hate it by any means, she's just very take it or leave it. It would be nice to feel wanted or desired once in a while, you know?

I’m curious on what basis you come to this conclusion. GB90 may be on to something and I also have thoughts along the same lines. I also have some experience with this as well.

Wasn’t it her that offered the solution by going directly to divorce? Do not pass go, do not collect reconciliation? So, you already know one of the worst possible outcomes is already at the table. You certainly have accomplished much by drawing back from the brink and generating some conversation around the issues and I don't diminish the importance of that.

By your own admission (below) you get resentful at the absence of sex…and in your own words you say she does not enjoy it and does not look forward to it. You use the words “she doesn’t seem to mind.” You do realize that is your interpretation of that and unless she has specifically told you all of that (that she doesn’t mind, that she does not get angry or upset in any way) in an absolutely safe and truthful way, you really have no basis to say that. Besides your IC is likely to dissuade you from this line of thinking because if there is all this other stuff going on for her…she is very definitely upset and suppressing the expression of anger, which probably originated somewhere and sometime else; a learned coping mechanism that you are having to deal with.

From every thing I know, it likely extends from that fear you mention at the end of the post, that once something starts, the “never enough” feeling is something that she sees as something that she cannot control and it just spirals down from there.

The one thing she can control is your “want” to feel wanted or desired. Reading your later post, she can also control by not emailing or texting you. If there is all this fear, then it also there when she does not meet the expectation (hers or yours) by failing to text, no matter what the reason. “Why bother” if she’s already “in trouble” for not doing what she said she would do.

Instead focus on reducing all expectations of sex. You mentioned OM seemed a better choice because there were no expectations. I think you should steal this from his book.

I've tried that many times over the course of our marriage. That usually results in sex disappearing and me getting resentful. Honestly we're in a better place when she agrees to a given frequency but I let her decide when. MY issue is really the attitude she is bringing to it more than anything else.

And therein lays the problem. To paraphrase or quote YODA: “Do or do not. There is no try.”

“Try” is a weasel word. I can even give you an exercise to demonstrate this. Place a piece of paper on a table. Now try to pick it up. Did you pick it up? Well, you failed to follow directions. I didn’t tell you to pick it up, I told you to "try to pick it up." So, put it back down on the table and try to pick it up. Is it still on the table this time? Try harder. Still on the table? You aren’t trying hard enough, try harder.

See, it sounds like you are doing something without actually committing to anything. And that is the point.

Our lives and how our lives occur to and for us is based in language, specifically the language we use. Without language we are unable to describe an occurring world. Ever wonder why you can’t remember stuff before a certain age? Don’t think things happened in your world as a baby or a toddler? They did, you just didn’t have language to describe it and without language to catalog how things occurred, there is no way to remember. “Try” is one part of the language you learned very early on.

From inside your own head I know it looks like you are in a better place because she does sex to or on you periodically. And from the way you have written about it (the words you have chosen), that is what it looks like. She’s doing sex to you or on you “in order to” avoid something (e.g., you getting resentful). You’ve written things to that effect elsewhere in this thread as well. You don’t like her attitude? You’re really going to be unpleasantly surprised when she gets tired of doing sex to you. And as you admit, it is your issue.

Expectations can be a killer (different from anticipation) for more than one reason. Expectations are based upon a past conversation you’ve had (with yourself) and/or learned. It IS the way things SHOULD BE!

Failing to meet expectations (by falling short) leads to disappointment and fear that something is wrong. Maybe not the first time (but you will remember the disappointment), but certainly after numerous failures. So, every time you expect things to go a certain way and they don’t, what isn’t being fulfilled is a past conversation about the way things should be.

This is the language of your life and right now there is another set of language competing for your attention to explain your predicament. What a keen observer would note is that there is a certain excitement about "insights" and a new set of thoughts (and language) that may ring true for you. It's what you do with those insights that will ultimately matter. Some may be less compelling than they seem now, some may make a real difference (in defining your future relationship with your wife). Only time will tell.

My W believes that whenever I do something nice it's to get sex. She can't see the love involved in the action or in the sex. My goal is to break this belief through actions not words. To make her feel loved AND desired.

That's not my situation at all. I do not have "No More Mr. Nice Guy" stuff going on. I definitely don't "give to get" and my W doesn't regard me in that way. She *knows* I love her. It's not that she doesn't want me to validate her. The issue is that she's got a quick inadequacy trigger, and it's easy to fire that. Being critical of ANYTHING around her makes her feel badly about herself. I don't criticize her, and she is not insecure in my love for her.

Sex is not an overtly divisive issue in our marriage, we don't argue about it. The tensions are more subtle.

Here is a quick test. If your wife told you tonight, when she gets home, that she never wants to have sex with you again and wants to stay married to you…would you still love her? And how would she know?

Mine believes I only validate for sex, could yours be feeling the same?

She does not. My W does not feel good about herself, and wants me to accept that rather than expecting her to work on it. Same thing with sex -- she doesn't have a drive for it and wants me to accept that. She's not interested in having good sex, she's not interested in having sex at all, but she will do it.

In response to Adinva's post, she doesn't seem to take any pleasure from satisfying me in that way (or any way). She doesn't do things to make me happy. It doesn't seem to do anything for her to please me. That's not to say that she's mean to me -- she's not. She's just low energy / low affection / low enthusiasm. In insight my IC contributed is that the *reason* she doesn't do things to please me is her fear that it will never be good enough, that she'll be judged and found to be lacking. Any form of thank you or praise (to her) is a reminder of all the things she didn't do or is not doing.

That's a tough spot for me to be in, it's very "no win" from my perspective.

Accuray

You are correct in that sense…it is no win if you expect that what you describe as "needs" being met. I saw this earlier this week when you originally wrote about your new IC. “Acceptance” is going to be a real challenge. I know. I am in and out of this “acceptance” myself.

Let’s face it, you are quite clear that your wife’s personal preference is for no sex whatsoever. Left to her own preference she would not be sexually involved with you any longer while being married to you. Isn’t that what you’ve described? The problem you face and will continue to face is that while she may know you *love her,* she also knows you don’t accept her because you want her to be a certain way (your expectation) and she feels she can’t be the way you expect.

And there is another blind spot for you. You expect your wife to “accept” you. It is easy if your views and hers are pretty much aligned. Not so easy if they aren’t. My impression is that you don't feel very accepted right now.

Keep your awareness of what you are telling yourself. It will guide you through. The tough part is doing it in the moment and 'on the fly.'

The Captain

[Accuray]

Wow Captain, that was excellent, very thought provoking. You definitely made me stop and think. Don't think I skimmed over what I didn't quote below. I've only responded to areas where I have questions or want further dialog. The rest I accept with a humble "you are correct sir"

Wasn't it her that offered the solution by going directly to divorce?

Yes, but I don't understand the point you're making in this regard. I don't view divorce as the worst possible outcome. The worst possible outcome is "take no prisoners" acrimonious divorce and we didn't get near that.

By your own admission (below) you get resentful at the absence of sex…and in your own words you say she does not enjoy it and does not look forward to it. You use the words “she doesn't seem to mind.” You do realize that is your interpretation of that and unless she has specifically told you all of that (that she doesn’t mind, that she does not get angry or upset in any way) in an absolutely safe and truthful way, you really have no basis to say that.

Yes, although I admit this is my impression of things, it is informed. Historically she *would* get angry when she felt she was providing sex as a duty, when she really wasn't feeling connected to me at all, and that anger came through loud and clear. I saw the anger, but didn't understand the source because she wouldn't discuss it. I thought it could have been her job, parents, whatever the case may be, but the anger was evident either way. There is no anger evident now. The feeling of present anger is just not there anymore. There is caring now, and not resentment.

She also HAS discussed her feelings on the matter with me. We had several serious R discussions as part of our piecing, and I did get a lot of insight into her prior state of mind.

It is the scars I bear from years of living in the shadow of that anger that cause my issues with feeling like "taking". I simply can't do that anymore. As much as now it's receiving rather than taking, it's still difficult, because I would prefer to share instead of receive if that makes sense.

You'll have to take it on faith that our current ML does not make her angry. She doesn't resent me at this point. She has convinced herself that my changes have made me someone new, perhaps that's how she's wiped the slate in her own mind. I'm not going to pretend that the years of hurt have been erased on her part, they haven't. I have done a good job of not backsliding however. I "get it" and have embraced what she needs from me. I intellectually also understand the acceptance and no expectations. It's simply at odds with my needs, and those needs may be "mission critical" to me, to use my IC's language.

she is very definitely upset and suppressing the expression of anger, which probably originated somewhere and sometime else; a learned coping mechanism that you are having to deal with.

Yes, she is angry with her parents. Lots of suppressed anger there. She had some disfunctional prior relationships that left her with more anger. She also certainly accumulated some anger over the course of our marriage. She describes her current state of mind as "how she's always been, for as long as she can remember". She copes well however, she's not one to lay in bed all day or get paralyzed by depression. She manages to be happy once in a while, and that's what I live for. It's magical when her mood is good. She's very smart and self-aware, has her situation more or less understood, and chooses not to deal with it.

From every thing I know, it likely extends from that fear you mention at the end of the post, that once something starts, the “never enough” feeling is something that she sees as something that she cannot control and it just spirals down from there.

Yes, the IC nailed it. In discussing it with W she said "yes, I've told you that, you already knew that" Sadly, I did not. I wasn't able to understand it until the IC framed it for me. It's not a base of operation that I can identify with.

The one thing she can control is your “want” to feel wanted or desired. Reading your later post, she can also control by not emailing or texting you. If there is all this fear, then it also there when she does not meet the expectation (hers or yours) by failing to text, no matter what the reason. “Why bother”if she's already “in trouble” for not doing what she said she would do.

You lost me here, please expand. You're saying that she can exert some control over me by not meeting my expectations and keeping my "want" going. Wouldn't that just make her feel worse?

And therein lays the problem. To paraphrase or quote YODA: “Do or do not. There is no try.”
...
See, it sounds like you are doing something without actually committing to anything. And that is the point.

True, as mentioned, I did give it up for 14 months. I never mentioned it or made an overture in that time. From my perspective, that was a commitment. When I stopped commenting / pursuing more recently, she got upset thinking that she was failing me and started crying. It didn't seem productive to continue to pretend I wasn't interested in sex.

I simply cannot have no sexual expectations and be true to myself. We all have limits, that's something I know I can't do. If there's a line where I give up, that's where it's drawn. Being in a relationship with someone who I am attracted to, but am not sexual with makes me dark, it negatively effects all other aspects of my life, and to me, that tradeoff is not worth it.

Here is a quick test. If your wife told you tonight, when she gets home, that she never wants to have sex with you again and wants to stay married to you…would you still love her? And how would she know?

Captain, that's a *very* loaded question which I'm sure you appreciate. You told me yourself that we all have a line. That would cross mine. If my wife got sick and was physically unable to have sex with me, I wouldn't give it another thought, I would stay and love her. At that point I would have no expectation.

If she came home and told me that she was going to choose not to have sex with me ever again for no other reason than she didn't feel like it, I could not stay married to her. I wouldn't be doing either of us any favors by agreeing to that. I *would* still love her, of course I would, but I couldn't stay married, and those are two separate things.

I would imagine that if I came home and told her that I decided I wouldn't spend quality time talking to her ever again, she would not stay married to me either, and I wouldn't hold that against her. How could I? I know how important that is to her, and it's within my power to give. To withhold it and expect to stay married seems wrong.

Now to GB90's point, I could choose to view her lack of desire like a serious physical illness that precludes sex. Unfortunately, I couldn't live with that self-deception. I would wake up each day seeing through that and viewing it as a willful withholding, which in fact, I believe it would be.

Acceptance” is going to be a real challenge. I know. I am in and out of this “acceptance” myself.

Yes, this is what keeps me up at night. I have the opportunity to participate in this marriage which promises to be pretty damn good along many dimensions. There is one that is problematic. If I leave the marriage, there is absolutely no guarantee that I will find "a package" as good as the one I have now. Maybe I can find someone to be with where the sex will be outstanding, but if the rest of it isn't as good as what I have now, I probably won't be as happy in the long haul. If the rest of the marriage were bad, this would be easy. I'm agonizing over it because the rest is good.

The problem you face and will continue to face is that while she may know you *love her,* she also knows you don't accept her because you want her to be a certain way (your expectation) and she feels she can't be the way you expect.

To make things worse, I have faith in her to the point that I believe she *can* address these issues. I believe that if she works on her anger and self esteem, she will be a happier and more fulfilled person with or without me, and I do want that for her, from a very sincere place of love.

If someone you love woke up every day and slammed their hand in the door, could you stand by and watch that? Wouldn't it tear you apart every day knowing how unnecessary it is, and that the person could choose to stop doing that?

And there is another blind spot for you. You expect your wife to “accept” you. It is easy if your views and hers are pretty much aligned. Not so easy if they aren’t. My impression is that you don't feel very accepted right now.

Actually, I *do* feel that she accepts me. That's not what's driving my angst.

Keep your awareness of what you are telling yourself. It will guide you through. The tough part is doing it in the moment and 'on the fly.'

Yes, I'm having a hard time reconciling and accepting. I'm hopeful the IC can help to guide me through. I don't want divorce, I believe it permanently hurts the kids, and they're at a bad age for it. On top of that, I love my W and DO want to stay married. It's a very difficult tradeoff of things that are very important to me weighed against accepting what my W is and isn't able or willing to give. I'm not at the point of accepting that she's powerless to address her issues, and THAT is my problem. I realize that's not up to me to decide. She needs to do it for herself, not for me.

Accuray



[/quote]

[labug]

Accuray,

On someone else's thread you asked me to comment here if I had any other thoughts about your sitch. I've been thinking about it, and thinking about it and thinking about it. I haven't read your complete thread but enough to know that it seems that your W and I have similarities.

First, I have never been sexually abused but was raised by a controlling mother who was physically abusive and believed that children were to be seen and not heard. I was to have no feelings about anything other than what she allowed me to feel.

My H was in a sex starved marriage. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy sex but that it was difficult to get "in the mood." There were alot of inside-my-head roadblocks that I had to hurdle to get to that place of being able to just relax and enjoy. Sometimes a couple of glasses of wine helped. I was conditioned that sex was bad, anything done for pleasure was not acceptable and I felt that I was never good enough and had a huge fear of rejection. These were not things that my H made me feel, these are just things that were in my head. I have told my IC that it always seemed there were 3 of us in the marital bed, me, H and my mother.

I wanted to be sexy, provocative, hot but couldn't reconcile that with the good girl I was supposed to be.

We never really talked about all this. Sad, huh? I tried to convince my self that it really wasn't that important but it was very important to him. I sent him the message that if he really loved me he would not push me to have sex. He never forced but he would be very frustrated and sometimes angry.

I did often believe that the only reason he would touch me, hug me, kiss me was because he wanted sex. I would rebuff those overtures. I love my H, I just wasn't able to show it in the way he needed.

But what happened between us is not as important as what was going on in my head. Through counseling that I have been able to face all these anxieties and begin to believe that we are meant to be sexual beings and to enjoy sex. That having sex does not make me "bad." If your W is not able or willing to do that work, I'm not sure what you can do that will make your sitch acceptable to you.

I hope this might provide some insight.

Now, I have a request. Could you read my sitch and give some input? You posted on NLW's thread re How to Save your Marriage Without Talking About It and men feeling shame around not being a good provider. I have that book and will have to go back and re-read it. I think that may be at the heart of our problem and I don't know if it can be fixed.

Anyway, thanks.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Accuray:

I'll get back to you after Christmas. I hope you have a good one.

The Captain

[labug]

To make things worse, I have faith in her to the point that I believe she *can* address these issues. I believe that if she works on her anger and self esteem, she will be a happier and more fulfilled person with or without me, and I do want that for her, from a very sincere place of love.

She can but she doesn't want to for whatever reason. Expectations, my friend, expectations. You can't make her want to change, you can't control her. What can you control? What is your boundary here? What are you willing to accept? Take emotion out of it and write it in a simple statement.

When you ________ I feel _________. I want ________.

[greenblue90]

I see the hesitation to label your wife.

Especially if the label has connotations of mental instability.

I'm not saying your wife is insane, but she definitely sounds like she is suffering from chronic depression, a recognized physiological disease.

As mentioned before you said that you think she "can" she just "won't". Let me ask you this do you think she chooses to be miserable? You said she suffers from low self esteem and feelings of worthlessness. Do you think she chooses these?

Im not saying I can diagnose your wife, I'm not there. All I'm saying is that she shows a lot of the symptoms of chronic depression.

My best recommendation is to keep filling up her love tank, to the point where she believes that you do want what is best for her. Then convince her to see a therapist about her depression.

The weird thing about depression is that for some of us, it may come down to something as simple as, bad nutrition, or an easily fixable hormonal imbalance.

As is often the case, it's often more than just about sex.

You're definitely not going to cure whatever emotional road block she has in her head, she shows no willingness to do it either. So I think you should work on her overall happiness. Maybe this will put her on the path to get the help she really needs.

You can't change her, but you can create the type of environment where she feels it's the right thing to get help.