Okay, I'm pretty new with the whole MB concept so I need some advice from you that maybe understand it better than I. W has admitted to EA although there is stong possibility of PA. But I digress, when she admitted EA I asked her why, and she said that she "needed" him. I asked what need I didn't fill when I am the type of H that tells her daily how much I love her, appriciate her, how beautiful, and sexy she is and we have/had? always been best friends that talked about everything? That is up to the past six months, but since she had been diagnosed with clinical depression in that time I wrote off her new behavior to that.

So now we're working on things and in one of the periods she was actually trying she told me that she should have never said that she "needed" him she just needed a friend. When I mentioned we had always considered each other best friends she said yeah but I didn't have any responsibilities with him. I could just act imature, she's 34, and that's what I was doing. She also said the following and this is pretty much a direct quote, he's so stupid that he made me feel really smart when ever I'm around him.

Here's my question. How do I fill those emotional needs? Should I dumb myself down? My wife is very smart, she owns her own successful business and I tell her how smart and proud I am of her all the time. In fact I tell her that she is smarter than I am but she doesn't believe it. Should I get rid of our three children so we wouldn't have that worry like OM? How bout if we ditch the huge house, the trucks, cars, motorcycles, and horses and rent a 400 sqare foot house like OM so we don't have financial responsibilities?

We've built this life together making decisions together for 12 years. How do I let her be irrisponsible? Trust me I know how to have fun MORE than the next guy but we do have responsibilities and I don't know how to fill a need that requires a lack of them.

I don't know you, so this post may not apply, but maybe you're like my FWS. He is very romantic and always tells me how smart I am. I'm sure he likes to tell other people that I'm an engineer, etc. BUT he is a perfectionist and can be very critical. And at one point, I thought he might have some narcissistic tendencies.

What does it matter if he tells me I'm smart if he second guesses all of my decisions? Do you question how she raises your children? Do you always have "suggestions" on how she can do things better? This stuff gets old and I took it as criticism. That starts to wear down on your self-esteem and you're just looking for someone or something to make you feel better.

Are you in counseling? Does your wife feel safe in sharing *all* of her feelings with you? What do you do when you disagree with her? Do you bully her into complying?

Like I said, I may be far off base, but I just wanted to throw out another perspective.

My suggestion? Try listening to your wife. You are hearing her words, but you are not validating them. You are just assuming they are wrong, because of everything you do. But we all have a different perspective and it might be time that you start to see each other's.

i just wanted to say, those are very good questions!!! i don't have any answers though, and maybe no one else does either, hence the lack of responses...

but this will bump the topic up and maybe someone else will chime in now.

Finally, Thanks for the bump.

lbc, thank you for your insite. It's funny because I am not the perfectionist but W is and I think this causes her to feel as though I am being critical whenever I make any type of comment. That came from her IC. For instance she said that if I say something like how about if we save that chili and I'll take it for lunch tomorrow it makes her really mad and she never knew why. Her therapist says she needs to deal with issues with an absuive father in a big way.

As far as hearing her words but not validating them I am trying but no she does not communicate her feelings well. This is something that stems back to her abusive father. I am not absolving myself from having a part in this although I did at first. In fact it was trying to deal with that fact and understanding it that brought me to the MB website. I desperately want to understand where I fell short and fill that void so we never go through this again. Or better yet so she never fills the need.

See if you can get her to fill out an emotional needs questionaire. It's possible that while you were filling some important needs, you were missing others. Sometimes excersises like the questionaire uncover things that you might miss otherwise.

I don't think dumbing down is the answer, but if you do, I have an idea of what you can do with the big house, trucks and motorcycles...

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

dewt

Mr E,

Have you read all about EN's on the Marriage Builders site? Have you tried filling out the EN's questionaires to see if you REALLY understand her EN's? Sometimes it's very suprising the order in which WE place their needs in comparison to the priority in which they place them!

<small>[ April 18, 2004, 03:45 PM: Message edited by: Nerlycrzy ]</small>

Thank you all for your input. Actually I spent the weekend trying to get W to fill out an EN questionair. I had given her one about two weeks ago and she seemed really interested but she filled it out half way and then "hasn't had time" to finish it. This weekend I asked her if she felt we were just ignoring what had happened instead of dealing with it and she said maybe. I explained a lot of the MB concepts and asked her again to fill out the questionair and while she didn't have time for that she did go on the MB site and read the basic concepts portion for about a half hour or so. She said she thought it made a lot of sense so we will see. I guess they call that a baby step.
Thanks again for the input. It helps!