Sorry if this is a long post. I'm lost, feeling pretty down and have no clue where to start.

We've been married since 94. When we met, 3 years earlier, we hit it off and had a decent relationship. We went out, had a social life, we both had friends and we had a decent sex life. Life was pretty good.

A few years later she began to attend an ACOA meeting that wasn't "official". Her mother, who had passed on years earlier, drank but not to excess and my wife wanted to go to help her get this burden off of her back. One night we were at the meeting and one of the folks broke down and said that he'd been molested as a baby. Before the end of the meeting 4 out of the 9 people there were crying, saying that they had been molested as babies too. My wife was one of them.

Over the next few years she was in therapy once or twice a week. Once in a while I'd go just to see what support I could offer but stopped when I saw that it wasn't doing any good and that the therapist and my wife talked more about gardening than issues. Our sex life was down to her helping me out once every couple of months. I told her that I was feeling left out but I supported her in her quest to get better. She later went to a psych who didn't believe there was a problem, so she went to others who didn't think the abuse ever happened.

A few years later things eased up a bit and she was feeling mostly normal. We began having sex but it wasn't like it was. Most of the time we'd stop because she wasn't into it. The one time I did finish she got preggers. When that happened, no more sex.

Four years later I brought up the lack of sex stuff again. It hurt as I didn't feel like a man. She'd hang all over me but if I did more than kiss her or put my hand anywhere below her shoulders she'd freak out. I spent a lot of nights on the couch. Date night ended as she wasn't working as many hours as she wanted to and was afraid that we'd go under. Things were never that bad but outside of a movie at the dollar theater we did nothing.

That cycle repeated itself a few more times. When she'd shut down I'd work more or attend college as a way of killing my time. I kept trying to have date night but it went nowhere. Date lunches happened a few times but she'd order the cheapest item on the menu to save money and would get upset if I bought a coke as "they're cheaper at the supermarket". I gave up on date night.

Fast foward to 2012. I'm feeling like I've wasted my entire life. We've had sex twice in 4 years. Date nights we've had but the last one ended when the couple we were with left because my wife started going off on how bad her job sucked, etc (it's a bad habit, we've lost friends from it). I've just started back in therapy and have asked her to do the same.

Now to get to the point. Where, in MB, should I start? Part of me wants to call it quits and maybe find a more meaningful relationship before I die, the smaller part of me wants to try and work it out. I have days when I'm all gungho about working it out but I have other days when I just want to walk away.

Welcome to MB! Sorry ouy are here .. but this is the best website on the net... and when it comes to marriages .. this is the best site on the net!

Its sounds to me like you two have fallen out of love.

Have you read the basic concepts here?

Have you read the articles?

Q&A colums?

There is also some questionairs that allow you two to explore whats importat to each of you and what causes the loss of love between you two. There is also a questionaire for finding out what recreations you two enjoy the most are. There is a WEALTH of info available here.

You should do a stellar PLAN A. Meet your wifes emotional needs for a time period and show her how this program works in her favor .. and then discuss with her that you guys can have the most fulfiling marriage ever if you follow the steps and advice here.

Keep reading .. and posting .. and asking questions.

MNG

Edit to add link to emotional needs questionairs. http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi4501_enq.html you will find the links to the others in the column on the left after clicking the link.

Read read read. The quickest way to restore your marriage is to get 20 hours of UA time in every week. That means no other couples on your dates. Read all about it under the basic concepts tab up top.

I started to last night. Read some, cried some. When she came home from work (daughter was at a sleepover) I talked to her about my unhappiness. We talked for a few hours while we sat in bed. I slept the best I have in a while, this morning we woke up and enjoyed some time together before having breakfast.

Told her that I was doing some reading on repairing this relationship and I'd like her help in doing so. She initially didn't think that there was a problem but as we talked we both realized that we have some issues to work on. And that's ok - it's a start.

Ryeish, are either of you having an affair or have had one at any point in your relationship?

For her, I doubt it. For me, when she working evenings and I was working days I started to feel a bit of an attraction towards a coworker. I never acted on it and ended up leaving that job a few weeks later. I told my wife about it, she told me that I'd have to work two jobs to pay for the alimony that she'd need. My wife then quit her evening job so we could be home at the same time more. We used to be so tight, viritually unseperable.

This weekend we are going to work on those EN forms.

Will somebody PLEASE explain to me how a couple with kids and two careers is suppossed to share 15 hours per week in doing ONLY activities that they have in common? To be together someone needs to mind the children, then you are to DROP all activities, hobbies, etc. that you do not share, or simply are difficult to share, and then be able to do this constantly week after week.
Sorry but I see this as almost entirely impractical UNLESS one spouse does not work, extended family is local, and couple married at a very young age. What am I missing in all of this?
Recall that Dr. Harley married at 21 to a younger woman that he dated for years. So Joyce was 15 when they met? She was 19 when they married. Many marriages today are 10-15 years later in life.

What you are missing is that you are placing things of LESS IMPORTANCE over your marriage. As long as you do that, you won't ever find the time. Hobbies, activities, child care, careers, all of that is less important than your marriage.



I don't understand the point of that comment so I can't comment.

Caring for Children Means
Caring for Each Other

Willard F. Harley, Jr., Ph.D.


Children desperately need parents who stay married to each other, and love each other. Their future depends on it. Yet, their parents are very likely to lose their love for each other after they arrive, because they forget why they married.
They didn't marry to raise children -- they married to meet each other's intimate emotional needs. And the presence of children tends to make them think that they don't have time and energy to meet those needs anymore. When that happens, they lose their primary motive to be married -- their love for each other.

A man and woman usually decide to marry because they have formed a very successful romantic relationship -- they are in love with each other and are meeting each other's intimate emotional needs. They want to make that romantic relationship last a lifetime, so they marry. At the time, they are optimistic about keeping their love for each other alive, and they don't expect anything to threaten that love -- least of all, children. But if they were to understand how their love was created, and how it is sustained, they would immediately see why children are such a risk.

The two essential ingredients of a romantic relationship -- being in love and meeting intimate emotional needs -- are inseparable. A man and woman love each other because they meet each other's intimate emotional needs, and they meet each other's intimate emotional needs because they love each other. If either one of those factors suffers, the other suffers as well. That's why it's relatively difficult to keep a romantic relationship on track -- it's very fragile.

If living conditions make the meeting of intimate emotional needs more difficult or even impossible to provide, the love a couple has for each other is at risk. They usually don't see their loss of love coming, because they think their love is based on chemistry (they are made for each other) or their willingness to be in love (their love for each other is a decision) -- factors they think guarantee a lifetime of love. But what really sustains love in marriage is neither of those. It is their effectiveness in meeting each other's intimate emotional needs.

Intimate emotional needs can only be met when a couple are able to give each other their undivided attention, and when children become part of their lives, they lose the privacy that undivided attention requires. Job requirements that are considered necessary to support children can also take undivided attention away from couples. The pressure of family life, with so many wants and limited available resources, is yet another factor that makes undivided attention elusive.

When opportunity for undivided attention is taken from a couple, the meeting of intimate emotional needs is no longer possible. And when the meeting of intimate emotional needs is no longer possible, the love a man and woman have for each other withers and dies. And when their love for each other is gone, the risk of divorce is extremely high.

Couples marry because they think their romantic relationship will continue throughout their lives. And it would, if they were to continue meeting each other's intimate emotional needs. But as soon as their children arrive, there is a very high likelihood that their romantic relationship will end, because they cannot find time to give each other undivided attention. And with the end of their romantic relationship, their marriage is at risk.

Children do not require parent's attention 24 hours a day. Nor do they suffer when parents are giving each other their undivided attention. It's not the child's fault that parents neglect each other when children arrive -- it's the parent's fault when they decide that their children need so much of their time, they have not time left for each other. But the truth is that couples have time for both their children and each other, if they schedule their time wisely.

The solution to this problem in marriage is remarkably simple. It doesn't require entirely new skills, or a remaking of a couple's ability to care for each other. All it takes is going back to what it was that created the love a couple has for each other in the first place -- heartfelt affection, intimate conversation, recreational companionship, and sexual fulfillment. These intimate emotional needs, above all else, must be met in marriage if a romantic relationship is to be sustained.

As long as a husband and wife take the time to meet these needs for each other every week of their lives, they will never lose the passion that they had the moment they were married. But it takes time to meet these needs, and it takes privacy. They cannot be met with children running around your feet. Couples rarely understand this important fact.

If I were to give you $1,000,000 to stay in love for 10 years after your children arrived, and I had a fool-proof way of determining if you were actually in love, how would you make sure you had the money at the end of the ten years?

continued here: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8112_care.html

OK, nice theory BUT you have several presumptions.
Say 50 hours remain...that is ONLY if job time is concurrent.
Out of 50 hours how many do you devote to children?
35?

Give me examples of ENTIRE circumstances!
Not things entirely out of context.
Sitters, transit times, family help, etc.
Less important? What's more important than your marriage?
However to me there needs to be BALANCE and not all circumstances lend themselves to this myopic 15 hours per week or it is worthless/insufficient. What's magical about 15 hours anyway?
I agree - great goal... but such absolutes???

Dealing with 1960 view of High School sweethearts is far, far, from present day situations. I wish it were now like back then BUT it is what it is - accelerated costs of living and an administration bent on destroying the nuclear family as well as marriage...to create dependency on government.
Many folks do not marry until their late 20's early 30's so how can they simply so "OK, forget everything I enjoy unless my Spouse likes it too?" That means forget marrying UNTIL you find your identical counterpart.
Ever do that? I did......IT"S BORING!!
WHY? As a couple you are myopic as well as individually.
Part of life it seeing other viewpoints.
If your mate ONLY recreates with you then you become a pair of dullards......albeit with a GREAT marriage!

Stop right there. If your jobs are creating a situation where your marriage takes a second seat, one of you needs to leave your job and find another.

A reminder that I just realized: we are tj/ing another posters thread. Oldnewbie, please start your own thread about this.

BTW, your posting name indicates that you were here before. What was your previous posting name?

You can go read yourself in Fall in Love, Stay in Love. Right here: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi6015_fall.html


Speak for yourself, pal! If you need recreation outside of your marriage to be interesting then *YOU* have a problem. Only boring people get bored. And there is absolutely nothing saying you can't go out with other couples so I don't know where you got that idea. You just need to take the time and do some reading before you come to kneejerk assumptions.

ON,

One thing to remember about Dr. Harley's program is that it isn't just something he made up one day, and he isn't the only marriage saving specialist out there that holds these beliefs.

The MB program was built based upon the behavior of people in life-long, Romantic marriages. You can't learn to succeed by studying only failure, as most traditional marriage counselors do. You have to see what the successful people do to learn to succeed.

Oldnewbie, take your topic and start it up on a new thread rather than disrupting this poster's thread. Take the time first to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts. If you have questions about the program, they should be asked on your own thread. I do mean questions. What I see here are not questions, but very thinly veiled attacks, which won't be tolerated. As a guest on our forum, we insist you show respect or your welcome will be short-lived.

Any questions, shoot me an email.

Thanks, Fireproof!

Tell us more about this, please.

Sorry for the late reply, I took an internet time out.

I was working a job at a hotel at the front desk. I had worked solo for a while, which I liked. They hired someone new who immediatey got flirty. I started to like her as a coworker (my previous coworker was really bitter about her lot in life). Plus the fact that someone who was young and attractive could be interested in me was appearing. Yeah, I had no self esteem. I took her friendliness for flirting. I had no life outside of work (or so it felt) and it was welcoming. My self esteem, or lack thereof, hit me and I realized that she was just being nice to me. Later I found out that she had been sleeping with most of the male staff at the hotel and several of the guests. After a 2 week vacation I came back and the vibes in the office were bad, so I quit on the spot.

Since my original post we've changed our lives a bit. More family time, esp with the wife. I had a nice discussion with my therapist, who is also a marriage coach. He gave me some ideas on how to liven things up at home and make us stronger.

Some changes I've made are not to take everything she (wife) says so personally. And to love her for who she is.

This sounds all warm and fuzzy, ryeish, but lacks actual nuts and bolts.

What things are the two of you doing to affair-proof your marriage?