OTH-

Women don't want to be fixed..... Your wife is not a problem that just needs to be fixed and put back on track...... She is not your project. She wants to be part of you. She reaches out to you in the night and you reject her....... She just wants to be the top of your list......Women will look over many shortcomings in their men...... But they must be cherished. They must be made to feel that they are the hub of your world. She wants to know that you will sacrifice your own plans or goals in favor of your marriage or connection with her. She doesn't care if you take over the world. She wants a romance with you. It doesn't take much......They want to know that you can't live without them...... Its where your focus is.


Brilliant!

Saturday UPDATE:

I am moving into the new house as we speak. It is Wifes Dream House and has been for Four Years. I decided to buy it. She cannot afford it. She was very sad and depressed last night as too be expected.

She continues to waffle back and forth between having NO CONTACT or Trying. In her mind she says, I made a PROMISE to myself to never return to you. ( I did tell her, that promise was to the Old Dictator, and invited her to join the new me)

How do i deal with WIFE, in regards to me moving into this home. Right now, she is so sad, she wants nothing to do with it, and now says, please do not invite me over, i am heartbroken, I will just re organize my Camper.She constantly brings up, she told her friends and more importantly her Parents, She would never return. She has always had issues with GUILT, its like if she could find a comfortable way to share with them it would be easier.

We did however have a 74 Text conversation last night, and she said her suggestiton "I will try to read the book you gave me and some of the material, this i can do safely..." She has the concepts and His Needs Her Needs Book. (It felt like mini headway) She is really battling with herself non stop about whether its ok to see me, talk to me, or be around me.

She continues to state, I feel like i am Falling back down the Rabbit Hole with you. (Meaning getting back together working things out)

Do you have ideas to help with the Parent Situation or? At this point i am going to work on the house very hard, to make it as presentable as possible along with myself. PLAN A.


Her heart is enjoying the time with me, its her mind that is telling her no way run. She lets me kiss and hold her every time we are together.
Thanks Cherish Her

I don't know if this means anything, but many people have asked me if I was a cop, military, or just a narc/snitch. I guess it the way I carried myself, was direct, and tended to take charge when I thought I needed to. Lol, I even installed something in a service-man capacity for a high official in the pentagon, and after a couple of hours of yakking, he told me I would have done well in the service. Something I missed out on because I wouldn't leave my preggoed 18 yr old wife at home, and my legs were messed up anyways. Then at 26 I was a diabetic, and they couldn't use me. Too Bad, the AF really wanted me at 18, I was off the charts technically.

There is a point I am getting too, and it has to do with personality, and the roles maybe we both tend to respect as men.

I have allways wanted to lead, help, guide, comfort, and protect people. Yes its a good thing to aspire to, but it is where it comes from that bothers me, and the failures in myself to be successful regaurdless of the actions I have taken.

I have allways been drawn to protect the innocent, another nice sentiment. It has also been what challanged me as what I believe a man should be in the areas of the "Damsel in Distress". When I have let the guilt get the best of me whenever a woman would weep and fall apart and she thought it was my fault she then owned me.

I want you to think about that a bit, if it applies to you. I know you said your wifes gentleness was what attracted you to her, me too with any woman I have ever loved. It was not thier looks, it was their heart. It was what made me want to protect them, or even save them from themselves if nessesary, but its not respect or trust, not really. That they have to earn, and they don't live by the same code, so we might not even see how far they have come, or what they have accomplished, unless we see it through thier eyes, and respect what thier eyes see.

This takes an active effort to know our place in a marriage to one of these strange creatures, and really listen. Its easy when us big strong men know what is important really, and we were put in charge right?, to disregaurd what they have to say as silly, emotional, and thier problem because of that.

But we are talking about the connection between two people of equal importance, to God. Check out how God uses women all through the bible to teach us deep truths, as men could not, didn't have to, listen. They were in charge.

I used to tell my kids, that Moms job was just as important, if not more, than mine. If she wasn't there to care for them, which I prized as a gift from God, all money made, had no value really. My family was my duty and honor to provide for, and I was lucky to have them. I praised my wife at every opportunity, and tried to stay sensitive to her needs, even the silly ones, and yes she was in need of saving from some nasty problems too.

Those I didn't negotiate well, or she would be alive today I believe. But in my case my ego dragged me into a place where I bit off more than I could chew, and I thought I could handle her addiction issues. But thats another story, and probablly doesn't apply to you.

But the base issue I am talking about, the need to protect and control situations, will not work in marriage for very long. I will use an example given once about how children view correction.

Suppose you are at a dinner party with your closest friends or colleeges<sp>, Now you spill a glass of wine on your shirt, and your wife says "You idiot!, now look what you've done!", and embarrasses you in front of all your peers. This example was to explain why children hide thier mistakes and the spiral down into deppresion it might cause, and the lonliness and frustration they might feel as they grow up.

But in the situations us in charge and agressive Husbands might find ourselves, steamrolling over our wifes, expecting them to submit to our authority, minimizing thier importance, will wear them down internally, and even the sweetest woman will run away, feeling abused and unloved.

I know you get this, and understand it also. You are here because you want to find out how you can change it, and recover your marriage, but do you have the patience to wait for her to find herself again, and encourage her in herself, whatever that might mean? You can be her rock, her place to come to for comfort, without being a rock that falls on her, crushing her gentle spirit and the flower you see her as.

Someone in the begining of this thread made a comment on how "Sweet does not mean un-manipulative" It also speaks of the fact that submissiveness does not mean weak. As a man who is in a position of authority, I know you submit to that authority. Do you feel that the rules are fair in its spirit, even if not allways in its application? Are they designed to protect the innocent or subjicate them?

My suggestion is submit to a higher authority of love, and all the tools are on this site, and if your like me at all, forgive yourself for trying to hard to think for her, and appreciate her every day. Even when she screws up, especially when she screws up. Maybe thats what is missing.

Keep posting and learning, Marrige is a marathon, not a race.

There is a beer commercial (Heineken) currently being aired that could conceptually guide you in the situation you want resolved in your favor. Guy at a wedding spots a hot chick sitting at a table with Granny. Approaches table with two beers, gets "Here comes another one", look from hot chick. Puts beers on table, holds out hand to GRANNY, and escorts her to dance floor, with hot chick gazing in appreciation at his thoughtfulness. (NO - I'm not suggesting you start dating your MIL! ) The moral to the ad is that some predators chase the prey; the successful predators get the prey to come willingly.

You should ignore the reflected assessment of you by your in-laws. That is NOT reality. What IS reality is the qualities and behaviors you have already recognized within yourself that you want to change.

CHANGE THEM.

Stop the rest of this "What to do, what to do?" nonsense. Make yourself the person that WW will want to be with. Do us all a favor - do something THIS WEEK that improves YOU in your WW's estimation. Tell us when you've completed that piece (however small) and then tell us that you're ready to take the next step.

Working on the house seems like a good start. What are you going to do tomorrow (I know it's Sunday. Who cares?) Do something that you KNOW would be something WW wants in her house.

How does the 'DICTATOR' express himself?

The reason I ask this is because, depersonalizing this aspect of your behavior may allow you not to work on changing this behavior.

I would also like to put the behaviors into MB framework.