...It's the middle of the night and I'm balling my eyes out because another whole day went by of me strutting my 10-lbs-lighter behind around trying to get some kind of attention, and this time... "I have a headache."
I didn't try to come on to him, because I'm trying not to, just wanted to see if he would even look at me, being my sexy self.
And I get on here for some ENCOURAGEMENT (hence the topic) and all I get is "there's no point in trying to fix something that can't be fixed"
If that's the case, then what's the point of any of this "divorce busting" BS?
I know I can't change him into someone he's not, nor would I want to. I have stuck around this long because he is so dear to me.
First of all, let me again congratulate you for taking charge of your life!
Congratulations for strutting you "10-lbs-lighter behind!" Focus on your feelings and try not to require your spouse to validate you for this wonderful accomplishment, figure out how you can validate yourself for this change!
Now let me try to provide a little encouragement and advice.
Nothing is "hopeless." As you have stated you have a great love for him and that is something special. Not pressuring him is also important as he may need some space and time. Pursuit could in his mind be smoothering and drive him away from you rather than bring him toward you, which is what you want. Sexual desire ebbs and flows in a marriage and you need to learn how to react to that kind of cycle.
One of the things I would suggest that you do is to read and reread Chapman's the Five Languagues of Love and find out both what your and your spouses primary and secondary languages of love. Then I would do your best to make your spouse feel "loved" in their primary language of love. That is some people will not feel loved even if they has sex three times a day, unless their spouse keeps the house clean, provides them a hot dinner at a certain time of day, and are brought the newspaper to read when they first get home. Those kind of folks are acts of devotion/service people. There are jokes about them as traditional husbands. There are others who will not feel loved unless their spouse praises their accomplishments each day and what wonderful things they have done for their family. Those are words of affirmation people. If those were the primary love languages of your spouse and you didn't express your love to them in those ways it would not matter how many times a day you had sex with him, he would not feel loved.
Let's say that your husband is an act of service primary love person. Let's say that each day he does certain chores around the house and that once a week he does some other things that he feels are his way of saying he loves you. You need to learn what those are. You also need to "thank" him for expressing his love to you, even if it doesn't make you feel loved. Once you express your love to him and thank him for expressing his love to you all in his primary/secondary languages of love, he will start to feel loved and feel closer to you. Once he is feeling loved he will start to bond with you emotionally, chemically and physically. I hope that the above makes sense to you, as I probably haven't explained it well.
So far I have not talked about your getting what you need to feel loved, have I? You are the one trying to save the marriage. At some point when your spouse feel loved and bonded to you, then you can work on explaining to him, "what your primary/secondary languages of love are." At that point he may feel like he understand that he wants you to feel loved and will stretch himself to express love to you in ways that are foreign to him, possibly through touch or sex, just because he feels loved and wants to make you feel loved and because he now knows that is what it takes to make you feel loved. That is the goal you need to visualize and think about and work toward. It could take a long time, a short time, or he may never figure it out. All you can do is try.
The whole Get a Life (GAL) process is to make you feel good and better about yourself and to show yourself and your spouse that change is possible. Once you are feeling better about yourself and that you have control over yourself, you can change the way you interact with your spouse and work on making them feel loved in the way that they want to feel loved (not in the way you would want them to love you.) You can also work on becoming the most interesting woman he has ever known and one who he has to please because wants so despirately to be with you.
The sad truth is that you can not change someone to be what you want. Only they can do that. Some of the advice you are getting is trying to make sure that you don't get false hopes. You need to become a magnet that pulls him to you. You can not push him to do things.
The people on the forum have all dealt with the pain of relationships that have had rough spots and are just trying to help and share painful lessions that they have learned.
Good luck to you and congratuations for what you have accomplished.
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
He hasn't always been LD, for example in his previous relationship, and when he was single, he had what he called a "healthy sexual appetite."
And this is not the only sexless relationship I have been in either. A few of my past boyfriends never seemed to want me to touch them either.
So it's clear to me that I need to make changes to make myself more sexually attractive to him. I have known this for a long time and that's why I came here. I love him just the way he is, but there is something turning him off.
"I love him just the way he is, but there is something turning him off."
If that is the case, then only he can tell you what the issue is and what you can do to change. There isn't much that strangers can tell you about his personal tastes, issues, and reasons for being turned off. All we can do is encourage you to ask him to open up to you, be honest with you, and ask him to help you with this issue because you love him very much and want to be more sexual with him.
I came here for support and encouragement in the whole GAL process. I came here for those times when I really want to pursue/nag/yell at H but I know it's a bad idea, so someone on here can say "Nooooooo don't do it, be patient and take a deep breath."
I already know what I should be doing. It's actually sticking with it that's the problem.
Starving...I feel bad. I am sorry you just want encouragement and it seems like we are all saying the wrong things. I re-read your first post, and you said you want advice on how to get through the phase one part of this journey...ie: how to stay focused on yourself and not break down and freak out on him.
I think the reason most of us have a hard time giving advice with that is because most of us have been through it too, and its really REALLY hard. Its a very personal journey to go through...to not feel rejected, to stay chipper, to GAL, all the while your body is screaming "I just want to be intimately closer to you and you don't seem to even notice me! URGH!!" I have struggled with that on and off in my current marriage, and nothing really helped me in the long term. I have a huge sex drive and when I go without sex with him for too long (which varies for each HD person, for me it is a week or more) I get edgy, pissy, and then finally I end up acting out in ways that get me even further from my goal. I've tried exercising, which can help for a short time, but is only a temporary distraction. I've tried meditation, reading, other GAL stuff...again its only a distraction.
The only thing that truly helped was having direct, honest and loving conversations with him....over and over and over....until finally we hit some kind of breakthrough and he is now on board with making sure I'm getting enough sex. He is not LD but much lower D than mine, so he just doesn't get that feeling of edgy-ness when we go for a week or two without it. So he would "forget" that I was on edge after a while. I'd remind him, but he'd forget again. Finally I had to remind him over and over so many times in succession (over a period of 2-3 months) that he "got it". I also had to tell him some things I didn't want to say, such as, when we don't have sex for a week or two I start to notice other people. When we are having plenty of sex, I don't notice people at all. But when we aren't, I start to. I also had to say things like "its not good for our marriage for you to let me go around thinking you don't want me as often as I want you". These weren't threats, they were said in loving conversation, but of course, he didn't like hearing them. However, it did sink in and he realized that he can't let me "suffer" without as much sex as I need, because it truly does feel like suffering to me. I finally got him to understand that.
Anyway...this is not answers or advice really. Its just me sharing with you that I know how yucky it feels and I've had to come a long way to get where we are with frequency. We've been together for 6 years now and finally I am getting sex 2-3 times per week consistently, which is what I've always needed. When I was in the space you are in, where I was feeling let down and frustrated and edgy and yucky about it, there really wasn't anything that helped me cool down. I tried everything I could think of, channeling my sexual energy into other outlets, but it never helped long term. So that's why I'm sharing with you the only thing that worked for me: direct discussion with him and getting him to understand what I need.
The love you have for your husband is inspiring and I feel it through your posts. I hope you do find encouragement by at least being able to have a forum to discuss these issues. I'm sorry we haven't been more encouraging before now. :0(
These boards are a confusing place. Everyone is on here because they are having some sort of R problems, and many are similar but different enough that just reading gives one all kinds of perspective.
DQ - sounds like you're reading a page from my book. My H and I have also had lots of discussions like that, which would result in him making more of an effort to be affectionate and be more sexual. Though it usually didn't result in more frequent sex, just having him be mindful of his interactions with me, made a big difference in how I felt. It's funny how far a little bit of attention goes with me, a little slap on the butt or a passionate kiss and *ZAP* my confidence is back and I feel like he loves me again. I'm really not as hard to please as he thinks I am.
And I have said to him, "Don't you notice that when we have had sex, I don't seem to care that you smoke in the house or leave a mess in the kitchen?" I really don't care about those kinds of things and I feel like not myself when I nag about stuff like that, but I get edgy and adopt this additude of "well, you're going to have to do something for me, and if you're not doing A, then your gonna have to take care of B,C,D,E & F."
But it has been a while since our conversations have had that kind of result, lately he just gets mad at me whan I talk about it. But I have also noticed he gets into this little cycle of depression where he pretty much just shuts down for about two months each year. He hasn't wanted to do anything, not talk to his friends, not play guitar, he just sleeps, watches TV and goes to work.
It always takes me a while to realize that's what's going on, because he doesn't act sad or hopeless or anything like that, he just turns into an island where no one can get close to him. But good news: He said he wants to go to a doctor (HIS IDEA!!) because he really hates feeling this way. I'm going to encourage him to follow up with that.
I think I might surprise him with a gift certificate for a massage and accupuncture if he follows through with seeing a doc. In the meantime, I'm trying to be sensitive to his needs and give him space because that seems to be all he needs right now.
But I have also noticed he gets into this little cycle of depression where he pretty much just shuts down for about two months each year. He hasn't wanted to do anything, not talk to his friends, not play guitar, he just sleeps, watches TV and goes to work.
Any particular time of the year? If its Jan->Feb or even Dec->Jan, have you thought about SAD?
It's the middle of the night and I'm balling my eyes out because another whole day went by of me strutting my 10-lbs-lighter behind around trying to get some kind of attention, and this time... "I have a headache."
All other things aside...sometimes we guys just don't get that (actually we are trained that it is a no-win scenario). Last year, in a discussion w/ my ex-wife, on the things she brought up (with a degree of anger) is how much and how hard she worked to lose the weight that she gained from pregnancy (she told me that she did it for me) and that I made a single dismissive comment that she took as completely discounting her effort.
Her silent response was "FU!" and she has been angry about that for nearly 28 years (I would point out that rather than being angry with me at the comment which I vaguely recall, had she actually done what her statement said, there would have been a different set of circumstances). And in that was the third component that she needed to start/justify an affair.
The other thing that caught my attention is your "fixing" comment since I recently said elsewhere that you cannot fix something that the other partner either does not want to fix and/or does not see it as a "problem" of immediate and dire threat.
But none of us can take any action against something that say (to ourselves) does not exist.
This is tough sledding and none of are here because this is easy. We are all working through our own sitations and this medium provides a way to talk with others who have either experienced or are experiencing something similar. It may not be comforting to know that you are not alone.
The Captain
Last sex: 04/06/1997 Last attempt: 11/11/1997 W Issues "No Means No" Declaration: 11/11/1997 W chooses to terminate sex 05/1998 I gained 60, then lost 85 pounds. Start running again (marathons)
It's weird how happy I can be with the rest of my life, even the other things in our relationship, but soooo steaming angry at him at the same time. He really has no idea how much resentment I have toward him, almost contempt.
I do so much for him, make sure the bills are paid on time, clean the house daily, he constantly owes me money, He hasn't renewed his drivers license since it expired six months ago, yet I let him borrow my car to drive to work every day, because otherwise I'd have to drive across town twice a day to pick him up. I'm trying to GAL but I have turned down numerous social invitations because I don't have a ride.
He KNOWS there is an intimacy problem, he has told me he's working on it and trying to make it better because it's "important" to him, but actions speak louder than words and honestly his actions are telling me that he's in this relationship for convenience.
SICK AND TIRED of feeling USED and TAKEN FOR GRANTED!
Oh, and at this point, my trying to GAL has nothing to do with trying to impress him or give him space or make him miss me. It's because I feel like I need to leave pretty soon and I feel like I need to get my life back first in order to do it.
I just feel like it's all just steps to prepare myself for D.
I'm the one who has been chasing him around this whole time, I'm the one who has done all the work to try to keep us together, I'm the one who has been generous in showing affection, care, support and loyalty.
Now I'm the one who feels like dropping the bomb, ILYB..., because he did not appreciate my hard work and patience, and instead let our relationship waste away like all the other forgotten, neglected objects he has.
"That's why we can't have nice things"
He has showed me that our relationship means little more to him than any of my posessions, which he doesn't think twice about damaging.
You should see my car, full of his junk, trash, old fast food bags and cups, and the upholstry is full of cigarette burns. He drives with an expired license, meaning if he gets pulled over, MY car gets impounded at MY expense.
This is how he shows me respect?
I have discussed with him ad nauseum that he needs to take care of things, both in his life and in our relationship. We have had 100s of these discussions, and he says, "yeah, I should take care of that" and NOTHING ever changes.
Perhaps when I'm actually leaving, gone, final, I can have that same discussion again, in past tense. He will say, "yeah, I guess I should've" and maybe he will really get it because now there are consequences.
No more car, no more maid, no more loans, no more back rubs, no more free ride.
And I feel sorry for the next poor girl who falls in love with such an intelligent mind, only to find out he never uses it.
