Putting it back together, but SSM issues linger

[Hopeful321]

Accuray--I just wanted to stop in and say hi and see how you are doing. I hope you had a Merry Christmas.

[Accuray]

Thanks Greenblue and Hopeful, I'm out of the country but will provide a better response when I return.

One thing I'm thinking about is the fact that relationship books all tend to stress the importance of asking to have out needs met. Some go so far as to call it a "right" within the context of marriage.

The same books also state that it's imperative to accept your spouse for who they are without expecting any changes from them.

This is obviously a contradiction in advice if your spouse is not willing or able to meet your needs without changing, and this contradiction goes unaddressed in the books -- but you can't do both!

My W and I had a good discussion the other night and I brought up this contradiction. She said she faced the same dillemma -- her need for quality time wasn't being met but she felt it was her job to accept the fact that I wasn't meeting that need. She resolved that contradiction by having an affair and asking me for divorce. How do I resolve it?

Accuray

[greenblue90]

No offense but I think that's a smokescreen to not work on her own intimacy problems.

Nonetheless the best way to deal with this is to give her more quality time.

Either:

1. You'll remove the excuse.

2. She'll get what she needs to actually want to return love.

My problem with this is that she may be asking for something that is physically impossible. If you have 6 free hours, give her 4 and she demands 8, how can you meet that?

On the other hand she denies you loving physical contact. She provides 0 you ask for 2 and calls you crazy despite the fact she may be able to provide 4.

Regardless, if you give her the time she wants will that help with her feelings of inadequacy, or is this another temporary plug in a massive hole?

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Hope you have a good trip.

You're confronted with the illogic of your wife's requests or the apparent contradiction of the books you've read. To use a metaphor from my generation, its a bit like "f**king for virginity."

With regard to change and acceptance, there is a bit of a mind game and it can be tough to see how it can work (it does not always work out the way you might think). You have to look at this through the eyes of language.

Language (specifically your language) gives you an "occurring world." How the world occurs for you, how you categorize and catalog it, tell yourself what is happeneing and what it means, all of it occurs only through language.

No language, no occurring world 9at least for you).

So, let's tackle "change." Whenever "change" is what is needed (I selected the word "need" intentionally which I will get to in a second), it is always change from something (the past) to something (the expectation of a result different from the past). This change has a common thread...the past.

"Change," as a specific outcome, causes persistence. By referencing the very thing to be changed, that thing tends to persist. The expectation can be a killer when it is unfulfilled (no change or not enough change).

I selected the word "need" intentionally for two reasons. First, you have described your POV as a "need" for sex. Actually, no it isn't really. You need sufficient oxygen, you need sufficient water and you need sufficient food without the presence of contaminants to survive. Even though there is a sexual drive hardwired into your lower brain functions. You can survive without sex. The choice of the word gives you a way the world occurs for you.

Now what about "acceptance." It is allow things to be exactly the way they are and exactly the way they are not. It has nothing to do with "change" or the past or even some future expectation. In acceptance, the "problem" and the need to change disappear.

I'm going to leave it at that so you can think about that.

The Captain

[Young at Heart]

...If you have 6 free hours, give her 4 and she demands 8, how can you meet that?...

My take is a little different.

My suggestion would be to give her the time you can and maturely explain why that is all the time you can give her. If she complains, maturely and calmly explain your position and let her know that you are trying your best.

I often feel that we underestimate other people's ability to grasp and undertand topics, if they are explained in a away that avoids emotion-charged confrontation. Then again, some subjects are just frightening to some.

With luck, one should soon be having mature communications on relationship subjects. That in turn should allow for a lot of "needs" to be expressed. Those needs might not be immediately acted on by a spouse, but you never know and it never hurts to ask as long as there is no covert contract involved in the asking or bringing up of the topic.

Good luck

[greenblue90]

YAH
I only object to her using this as an excuse to not express love to him, and for the affair.

I think Accuray needs to balance a fine line between working more on providing the quality time she needs, and not letting her use this as an excuse to further push him away.

Going back to her self loathing, I am reminded of Schnarch. She is looking for emotional fusion to make her self happy. (in other words she demands you make her feel happy with quality time). unfortunately it is very unlikely you will ever provide enough. So she resents this and wonders if anybody else could ever provide it. Thus her WAW stage.

She has now returned but probably still doesn't understand why being back in a fused state is not meeting her needs.

Don't get me wrong your wife values you, otherwise she wouldn't have started having sex with you in order not to lose you.

It's my worry though that as she fails to receive the happiness and quality time she expects from you, she'll start wondering if its worth it to continue with this "obligation" she has.

Instead Schnarch in his book passionate marriage states that before they can love someone else and provide for their needs, they need to find their own inner happiness. Once she loves herself and feels loved it'll be easier to show you love.

So yes it is important for you to express love in your love language, but she needs to provide a good foundation of personal happiness to begin with.

That's why I keep coming back to her issues with depression, just some thoughts.

[Accuray]

Thanks Guys,

I've introduced confusion -- W is not saying she's not getting the quality time she needs now -- she is, and says her needs are fully met. She was simply saying that she appreciated the dilemma between acceptance and having your needs met when she decided to have the affair and leave me. The quality time absence is no longer an issue.

Will post more later

Accuray

[greenblue90]

Huh???

All I can say is keep giving her more love....

[Accuray]

Thanks everyone! Painful that I've been away and not able to respond to all the great feedback I've been getting here. I went on a family vacation. Overall it went very well, W and I had some ups and downs and unfortunately it didn't end on a great note.

Yesterday morning we woke up and I gave W a hug in bed, we tend to do that every morning. After a few minutes W said "do you mind if I read my book now?" Since we had nothing to do all day where we were, I figured we both had all day to read or lay around or do whatever we wanted, so I was a bit taken aback by the fact that W felt the need to start reading right then. Now the other side of that is that I'm acting crazy. So she wants to read her book and she's done cuddling, big deal! I see that side of it too. In any case, I didn't say anything at the time but W felt I was a bit "off" for the rest of the day. Last night, she was very nice to me, we had a good talk and ML.

Woke up this morning and she let me have it. Adversarial attitude as soon as I woke up. Asked me what was going on yesterday morning. I told her, admitted I was acting crazy and apologized. She didn't respond at all, but was clearly stewing. I asked her to say what she was thinking and she said "no, it won't help, you won't like it."

Now part of our piecing was to make new vows to each other -- one of them was to be open and honest, and not to withhold when we are feeling upset. Either "out with it", or let the other person know when you will be ready to share. W tried to re-write that agreement on the spot that she'll only share if she thinks it will help and I called BS on that.

After about an hour, she said that she seems to hurt my feelings every day and it doesn't seem to be getting better. She said that when she confronts me on that, I deny it. I listened to that and validated how she felt.

To say that she hurts my feelings every day is an exaggeration. I will own that as part of recovering from the affair, I'm more sensitive than usual. A couple days before Christmas she told me I was "looking round" which I didn't appreciate. On Christmas morning she yelled at me because the way she was laying in bed with me was giving her a headrush. I was hurt by that because historically, she would verbally attack me and get nasty for no reason. I'd ask her how her day was and she'd go off on me. When we were packing for vacation, she was getting frantic trying to get out of the house (never a good time for W). I asked her if there was anything I could do to help and she snapped "do whatever you want!".

So yes, I guess there is a pattern where she's making me upset, but it's not like it's all in my head and I'm imagining something based on some way she looked at me.

The issue, of course, is that this feeds into her fear that she can't make me happy, that nothing she does is ever good enough, and that all she'll do is let me down. That was her "exit excuse". I find it very hard to reconcile, because I really don't ask for much -- don't cheat on me, don't be mean or nasty to me, and have sex with me about once per week. I would also like her to work on figuring out how to enjoy sex, and to work on her overall self-esteem and anger issues.

We're on separate flights home, but I definitely feel like I'm leaning over the abyss again.

In terms of the great feedback I've been getting:

Labug: I still don't understand your distinction between setting boundaries and having expectations. If you set a boundary you "expect" it to be respected, right? What's the difference? It just seems to be another way of stating a need. Please expand.

Greenblue: "Crazy" implies a lack of recognition of your condition. W knows she has issues, she just chooses to cope with them rather than work on dealing with them. So yes, in effect, she is choosing to feel the way she does, because the alternative of pursuing therapy is available to her. Some people can't afford that route, she's in a position to be able to do it, so living with her condition is indeed a choice. I have been working on overall happiness, believe me, I've but everything into it. She has told me multiple times that her love tank is full and she's getting everything she wants/needs from me. She just wants me to be happy and accept her as she is. That's a reasonable request. I just find it hard to accept living with someone who's not happy -- she's unpredictable in that she's up one day and down the next, and it's hard to relax and feel comfortable and happy living in the shadow of that. It keeps me on edge, and on edge is not happy. I will continue to work on it. I'm very confident that the new IC I found will help, and the fact that she's agreed to see him with me is huge, I can't wait. He warned me that he'll likely throw me under the bus to make her comfortable and to get her to trust, so I know the first session will be hard on me, but that's OK.

Captain: Although that post was very deep, I have been pondering it. I agree that I do not "need" sex in a Maslow's hierarchy sense of the word. I am using the word "need" in the context of the relationship books I've been reading -- maybe a desire would be more appropriate. It's a desire that you would like to see fulfilled to feel comfortable and happy in your relationship. Quoting from "When Good People Have Affairs":

"In fact, being needy can be a sign of health and strength if what it really means is that the other person knows what they need, and that what they need is appropriate, and they ask for it. That's not needy. It's called being effective.

And it's not any less effective just because you don't feel like giving your spouse or your lover what they need. People have a right to get their needs met -- for affection, for feeling loved, respected, listened to, taken care of."

So a central tenant of many of the books I've read echos this sentiment -- you have a right to have your needs met in a relationship, and you owe it to your partner to vocalize your needs -- otherwise they will never be met.

The same books talk about the importance of accepting your spouse as-is, without expectation of change.

Now if you ask to have your needs met and the other person obliges, there is no issue -- that's healthy and productive providing your needs are realistic.

If you vocalize your needs and the other person doesn't want to or can't meet them, then you have the contradiction, your "right" to have your needs met is being violated, yet you need to accept the situation anyway.

I've found precious little guidance out of that spot other than "suck it up, too bad for you".

For clarity BEFORE my W dropped the bomb, she said she faced this same contradiction, although she failed to ask to have her needs met, she just assumed I was unable or unwilling, which, as it turns out, was a bad assumption!

CURRENTLY I have been meeting my W's needs, with the exception of accepting the fact that she's resigned herself to be perpetually unhappy.

WRT sex, I am getting sex currently, so that's not my need per se. I would like to "make love" instead of "receive sex", and that's a different thing as everyone on this board knows.

Greenblue: She's not looking for fusion -- in fact, she really professes to expect nothing from me and to accept me as-is. She does honestly try to live her life that way. She does not look for me to make her feel better, in fact, she tells me that I can't, there's nothing I can do because it's her issue. W's vision of marriage is actually that we don't "need" each other at all -- that we each stand independently 100%, and that the marriage provides benefits over and above that. In that view, she is espousing differentiation per Shnarch. If anyone wants some fusion here it's me, not her.

She does not "demand" quality time. She simply told me that's what fills up her love tank. If I don't provide it, she doesn't complain, she'll just vote with her feet. She's more complicated than the portrayals in the relationship books, because she's a contradiction of independence and self confidence, versus low self-esteem and anger. She needs help from time to time, but to ask anyone for it is the ultimate admission of inadequacy and that makes her sink deeper.

If she's drowning and you throw her a rope, she'll be pissed at you, because she "should" be able to save herself. How dare you imply that she needed your assistance. At the same time, she recognizes that she was drowning and that if you didn't help her, she'd be dead. She's very aware of the illogic of this, she's just not willing to work on it. When I see her suffering, it's very hard for me not to offer help, but when I do, it makes her feel worse and then get angry at me for extending a hand.

I have to train myself not to offer help -- either provide it without offering, or back off and let her suffer in peace.

Accuray

[Hopeful321]

I don't know what to say, but it sounds like damn if u do and damn if u don't.

I wish my H would some kind of effort in our marriage that you are trying to put in yours.