? for the Men

[fb2]

W says she loves me like a father or brother, but not as a lover/husband anymore

Read up on attraction. Women who are in love don't share themselves with other men. Women leave their fathers and brothers for men who make them feel alive and excited. How do you change how she feels about you?

Coach, Good to see you posting again. While I find your hypotheses on women very interesting there appear to be some contradictions from my point of view.
Can one really change what others feel? Aren't women responsible for their own feelings, thoughts, actions, morals? I for one do not respect a women with loose feelings and morals who's attracted to men who are not their committed husbands. Your hypotheses seems to indicate that women are inferior and subordinate to men in general Nd can be held to a lower standard when it comes to leadership, reason and moral code.

[Piano]

fb2, I think Coach is just talking about the laws of attraction which govern us all; men and women alike.

Coach, I've long wrestled with how a man wants to see his WIFE behave when he is wayward?

It would be the same principles right?

I don't think it is Un-Feminine for a woman act with her head (bringing her emotions under control) when her spouse is out of control, involved in an affair, and ruining the family finances, right?

It's called protecting your family, no matter what your agenda?

Sometimes I have worried that by Leading, I am acting like a Mother. And when attraction is lost ("You are more like my sister than my wife"), the last thing I want is to be more Motherly!

Any clarity would be appreciated.

[Piano]

'genger', not 'agenda'!


Mods, pls bring back the Edit function.

[dbmod]

Because you are thinkingand not reacting to your feelings.

Correct--this is DBing--controlling your actions.

In DB lingo this is:
almost..

detach (focus on the process not the outcome)

I'm GLAD you brought this up, because actually, the opposite is true, and yet you have a good point

In DBing--we DO focus on the outcome (set you rgoals, experiment, monitor results, modify accordingly), unless it isn't helping you to focus on the outcome (which I THINK is your point). But we are looking to achieve a goal. And that goal on a large scale is to restore your relationship, and on a small goal to turn the tide around (which makes you a success--and lots of success make a marriage. For instance soem folks come here on the board, turn their marriage around and they are successful. Then they either stop there, and do not continue growing their relationship, or worse, go back to their old behaviors, and find themselves back on the brink of divorce, or actually divorced).

drop the roap

mostly used by a group of folks on the board--but the technique, and DB lingo is DO NOTHING, if you want to look it up in the materials.


the others are found in the materials:

180
do something different
goals

[dbmod]

Lot's of things in there that a woman wants in her man though

Well--this is usually true of a very feminine woman. It's a good point, but not true of every relationship, and this is the point that needs caution: THERE IS NO ONESIZEFITSALL GOOD advice. Every relationship is different. Sometimes the woman is the masculine energy and the man is the feminine energy, and that's the problem with the 'man-up' advice across the board.

Sometimes, the energies are more towards the middle (i.e., one person isn't extremely more feminine and one person isn't extremely more masculine)--and that again is the reason advice needs to be tailored.

[SDFoundGirl]

Read up on attraction. Women who are in love don't share themselves with other men. Women leave their fathers and brothers for men who make them feel alive and excited. How do you change how she feels about you?

Can one really change what others feel? Aren't women responsible for their own feelings, thoughts, actions, morals?

I can only speak from my own experience, but I think I understand what Coach is saying. He's saying that we need to act in ways that are attractive to our spouses, and that women are attracted to certain traits in men. It's no different from what attracts men to women; the traits are just different.

My H was the WAH, but I walked away emotionally long before he bombed me. I had completely lost all attraction to my H. Before we married, my H was a strong man with clear boundaries. In fact, the main reason that I called him to get to know him better was because he said, "I have a job where I get to do work I believe in and no one expects me to do anything against my principles. If they ever did, I'd leave." (I placed the only personal ad of my life, and he responded to the only personal ad in his life by leaving a detailed message in the voice-mailbox the paper set up.)

Every man I'd ever dated before my H gave in to me, and my H was someone who held his own. I am definitely a strong personality, and I knew that I could never marry someone who gave in to me all the time.

Well, my H lost himself and his boundaries. He didn't stand up to me after we were married, and I lost all respect for him. Yes, I own my part; I could have just gone along, but he would never, ever express his own preferences. It was all about keeping me happy, doing what I wanted. He'd say it was fine...but since he's the one who eventually bombed me, it clearly wasn't.

In any case, I reached a point where I was literally repulsed by my H. A woman cannot respect a man who doesn't stand up for himself, who doesn't lead the way sometimes, and if she doesn't respect him, she can't love him. I avoided sex and spent more time with my friends and doing things on my own.

Well, that all changed when H bombed me and told me all the things that he'd been holding on to all of those years. He told me he wasn't sure he could get the feelings back. Of course this was precipitated by his attraction to someone at his work (a one-side on his part EA), but he would have never been tempted if I had been acting in any sort of an attractive way to him.

Suddenly, H was the most attractive man in the world to me, and he earned my respect. I KNEW he should have set boundaries with me years before, and it was finally happening. In my mind, him actually standing up for himself and being clear about what he wanted and what he would and wouldn't accept was a sign that our M was fixable. It's not healthy to roll over for the other partner or not speak up and communicate, yet that's what had been happening for the duration of our M.

H didn't see it that way for many months, but I got to work on making myself attractive to him. I did my 180s, but I also gave him tons of space. I GAL. GAL was particularly good for our M because after our move to a new state, I was pretty closed off to going out or meeting people (I used to have severe social anxiety.) H saw me doing those things he always wished I'd do, he saw my behavioral changes, and he learned to trust and respect me again too.

Women cannot be attracted to men who roll over. It's not sexist, it's just that we want someone to lead. I am *definitely* not the subservient little housewife either. My mother raised me to be very strong and vocal and self-sufficient. Yet, as a woman, I want a man who holds his own. I need my husband to weigh in equally on decisions, and I need him to tell me when I've crossed the line. I don't always like it, but I respect it, and that's good for our M.

SD

[SDFoundGirl]

Lot's of things in there that a woman wants in her man though

Well--this is usually true of a very feminine woman. It's a good point, but not true of every relationship, and this is the point that needs caution: THERE IS NO ONESIZEFITSALL GOOD advice. Every relationship is different. Sometimes the woman is the masculine energy and the man is the feminine energy, and that's the problem with the 'man-up' advice across the board.

I can only speak for myself, but in my M, I am *definitely* the one with more masculine energy, and I still desire my partner to be strong and respect himself enough to set boundaries. I need that or I will run roughshod all over my spouse, and that's not a healthy trait for a M.

I think we have to go back to what originally attracted us to our mate and our mates to us. What did they comment on at the time? What are their criticisms? Those are the clues to help you figure out what's attractive. And...well, with an OP, if you know anything about them, that's also a clue. The woman my H had a crush on was also a strong woman but she knew how to be soft. She had the whole earth mother vibe, as if she was Mother Teresa. (She wasn't. I found out she'd been charged as an accessory to murder in her early 20's but the charges were dropped because she testified against the gunman, her boyfriend at the time.)

I have cultivated the softer side of my personality. I am still very strong, but I don't wield my power like a club any more. It makes an environment where my more feminine-energy H feels more comfortable to stand up and be the stronger partner I need. It's good for both of us.

SD

[fb2]

I could not respect either a man or a woman who's not 100% committed to their spouse. This does not mean giving in 100% of the time or in extreme cases taking abuse. But it certainly does mean not following the jungle laws of attraction. There's invariably some more attractive people than your spouse all around you. Being unfaithful even if your spouse does not measure up would not earn my respect. In fact if my spouse were unfaithful I would be repulsed, not attracted to them.

I would not respect a woman who's constantly testing me or trying to push my boundaries or spewing forth copious random feelings and f-words - this seems juvenile to me and I'd get tired of it. As a man I sometimes need/want/have to lead at other times I simply want to follow a leader. I would expect a wife to lead too as well as follow.

And yes I find the leadership of a kid, gentle and rational woman very very sexy. The bossy/hysterical/entitled one's repulsive.

[fb2]

I could not respect either a man or a woman who's not 100% committed to their spouse. This does not mean giving in 100% of the time or in extreme cases taking abuse. But it certainly does mean not following the jungle laws of attraction. There's invariably some more attractive people than your spouse all around you. Being unfaithful even if your spouse does not measure up would not earn my respect. In fact if my spouse were unfaithful I would be repulsed, not attracted to them.

I would not respect a woman who's constantly testing me or trying to push my boundaries or spewing forth copious random feelings and f-words - this seems juvenile to me and I'd get tired of it. As a man I sometimes need/want/have to lead at other times I simply want to follow a leader. I would expect a wife to lead too as well as follow.

And yes I find the leadership of a kind, gentle and rational woman very very sexy. The bossy/hysterical/entitled one's repulsive.

[SDFoundGirl]

Just in case you are reading into my post, FB2, if I had ever been what you described, then my husband certainly should have divorced me. I didn't test him, I just noticed what happened in every situation where we had a disagreement or even where I had a preference. When I'd ask my H, "What kind of food do you want tonight? Where should we go to dinner?" he'd NEVER express a preference. He would respond with, "What do you want?" It was as if he had no opinion about anything. This extended to many major decisions we had to make as well. He was always trying to figure out what I wanted to make that his answer. NOT attractive.

On things where we disagreed, I'd just argue my point (and by argue, I do NOT mean I cursed and threw tantrums...you're ASSUMING here) and he'd give in every time, though I wanted to hear his rationale. I'd even push him to make his argument first to no avail.

By calling myself a strong woman, what I mean by that is I absolutely know I could railroad most people if I wanted to. I choose not to, but I know I could. I will argue my point of view if I think I'm right, and I won't back down just because someone else wants something else. I expect people to be able to support their own points of view as well, and I am willing to compromise or change my viewpoint based on a good argument. (By argument I do not mean yelling or screaming. I mean a conversation where people lay out their rationale for the point of view they support. Discourse.)

My H never, ever asked for what he wanted, never spoke up, and so I "got my way" all through our M. I didn't want that, but being the strong personality I was, that was the result. It wasn't a test, no more than my H waiting to see me mindread and compromise without him saying anything was a test. They were PERSONALITY traits that poorly served our M.

The bomb was the first time in 6 years of M that my H expressed a preference that I couldn't change with argumentation. He set a standard and an expectation, and the only way I could succeed was by changing my actions. This was essential to the long-term success of our M as was my H's switch to being vocal about what he wanted/needed, something we worked on in MC.

Could YOU be attracted to someone who never expressed a preference and left all the decision making up to you? (Oh, and then blamed you when the decision had consequences they didn't like. That happened too.) Could you love someone who spent their time doing things and mind reading to make YOU happy/give you what they THOUGHT you wanted at the expense of their own happiness? I couldn't.

I want someone dynamic, not someone trying to mind-read OR someone who expects ME to mind-read. I want someone who will speak up and express his opinions clearly with no thought to whether I'll agree or not. I want to support my H in his dreams as well as my own, but I can't do that if H doesn't open his mouth, even when asked repeatedly.

SD