Help Please! 4

[Terapin]

First MC session in a few hours. Wish me luck!

[neffer]

Cool, calm, collected

My best wishes T!

[Terapin]

Cool, calm, collected

My best wishes T!

Thanks Nef. I'm nervous as hell. I'll post how it goes.

[ovrrnbw]

T,

I was told by my C that when both parties are committed that she has a 100% success rate so only time will tell.

Funny how that works! I love this post.

[Twofeet]

Good luck! My prayers go out to you.

[AnotherStander]

Good luck T. Be positive, upbeat, a great listener, and look for opportunities to validate. Remember it's her journey, so don't get tricked into pouring your emotions out or saying what you think is wrong. That will go over like a lead balloon.

[Terapin]

A few friends came over yesterday evening, so I haven't had a chance to update MC session till now.

One thing that's been going on all week is W's sister and BIL sitch hasn't improved at all and is getting much worse. And both of them have been calling and texting W nonstop to vent, ask for advice, help, etc. It's driving her crazy. Yesterday was especially bad, and I told her we can reschedule our appt if she wanted, but she said she wanted to go.

After the initial paperwork and stuff, the C began by getting general info about us. She not only is a MC, but also a drug and alcohol counselor, which I think is good in our sitch. She's also very upbeat, positive, and pro marriage. I think she talked a little too much, and spent more time on certain things than needed (medications, etc).

Anyway, the rest of the session was basically talking to her about our relationship history, issues we had in the past, and what's going on now. W did most of the talking. Actually, the MC focused a lot on her, her past, and her current issues. Maybe cause she's the one that wanted the D, had an EA, etc? There was even a point where I kind of felt bad for W, because just the direction of the conversation sort of made her out to be the 'bad guy'/unstable one in our R. I'm sure moving forward that will change. A lot of time was also focused on our alcohol use

Again, I mostly listened and validated. W was pretty honest, and the few times I was pressed to talk about stuff, I was honest too, but never blamed W for anything directly. At one point at the beginning W said she's willing to put in the work to fix us.

We go back next week. Oh, our homework is reading parts of and doing the tests in the back of 5 Love Languages. C really likes that book. So overall I think we're off to a good start. After the session W had to deal with sisters sitch again, then friends came over, so we didn't have a chance to talk much. She just said that she likes the C, but thinks she talked a little too much.

[Terapin]

So, on the advice of the MC, W and I took the quizzes at the end of 5 Love Languages. We filled them out for each other too, and compared them.

Granted, I did them without reading the whole book. The results were a little disappointing, but expected.

My LL's were tied between Affirmation and Touch.

W's main LL is Acts of Service, followed (I think) by Gifts.

Again, I haven't gotten to those chapters in the book yet, so initially I'm having trouble processing the results. I've always thought that she didn't have much physical attraction to me because of the lack of sex and intimacy, and this kind of reaffirmed that? I also kind of feel like my LLs are very specific to her. Meaning, there's nobody else that could meet those needs for me (sex, intimacy, saying 'I love you', etc). But AoS and Gifts could be done by anybody. I mean, If she would rather the lawn be mowed or dishes done instead of having sex or cuddling, then couldn't a maid or butler meet those needs for her?

And again I go back to, if those things are so important to her (as well as communication), and physical touch so unimportant to her, how does that explain her blatantly hitting on and pursuing some jerkoff that time-wise was impossible to giver her any of those things? lol

I think the exercise ended negatively, with her feeling like her answers were 'wrong' or not what I wanted to hear. And me thinking that my main LL will never be met because it's so unimportant to her. She also said that sex now, since it's been so long, would be 'awkward'.

I don't know, hopefully I feel differently after finishing the book today.

[SteveLW]

Why is this disappointing? You need to read the book. The point of LLs is how YOU feel loved. So if your wife LLs are acts of service and gifts, then those are the things you need to do for her to make her feel loved.

For you it is words of affirmation and Physical touch. She may or may not be on board with speaking those to you right now. But here is the thing. A spouse that feels loved will more likely show love. Now that she knows how to make you feel loved, if you start doing acts of service and gift giving then eventually she'll come around to wanting to speak you LLs back to you.

T, remember, LLs tend to be for marriages that are solid, or have minor problems. I don't recommend acts of pursuit (IE speaking your spouses LL) if they are a WAS. You are in MC so I assume that she is at least committed to R enough that you can start some light acts of service and gift giving. Just be careful, experiment with small things. Do what works, stop doing what doesn't work.

[Terapin]

Why is this disappointing? You need to read the book. The point of LLs is how YOU feel loved. So if your wife LLs are acts of service and gifts, then those are the things you need to do for her to make her feel loved.

For you it is words of affirmation and Physical touch. She may or may not be on board with speaking those to you right now. But here is the thing. A spouse that feels loved will more likely show love. Now that she knows how to make you feel loved, if you start doing acts of service and gift giving then eventually she'll come around to wanting to speak you LLs back to you.

T, remember, LLs tend to be for marriages that are solid, or have minor problems. I don't recommend acts of pursuit (IE speaking your spouses LL) if they are a WAS. You are in MC so I assume that she is at least committed to R enough that you can start some light acts of service and gift giving. Just be careful, experiment with small things. Do what works, stop doing what doesn't work.

Thanks Steve.

One reason it's disappointing is because I've felt like I've always at least put the effort into what would be considered acts of service. I know I wasn't always good at them, consistent with them, etc, but I usually made an effort. she's always known how important intimacy is to me, but that effort wasn't returned.

Another reason is, if my primary LL is completely off the table for the foreseeable future, isn't that the same as me saying to her 'I'm willing to work on the M, but I'm not in a place where I want to do anything to help you whatsoever, so you'll just have to do all the household and parental chores yourself for a while'? In the last month I've done a ton more acts of service, which she acknowledged and appreciates. But there's been no attempt by her to break the physical barrier.

And again, physical attraction is IMO the key to physical touch. And physical attraction is the hardest to obtain. Meaning, being in my mid 40s, barring major reconstructive plastic surgery, steroids, etc, I'm probably not going to get much more physically attractive than I am now. lol

I will read the rest of the book today. like I said, initially it just kind of felt like 'I want someone who loves me and is attracted to me', and she wants a 'servant'. I know it's not like that exactly, and I don't blame her for feeling how she feels one bit. I just wonder if our LLs are at the opposite ends of the spectrum (if that's even a possibility)