Tom,

Why do you want to stay married to your wife? You are already resenting her for her work effort. From what I have read you are relatively newly married. If it is not clicking now, bringing kids into the family is not going to improve your relationship with your wife. I think you should go get some individual counseling and really explore if you love your wife before making critters that will rely on you for the next 18+ years.

Another thing to point out is that this is not "needs" in the sense of "you need this or you will die."

You mentioned earlier that financial support was your top need ... that's not an emotional need unless it would make you feel in love with your wife. Oxygen is something you need or you might die, so it's serious, but it's not an emotional need, in the sense used by Marriage Builders.

Couple of posts that might help you.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2354459#Post2354459


Couple more similar posts to read:
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2354612#Post2354612
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2354615#Post2354615

See, Tom, I think this is your problem. Somehow you've gotten the idea that sacrificing and settling for 'what you can get' is how a marriage should work. You have been told that x amount of sex in marriage is 'normal' and to want more is wrong or abnormal. It is unbelievable to me. There is no such thing as normal, at least there shouldn't be in marriage.

The ideal you want to strive for in your marriage is NOT normal. Rather strive for Romantic love and mutual enthusiasm. I don't care how other people's marriages are. I don't care how often they have sex.

What I care about is am I happy with my sex life? Is my husband happy with his sex life? If the answer is no to either of those, we gotta figure out something new. It doesn't matter if joe schmoe down the street LOVES having sex once a month. That's not going to work for me or my husband and trying to fit into that mold because it's 'surprising' and somehow realistic will just make DH and I miserable. Not good enough for my marriage.

If my husband needs to have sex with me 4 times a week, then hon pass the KY!

You are settling and you're wondering why you're full of resentment for your wife?

I promise the resentment will only grow and you are fueling it with this 'perspective' on marriage. You have to change your paradigm. Dealing, settling, being a martyr doesn't make you a saint or more enlightened, it just makes you and your wife miserable.

It seems to me that your marriage would greatly benefit from some Radical Honesty on ALL fronts: carreers, finances, sex... how do you feel about the policy of radical honesty?

I fully believe that my wife is attracted to me, she says it often enough. I also know that she is more than okay in marriage.
I would say I am more of the saying in an okay state. Having an okay life is better than being miserable. There are aspects that are good, happy, positive things. Life is not perfect, I don't see it realistic to expect everything to be great.

Interesting comments Virbrissa....
I guess I have always seen situations in life as you have to make a choice for what you think is good enough. Am I the happiest I could be in life, no. But you and someone else basicaly ask why I would want to be married to my wife, if I wasn't I know that I would be less happy as a result.
When we got married, I didn't think it would be the path to eternal bliss, but I thought it would make me happier than without.
Its like with a job, you may not have your ideal job, but would you be less happy without it?
Yes you may be settling for something/someone, but isnt that better than waiting for something/someone better to come around that may never actually happen. So you take the good with the bad and just hope in the end that the good/happy tips the scale its direction.

Tom, are you saying that being married is better than being alone?

Can you imagine how being married to someone you are wildly in love with is better than being married to someone you just feel okay about?

You sound like my husband before we were married. At one point, he told me the best he could ever hope for was being content in life.

He was avoiding non-sexual intimacy like the plague. Course I didn't know while until after we married, and things finally made sense.

So, why are you avoiding intimacy? What are you afraid of?

Yes CW, I can imagine that, always did imagine that. Until I realized there was a chance it may not happen. So I figured why would I wait for something that I didn't know if it would ever happen. I love my wife, I care about my wife, I want her to happy in life, she is a great person and deserves that.
For me, being married is better than being alone. So even though I am not an extremly happy person, I am happier than if I were alone.

Does your wife feel the same way? I would hate to be on the receiving end of "good enough."

See, for me, that kind of life is not good enough. I don't want good enough. I want passion, romance... I want to be as madly in love with my husband as I was the day I asked him to marry me. And you know what, it's possible. I'm even more nuts about him today than I was then.

I woke up this morning and went into the kitchen to watch him make breakfast. My stomach did a little flip and my heart fluttered when I saw him. I smiled and put my arm around him and gave him a kiss. He smiled at me and my heart melted a bit.

We've been married 5 years. We have a 7 month old little girl. We have a crazy busy life, a mountain of debt and he goes to work every day at a job he hates. But we're crazy in love. We're not special or unique. Our love isn't better, or stronger, we're not 'soul mates'... we've just been doing MB since we got married (though we didn't know thats what we were doing). And now, when life should be it's toughest, when everything should be pulling us apart (because it's trying, believe me) we're more passionate than we've ever been. Why? because we found MB and are working it daily.


See, I find this just sad. You're settling because you don't think it could be any better. It can be.

And your poor wife.... to you she's just better than being alone.


A job is not a wife. You are not building a life with a job. You are not trying to become one with a job. You can leave your job and find another one, in fact you probably will many times in your life - you'll probably even change careers. One would hope you don't do that with wives.

But with your attitude. What if someone comes along and you imagine life is better with HER than with your current wife?



See you seem to be under the misapprehension that love is something that happens TO you. It isn't. It just doesn't 'come around'. You MAKE love. It is something you build with another person. You don't wait for someone better to come around. You MAKE your marriage something better, you MAKE yourself someone better.

Hope is not a plan. You don't sit in your corner with your TV HOPING you'll have a good marriage. You turn the TV off and go to your wife and you BUILD a great marriage together.

I am glad you have that romance, and after 5 years still feel a flutter when you see him. No, I don't have that. I believe that my wife does, but I don't.

As for how "love" happens. Yes I have always viewed it as something that happens to you. If it is real love you shouldn't have to work to make love happen, its just there. Now I love my wife, how in love with her I am is a different story, but I love her and always will. As I said, I care deeply about her and very much want to see her happy. I have no desire to ever do anything that would hurt her.

But you COULD have that. It isn't magic.


This is a LIE that we are fed from stories, from Hollywood, from society. Love is a VERB as well as a noun. Why is that do you think?

Don't you see that your attitude on love IS hurting her? Your attitude is going to cause your marriage to shrivel and die. You will either emotionally disconnect from her or have an affair. That will be the MOST pain you can inflict on another human being. One you say you love.

Your ideas about love are that of a freeloader. If you persist you are signing your wife up for years of loneliness and emotional disconnect from the person who promised to LOVE (the verb) and cherish her for her whole life.

Read the thread Buyers, Renters, and Freeloaders.

Vibrissa your posts are always heart-warming, clear, and wonderful!

Vibrissa,

I honestly don't see that I am hurting my wife right now. Yes I make some mistakes in what I say on occasion. But for the most part she is happy in our marriage. She is not the type to keep that to herself either. She is very good at communication, if she is feeling something, she lets me know.

Like Nomader, I'm curious how your wife feels about it. It seems really unfair to her that you would settle for "good enough." You could give her more, and don't.


Like Vibrissa said, a job is not a wife. A job won't get its feelings hurt or have its life ruined if you only give them "good enough" or if you leave. A wife, meanwhile, has forsaken all others for YOU, trusting you to provide something she feels like she can't get anywhere else. And as long as she is with you, it would be wrong for her to try to get it anywhere else. If you decide, on your own, that "good enough" is where you'll settle, then she's stuck, even if it's not good enough for her.


Now, Tom, you didn't actually read the Love Bank Model in the Basic Concepts, did you?

I asked if you had read the concepts, and I thought you said you had. Perhaps you just skimmed them? Perhaps you looked at them and felt like you already knew what they were going to tell you?

Tom,

I just posted to you on the UA time thread concerning TV and all that jazz...

Tom, you are on the website that teaches you how to make it happen!

So everything is just peachy king huh? You're not hurting her yet, so it's all ok? I'm trying to tell you that you are setting both of you up for a lot of pain.

Why are you here Tom? You say you are resentful. I'm trying to show you that YOUR actions are fueling your resentment. Your wife may have a part in that, but there is nothing you can do because you have already said you don't want to be Radically Honest with her.

This evening sit down and ask your wife what it is she'd like you to do better. How it is you can improve your marriage. I'm sure she can think of something. If she doesn't she may be in withdrawal or may not feel safe opening up.

I will tell you - DH and I NEVER left the honeymoon stage. We have always been 'in love' but when I got here I found that there are a LOT of things I and WE could be doing better. We have made changes and things IMPROVED.

So enough with the nambly pambly philosophical stuff.

What do you want?
What are you willing to DO to get it?
Will what you are willing to DO get you what you want?
If not, then you are settling, and I'm telling you settling will NOT solve your problem. Settling has CREATED your problem.

Tom, what you are saying is a little bit like what Marriage Builders teaches. There are two kinds of love:

* caring love is a decision, something we do for our spouse. It sounds like you have that!
* romantic love is a feeling, and like you are saying it is not something you can just choose to feel

But the fact is that what you do affects how your wife feels, and vice versa. Because of this, it is possible for both of you to act in a way that brings about romantic love. Feelings of romantic love can be seen as proof of the effectiveness of your caring love.