FL

I can relate in a certain way to the remoteness and sometimes passionless Marriage.

I know it is a fault of mine to be a bit uninvolved at times and to be honest my H can be the same. Did we learn this from our parents and childhood? yes I guess we did.

We both has fathers who were war vets, both distant but trying to connect with us as kids - never gave up trying in fact - and mums who generally suffered in silence and at bad times I know I heard from my mum "he was so different before the war".
I learnt to accept that and give that way as well.

Now we haven't always been like that, seemed to slowly edge its way in over the years and after the death of our son. Perhaps we let that happen deliberately... lots of guilt & blame going around then.

Yet we have managed not to pass that along to the kids I think. It took a concious effort though.

How do you start to share passion though? How do you unlearn your responses to intimacy?

Well I can share how we have begun.

I did try the how did you do today love when he got home...that got me nowhere & some short replies at times.. so lesson one was pick my times - charging in like a bull elephant was dumb.

What I eventually did was very much what you have written here ... I got honest and told him everything I was feeling.
Gently, no shouting, no drama.... but setting out what I felt was happening to us and didn't point the finger at him at all...I put as it was just happening by both of us.

FL if I may, why cannot you sit down with your H & talk about this?
IS it fear you will get answers you dont want or are not ready to hear?

MAybe tackle one really big thing thats on right now and see if the two of you cannot work some compromise or work around on it. it may sound cold and calculating, but isnt exactly what a therapist does at times, works out a strategy with you to enable you to resolve an issue?

Why not with your H, tiny steps at a time. Perhaps start engaging him in discussions on how safe he feels etc.

He may reject you right away or hum and har or try to avoid it & I guess if it happens you then consider a response or react to whatever he does.

I do think if you can get him to go to a M counsellor with you on any pretext it will help more than anything here. Even if he goes to 'support' you so to speak. Any chance?

no chance of him emailing other BS like Bob are there FL? Does he know about MB?

CN, ok, i'm getting rather sick of the sadness in my posts too. i really do have to change something cuz life is too short!!! but i would like to say, for the sadness i show here, there is a lot of time in my life that i am happy. i am personally so much better off today than i had been in a long time. for that i am very grateful!!

you are absolutely correct in saying these one-sided encounters are hurting me and must stop now. I have told H that I feel used and I don't want to feel that way anymore. We also had a bit of a discussion a few minutes ago (on the phone, not ideal, i know!) about this subject. we agreed to talk more in the near future. the problem is, i started out being perfectly fine with that behaviour, but that is because the news i gave him was so horrible and i just wanted to give in any way i could. somewhere it has gotten off track. so now the trick is getting on track.

and here is my question (AW maybe this is why i hesitate to really let this come to a head). what do i need for us to continue to share any intimacy? and here is the problem... the truth is, just having us each "satisfy" the other, is not it. i want him to commit to being in or out which includes wearing his wedding ring. and if he does not know yet, if he is really in this marriage, then i really don't want any intimacy. but is that very fair to him?

and AW, maybe i am afraid of the response i will get.

what if he just says ok, lets just not ever be intimate anymore? i'm afraid it is a very good possibility that that scenerio would be just fine with him.

that scenerio is not a long-term scenerio that i can live with.

so if i put a line in the sand here.... what if that line leads to a stalemate situation.

i'm not going to divorce. i sat on the fence for far too long debating that issue.

there has to be some solution that can work!!!

regarding MC, he absolutely refuses, i lied to him while in MC, end of story.

regarding MB and email someone here. there have been times after reading something Bob has written that he has commented that bob has a clue. but in general, he is creeped out by MB because it is internet based. he does not want anything to do with it. he is back and forth about feeling ok with me posting here. he says it is ok as long as i don't give out details that would indicate who i am in real life or where we live.

the other thing we talked about on the phone.... what exactly is he wanting to be re-assured about. he says he is sure my intentions are good and that i am honest about wanting to make ammends and be a good wife. he is confident that i really do want him and he is not needing me to re-inforce that msg. his point is... on the "outside chance that something would happen" he is not confident that i would tell him immediately. although he made it clear he thinks it is a very remote chance that i am going to ever cheat on him again. but just in case.... he does not feel confident that i would tell him or protect him by not allowing any contact between him and i to occur. i need to talk to him more specifically on how i now feel about the physical danger i put him in. that seems easy enough to talk about....

This is very good. It gives you something specific instead of vague to work with. That was a very intimate convesation! Good progress, FL

BTW, have you ever picked up the book Passionate Marriage by Snarch? Pep often recommends it and I am reading it now mostly for personal healing. The other book I think I recommended to you was Safe Haven Marriage.

FL2:

I'm glad to hear that you do have joy in your life.

I think that you crave affection and intimacy. You use(d) sex to get affection and intimacy. . . that is probably a learned behavior. I understand why you aren't interested in just "satisfying" each other. You don't have sex for the O, you have it because you need to feel close to H and that is the way you have found to feel that way. Perhaps you can find a different way to get that intimacy for a while? I have no clue how to do this.

I know that initially you were o.k. with this one-sided thing . . . so what. You aren't now. You are allowed to change your mind you know.

His not wearing his ring sound like punishment to me. You can't make him wear it, but you can contiue to voice that it makes you feel disrespected and you don't want to be in a marriage where the spouses continue to disrespect each other. You are either married or you are not. It is kind of like being pregnant.

You two are supposed to cherish each other. I wonder how he thinks he is doing that at this time.

FF, yes this is good. it is a very concrete topic we can talk about. he does not often give me concrete things so i will persue it more sometime over the weekend.

no, i have not picked up passionate marriage or safe haven. i have so many books and they are not doing me any good cuz i am the only one reading. i have stopped reading.

very true. as a baby i was not held much, my mom had a breakdown shortly after i was born and was in the hospital for quite a while, i'm told i was in my crib or playpen all the time but that when i was taken out, i never joined the others anyway. that i was just fine on my own. physical touch is very important to me. but then my H will cuddle with me most nights as he falls asleep. maybe the point is i need to let that physical contact be enough for a while. because the point is, untill we both can say we are having sex for the emotional intimacy as opposed to the physical part of it, i don't want it anymore.

as for his ring, i have told him how much it upsets me that he does not wear it. i don't whine, i don't harrass him, but i do tell him and i ask him if he ever plans to wear it again, he says he does not know.

i think the real problem is we are on different time zones. to him, it's only been a SHORT 11 months since he has had all information. for me, it's been over 1 1/2 years of trying to make ammends. the first 7months are lost because i withheld info from him. and i can understand how that makes the first 7 months worth nothing to him, but it is still on my timeline. it was very hard work getting the rest of the confession out, it took everyday of those 7 months to pick myself up, find the strength to look at myself and face it all internally so i could tell him. he may want to discount that time and i can't change his view, but it is still on my timeline as very significant work.

i have to keep getting stronger in teaching him how to treat me. but at the same time, i have to give him the amount of time he needs. this patience thing is really hard to figure out.

fL, I haven't had time to read your whole thread but I have some thoughts to throw in the mix. Actually what you just wrote about your timeline vs your H's fits with what I was thinking.

I remember how hard you worked to tell your H the whole truth. I really commend you for the courage I know that it took. I hope what I'm about to say to you doesn't make you feel put down. My H had a 9 month very typical A, with all the trappings that could possibly make our M vulnerable, and the predatory OW. I get intellectually how it happened. However, after 20 months I am just recently not feeling so devestated, even though I have my moments. My reality was blown to shreds and I'm still trying to figure out what was real and what wasn't during the A and pre-A. I can't imagine what your H went through getting that last bunch of truth. I'm telling you this not to guilt you out, but to say that I think your H has been horribly traumatized. I would even guess that he is disassociating from his feelings just because they are so painful, along with some other defense mechanisms. He needs IC and I can't imagine you both being able to work through this without a really good MC. You might understand what led you to do what you did, but to him all he knows is the M vows were broken.

In saying that I do believe in choices. We BSs have the choicee, if our Ss decide to dump the OP, to stay or leave. We have the choice to determine if our FWSs are putting in the effort to recover. I also believe the FWS has that choice also. I definitely don't think you should give him OS anymore if you are feeling used. I think you have every right to tell him you love him and want to recover, but what's going on isn't working. You need help.

As far as the wedding ring, I still am not wearing mine yet. I know CN thinks that is disrespectful. I honestly don't mean it to be. It's just that for me the ring represents our M vows, which were broken. So the contract in my mind and heart was made null and void. I figure that I'll know when it's time for me to wear it again. I might be getting closer. I'm here for H and I've told him I hope he can live through some of my ambivalence.

I am wishing you the best. I hope you and your H can recover. Our MC told us the biggest failure of recovery has to do with the different places that the FWS and the BS are in the recovery timeline. CV

[email]D@mn[/email] straight CV. This is just a pet peeve of mine. I also think it tells other people that you are married and hopefully they will respect that. I think that you should go and buy a plain gold band, maybe from Walmart or somewhere really cheap. Wear it. When you are ready to wear your old one then have a little ceremony and maybe say the vows again and throw the cheap one in a lake.

A ring is a symbol of marriage. I know your H [censored] all on the vows, but symbols are important.

CN, are you mad at me? This is one of those things we might have to agree to disagree on. Why the heck would I wear a fake ring from Walmart? I don't even want to get new rings like some folks do here either. I actually like my ring. Just a gold band. No diamonds or anything. Never wanted an engagement ring either. So just that gold band with gold and pink roses on it.

Here's the thing. Just like it took me a long time to decide to get Med, 8 yrs., because I was scared sh**less about M, now I think I'm going through the same process to recommit. Does that make sense? Once I actually got Med I was totally committed. H obviously got kind of screwed up on that point. So if and when I put that ring back on I will be totally committed again. I think I will need to do some kind of vow ceremony again too. Just H and I and maybe the priest who knows about this. Sorry if I upset you.

CN, I just bought a best of Pink Floyd live CD. I never knew Comfortable Numb was one of their songs. Now I like your name even more. CV

The wedding ring is very symbolic IME. I took mine off on d-day, but once my [censored] was in gear I put it back on again after a week or so.

Squid noticed. OH YES she noticed.

I sort of agree with CN and CV. Squid soiled the vows of her original wedding ring. I bought her a new one.

It made her very happy and helped us move into a better recovery. Me too, as I wanted to be 'married' symbolically as well as in deed, but I wanted to show that I considered our original contract null and void.

<sigh> My wife won't wear her ring either. Going on 13 months.

She says it doesn't feel right.

I say it's a choice that she makes every day.

I've expressed to her respectfully, repeatedly, that the ring does not represent that we have a perfect marriage. But, it represents that she is committed to trying.

Her not wearing the ring says a lot of things to me, all interpretations....

I would get SO MUCH HOPE if she would just choose to wear the ring.

It does feel like a punishment. Every day that I see her I look...and I see no ring. I guess the day I see the ring I'll know something has changed.

I can forgive her for a lot of things, but I'm not certain I can forgive her for the pain she is inflicting upon me by this simple act of selfishness and lack of forgiveness.

FL,

I'm glad that you are going to find somewhere to start in talking to your H. Thats progress!
Small steps. If you can find some small way to make SF a little more satisfying to you too, a little more mutual, then maybe in the future you can move on to the next small thing. If discussing your needs brings up his feelings of distrust or resentment, then its an opportunity to talk about those. IMO they need to be discussed too. Its very hard though.

I can also relate to both partners drifting into a M that is really lacking intimacy. Even if they each do it for their own separate reasons.

I made a decision to start telling H more about myself. I didn't even realise I hadn't been doing it, but looking back now, for most of our M I haven't been very open about my feelings with H (or with anyone for that matter). In my case I think its because my family was too close. We rarely had much privacy, loud fights were common, and just reacting to each other was the norm. My H sounds a little more like yours - he had a very distant relationship with his parents. Children were seen and not heard, etc. He is used to that being 'normal'.

Its been hard to start talking about myself at first because he can seem disinterested or bemused by it. I think it has helped in the long run, and I'm going to keep at it.

About the wedding rings. My WH took his off the day before he moved out. I took mine off that night and gabe it to him. He looked at me and said those are yours keep them.

When he moved back home 2 days later(this was before I found MB) he put his back on and so did I. But when he left a week later it was off again. He has it in his wallet...

But I have yet to take mine off. I am still a married woman and I refuse to take them off until he either divorces me or I die which ever comes first. And believe me he notices I still wear them... Before my plamb he would take my hand and touch my rings. He never said anything but he sees them there.... I feel it makes him see I am still committed even if he isn't right now...

CV,

Of course I'm not mad at you. I was just about to leave the house when I wrote my response, kids yelling, all that. I may have sounded terse, sorry.

I respect your decision on the ring. I know that it would make me pretty sad if my wife didn't wear hers. I don't kknow how your hubby feels about it. When I was in my affair, I always took my ring off before . . . I hate to even think about that stuff now

How are you guys doing these days? Wife and I are doing fine. We rarely bring up the affair anymore. I still obsess about it way more than she does.

Yea my name is from an old Pink Floyd song. When I joined MB it just seemed to express how I felt.


I have become comfrotably numb. . .

CN, because of your comments and HardHead's I brought this subject up once again to H. I asked him if it bothered him, which when I asked before it didn't seem to. This was his response. He said what bothers him is me feeling badly about what people are telling me on MB. Typical response from the S who doesn't hang out on MB. Then he said that "things" don't mean much to him and so whether I wear the ring or not we're still Med. Well, I told him I felt badly about that because the ring isn't just a "thing" to me, but a symbol of our M and the vows we took. Which is why I'm no longer wearing mine. I also reminded him that I did wear it for about 8 months but slipped it off one day when I didn't feel he was kicking in enough. I think that was during a time when you were posting to me a lot.

So we dug a little deeper. He pointed out that he's still wearing his ring whehter I am or not. He said he looks to see if I'm wearing it several times a week, but it doesn't bother him. He understands why I'm not wearing it yet and knows when I do put it back on I'll really mean it. He did ask if we could have a deadline, which I'm not good at deadlines. I said it's kind of like me deciding to marry him again, and he said he hopes it doesn't take another 8 yrs. to decide. So hope that clarifies. H kept his ring on the whole time during the A. I also told him we will probably need to boil that sucker.

CN, I'm glad the A is fading in your M. You do sound much happier. I also hope you are no longer Comfortable Numb, although there are days that sounds great to me.

H and I are now making a committment to do the MB program together. I mean really do it like we are in a class learning how to better meet each others' ENs. The A did screw him up and you know he held back, which has slowed our recovery. The wound is almost cleaned out. There are 2 more things I need to do, the grand tour and read the phone bills he sent away for. Then I think I'll be done. I know, I'm insane. Hopefully we'll make it. Thanks for asking! CV

***I also think it tells other people that you are married and hopefully they will respect that.***

My WH wore his wedding ring every single day at work and never took it off -- not even when he was taking his female co-workers out for "private lunches" or when he was meeting up with them on his out-of-state business trips while I did not know they were there.

His wedding ring did not mean a bloody thing to him or to any of those girls. It did not stop him from acting just like a single guy, nor did it stop anyone from treating him just like he was single.

You've got to realize that wedding rings are actually an *attraction* for some OP, especially females willing to settle for a part-time husband (and a lot of them are.)

Wedding rings? I took mine off years ago. I cannot be married by myself.
Mulan

Mine wore his ring as well. Look at it this way she was M as well it made them look like a couple. That is what I told my WH -so you 2 look M with each of you wearing your rings. How nice..

FL, hows things ? Just thinking about you and H & praying tonight.