Hmmm...kissing, um that doesn't happen....foreplay is a joke....and well, "open my legs for him" that's really not happening...SF for him is really me um "helping him"...I don't get traditional sex. That happens maybe once a month. He hasn't done anything to please me in a LONG time.

With myself and love busters I think I did well today and I am trying to be consistent. I was nice and pleasant, I didn't bother him while he worked on the truck and I helped him make a n important decision. I didn't argue with him over anything, I didn't try to get him to talk about anything (he hates when I try to converse with him because he doesn't usually have anything to say). He seemed rather pleasant and happy today. Oh, and I am firm believer in biblical concepts relating to sex.

Oh, and to Larry, I asked him about a job change and he said he really enjoyed working for Autozone it was her that makes it h@!!. He said when he tranfers after we move he'll be happier with his job. But, I don't know.

And a sound .02 also IMO.

I am just so glad W02 came here to seek out what can be done. Larry commented about how men let women do most of the relationship thinking and I believe that they are naturally prone to understanding them better. There was a study years ago that said the male fetus during the 28th week of gestation gets a hormone washed over the relationship side of the brain which recedes its capacity or should I say it changes the way we respond. It would explain a lot if this is true lol. If it is true then it still depends on many other factors why men handle relationships with a harsh objectivity and a seemingly insensitive nature. Culture, enviroment and what they learn about self worth along with fear of the unknown can effect us all and mold our habits as we put up walls to protect ourselves and loved ones. The biggest falacy sold to ppl is that men lack emotions or that they are something that are not supposed to effect them. When a guy sees his wife cry over a small thing in his mind he wants to help her stop feeling so bad and trivializes it because it doesn't make sense to him. Without that built in need to protect EVERYTHING and multitask his life to that end he will pick ONE thing to protect at a time, logically focusing on what he values the most and is wired to protect, his wife and her happiness and well being. This gender specific roleplaying varies within people and as women can be very strong and focused men can understand also that what is important to them is not allways what is important to others on an emotional level..


Hence the absolute need for deep honest communication over time as we learn how to love others who have thier own life and struggles. We can't fix them so they think like us and not let them grow or they will run away screaming control freak or eventually betray us. At that point who can blame them? We need our free will and to be forgiven when we screw up. We are only human and guaranteed to screw up something in our life.

WEll enough of my rant for now lol TTYL guys. TY for those who jumped in here these guys can get this straightened out and everyone on this site is doing so well in supporting people.

Well, I did see emotion from Hubby last night, I was surprised. We where watching the movie "Mask" about Rocky Dennis. Well, he cried during the scene where the mom found Rocky dead....I didn't say anything or look at him. Yeah, I was crying to. How can you not, it was SOOO SAAAD!!!

I thought Eric Stoltz was the most amazing actor when I saw that flick. Whenever I see Stoltz now I still see Rocky Dennis talking.

Been years since I saw it but yeah, who wouldn't cry.

I can't count on one hand the amounts of times I've seen Hubby cry...I figure it's got something to do with the whole "men don't cry" thing. Strange thing, when his boss from the feed store had a heart attack, he cried, but when his great grandpa dies...nothing. I'm not sure how he's doing with that, he doesn't talk much about him. I think he was having a hard enough time dealing with my confession to process what had happened. I just wished I could remember EXACTLY when I confessed. I know I confessed sometime in 06 but I can't remember what month. Why can't I remember that? I know he remembers it all too well, but why can't I. There are many things I can't remember that I want to.

wife 02, I haven't been here in a couple of weeks, and I am NOT an expert on this - H and a struggle too. But since I got home from the hospital, I have just been doing some little things that I used to do all the time: sitting by H on the couch and then just leaning on his shoulder while he types or plays mafia wars. Sometimes I lay in his lap. If I pass him in our narrow hallway, I just pause and hug him. Sometimes he responds and sometimes he doesn't, but when he does, for those few seconds or minutes, I can still feel that old intimacy, that warm, nuturing kind of feeling, there. No SF since November, so yeah, part of me is climbing the wall. But I feel like if we start connecting both ways leaning on the couch, or hugging in the hall, or holding hands at times....the kind of SF we need to be having will come. Heck, for the two or three years prior to my A four years ago, we were having sf 3-4 times a year, so if I need to wait a little while longer and "lead" him gently, I can do that.

Oh, and next time you are both crying over a movie together, reach out for his hand, or tak a tissue and wipe a tear from his face. Touching while expressing emotion can be very intimate.

I had been holding his hand, but he let go of it right before the sad scene. It is very hard to show affection to him because he is not accepting of it. He was like that before I cheated. He doesn't like to be hugged, touched, or kissed. When I try to hug him, he just lets his arms hang limp. But, my ENs are Affection...I'm not sure how to rate the other 4, but affection is #1 right now and I can't see the others...Family commitment is important, he just doesn't really play with the children and resents having to watch them, so I try not to ask. I belong to a MOPs group(mothers of preschoolers) and once a month they have a moms night out where we go to each others houses and play games or we all go to a resturant. Hubby just refuses to let me go by sabotaging it somehow. He claims that our 2 year old screams for me the entire time I'm gone, which I find that hard to believe. I have never gotten to go. I guess 4 hours once a month is too much to ask. I just hope for a break from the kids, but he tells me it's my job and then I get the his job is harder speech and sometimes I get the "some of us have to go to work" comment. I just don't get it.

How badly did he want the children?

Did you plan out who would care for the children once they were born?

Was sex better before the children came?

Bubbles she said at the begining that HE wanted her to get pregnant even before they married. She also said sex was much better before the marriage.

W02 I understand the pain of rejection coming from him when you want to share a tender moments and he pulls his hand away. It bites..

I still stnd on my opinion that this guy has no idea what he is putting himself and you through. His lack of affection for you and the kids is isolating him from the things he should be working for. I am a firm beliver in working to live not living for work. Hope he finds help in this soon.


Hang in there, keep talking and keep learning. He has locked himself in a prison that only he can walk out of. Even if you blow open the door he will just build another door untill he sees that his prison is not protecting him but lieing to him. Its in his head.

I do want to say that he loves his children very much, he just doesn't know what to do with them. WE took them to the park a while back and he told me he doesn't like taking them because he's bored, well, I wanted to say it's for them, not you. I don't remember how I got him to go but I did and he spent his time flipping tiny rocks at me. He would rather be at home tinkering with his car or doing stuff around the house or mowing the yard. I don't understand it, he has cared for children in the past, girlfriends would have kids from past relationships, friends that lived with him (women) who had kids. There was one little girl that he come to think of as his whose mom was a friend. So I don't understand why it is so hard on him to watch his own kids. I remember him telling me before we had children that he really wanted a little girl. Now I'm wondering if he was missing the little girl that he thought of as his own. He even took vacation time to care for his nephew when he was a newborn because his mother had to have surgery. When he told me how he took care of him. he described a form of attachment parenting! I know this boys mother and it was probably the closest this kid got to good parenting! (If it hadn't been for Hubby's parents I don't think this kid would have had a chance at being a decent person).

To lurioosi2, I noticed you said you've been in the hospital...are you feeling ok? I don't know what's wrong but I hope your healing and get well soon!

He needs therapy so he can be a kid again too. Everyone has a right to feel sorry for themselves when they have been hurt but there comes a point when you should realize if you are letting it ruin your life.

Of course you can stay bitter and let the painful thing have a place in the rest of your life as a new outlook. Many people do. The holding onto of past experiences seems to be how H wants to deal with everything. I wonder how much of what he is afraid of is related to how embarrassed he might feel if he gave counselling a chance compared to how safe he feels in his own mind.

Can you challange him to work on the marriage? Maybe thats an angle that will motivate him. Probably will tick him off tho huh? He seems content to stay safe and negative so he wont be caught with his pants down. Its understandable but so sad because he is losing out on a chance to grow with you. Again in his world and mind making a mistake is opening yourself up for ridicule and losing respect.

I don't know how many mechanics that I ticked off when I would not bend to thier critisizm and took on the challange of cars that were brought to 3 shops and 2 dealerships when I would finnaly repair them. Those guys just got bitter and were to filled with pride to admit I was right. But it didn't matter to me because I wasn't getting baited into the way they like to operate. I thought of them as worse than a gossip. Men gossip and don't you fool yourself they all can feel better if they can point out others mistakes. I won't go there because its just ignorant and would not make me better than them but worse if you KWIM.

H lives in that kind of world W02 and he is safe in it as long as he thinks like them. Its a "ahem" mans world so to speak, where they can belong to the "He mans women hater club".

Well, we had a nice time last night. I helped him with stripping the truck of parts. I even took off the starter and was busting lugnuts loose on the tires. It almost felt like a slight glimmer of may be intimacy. We laughed more than we talked...well, we didn't really talk at all. But it seemed like we were having fun. And we got to do this alone. Somehow there were ENs being met. That's all that matters.


I do sometimes balk at helping him work on stuff like that because I am afraid he won't see me as feminine, I told him about it and his answer was no. Idk?

lol well being "feminine" seems to be attached to him thinking women are weak-minded and clueless.

It would probably be a big turn-on for him if you got all greasy and were wearing some coveralls and one day when you were working together you came on to him while you were working on the truck. Remember "rosy the riveter" The pinup of a female welder who worked on navy ships in WW2 because all the guys were overseas fighting? Your husband respects practical knowledge and hard work maybethis is a way to reach him.

Who knows, maybe someday he will be crying over a "chick-flick" with you while you give each other manicures to clean up those nasty nails you got from working on the cars that day.

How is the diet thing goin for you guys? That is very important not just for his health but also for his moods. High blood sugar can make you just operate out of your head and makes it hard to even feel emotions which he needs to process. Read up on it. (crap, more reading).

Grats on that time of laughter and togetherness "Rosie"...

The diet is going OK...needs a few adjustments. Just trying to get used to cooking this new way.

Goin on a date with Hubby Sunday ALLL day!!! We are going to a swap meet for car parts, and I can't wait. I just wished that he didn't think I was "pawning the kids off on a sitter".

That was terrific. Do it more. The trip Sunday sounds great, don't worry about him worrying.

Larry

That attitude bugs me a little. Would he like to pay you to sit for the kids? Maybe get Dr. phil to come over and watch them so he can feel safe and guilt free to take out his wife?

I know you are seeing small steps in the right direction and its probably not something I would complain about to him but its worth noting that he should desire to spend time with you alone without the children. The question is why doesn't he and its something to think about. (No guesses as to why not at this time, ive beaten that horse to death).

Ok, for your sake W02 I want to ask if getting into cars is something you would want to do even if it didn't involve your husband? It could be a great tool to connect with hubby either way but there is two sides to what it could mean for you personally. The optimum circumstance is that you allready liked the car stuff and were into it before you met Hubby. That of course would mean you had more in common but it of course would not have stopped him from shutting you off, would it? Or is the reason or part of it he married you because he allready internally felt like such a failure that he didn't deserve better.
Sorry if that hurts but in terms of selfrespect it might have a place in how he treats you. I AM NOT saying he doesn't love you with all he has to give, just that he has to love himself first in order to give love.

Ok back to the car stuff. If you want to get into it then I want to encourage you. You have to have a personal interest that strikes your heart positivly though or it will only be something you do to be with your spouse and if he doesn't do the same for you..it will be torture.

I can speak from experiance about one specific time for me comparing why I got an interest in algbra.

When I was in 6th grade I stopped even doing the homework for math. I never memorized the timestable and struggled with math most of my younger life. It had to do with other things not math itself but life issues that I didn't care or couldn't get into math. The old saw.."He can do it if he would just try" just made me feel like more of a failure when the teachers explained the water I was drowning in.

When I was tested in high school my abilities were off the chart for everything technical but I was still wrestling with self-esteem issues and spent most of high school trying to be someone I wasn't so I never applied myself in education then. In my twentys I had IQ test of 130 and what the shrink called an unmeasurable insight into understanding social situations and thier outcome. (I still don't know what that means exactly but its sure not some guarantee that i could avoid them I guess). I still wasn't good with math..

After my second marriage and when my daughter was 1 year old I had a job in a Gov't military company and found that I really liked what I was doing assembling circuit boards for submarines. It was skilled labor. There was an in-house course in basic electronics and the prerequsite was high school algrebra. I still had a hard time with long division never=mind algrebra so I asked an engineer guy I knew to help me with the pretest. In one night he got it thru my thick skull the basics and I passed the test.
In the next 6 months of electronic design classes I learned algebra and calculus and was able at the end of the course to understand simultaneos equations and it you gave me a circuit board that I could read the components on I could write out the process on a blackboard mathamatically. I als made less math mistakes than the engineers I was in class with and graduated at the top. The class was the equivelent of a two year electronics course given at your average comm colledge but it was compressed and streamlined by the company I worked for. It was quite an accomplishment but why I could do it was more imporatant than how.

When I was in 6th grade what was my motivation? To please my parents and peers. That was not gonna happen and I eventually gave up. I was also just a young kid who couldn't see how good it would have been to learn all that for my future. As far as I knew then all that mattered was my present situation and my relationship with my folks, which was lacking.
When I took the electronics course at 27 I had a goal before me to provide for my wife and child and the hope of a future with pocket protectors and whatever other nurdy stuff it took to have a solid carreer. I knew it was up to me and I kept my nose to the grindstone with confidance that it was a just cause. I pictured the great future our family could have with the financial security and the presents I could give them. I saw good things in it and became excited about the whole picture.

Do you remember in the old testament the scripture. "Without a vision the people perish"? I am not a scholar, <in fact I can't even spell it, but to me it has a special meaning that applies to everyone, (isn't that what God intended?).

People have this gift of imagination from God. We need to look up and outside our circumstances at all times. We need to visualize something better and work for it all our life. Many people see how foolish others are and judge that because they are falible and we all act crazy its a wild card for us to act the same and nobody can judge us. Have you ever met someone whom you thought would know better that made absolutly dumb mistakes?. At times its so easy to say everyone is crazy and stupid so who can judge me? If we use this as an excuse for our own poor behavior than we are on the dark side of how we use our imagination to better our circumstances. We make excuses. But..If we understand our human weaknesses and trust the love laid out in the rules God gave us, we can move foward, making mistakes yes, but forward we go growing as we learn how fragile we are. Forgiving yourself allways comes first before you can forgive others, (seems to be a problem with Hubby). You first have to be willing to admit you make mistakes, (seems to be the other problem), and you need to not be afraid to explore the possibility that you are wrong,(oops another one).

I have allways been a seriuos guy, thought a lot, felt depressed and worthless also. It took the ridiculous idea that I didn't have to beat myself up all the time for me to accomplish anything worthwhile in my life. I had to believe I was worth it. I did not get that kind of support from negative, critical, paranoid people who think thier self worth revolves around what others think of them or what they can prove to others. I have been down that road and those types allways find a way to pidgeon -hole you and subject you to thier own religiuos standards. You know..the 500+ rules they keep just so they can be better than you because inside they really are not secure.


Your hubby is a smart man, a responsible guy but I doubt he has ever been truly at peace with himself. I think he drives himself to do whats right and is waiting to reap the benifets. Some of what he is waiting for, if its like..his feelings of vindication at how he was hurt..will not be satisfied reguardless of how long he waits. I wonder what his spiritual belief system is. Does he see churches as full of hypocrites? That has some truth in it. I understand that. I wonder this.. What would choose to do and think of you if he had absolutly no fear? What experience in life would he need to come to grips with the fact that life was good? What needs to happen for him? How much is realistic to expect for you W02 to provide?

I hope you really get into the car fix thing and that someday he gets into doing your painting in the house for you. Both of you enthusiastically agreeing that its fun. When you both can hope and visualize these things as enjoyable parts of a life together it will happen.

Untill H seeks out internally what his issues are it will be hard to get him into a positive state of mind. I suspect he has a long history of life kicking him in the nuts and I pray for him because I really want to see him and you recover and he is not here to talk to nor is he venting to anyone who can help.

Because MB is designed to help anyone in relationships your application of it to him and your marriage is the only hope for him. otherwise he will stay stuck in a negative world where the only use of imagination will be how worse it might get.


Thats all for now..

Tell me W02 is what I write helping you? I have written a lot and because I feel I have a lot in common with your husband I have much interest in you guys.

There is IQ, the processing of hard facts, and EQ, the processing of emotions, which are not based on hard facts but on empathy and other stuff. Social situations is a part of EQ, like math ability is a part of IQ. Many years ago they did not have much developed testing for EQ although the shrinks were aware of the concept and the difference between IQ and EQ.

Larry

OH W02 I almost forgot, Get the book by Scott Peck called "The road less traveled"

Its not a book on relationships as much as a source of insight on yourself. Well its a very popular book. I recommend it to everyone.

I am sure you will find some pearls of wisdom in it.

Uh, I think it is helping 02 but will let her say for herself. I do know that I am getting a lot out of it.

Larry