L4,

We've talked about it at length a few times at least. We make starts and stops as she commits to changing things and then not much happens. If PA was my top EN or even in the top 3, this might create a problem for us. What it really does is keeps this background resentment around that has to be prevented from giving my Taker complete control of things.

Her normal response BTW is usually a bunch of reasons why she can't do the same things now and of course we both know it is purely excuses when she says it. It is really the one piece that we're still trying to make fit.

Now, I related that story as a way to tell you how your husband might feel not to criticize what you were doing. I wanted to point out that too busy or too tired or too sore or too old does NOT change the feeling of being cheated, not just cheated on, but cheated out of something that the BS and the WS both consider valuable.

You don't have time to work out. Simply put, you don't have time because you don't make time. You did make time when you did it before. The difference is actually in the reason you were able to do it before rather than now. That reason ain't pretty and it isn't something that any of us wants to admit to, but it is the truth. To find that answer for yourself and know that I am right (I won't tell you what it is, but it is the same for you as it is for my wife) look in the place you simply don't want to go and understand that the one thing that you are so vehemently against being the truthful answer is in fact the truth. It will be the common answer as all hypothesis are tested and will be one possible answer no matter how you ask the question. Why were you able to do it before and can't do it now?

BTW, we all have something that falls into this category, whether BS or WS or neither kind of spouse.

Mark

Mark, I think you hit the nail on the head. I do not speak for L4, obviously, but , I think the answer is probably pretty simple. It is an answer that women, in particular, seem to have trouble admitting.
Making oneself more physically attractive leads to greater opportunities to have sex with attractive men. I think people in affairs want sex from others and this helps them get it.

Z,

I don't think that most women begin with sex as the top priority during an affair. They seek instead attention, conversation, affirmation, admiration and being attractive gets them this. The sex, I would say is a means to an end, that is getting these other things they are getting from the relationship.

I'm not saying that the sex isn't exciting or a big turn on or anything like that merely that for most women the sex is the method rather than the motive.

I think this is true in marriage as well where for men it's all about the destination while for women the journey is what is important.

Mark

Mark, I used to think the same thing. then, I moved into a house with 6 women during my senior year in college. I was privy to a lot of their converstaions. These young women, pretty normal, were driven by their sex drives.
I started to expierience this for myself. i was young, good looking and an excellent athlete. I guess I was somewhat in demand. Women would proposition me, regularly, for just sex.
I've been reading a lot by a guy named Marc Rudov and he has some interesting takes on the importance of jsut sex to women.
At first, this was somewhat threatening, as he points out how men decline after about30 , while women's capacity increases. He points out their multi-orgasmic capablities and the lack of need for recovery between sessions. He also points out how women are pretty good vibrator consumers.
I think there is somewhat of a societally induced concept about the fervor with which women purue orgasms.
I men, really, if a woman merely wanted emotional companionship and was trading sex to get it, why not simply go after an old geezer(like me) or confine themselves to other women or gay men?

L4:

If you can't read Marks posts, and understand exactly what is wrong, than your missing the point completly.

Are you busier now than you were? Yes.

But you real problem is your diet. 90 minutes for exercise? Yea, if you don't want to. You just won't have the time.

What your Husband eats for dinner? Doesn't matter.

If he likes the rich foods, and can eat at will, and not get fat, then that is his chemistry. And I can eat too. I like the rich foods, and junk. Flamingo is a great cook.

But, as I posted before, SHE changed her relationship with food. She doesn't use it as an emotional crutch to satisfy that "thing" that she isn't getting elsewhere any longer.

Believe me when I say, that if I am in conversation with Flamingo for 2 hours in the day, at least 45 minutes of it will be about her diet that she is on, and her efforts to change her relationship with food. And she is on a serious change. To Flamingo? Food is LOVE. Its the only love she ever got from her mother, and its a very hard habit or behavior to break. But if she doesn't, she is going to be 200 lbs of more.

Like everything else MB, it takes WORK. If your husband wants a little more PA from you, and you used to have "it" then you need to find away back to that. (I won't excuse guys getting fat and frumpy either after marriage, but, that is a whole other thread...)

How many people clean up the house becasue company is coming over? Why don't we put in the same effort for just ourselves? These EN's for other require effort. AND we all appreciate effort. Its when we see the efforts for OTHERS, and NOT for our spouses that the resentment starts to build.

I said I would like to offer you an extra 90 minutes a day, and I would also like to grant you some more will power. I have very little of each to give. You can only find them in yourself.

L4, I respect you in that you keep coming back to MB for answers to your relationship. Its been tough on you. For all of Marks poetry, its tough to read his paragraphs recently about the absolute pain he feels, and is afraid to see again, when his wife starts working on her weight. Because he knows deep down, that it isn't for him. And until he is sure that it IS for HIM, he will always wonder.

Mr L4 needs to learn some things. MB stuff could really help him. But he has to be willing to learn. Your here, and learning. And that's great.

All these things are under your control.

LG

Z,

If you'll notice I began my post by saying that for most women sex is not the top priority in an affair. While I don't question the research that has been done in recent years that has to do with the sexuality of women or try to take exception to it, I do believe that for most women the other aspects of a relationship, not a ONS, but an ongoing affair outweigh the sex as a reason for its existence.

Most affairs by married women don't begin with a pick-up in a bar followed by a roll in the hay that repeats over and over again until they decide the sex is better with the new man and so they choose to withdraw emotionally from their husbands. I think rather most affairs by married women begin as some form of connection at some level other than purely sexual and since many decide to disconnect from their marriage before this even begins, the sex flows out of that rather than the relationship growing out of great sex.

While societal views may contribute to this dynamic, I don't think that societal views can be discounted so easily. I'm not claiming that a woman has to be in love with someone to have sex with him only that most affairs among married women are in fact love affairs more often than they are simply hot sex.

Now for some who seem to go off the deep end and begin having multiple sex partners, acting like a 19 year old boy away from home at college for the first time in his life, I don't actually consider those cases to be affairs per se but simply a situation where they decide to seek excitement and looking for what they feel they might have been missing. In some of these situations I will agree that they meet someone who holds their interest for a time, but they are pretty much just acting single and not falling in love with all of these guys.

In most of these cases, the cycle burns itself out and they return to their mundane marriage without ever actually seeking to end the union for this type of lifestyle. But I think that there are very few of these cases that end up in a place like this. Rather I believe that most women, who seek to end their marriage and move on to another relationship, or even simply end the marriage without actually wanting to have their affair partner become their life-long mate, consider the other aspects of the relationship to be more important or at least every bit as important as the sex.

The research by Langley that shows that women in their 30s and 40s actually are more sexually empowered than younger women I think belies the fact that for most women at any age, sex is not usually in their list of top ENs until Conversation, Affection, Honesty and Openness (ironic, this one, during an affair), and even Financial Support and Family Commitment (this one too I think they find hard to resolve with having an affair, though not always until after the fact.) The reasons women give for having an affair are most often related to these ENs. They will cite how this other person really talks to them (Conversation), shares their feelings with them (H&O), seems to care about their feelings and pays attention to them without always reducing the relationship to sex (Affection), loves his children and talks about them (FC) and a whole list of other things with sex being mentioned only way down the list if it is mentioned at all. In addition when questioned about an affair most women would respond that it wasn�t about the sex, even admitting that the sex was in fact better with their husbands but that women cannot live by sex alone.

Ironically, I think that it is often the lower or midrange ENs that lead to an affair, especially when those ENs are not getting met in marriage. I think this is true for both men and women for the most part with a few exceptions. For men this can boil down to PA & Admiration while for women this can be H&O and something like Domestic Support (ever heard a woman talk about the new guy at work who can fix any problem she might have with his little box of tools?) In a beginning affair it a woman with a need for Family Commitment that isn�t being met the way she would like it to be met can place a high value on a guy who dotes on his children in the workplace.

They can usually write this stuff off pretty easily as not being an affair, at least at first, since it has nothing at all to do with sex. The OM�s Love Bank balance is through the roof before they even realize that he was meeting some EN since it is only after something like an affair or other crisis that ENs can even be identified or itemized by most of us.

I think that the releaser for the affair is whatever is being missed most at home that is being hit by the affair partner. For men who are not getting enough sex from their wife, sex is a bigger deal than for the guy who has a wife who can ring his bell every night. For women, I think other things play an equally important roll and it is for most women these other things that lead to falling in love with another man rather than the fact that he has a six pack where here husband carries his twelve pack or that her fantasy life revolves around being turned into a sex object.

You ladies correct me if I�m wrong, OK?

If we are going to continue this, maybe we should start another thread and stop hijacking L4�s thread�

Mark

I joined Jenny Craig two days ago. H was hesitant but then agreed I could check it out. When I came home H said he's worried about his dinners now and how much money we're going to be spending. But he reluctantly agreed that I can give it a try.

I woke up at 5:45 this morning to work-out which meant missing out on my favorite time of day with H (our morning snuggle) and getting to bed at 10pm last night. So there was an hour less of UA with him.

So I'm finding the time. I'm getting less sleep and am missing out on some UA with H, but it's what I've come up with for now.

If I may once again point out that I made and found the time before -- not only when I was in the A but also right before it and for a while after it -- because I didn't want to be with H. Any excuse I could come up with to not be in the same room with him, I found it. Now I do want to spend time with H, and MB says that time needs to be 15 hours. So I'm squeezing that in anywhere I can.

And no, H will not work-out with me. I've broached that dozens of times.

Yesterday, I went non-stop from 7am until 9:30pm. I got home from work just long enough to eat dinner (while standing in the kitchen), sign school papers, and catch up with the kids and H. I then took DD6 to swimming lessons. Home at 7:45. One hour helping kids practice piano while folding a load of laundry. Helped kids for 15 minutes with homework. Wrangled the kids into bed. Washed my face, got ready for bed. Loaded the dishwasher and hand-washed the remaining dishes. Then I snuggled with H in front of the TV until 10. Usually I'm up until about midnight, but because I really wanted to workout this morning, I went to bed at 10, knowing I'll be putting in some work hours tonight and this weekend to make up for it.

What was H doing? Watching TV because he didn't feel well. He hasn't been well for almost 3 weeks.

This is a typical weekday for me.

I get what you're saying, Mark and Zelmo. (Though it was a little confusing, Mark, and I had to read your post a few times.) I'm going to address your truthful answer point in another post, Mark, as it's kind of in line with what I thought of after reading Sere's and E's posts. But I'm sticking to the PA topic for now.

Are you participating in any of this?

Are you doing anything to alleviate her excuses? If it's boredom are you willing to work-out with her? If it's menu and not knowing what to eat, are you cooking healthy meals for her and/or packing her lunch? If it's time, are you taking on some of her responsibilities or letting her drop some responsibilities to give her more time? If it's money, are you willing to forgo that meal out or special toy so that she can have that DVD or machine or gym membership? In short, are you contributing to her success, sabotaging it, or standing to the side and doing neither? (I think I see another thread in this.)

If H came to me and said, "L4, you know how I feel about being with you when you're heavy. I feel heartless and cold about it, but it is my reality that I want you more in shape. I also want you to be healthy. I want to help you take care of you. Let's figure this out. Tell me how I can help you be healthier."

I'd ask him, "Could you take care of the kids 3 mornings a week to allow me a full work out, and every weekend commit to either working out with me or let me have a hunk of time either Saturday or Sunday to do whatever work-out I need -- free of kids? Would you allow me to make for us whatever healthy dinners I want to make? This would mean you could have anything you want for breakfast, lunch, and any meals outside of the home but dinners would be my say. Could you please keep all treats and food I consider tempting out of the kitchen? And finally, how would you feel about keeping the kids occupied for 15 minutes every day -- either right when I get home or in the morning -- so I can meditate or read a book or breathe or do whatever I need to decompress and give me more energy? I'd be happy to do the same for you as well. H, these things would be such a help."

If H agreed to pitch in and help me more with the household chores, the kids, and my peace of mind on an ongoing basis, that would be huge. I've asked and he won't -- at least not in a consistent way that I can count on.

So... I'll figure something else out. It's important for my own well-being and so that H will want me.

Wow. I posted while LG and Mark were writing more. Thank you, Gentlemen. I feel stupid about what I wrote, but I'll keep it up anyway. (Show my true colors, eh?)

So much work, yes. It's been so hard. Rewards? Most definitely. Gut-wrenching heartbreak? Without a doubt. Hopeful? Usually. Confused and searching for answers? Every day.

And now I feel some tears so I have to step away before my officemate thinks I've lost it.

Quick question though...

Tomorrow is our 15 year anniversary. Two weeks ago I asked H if he wanted to do something for it. He said, "Not really. I don't really want to do anything about it." I'm making plans for us to go out Saturday night because it's been too long since we've had a date. But do I say or do anything tomorrow? My mother and his mother always send us something in the mail. But do I recognize it in any way after what he said?

Today is slow at work. I'll be back later.

oh buzzards!!

my post just got eaten.

Love your penultimate post L4 - I'd love that world too ( And I'm a slacker only working 8 hours a week) I don't think it at all unreasonable - just unrealistic. ...ST disappears into dream world...


But yes, you have to mark the anniversary - you have to let him know and reassure him tat you are pleased to still be married to him.

luv ya
me

This is the reason why you did it before and cannot do it now:

You found somebody that you wanted to do this for, and no matter how much you say you want your H now and do not want FOM, you do not feel the thrill for your H that you felt for FOM, and by the nature of going back to the familiar, never will again.

How did you find time to look good for FOM when you had two children, no servants, a house to run and a job, just as you do now? Well, perhaps by having more time to begin with - not such a demanding job, I think you have said. But really, the thing is...

You would have missed a few hours' sleep every night to prepare for FOM.

You would have stayed up late waxing for the next day, and got up very early to get your hair just right before waking the kids and getting on with chores. This would not have involved hardship; you could not sleep much anyway with sheer excitement about FOM.

On several days you would have been too excited to eat, and would have missed eating lunch in many lunch breaks while you emailed or phoned him.

You probably did something like this with H when he was your new boyfriend.

Even though he probably did not know that you were doing those things when he was your new boyfriend, he knows, from living with you, what a lot of effort looking good enough to eat takes, and he knows you looked fabulous when you were first dating, so you must have spent that time not eating or sleeping well and being sleepless with excitement, then.

What he sees now is dutiful love and devotion from you, and what he wants is to know that you cannot sleep for excitement about him, just like you could not for FOM. He did not know what you were doing at the time, but he knows what it feels like to be mad about someone, and to realise that you are falling in love, so much that you cannot concentrate, sit smiling inside and act like a teenaged Donny Osmond fan.

You lost that feeling for him, as many do after a period of marriage. He probably did for you too. That was okay while you were both on the same page about marriage for life, forsaking all others. You both made allowances for getting a little fatter, softer, greyer etc. As for not being sleepless with excitement about each other, well who can live like that for long? You would burn out in months if you rushed home early just to rip each other's clothes off and spend the whole evening and night making love. It is not just the kids, dishes and laundry that stop you doing that; it is that the feelings subside, and something deeper takes the place of infatuation.

Acceptance of that change was ruptured when you had an affair, because then you went and felt that way all over again for someone else. You stopped the affair and returned to the marriage, and you are there because you want to be. However, H feels that you are not excited about him as you were for FOM, and while he knows his own worth, he does not know his worth IN YOUR EYES. Or at least, he does; he is not worth your looking fabulous for, as FOM was.

He might believe that you love him, but he knows that you have not felt the excitement you did for FOM for him, not for years before the affair and do not now and perhaps will not ever again. That's a lousy thing to know.

L4, I hope you will not miss my whole point by taking issue with my description of your feelings for H and FOM. The truth about your feelings during the affair is not important to this issue. I could be wholly wrong and I would still be right, because this is what your H "knows" (even if he is wholly wrong).

I'm telling you out of the deepest concern because I am articulating my own feelings as a BS, in the hope of helping. I think this is how your H feels. I don't want you to feel hurt or attacked by my post, and I hope you realise now that I would not post to hurt, attack or get back at you for my own hurt. I don't know how this post could be put to use, but I hope that somehow it will help you.

At least get him a card, L4. He might not want to do anything special to mark the day, but believe me, he will appreciate being remembered.

Just so you know, we bought a Weider home gym a couple years ago. It's one of those things with stacked weights and pulleys. It takes about 5 seconds to change weight or to set up a specific exercise not supported under standard configuration which includes bench press, military press, butterfly, extended fly, leg lift, leg press, lat pull, chest pull, curl and preacher curl. Also supports rowing, inside and outside leg extensions, leg kicks, one hand row and about 15 things nobody ever heard of before.

We also have two stationary bikes, two tread mills and a Total Gym. We have free weights though the bench has been put away since the Weider came into the house and dumbbells of 3, 5, 10, 15, 25 and 30 pounds. We have one of those exercise balls, an adjustable step, mats, about three devices for working your abs and I believe there is still a ThighMaster in the basement someplace. This is all stuff we OWN. To work out, I poen the door, go down the stairs, turn on the lights, fire up the sound system or television and get to work.

During Plan A I lost weight (20 pounds) on the old infidelity diet plan, aka: not eating because I was not too into eating at the time. At the start of that I was 2010 pounds which at 6'4" ain't too bad for being in my 50s. As Plan A continued, I started working out more (that is when we got the Weider device, in part to avoid having to go to the gym down the road). I didn't do it to attract other women; I did it to be more attractive to my wife. I kept up the routine 3 days per week, did tread mill or jogging 2 or three days per week and reached a point where I began to gain weight rather than losing any. I was now at 197, my neck had increased 1 inch, my waist had shrunk an inch and my chest had grown 2 inches. Then I got sick and couldn't work out for about 5 months. I went up to 220 and now I am back to 210 but not putting in the effort I did back then either.

I have offered to get up early, Spot her as she works out, help her in any way she wants me to do it, ignore her and let her work out alone...

BTW, this morning she announced that she was going to go back on the diet that helped her lose so much weight before...

We'll see what happens.

Now as for this:Doesn't sound much like an attempt at POJA to me. BTW, he doesn't have to agree to it for you to use it. You don't need to POJA POJA.

There is one sure fire way to lose weight and only one that will always work. That is to eat fewer calories than you burn during the day. Whether this means exercise to burn extra calories or eating less to intake fewer calories, this is really the only answer to dropping excess pounds.

The killer is often carbs. Whether sugar or potatoes or pasta or bread or honey or any other carbohydrate, they all get broken down into a simple molecule called glycogen before the body can use them. If your muscles need a burst of energy, they use glycogen aerobically to produce short term rapid deployment energy. If the glycogen doesn't get used, your body attaches it to a fatty acid and puts it way for later in a fat cell. This surplus reserve of energy can only be burned by your muscles if the enzyme that burns fat is called for. This second set of energy producers works anaerobically and can burn fat even if the glycogen supply is gone. In fact, it only normally kicks in once the glycogen supply is depleted. Distance runners use this set of conditions most of the time since carbo-loading doesn't really help you on race day.

A MLB catcher might consume 5K calories per day during the heat of summer. A set-up reliever eating the same diet would weigh 600 pounds by the end of the season, even if he pitched in all 162 games.

In high school I ran the mile, two mile and 5K. Between February and October I averaged about 75 miles per week, not jogging, but running. I was 6'4" and weighed 147 pounds. I spent most of my life before age 40 trying to gain weight. To put on pounds, I simply slowed down. I am currently 57 years old, weighed 208 this morning, have a 38 inch waist, 46 inch chest and 17 inch neck. I also carry a bicycle tire at the waist that I have had since I turned about 52 that I just don't seem to be able to get rid of. I could probably take to running again and lose it easily, but I'm not sure my knees would take it.

Did I mention that in the past week I have worked 49 hours, as of 6pm tonight, teach my MB class on Wednesday nights (which does require a little preparation), spent two nights and an entire day at our vacation property cleaning up leaves (it's in the woods, so this is a serious undertaking). had our first board meeting for the charity my wife and I are starting (we're setting up a food bank for horses. We wrote our bylaws at the meeting), emailed about 10 people from MB, posted on MB a bunch of times, read a book, and spent 14 hours of UA time with my wife (we're logging it for our class), was part of three conference calls for work, did the dishes three times, cooked 3 meals for my wife and I (4 more for just myself while at our vacation property), went fishing for three hours, worked out 4 times since last Wednesday, had a board meeting for church, talked to out pastor on the phone twice, called somebody I know from MB that lives in Texas, talked to my brother in Arkansas and fed the dogs three times and cleaned up the mess the younger one made twice. I also do my own laundry and last night did my wife's as well. I visited three customers I haven't seen in a while, attended the meeting of our local business alliance and spent two hours at a chamber networking event. This is all since last Wednesday...I understand busy.

BTW, if my wife had wanted me to not go to our vacation place this past weekend, I'd have stayed home...and worked in the yard there no doubt...

Looking up "penultimate"...

This is what I'm doing. There are things I'm not getting so I'm substituting food. Something I've done often throughout my life.

So, I need to control what I can control. I need to find something other then food as a substitute. I can't control H, just like he can't control me. I wish to Rome and back that he'd support me, but if he chooses not to or can't, that can't control me.

I get it. I gotta step it up. I will.

In my case, I agree.

For me, yes.

I didn't consider what I was doing with FOM an affair until FOM put it pretty clearly the day it went from an EA to a PA. He asked me for sex and I had the audacity to say, "No. I can't do that. I don't want you to resent me for your cheating. I don't want to be a cheater." FOM responded, "I've already cheated. That's already been done. I cheated with you a long long time ago." It was a rude awakening for me. I know I know I know... I was like all WSs and wasn't thinking, living in La La Land.

My H is in better shape then the FOM.

From my experience, you're not.

Thank you, Mark. We have other commitments that weekend. I really appreciate the heads up.

Mark, I have to disagree. Each of us has our own expieriences in life. Mine seem to tell me that women probably have affairs for the exact same reasons men do,, and many times it is for sex. i think , due to the way society has conditioned them, some women need to pretend that emotion is more important.
But, like i said, if emotional connection was the goal, another woman , a gay man, or a grandfatherly type could provide that.
I have just seen so many sexually driven women. Look at these cougars out there , now. Think they are trying to make a spiritual connection?

Umm, possibly NOT needed on this thread but....

PA is Flicks #3 down from #2. When he met me I was a tiny wee thin and smoking. I got bigger after giving up smoking and 2 kids. On the BS diet I got below the weight he had met me at and on his return home he told me I looked like an inside out Ethiopian

Now I have given up smoking on his request and have increased again. I was a few kilo's short of hitting my old weight when he made a comment about my increasing girth.

Now the only times I have been the wee thing he appeared to like was either as a smoker or on the infidelity diet. He wont agree to me starting smoking again, and I wont go on the BS diet.....


Secondly, while being bigger than before I am still actually smaller than the average person and I eat alot of carbs. Its not what we eat, its the portion sizes of it.

Losing weight is theoretically easy... eat less, move more.


BTW L4, I 'hear' the resentment in your posts about the workload you have VS UA time with H VS working out.

Morning L4, hope you're feeling good today. Your schedule is scarily tough.

Just want you to be careful about how much you take on and be wary of exhaustion, not just physical but emotional. You're juggling a lot of balls at the moment.

I completely understand you deing so desperate to meet your H's EN's. Desperate may be too strong a word but I'll stick with it for now as I can't think of anything more suitable.

I know from talking to BB about his guilt and shame about what he has done, how this can manifest itself in a desire to do all he can to make me happy.

The problem for me is that if I suspect he is "jumping through hoops" to be and do everything for me, then I see it as false and not sustainable, and I don't particularly like it. It sort of pleases me to see his willingness to work so hard for me, but at the same time it also reminds me that he is doing these things because of what he did, and that reminds me of the A so can keep me stuck in negative thoughts. This may be just me. I'm not sure of other BS's have felt this?

I much prefer it when he is calmer; more relaxed and real, and meeting my needs more naturally, rather than frantically checking on how happy I am, what more he can do for me and what he can do to make me feel better. Do you follow? I'm not sure if I am explaining mysef very well?

I think we all know that your H is holding on to the pain of your A. He is very reluctant to let that pain go because of his past issues. He very often uses that pain to hurt you and that is keeping you both stuck.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Your H NEEDS to find a way to let go of this, or work through this in order for your M to work.

Be careful to keep a check on yourself and your "desperation" to be all and do all for him because that might be contributing to him being so stuck becsause it is a constant reminder to him that you hurt him.

It's such a fine line you FWS's walk isn't it?

Anyway, I just have a niggling feeling that if you got down to a size 2 to meet your H's need for PA, that he would find something else that was making him unhappy and insist that you needed to work on that.

I think it's all part of his need to stay in the pain because he feels comfortable there. It's what he knows and he's too fearful to step away from it.

I may be totally off track here but it's been niggling away at me so I thought I'd put it out there for other opinions.

Thinking of you L4.

Hi l4

I am following along and this is all very interesting.

I too worry about your very intense schedule. It seems something has to give

Does H have a problem with the schedule as far as time away from home or time away from him? Did you POJA on any of these things? Im pretty sure you did on the job(s)

L4:

I really am beginning to Beleive that if your marriage is going to truly recover, its going to depend more on your Husbands actions than on yours.

Sere echos this with this statement:


L4 may not EVER be good enough for Mr L4, no matter WHAT you do. And that is mindset prescription for a disaster. And a mindset that may have started to exist about 13 years ago....

Look at your schedule. What has been adjusted by Mr. L4 since you have taken on the new work responsibilities? Not much, has it? That will build serious resentment over time.

Look at what Mark does. Its about working on his marriage, but also, about supporting his family and things that makes his household run. LG is guilty of not pitching in enough, but he has certainly moved much further up the scale. Flamingo? She has learned that somethings are not that important, and that makes a real difference as well. That's POJA in our household. Your nowhere near this place.

And then you posted this L4: THere is nothing stupid about writing about where you are AT. Your trying to sort this stuff out.

Many of the folks posting to you are working on similar things, or have found a way to address it that make is possible for thier marriage to function.

Sere's post once again, touched on it:

I can relate to the frantic stuff. Is it enough? Are you better now? It is much more calmer now. Flamingo's number 1 EN is Family Committment. (with a big dash of DS.) So, if I am doing things around the house, she is very HAPPY, and I don't have to ask. I just DO.

Mark, Sere, & Lil are struggling with what thier partners did, but they are finding a new way out of the ashes of that prior marriage. All have been forged into to new behaviors because of the fire.

That is something that Mr L4 doesn't seem to have had happen. I mean, in some respects, he is on the timelines of recovery that are used around here, so maybe he isn't to far off of where he should be. IDK. Maybe, you will see much more improvement in the next 12 months, than you did in the earlier 12 months. This would be a very good thing.

You have been shown the open door of MB, and the ways to fix yourself. You have stepped thru, looked around, and like the L4 that is emerging from all this. Its a slow process. But a process none the less.

When I posted about changing your relationship with food, and you posted back about your control over it. This has nothing to do with your Husbands and/or families diet. If you need to cut the carbs, or only eat salad, then it just means that you get to prepare two meals at every dinner. One for you and one for the rest of the family. This is more work for you, but it is one of the things that is in your control. Flamingo can whip up literally three different types of meals now. One for her, one for our son, and one for me. There are some common things, (broccoli and carrots for all) but the kid likes burgers, and I can be having something else. And I do eat a number of the things that Flamingo permits herself. For example, fish, and chicken.

Part of it for Flamingo, was understanding the body chemistry, and how hers is different from mine. (Not just the male/female thing.) Mark talked about the fat/glycogen process, but the blood type book talks about what goes on in your blood, and how your body processes the food that you eat. According to this Dr., the different blood types are more efficent at processing certain foods than others. So it gives you what to avoid, what to eat, and what doesn't seem to make any difference. So, your husband may be able to eat all the red meat he wants, with sauces a gravy, and never gain an ounce. But for you, you gotta work off those calories. That is true with Flamingo and I. I can have the red meat, she can only have fish and chicken. She can't have bread, I can. and its because we are two differnet blood types.

And she has lost 15 pounds.

And she looks terriffic. And it has come off from the so-called "fat storage areas" so her jeans are getting loose.

Keep working it, L4. There are only 24 hours in the day, and if your supposed to spend 2 hours each day with hubby, then it real tough to find the other time. Some committment from him to do some of the things needed to run the household would be great. But out of your hands, at this time. Have you printed the Domestic Support questionaire from this website? Even if your hubby didn't want to work it thru with you, you could review it, and understand yourself, and maybe even your hubby a little better.

LG