Thank you. It will be a good one. Tonight is our firm's Mardi Gras party. Run every year by the estate administration paralegals. They have asked me to serve as "Mayor" this year. Basically master of ceremonies. I have a sash of office as well as a crown and robe and sceptre.

Best wishes to you as well. You are doing a wonderful thing in organizing a study class. I hope it brings much satisfaction to all the participants.

So how does a nice Jewish boy ends up as Mayor for a Mardi Gras party?

And on Shabbat?

Because I bought the costume for our shul's Purim party early? And it happens to be purple and gold, so it matches Mardi Gras colors?

Bought Mrs. Hold her V-Day gift today. Loose tea. Tea filters. Tea infuser. Not sure why I did that. Appearances? To keep up the charade for the kids? So I could feed my resentment? Hmmm.

Need to get something for D13. She got something for S15 and for me.

Why would you buy your wife tea to keep up appearances or a charade for your kids? Do you want your kids to learn to keep up charades?

HOLD, what if anything did your wife get YOU for Valentine's day?

She got me a big jug of Passover wine. It took me 6+ months to finish off the last one. It is super sweet so I like to mix it with tonic water or club soda and make a spritzer.

D13 was especially pleased that we made a big deal of valentine's since she went shopping with her own money and got S15 and I gifts. Candy with nuts - despite her nut allegy. She wanted to show us she loves us enough to let us eat nuts in the house.

Mrs. Hold was very pleased that S15 and I went to such effort. He and I am a buddy of his had dinner at the mall Saturday and then bought D13 a cute t-shirt. The boys picked it out and D13 was thrilled that her brother was willing to walk into a "girly store" to get her something.

Mrs. Hold and I had a very relaxed and (for us) lengthy sex session Monday morning. We are both learning to deal with my far less responsive getting old body. I did not orgasm but I enjoyed the session. This morning on the way to work I explained to Mrs. Hold (snow here and my car could not get out of the driveway so she had to drive me in her SUV) that some of the techniques she learned when having sex with younger men don't work on this old dog. So we are both going to have to learn what works and what doesn't.

Best wishes to all for a fulfilling week.

Sounds like a very pleasant valentines. The day came and went in our house without so much as a mention from anyone. DS9 said this morning, "hey, we missed valentine's day."
Yeah, whatever. Finish your cereal, buddy!

Hold, your story about D13 loving everyone enough to want them to have candy with nuts in teh ouse was very sweet. What a lovely girl she must be.

Happy for you about other events of the weekend, too.

We are so blessed with both our kids. That is why I want to continue living with them. Can you believe that I got S15 to go into Delia and buy a t-shirt for his little sister?!?! They had a wall of t-shirts. At least 50 styles. He knew immediately which one she would like. I would have had no clue how to choose.

Mrs. Hold was also very appreciative when she got home. Half a dozen Moms made the trip to the swim tournament to chaperone. Several of them did nothing for Valentine's. Several of them did not speak to their husbands the entire weekend. Mrs. Hold was shocked. She said she could not imagine being in that kind of marriage. I don't think she realizes how close she has come to that.

She made a silly "kissy face" in my direction last might and again this morning. She used to chastise me for making silly "goo-goo eyes" faces. I have to fight against the desire to have hope.

I really think so much of her rejection of you has been a rejection of herself.

Perhaps there IS reason to hope. she may just feel better about herself and therefore more able to engage in her marriage.

It probably helps that you have (inadvertantly) left some of the pacing of closeness be determined by her.

Perhaps by withdrawing, you are seeing what amount of closeness she wants to pursue on her OWN.

I have long thought that if I could leave off my husband for a good long while (what feels like TOO LONG FOR ME), then I might see him swing back towards wanting to initiate all sorts of things.

But for you and me (people who long for closeness/physical intimacy), it can take going into withdrawel to give our spouse the space they need.

I think both our spouses feel smothered VERY EASILY.

ANd yes, you are blessed by your children. How beautiful.

Quite possible. She said something interesting yesterday. I complimented her on reaching the milestone of having lost 50 pounds. Quite and accomplishment. She is about to cross another "decade" milestone from the 140s into the 130s. Big kudos to her.

She said "losing this weight is the 2nd hardest thing I have ever done. The hardest thing was getting married. I was not ready to share. I finally feel that I am comfortable being married." I asked her what enabled her to be comfortable. She said "I like you."

I said "you are lucky you married me. If I were any less wonderful, you probably would never have become comfortable being married." She replied "you are probably right."

Ooh, ooh, I am getting better at accepting compliments!

OMG, Hold. She just opened up her innards and let them all hang out there for you to see. Wow.

Good job not slicing and dicing them!

I am hopeful for you.

You accept compliments when they are sincere and when they actually mean something to you.

You ARE seeing positive changes (albeit small, and I get "being cautious")--and she acknoweledged the things that have come between you... her unwillingness to share herself. Her weight was probably a way to avoid sharing.

Be careful, Hold. Things could improve--and then Eeyore might have to come out from under the raincloud... :-)

Ditto!

So the "I am so great" line wasn't too snarky?

Depends entirely on tone. It's hard to tell tone here on the computer screen. But judging what I've read of your posts, I'm guessing the tone was pretty non-assuming and humble and sort of tongue-in-cheek, which would make it sweet, not snarky. What's most important though, was how SHE responded; we're just reading along here, not married to you. Her response was a good one, so she obviously didn't think you were snarky.

And that's what matters!

We offered to let one of S15's friends stay over a couple of nights while his parents go visit their daughter at college. They were going to ask several families to help out since they would be away a while. In the end, no one else offered and we got all 5 nights. Mrs. Hold had been planning to run some errands with S15 this week because it is vacation so she has him home during the day. Yesterday she said she would put the errands off because she didn't want to drag the friend around running errands. I told her that we are housing and feeding someone else's teenage son for 5 days. We have already gone above and beyond. So if it is more convenient for her to run the errands today, she should go and drag the friend and not tolerate any complaints he is bored. Imagine how bored he would be if his parents dragged him to visit his sister for 5 days!

Mrs. Hold still feels guilty. Am I being too harsh?

Hmm... I agree with your reasoning, absolutely. But if *she* feels so guilty that she does not *want* to do the errands, then she has the right to decide to wait to do the errands. Even if you feel it would be ok, she may feel uncomfortable.

If she just needs reassurance from you that it's ok to do the errands now, then give it. But I don't think it would be good to convince her to do something she actually does not *want* to do because her comfort level is different from yours.

What about leaving the 15 year old guest at your house, would y'all be comfortable with that?

ETA: or drop him off somewhere, the mall, a movie, a rec center...?