Hi all. I suppose it's time to start a new one... Hit the 100 mark. I also tried something just for fun with the new format, and I revived my old thread in beginners... 512 posts long, locked closed last Sept. So, I wondered, is there possibly a loop hole in this new format that will allow it to be bumped??? Low and behold, YUP!!! I loved it!!! One of those "Question Authority" thing. But, they locked it up again, so I probably did the thread police a favor by showing them the loop hole... HEHEHEHE!
Anyway, it IS time for a new thread. I'm not linking any of the old stuff. What's past is over. I'm moving ahead now. I'm working on a new "epiphany". For weeks now, I've been in a snit that physical aspect of R is not improving. I'll be blunt, no sex since January, and then a single roll in the hay. Before that, 2/28/01. So, it's been wearing on me. Detachment is one thing, I thought, but this is ridiculous. SHE can get it anytime she wants (and probably does), (so said my slighted libido), but I hold the HIGHER ground... I'm married, and I HONOR my vows. Well, we all know smugness doesn't work, now does it?
So, back to the epiphany. A year ago, W was desparately shopping for a divorce attorney after W hired one, telling me she had hired one to "begin the process". I was told to hire one, got a letter telling me so, or they would proceed with an "action for divorce". Last Sunday was our 12th anniversary, and the card I got from her was actually signed "love, W". I got two neat gifts, too. So much for lawyers. The point is, we have gotten really friendly. We chat, joke, she calls me all the time (I practically have to hang up on her to get her off). We discuss nonsense, politics, kids, future. She's been on a housecleaning binge lately... Nesting of sorts. She invites me to her tennis matches (if you might recall, OM was her tennis doubles partner), even though he's usually around, and she knows it. I don't believe she has anything but purely coincidental social contact with him... not what I consider perfect, but I'll take what I can get. Besides, she's with ME when I seen him
So, I've been quite frustrated that she's staying distant. I try to remain detached, but sometimes, it get so be enough is enough. I mean, I'm married already. So where's the "benefits" of marriage, if you catch my drift. But, after a while, weeks of frustrate uspicion, actually, I began to realize, and remember something. What I remembered was that so often on this board, we are reminded that we have to make them fall in love with us again, as we did when we were dating... I noticed that all the "fun" thing we are doing is a lot like back when we first met. At the time, we were both just getting over other people, and we just hung out together, in a group of others. We were not attached, not an item, just members of the group who had fun. It was months of this fun, neutral bantor before we got more interested. Then, slowly, we became closer personal friends (as opposed to "group" friends), then dated, became lovers, and married. That too, was a process. It didn't happen over night, it took months, and it kind of sneaked up on both of us.
So, now, I'm noticing that we are behaving that way again... like before we were lovers, but on the way there. We banter, we playfully "jab" at each other. Back then, there were no physical advances, so no physical awkwardness. Now, almost the only tension we have is regarding "physical" (read, sexual) matters. I'm noticing that we are both now again in the process of recovering from "lost love", though in a twistedly different way, but I see the dymanic in full force. We (or at least She) doesn't need the pressure of sexual advances right now, so it's best to just be her pal. I have worried that this might be mistaken by her as a desire for a "platonic" R, but I realize there really is no chance of that. Most of that fear has really been simple impatience.
Funny thing is now that I've started to think this way, she's getting curious, and seems to be very concerned about how I'm feeling --- happy, mad, sad, fun..... She's careful to let me know what she's up to. Yesterday, I joked that I could change my plans to accomodate hers, and she would not leave me alone insisting she learn what my plans were (I had none, just joked that I did).
So, here I am. Moving ahead. "Dating" my wife. It's really fun. It's fresh. The distance helps build the respect thing back up. It's that detachment thingy again. Works every time. My take has always been to lower your expectations so low that anything positive is a cause for celebration. It's worked well, and somehow my impatience always seems to pull me off track. Well, I'm back on track now. Thank you all so much for your help. Without this board and all you friends, I would not be able to say all this...
Back at the beginning of our C sessions, the C was concerned that we were Not taking a hiatus from intimacy. My private opinion on that was that if we could go there then it was a connection of some sort.
Time has passed. We're at the ideal spot to employ that hiatus. My ego is bottomed out and I'm not as emotionally fused to Sage. I understand self-soothing.If I were to initiate, his body would respond. Yet I can back off and give him space. If he suggests intimacy I won't deny him just because of my ego. I can wait though.
It's a good time to just enjoy the minutes together. The emotionally present sentences that will string into paragraphs. It's an opportunity to go places and maybe touch/hold hands if it feels right and not just because we're expected to do so.
Sage and I didn't date enough. We met on a blind date and were engaged 8 days later. He shipped out and when he returned we had 4 more dates, all w Spanish family around us. We married 1 year after the date we met.
I guess what sucks most about dating is that in it's truest sense, dating is about comparing situations, comparing potential mates. So, I'm back there again.
If you've followed any of my situation, you know that W is still actively involved socially with OM. He's part of her social circle, most of whom don't "know" about the situation. Short of removing herself from her primary circle of friends (something I would never insist upon, but have hoped, to no avail, the C would mention), she WILL have at least incidental contact. Or more, depending on her choices.
W got cozy with OM while playing tennis mixed doubles with him as a partner. That has ended for the most part, and it was something I said I'd like to have happen (said I was not comfortable with it). I said I was not comfortable with a lot of her contact with him. So, as much as W tells me what she's up to and whom she will be with when she goes out to the tennis club, she doesn't tell me ALL the time. So, the paranoid side of me anguishes that he's involved in those times. No way of knowing one way or the other.
So, last Friday, one of the "group" calls and leaves a message that she and her Mixed partner can't make the match on Sunday, they have to reschedule. When W got home, I told W, and then I made the dumb mistake of asking who her partner was (I knew her regular partner was busy. Another story). She said "You're not going to like it. It's OM." Oh. Now what do I do. I'm disappointed, but what can I do. Nothing. But it bugs me, really deep down, and I can't let it go. I don't do anything with it (I think), but it's there.
On Saturday, Kid was out with friends, and W and I went for a light dinner. And we talked. Apparently, I wasn't wearing my displeasure well. In fact, I guess I was sulking. W dragged it out of me, and did so by suggesting that it was her contact with OM that was making me "glum". I said yes, it was. I said I had wanted to say something, but really couldn't see any good to it, how when it really came down to it, it was her choice, and frankly, none of my business. But, purely at to my feelings, I didn't like it. I said it made me wonder how much time she spent with him other than that. I said it made me feel that she was hiding it from me, how I discovered it through a chance phone call. I said from a position of trust, I would prefer if she was going to be in contact with him, or if she had been in contact with him that I heard it from her and not chanced upon it from someone else. I said other wise, it felt like she was hiding from me, deceiving me.
So, first, she started to protest the comment about "none of my business", then she actually thanked me for being so reluctant to broach the subject, avoiding a conflict. And, she agreed to inform me of future contact. So, it feels like we came out pretty well.
The thing that so much drives me nuts is that she just won't see how seeing him is not helping our progress. It feels to me that she is so stuck on not being able to move one way or the other, and I blame it on her contact with him. I know, it's more than that, but there is something to it. I can't help having a nagging feeling that she's just biding her time trying to wear me down till I reach a point where I say I just can't do this any more. Where I say I just can't take the limbo we seem to be stalled in. And the C doesn't help. I had expected her to say something, but it seems that by my not insisting, and C not mentioning, W may feel she has "permission" to keep him as a "friend". It's exasperating.
Well, I'm just kind of journaling again. As slow as it is, it is moving ahead. The dating is going well. By backing off, I'm a bit more relaxed and less anxious. She seems a little more comfortable. I've let the physical go for now, in the context of dating. It will come in it's own time, if it does.
Aside from OR talks while "dating" what do you talk about? How do you decide what to do? The OR thing is like the elephant in the living room sorta don't you think? I mean isn't always in the back of your mind-it's THERE you just don't talk about it all the time. That's ok ,but what are you doing??? Dating while she's seeing another man? I guess I'm one old fashioned girl but that would make me kinda crazy. Imean I THINK my H is beign faithful now. He says he is and acts different than when he was in the A with "her". He is more "present" sometimes, and wants me physically more. HE is effectionate,but I usually innitiate the effection-like snuggling or hugging. Its alwasy been that way though so its nothing new. I'm just the more effectionate one. I would like to turn that around. 11 yrs ago when I had my breif A, my H was so effectionate trying to win me over. I though AHHHH, finally I have what I need. I came back to him, which I don't regret, but he went back to being his old self. IF I back off will he think I'm distancing, or might he start taking more innitive to be more effectionate? Anyone have any Ideas to get what this girl wants and needs from her man? Rachael
OM is nothing more than a friend who happens to be male. If there was ever more than that, it's gone.
So why is he so important to her?
Because she doesn't see anything wrong with having male friends. From her perspective, you're being unreasonably jealous.
IMHO, it is your business. Her contact with him hurts you. But, from your W's perspective, it's none of your business - or at least shouldn't be.
That's why she thanked you for butting out. She didn't expect you to, but thinks that over time, you'll truly shed your concern.
The reason your W doesn't see that this isn't "helping your progress" is because she thinks that in time, you'll get over it. For this reason, she thinks it is helping your progress. She thinks it's helping you to progress to a place of trust the longer she sees him without doing anything wrong.
Well, where you are usually spot on for me, this situation is kind of twisted on its ear. See, he IS so much more than a friend who happens to be male. Our entire marriage, she has had her own friends, many of whom had been male, all of whom were (and are) friends of the family. These friendships were with my knowledge and support. In fact, it's how this one started... a friend, and one I know about, and had no problem with. That's how it was so easy to "hide" him from me. They hid the affair right out in the open. In my house. At our club. Around all our friends. There is no "unreasonable jealousy", and I don't even mention him. Hell, I go places with her where he's in attendance, since it is in no one's interest to "out" their affair to all their friends who know nothing of it.
But the question "Why is he so important....." is an interesting one, and one I chose not to pursue, because, this is none of my business. If she eventually leaves me and goes to him, how is it any of my business, in that it will be her choice. I can not tell her how to be, cannot make her stay. I can only make a person whom she is happy to be with. A person happy in my own right. I believe the problem is that she is rebelling against something, unhappy in her self and trying to pin it on me. She was distracted from her unhappiness by him. She thinks he is her happiness, or could be. She is stuck between us... afraid to make a mistake and leave the marriage, afraid to allow this thing that looks like her happiness to her pass her by. She remains clueless that happiness lies within. She is searching for it outward. I believe that as long as he is hanging in there, as long as he is a distraction from her unhappiness, she will never notice or realize where that happiness's true source is. There is nothing I can do to hasten that discovery, nothing I can do to point it out. Any attempt will be read as controlling and directive. It requires self discovery, self awareness. As long as she can blame me for her unhappiness, and few him as the source of happiness, she will not examine that self.
I was in her shoes. I can tell you she is RUNNING from her unhappiness and THINKS she can find it with him because of the way she FEELS areound him . ALl I can say is its FLASE. You have to be very strong and be a person she would not want to leave. You have things on your side- a family.Its not that easy for a woman to walk away from her family especially if her man(you) is doing the Right things. DO the right things-she will eventually come to a place when she will have to make a decision and it will probably be in your favor if yoy play your cards right. Rachael
Well, we talk about all the kinds of thing you talk about... that friends, or partners talk about.... Work, the house, the yard and gardens, bills, my business, her business, the kid, the girl scout troop we are co-leaders of, food, shopping, the US Open, Christmas, her Alzheimer's stricken father, investing, retirement, what color to paint the guest room. We go to the movies, or shopping, or to a restaurant, or for a walk in the woods, or to play tennis, or to yoga.
We almost never talk about OR, specifically about OR, except in C, and then is where I learn how she feels she "want's to feel in love with me", how she wants to not "cringe when I touch her" to hug her. How when I touched her breast in bed a few weeks ago that it felt like I was "copping a feel". How having sex with me (which has been a long, long time since) made her feel like a whore, a feeling from the past that colors her thoughts of the present and future. So, when I believe we are starting to feel closer, in C I'm told how far from the mark I am. She NEVER says a word about OR outside of counselling, and rarely within.
In the context of how can I be "dating" her while she's "seeing" another man??? Well, as far as I know, she's not "seeing another man" if I read your context correctly, but in contact with a former lover whom she has not let go. They are not dating, but I'm sure she's comparing, and can't see that that's happening.
This is a really hard discussion for me, because I have spent a long time forcing myself to stay out of her head, of not trying to figure out what she thinks. But when you run into silent stonewalls repeatedly, and see progress in so many areas of our relationship but not in basic intimacy (and by that I don't mean physical, necessarily...), I can't help to sometimes wonder why.
I'm not really so bad off about this... I chose to write about it because of I was so obviously bad at hiding my thought about it to W. If I'm going to "let something go", I've got to teach myself to be a little bit less obviously bothered. I believe our little talk at dinner opened new doors of trust and respect that will pay off. I believe I again opened a new door to showing her that this relationship is "safe".
