I'm thinking....Will get back to you...

ARK:

What do you suggest?

Low:

I'm thinking she is being selfish...

I declare that you have every right as a man to desire for your wife to excite, please, delight you, etc...

If you declared that to yourself, would you DO anything differently?

BTW: I'm planning on ordering WILD AT HEART by JOHN ELDREDGE today..talks about a man's soul..a man's needs...

I'm finally beginning to really understand my H...of course, he is now beginning to be TRANSPARENT with me...

Are you OPEN AND HONEST..TRANSPARENT with her about your feelings and needs?

As much as I know how to be.

Things she has said she has needed from me:
1) Honesty and transparency.
2) For me to show her that she is loved and appreciated.
3) Reassurance that I'm not planning to leave her.
4) Attentive conversation.

I am working as hard as I know how to to meet these requests.

Things I've asked from her:

1) Respect for my thoughts/opinions even if you don't like them.
2) Participate in a more full social life - friends, going out together, dancing.
3) Her to dress like she cares what I think. I've been specific.
4) To be more "playful" and "adventurous" (within reason).

I sometimes think she wants to be married to a pastor or choirboy. All of the people she seems to admire are are very religious men who are very strong in their convictions.

I have strong convictions, too. They just don't seem to be the right ones where she is concerned.

Even though Phil is the WSo, I had a similar experience. I changed and became more conservative because that's what I thought Phil wanted. If you'd asked him then, he would have said he wanted me less wild child and more "proper" than I was.

I'd figured out long ago that was wrong for me before Phil started talking openly about how much he HATED it when I changed myself for him. He hated that I did it. He hated what changed about me. He hated that he wanted it, got it and hated it. BIG mess.

I was sassy and free and never felt like I needed reining in. It was HARD to conform to what Phil said he wanted. I was resentful at first, later I thought the best thing would just be to give him what he wanted and be happy. And it was OK except HE was miserable. He wanted his fun, sassy, sparky girl back and she was seemingly gone forever.

If only he'd told me...

Low, Phil and I were friends a long time before dating each other. Nothing more or less. He dated. I dated. There was zero flirt, zero physical contact, zero anything would lead anyone else to think there was any tingly, butterfly, spark sensation for us at all. And at least on my part, there wasn't ANY.

Except I did have this - about one, maybe two minutes after meeting Phil I knew two things. I knew I wanted to know him forever and I knew that to do that, I would have to leave girlhood behind and become a woman because Phil was a man, not a boy. If I wanted to be worthy of a friendship with that man, I'd have to be a real woman and not a girl playing at being a woman.

Phil had a similar reaction meeting me. He knew he wanted to know me for the rest of his life. Phil saw me as a potential wife long before I ever even saw him as a potential love interest. Nothing prepared me for falling in love with him. It wasn't instant, it was learned. I know I chose to try loving him. Nothing could have prepared me for the result of that choice. Our first kiss blew both of us away. It was another knowing thing - I knew there was no one else for me. He knew the same.

So what? I give that a big SO WHAT!?!? We chose. We had romance. We had butterflies and excitement and love. We had hot sex and we had it for days at a time. We had a life together that would shame romance novels. So what? We had chemistry and compatibility and respect and here we are anyway.

It's a choice. I believe that. I chose to be open to feeling a certain way for Phil because of all of the different interactions we'd had over time. I didn't feel that way for him at first. I wasn't "in love" with him for a very long time. I admired him, I liked him, I wanted to know him but I wasn't in love. Didn't get those twitters. I took a chance anyway.

I hope like crazy that he will take that chance on me and choose to be open to being in love with me. You can choose too.

Sal

Low:

I laughed out loud when I read this because I was thinking the same thing about her...

YUK....

She is not wanting YOU..no wonder there is no "CHEMISTRY"

I've got to run but I will be back with you on this .....

Sally...that's exactly how I'd define "it". You had it. You didn't create it. You chose to build on it.

So, what would've happened had you not known this?



SO WHAT is...you've had it before with this man. So you KNOW you could have it again. That's what.



Based on your earlier statement, I think you "clicked" immediately. What you are calling "in love" is the choice to explore and expand on that.

You have just described the relationship I had with the ex-OW for the 10 years prior to the affair. I felt an instant click when I met her, but never acted on it (we were married!) Then, there came a point where we "chose" to explore and expand it.

I envy you, Sally

I have read this book. It's typical of so many other Christian books that I can't identify with.

So far, almost all the Christian materials I've seen promoting what it means to be "masculine" revolve around some stereotype of what "men" are "supposed" to like.
Huntin', Fishun', Racin', Rasslin', and Football.

Eldrige's book did not speak to me. I am, apparently, not his kind of man.

I have become very suspicious of so-called "Christian" marriage material. A great deal of it carries the message that "everything will be ok if you just get right with God." Well, I'm not so naive as to think it's this simple. Knowing I'm right with God isn't going to help me do squat to meet her need for conversation. Or the other favorite tack...all problems are the husband's fault because he's not being the spiritual leader of the home.

Low

Low,

I dunno. It's nice for me to know I had that with someone. It's nice for me to know someone felt the same way at the same time for me. It's nice even that a couple of weeks ago, he said it all aloud and that he knew what we had was good.

I guess what I am trying to impart is that the love thing - that did not just happen. The meeting of invisible spirit - yeah. OK. Maybe. But the in love part grew over time.

And thing is, I'll be honest. I don't know that I will ever have that again. I think that if Phil and I reconcile, we'll grow and the love we already have will be stronger and deeper.

If Phil and I don't reconcile, I may never experience that feeling again. I don't think that what we shared is common. I don't like to say never so I won't but I will say it's not probable that I will feel that way again.

I don't envy Phil in this either. He already had a pretty good idea of what he was throwing away. Lately, he's been getting more of an idea. What we had was special. We both knew it then. We both know it now.

Which just brings me back to so what. I'm still here NOW. Will I choose to love - yes, of course, I could stop loving about as easily as I stop breathing. Will it be the same? No. Will I ever give my heart so freely or willingly again? Doubtful.

Will I ever marry? Have a family? Will I always live alone? Those are magic eight ball questions. I'm still here alone anyway. No husband, no children. I'm smart and beautiful and all that other stuff. And so what? Here I am. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Take me or leave me, love me or let me go. I'm here. Same for you. The knowing, I think it's a spiritual click. In my religion, each of our souls are paired from creation with seven other souls that are potentially each our perfect mate. If you go your whole life without ever bumping into one of these souls, supposedly God bestows a special blessing upon you.

Don't be envious. I'm just alone and getting older! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Consider yourself blessed - you have something lots of other people don't have. I don't have it. "Settling" for what you have sure doesn't look like settling to me. It looks like good stuff.

All the other stuff, the needs, the wants - it's all window dressing. Gravy. Extra. Mom used to say hunger flavors food best. You think you're starving - possibly you just aren't hungry enough. You get me?

Sal

As much as I'd like to, Sally, no, I don't.

Like you said...what you had may not be that common. But you had it. You may not have it, but you once did. You are rich because of it.

How do you think it sounds to someonoe on welfare when a rich person tells them "money's not important"

It's hard, Sally. I want what you've had more than anything else.

I understand very well. If you insist on this analogy, it's because I'm sitting in the welfare office next to you. Maybe I was rich before but I'm poor now. It's some cold comfort knowing I once was loved so well.

From my POV, you're getting your welfare check and taking it home to share with your family while I'm taking my welfare check home and sharing it with dogs. They are very good dogs, but they are not more than beloved companion - dogs.

I've rarely read you mopey like this Low. I don't know you other than your posts... Something else eating at you lately? Sorry to ask such a pointed question but I can't help myself.

Sally

Lo,

I can’t spend much time on MB today. I don’t much any more in any case. But I wanted to explore for a moment your posit before I’m gone for the day:

“If you had a daughter and she was asking you about marriage to a particular man, what would you tell her? In my daughter's case, the man is from a wealthy family, has a promising future, is physically attractive, and fun to be around. But when I asked here if she felt "it", she instantly knew what I was talking about and said "No". Should she marry this man?”

Well, of course, I have no idea.

But, I believe in principle they could make it work quite well if they both knew what they were doing. If they were both good people and understood marriage is a contract, a covenant, a mighty big promise and, yes, also a sacrament they could be very happy, ever after.

All those things mean lots of hard work and self denial for the rest of their lives, though. Anything else is just a story book.

If they respect each other and know what they are getting into, I think they would be happier in the long run with that kind of M than from any A I have read about in literature or on MB.

The other side of the coin is your position on a passionate in-love, and damn the torpedoes full-speed-ahead chemistry major’s M. But those work out far less often and for a shorter time than the above.

Maybe all marriages ought to be arranged?

I remember reading something you wrote about your OW. You said it would never have worked long term and as a marriage, and you no longer even like her much as a person. It was the excitement, not the specific person, you wrote. So what good did passion do for you? It just caused you to feel empty, now. Like a recovering coke addict seeing drug paraphernalia.

And what good did her LTA do my W? In fact, it made her very unhappy in general, even during the LTA.

All the As in the world do not seem to have made anyone lastingly happy in the end. Not one of them. Yet quite a few plain old vanilla flavored M’s have.

So, what are you bemoaning and missing so much besides the dopamine in your hippocampus?

Oh, a personal question for you: Are you an only child? Or perhaps the only boy among girls or the youngest child of several? I have a theory I’m testing...

With prayers,

I think you deserve "IT". I think you can have "IT".

I think your W needs to hear this and understand this.

I think that, regardless of whether you have talked about this until you are blue in the face, you have not talked enough about it...

Who knows why you are the way you are, LOW...

I think you have every right to enjoy your life with a partner with whom there is "IT"...

I think it can be your wife....

You said this:



So to meet 1 through 4 of her needs, it seems to me that you need to be honest with her about this. Let her know that you are looking for "IT" and want "IT" with her. Ask her to join with you in A PLAN, POJA, to work towards attaining "IT in your R. "IT" probably can be attained by your points 1 through 4.

Seems simple reading it here....

The point is for you to feel OK about your desires...

Sometimes I wish my H had come right out and told me that I was being a dried-up, school-marm, strait-laced, woman of the church before he got involved with the PYT ("pretty young thing"). However, I probably wouldn't have listened...

What he desires of me though has helped ME as a person... That's what I'd love to tell your wife. It's not about what I do for him as much as this has FREED me to step out of that old role...Just because we grow up doesn't mean we have to lose the child within us.. I'm sure she used to play and have fun as a child. I hope so. That's what she needs to capture again, the free child inside of her.... That's where the MAGIC IS......

I have knowledge of ways that my H continues to "educate" me..if you are interested....

However, the difference is that I am a student interested in learning...I don't know about your wife...

How about if you remain "firm and steadfast" about wanting "IT" yet LOVING in your means of stating your desire to work on it with her...Make sense?

LO

I'll share this with you and you are free (as I suspect you will) to discount it at once.

When H and I met, I was the exciting one; sexy and desirable and pursued. I'd moved to a new country and set up a life for myself and was bright and enthusiastic and adventurous.

I thought that H had a capacity for 'calming me down' when my excitement levels overheated.

The warning signals I failed to see, while we were dating, was how ambiguous he felt about my bright spirit and sensuality. Like the time I wore a micro-skirt and high heels (boy, I looked HOT) on a date, and he was mortified and just wanted to go home. I was deeply hurt.

As soon as we achieved parenthood, his tolerance for any adventurous moves on my part dropped to nothing. Not that he said so directly - he simply reacted to sexy clothes or any spontaneity on my part with dry coolness, sarcasm and withdrawal. It really doesn't take much to kill a woman's confidence, just a consistent attitude of disdain and disapproval.

Slowly, he trained me into believing that the only behaviour that was acceptable to him was being maternal, homely and 'safe'.

My spirit held up for several years after the kids arrived, and then slowly I got flattened. For a couple of years, I just settled for the only behaviour that drew any kind of positive response from him - mothering, knitting, cooking - being 'safe'. For the first time in my life I put on weight. In retrospect, I think I was actually quite depressed.

Eventually, I managed to rescue myself. I'm a writer - and despite H's disdain I got myself published quite a lot. I found an environment of writers where my real self could be displayed and appreciated, where my capacity for thinking in unorthodox ways was seen as postive and thrilling, and my tolerance and compassion were appreciated. My confidence returned.

After seventeen years, I'd come to think of H as a dry stick - sexually timid, emotionally desiccated. D-day was almost a relief. His prostitute addiction, his attachment to OW#4 - they seemed almost a positive thing, a suggestion that he had a capacity for adventure and emotional warmth.

Over the past three years, I've come to realise that H had an unconscious template in his mind; a template that shaped marriage as something that required two serious, joyless, responsible people. Sexual adventurousness, emotional spontaneity - these were things that didn't fit into his template of a marriage. When I was The Real Me, it violated the template, and made him feel as if his failure to find a wife who comformed to that template showed him up as a weak, irresponsible man.

After D-day, H complained that we were never 'spontaneous'. But it became quickly apparent that, if I attempted natural levels of spontaneity with him, he was deeply uncomfortable. He recognised this, and it suprised him. He realised that he felt conflicted when he was not able to control our interraction. In fact, he realised that he was only able to handle 'spontaneity' when it was under his control in the context of an A.

I describe this essentially because of the fact that H was so deeply unaware of how consistently he destroyed the very things he claimed to want - excitement, adventure and spontaneity. Without being conscious of doing it, he worked to flatten all aspects of me that he sought in OWs, because something in him had decided that those behaviours were not appropriate in a life partner.

The fact that he managed, for a substantial period, to flatten me into domestic anonymity and chronic timidity, is an indication to me of how completely another woman might be subdued. I started off highly confident and buoyant, and he still succceeded in squashing me. A less cocky woman might be flattened for life.

LO, my suspicion is that your response will be dismissive, but I hope that you will entertain the possibility that, subconsciously, you have an expectation for your wife that precludes adventurous behaviours. I hope that might also find some compassion for a woman who might feel that the only safe behaviour is the one that she senses you expect from her - safe, conservative, dull.

At least think about it.

TogetherAlone

You guys can flame to high heaven if you like but I think this "chemistry" thing is nothing more than an excuse.

Granted I felt the rush of excitement with the new love with my H (now WH) and it lasted quite some time. Eventually it became the familiar pattern of comfort and peace. I was glad for that because up until then all I'd ever experienced was one drama after another with my previous boyfriend.

I think now that my WH uses this unarguable excuse of "chemistry" to keep the wall up between us. He hasn't actually mentioned it in some time, so maybe it's not an issue anymore or he's just decided it's not worth discussing. I don't know.

IMO there had to be "chemistry" there for you to get married. We all feel that getting married a BIG step or else we wouldn't be here now. That "chemistry" had to exist at some point. Whether you define it one way and I define differently, it's still "chemistry".

Chemistry to me is shared goals, shared likes and dislikes, shared basic moral beliefs, sexual compatibilty, and having my EN's met. If that isn't happening, I dont' feel the chemistry.

LowOrbit - I may be off base here, not an expert, just stating my opinion on this subject - the "it" you are talking about - you really can not describe it ?? Is it what you would ---

climb the highest mountain for ?

swim the deepest river for ?

put up with all the crap from a WS for ?

I believe people have been trying to describe this forever. I do not think there IS an explanation. It just happens. And if it does -

You will do just about anything to keep it.

Am I close at all ???

Best regards - carnation

Thanks for your posts, mimi...



Perhaps I'm going about this all wrong. I usually try to suggest some tame behavior that that lean towards the things I'd like.

I'm not asking for anything weird...to dress up and go for dinner at a supper club with dancing is an example. She is very uncomfortable with any activity like this for a variety of reasons. I know I am not a good dancer, but I can learn...I want to.

I've stopped looking at fun activities as immature, depraved and sinful. In fact, I do have a hedonistic streak...that I don't apologize for. I want to enjoy that part of myself WITH MY WIFE.

The biggest mistake I make is when she shoots down any (and, to date, all) ideas like this, I withdraw and get angry. I take it a kind of judgement about me (A good man wouldn't ask such things of her).

What's worse is that I feel like she is very manipulative about it. She will express willingness and talk about doing things, then, at the last minute, find a way to sabotage it.

In our last discussion about this, she said "You know, if I went, it would only be because you wanted me to." Who wants to go out with someone like that?

That's why I fear that I'm not far from engaging in radical independent behavior (NOT another affair). I am more than willing to POJA. She is not.

But if I want to go see live jazz...I'm going. She's welcome to come with me if she wants to.

You are dead on, carnation. This exactly what I'm talking about. Debate rages about whether "it" even exists.

Your H misses this feeling. It stands to reason, that if you once had it, then you should be able to regain it.

Your H may very well be using it as an excuse.



And I believe this is a mistaken assumption. Many people marry for other reasons (see Aph's posts above). In my case, we were immature, naive, scared kids. We didn't have any idea how big the step we were taking was. We didn't even have "chemistry" in the way you've described it.

No, I won't be dismissive. But I don't see my behavior in any of the behavior you've decribed in your H. As far back as I can remember, I've always encouraged her to "let loose at little". If anything there has always been this underlying expectation that I would become the "good" church man, the deacon, the sunday school director. I did a good job of faking it for many years because I wanted to make her happy. I enjoyed the admiration I got because of it. But, I always knew that it wasn't really me. BTW, I met my ex-OW in sunday school.

I'm no longer involved in the church to any deep extent. My wife encourages (pushes) me to assume the responsibilities of old and is disappointed when I explain that I will no longer assume responsibilities if my heart isn't in it. I think she gets something out of seeing me as some kind of church "leader".

Part of MY recovery has been understanding that I cannot act without integrity...that is, I will not act in ways that are not consistent with who I believe myself to be.

Wow, Low:

This IS ALMOST EXACTLY WHAT MY H HAS SAID TO ME ABOUT HIMSELF:



Our Recovery is based on ME GETTING THIS.....

We no longer attend the same church..He no longer is a DEACON...

Despite her Christian beliefs though, she is not functioning as a Christian wife...

How can she GET THIS?

I think your feelings and concerns are legitimate....