Originally Posted by HoldHerHand
Originally Posted by Hilltopper1972
Originally Posted by kilted_thrower
Originally Posted by Hilltopper1972
I stand corrected, no attempts just action. Thanks Kilt! I assume you're more fellow Scot?

A bit. I have a lot more Irish in me. My grandfathers grandparents came from Ireland. The biggest deviation we have is my mother is Venezuala.

All (well almost all) are here because we had a lot of the same issues that you have in your marriage now that we have used this program and forum to help make things better...great.

The forums can be on the very honest side and it can be a bit abrasive to some because we don't like hearing what we're doign wrong. Both you and your wife are LBing each other like crazy. If you're LBing all the time, it's not going to do much to improve things by meeting ENs. So the LBs have to stop first.

Remember that we all want you to succeed. But we all use a thing called radical honesty.

Wife is irritated again. I'll be honest as I just was with her, I'm kidding myself and all of you if I said I was 100% positive nothing outside of our marriage was going on. I apologize for choosing to defend my wife's feelings over telling you all how I really feel. I have no proof. All I can say is that she shows no affection to me at all and it hurts. I told her the "burden of proof" shouldn't be on me snooping around until I find something. The feeling of uncertainty should mostly go away when I see and feel affection and love. I don't right now so I consider the possibility despite the odds that something might be going on because I have no reason telling me otherwise. With a four month old, two children, no odd behavior on her part, all of it adds up to nothing. The one thing I base this off of is the fact that she shuts me out and has shown a pretty poor track record of improving this despite my clear cut communication that this is my most important EN. I asked her tonight if she would snuggle with me on the couch and she ignored it. She sent a text and did a couple of things on her phone. She said it "went over her head" which might actually be true. To her credit she also politely asked if I could ask that only after the baby goes to bed. Something like this spoke volumes about her effort to meet this EN of mine. Something this small is enough to make me consider the possibility of an affair. I don't know if it is worse to consider a spouse might be having an affair or to be a spouse that is not having an affair and knowing their husband doesn't fully believe them. Either way it sucks for both and one thing I know for sure, is we will not progress further until she puts this thought to rest. I freely admit to you all that we are not making progress. My wife did her first post and showed me one response. She said some things were helpful but that you all blasted her quite a bit too like you did to me. To her credit she is reading HNHN right now which is great. She definitely is curious at the replies in this forum but she also at this stage in the game told me that it just causes us to fight and is harmful. Tell me it gets better please.


Fact of the matter is, that if something doesn't change then the weakening of your marriage can lead to one or both of you falling into the trap of infidelity, or divorce.

I've been right where you are now, HT. And I didn't go looking for help, I just silently imploded.

It's not an easy thing to be prioritized at the bottom of our spouse's list of priorities. And the more we allow that to happen, the further down the list we can fall.

The sad truth of the matter is, that it is in the best interest of our children that we put our spouse first, so that they can be raised in a loving, supportive home.

The reason that your posts are causing fights is because you are taking these posts as an opportunity to educate each other.

KNOCK IT OFF.

If you can't handle implementing the concepts without using the advice of posters as fodder against each other, then go to individual phone coaching through the coaching center on this site.

Do not read each others threads, do not post on them. At this point you can hardly act like civilized human beings toward each other.

Each of you needs to understand that your threads are about you, and not the other spouse.

Last night after talking we settled into a groove and spent some time on the couch together side by side. My wife displayed affection to me for the first time in a long time and I think we had a pretty good time. No sex afterwards but that doesn't bother me because the effort was there. What I learned after a pleasant evening and pleasant morning is that despite an effort to show me affection, my instincts tell me it may not continue and that scares me. In our discussion last night my wife had me read a paragraph out of the book about how meeting emotional needs, particularly sex is difficult if she doesn't feel like it. She doesn't feel like it because we fight all the time. Also in these two pages was the description of "sexual aversion". I'm fairly certain my wife was telling me in her own way that she has an aversion to having sex with me. Not only does this not feel good, but it scares me on a bunch of different levels. I'm afraid my insecurity in this relationship is far from healed and if my wife can't mentally get past this aversion, it might make the path to that healing much longer.

Married 15 years
12 y/o DD
10 y/o DS
6 y/o DD