SO agree with this. Your wife is in the habit of making sacrifices on your behalf because she feels guilty about putting her feelings FIRST. But *YOU* should put her feelings first. Don't put the onus on her. STOP accepting reluctant agreements. They are poison to your marriage.

In our situation, one of the homework activities we were asked to do by Dr. Harley/Coach is for me to make a list of all of the activities that I felt good about my husband doing without asking for my feelings about them. Then anything else, we did not move forward without enthusiasm on both parts. It meant wiping our lifestyle slate mostly clean and not moving forward unless we were both ENTHUSIASTIC. Someone who is reluctant would be lying if they said they were enthusiastic. Even my husband, who was prone to capitulating and reluctant agreements, will not say that word, enthusiastic, unless he is. It really works! It sorts out all types of emotional confusion.

As a SAHM, I have felt, just as your wife, almost a jealousy of my husband who can be gone all day, being independent, when I was stuck at the mercy of children. It's not that I didn't want to be a SAHM, it's just that I had needs that weren't getting met, and my husband wasn't willing to meet, and I felt trapped and unimportant to him. The umbrella of our relationship made everything under it (the kids) seem less rewarding. I felt like a nanny and maid, and when I needed some TLC and adult conversation from hubby, it felt horrible to have my feeling dismissed or judged. Try not to take her disappointment to personally, but to meet the needs of the relating resentment. Her guilt about your giving up the gym will only feel worse if you lament instead of reassuring her that you want her to be happy and you accept that for whatever reason, it's not working for her. She could even have reasons that she is not safe telling you.

You will have more success in getting her to express her reluctance if your are quick to notice it and take immediate action to stop and rework whatever it is, to take place in a way that she is enthusiastic about.

She didn't have to be angry at you. She was still disappointed and unhappy for much longer than 8 months. If W was angry but didn't admit it until now, she was still angry back then. I don't want to talk in circles but the dynamics and events described do not lead me to believe you were her hero until just recently. That would be a dishonest assessment unless her feelings and explanations are dishonest.

x 2

Ok, I just read your wife's thread and got a huge insight into her heart and I can SO SO SO relate to her. I also kept very quiet. My husband is a surgeon. EVERYTHING in our life revolved around him and his job. I never nagged. I was supportive. I felt like I gave up my entire life to take care of our kids and my specialness went out the window. I felt like my husband was overly critical as I could clean the kitchen and then he would come in and "suggest" that I use the vacuum cleaner in the corners to clean better..... I never heard what I good job I was doing. In fact, I felt like a nobody. Then perimenopause hit and my hormones were all over the place and I just couldn't hide it anymore. But I didn't get angry. I got incredibly sad and crying all the time...

So what changed. Part of it was I opened up and shared my heart. I told him that when he never complimented me on anything I did but only gave me a never ending list of things to do it made me feel like a failure. So, he now thanks me for everything. Yesterday, he smiled and said "I see that the underwear fairy refilled my drawer with underwear. Thank you!" with a sweet kiss. Several times a week he will say, thank you for doing this. I know you didn't have to and I really appreciate it. I've also told him a few things I really dislike doing ( working with the cows and farm work) and he no longer asks me to help with those.

He has made my happiness his chief concern.. He asked what I would like to do on vacations. I had an opportunity to get a part time job this summer and he was SO supportive and told me what a great job I was doing. When it ended, he was concerned that I found something else that was also personally fulfilling for me. Because I had sacrificed for so long, he went out of his way to try and make sure I was enthusiastic about things.

Where he could improve would be dates. We do them. He makes them a priority. But I would love for him to handle all the details . For you, I would STRONGLY suggest you find sitters then go to photography exhibits, go to cool places with her camera and take hikes. Do dates that she really enjoys. Draw her out. They won't let me put links to other sites but if you google date night questions you should get some fun questions to draw her out.

Now I was not nearly as angry as your wife was, but I was starting to get resentful. I had never thought I was worth very much.... So those would be my suggestions to you.

hopefulwife47, that was my prescription for our marriage back in September. I think that if I had figured it out a little earlier, we'd be OK. But the floor suddenly caved in sometime in October. I think we would have had a softer landing (like yours) if it wasn't for the stress of her surgeries. What you have described is everything I want to do for her as soon as she is willing to let me.

For the last 10 years I've been playing "unhappiness Whack-a-mole" and trying to react after-the-fact to anything that was distressing her. That left her feeling unappreciated, but for a long time she gave me credit for my effort. It would be sooo easy for me to shift my effort into directions that would make her happy and fulfilled.

Ah...yes.. That was our pattern as well. I would have a crying meltdown and he would do whatever I wanted... But do you know how that made me feel???? Like he didn't really care about me. That he cared more about the fact that he couldn't keep all of his plates spinning. In fact, he even said if you fall apart then who is going to keep me together... He only cared if I was unhappy if it impacted him. Or at least that is the way that it felt. He was so caught up in all of HIS stuff that he didn't even really see me or empathize with me... I mean, I would tell him that I wanted to go out and do things and he was so tired and stressed out. I understood that his job was stressful. But I told him, my job is here at the house 24/7. It is my workplace and what you are asking me to do is to stay at my job 24/7 and never really take a break. You think of home and family as fun. I think of it as work. I want to go out and have fun.

Somehow you have to make her believe that you really do love her. That her best interests matter to you, not because it will mess up your life if she leaves, but because you truly care about her.

Yup, that sounds familiar.

So you have to make her a priority and meeting her needs a priority regardless of what you get right now. She has to see that on a consistent basis: extraordinary care with 15 hours a week of FUN outside the house. She needs to see that for 6 months. Then she might believe the change. Right now, she has seen you do better for a little while until she is better and then you go back. She doesn't believe you and for good reason.

I know you love her. Just like my husband loved/loves me, but talk is cheap. She needs to see action.

Easier said than done. She flat out rejects the possibility of 15 hours (even did before the roof caved in) and now she refuses to do any UA period. I have to slowly work my way in with simple gestures that do not require any participation on her part.

Edit: I'm working on it, though.

When is the last time that you guys went away for at least a weekend?

Do you guys have family in town who could help out? She needs a break! And maybe if you save the day, she will allow you to spend some of that time with her.

We don't have any family nearby. My work brought us to a small town. She moved around a lot (even went to a boarding high school) so she doesn't really have a place she associates with "home". Most of her family is an 8 hour drive away, which is much closer than anyone in my family. Before we moved here 3.5 years ago my dad and stepmother used to take the kids about one night per month, but we were so cash strapped we never did anything more than dinner.

The money thing is an issue. She refuses to spend money on herself. I'm sympathetic to that since my mom's free spending killed my parents marriage. But I've been trying to convince her for some time to put the little one into daycare more days and longer (the 3 hour half days are just enough to make her feel like a chauffeur). The small town limits our options but she also refuses to pay someone to watch a nap.

We took a four day getaway for our ten year anniversary in August. It was the first time we've had a kid free night out of the house since the honeymoon. She was only 2 weeks post-surgery so she was a little compromised. We spent the entire time indulging her photography hobby. It was wonderful.

She's longing for UA time beneath the withdrawal. Build it, she will come.

Here are some ideas. I live in a small town as well. There are three churches that do a mother's day out program. That might give her a break. Also, if you were involved in a couples program at church, many times those churches have at least one date night scheduled. Plus, it gives you other couples you can trade with. Or you can find someone in the youth group.

The difficulty is that neither of us are religious and in small towns the entire social structure is built around churches. That isn't a total barrier, the youngest goes to church-based daycare, but it does limit the options significantly.


I know, but she is also genuinely afraid. She knows that I love her dearly and would do anything for her. And she knows that if she lets me back in she will do the same in return for me. So how is it that someone can get so badly hurt when both parties care for each other so dearly? This is the question I have been struggling over and the source of the doubt that keeps her from letting me back in.

The easy answer is that my sexual frustrations blinded me to the hurt that I was causing. She has made it that far. What I don't think she has grasped is how long-term dynamics in the marriage allowed it to get to that point. A good example is the "broken" label that she carried for so long. She emphatically denounces that label now but for a long time she embraced it, not just sexually but with regard to her role as a mother and in the house (and aside the parenting issues discussed earlier, I never, ever criticized her for other domestic responsibilities). She would constantly claim that she was incapable and beg for someone/something to "fix me". I viewed this as a major cop-out and saw my choices as:

a) Take the easy way out and accept her view that she was broken. This is what I did.

b) Confront her on it and tell her that she was perfectly capable if she put her mind and energy to it. This would not have gone over well.

In retrospect, I think the correct answer was a gentle version of 'b' together with:

c) Fully commit to fulfilling her ENs to give her the energy, appreciation, and willpower to continue. But this would mean accepting my role in her struggles, which seemed entirely at odds will all the work I was putting into helping her. Furthermore, her helplessness was a major LB that made it difficult to see that far.

The effects of this dynamic were numerous. Not only did it absolve me of responsibility, but it fueled intense feelings of inadequacy and guilt within her. That led her to extend herself to me in ways that she never should have. For example, after her hysterectomy scar healed improperly, she brought home a doctor's note saying that she needed another two weeks before sex. I was horrified that she insisted that the doctor write a note, but I never thought about the broader implications of why she thought that was necessary.

By introducing the "broken" label, not only did she allow me to honestly think that I was doing everything possible to help her, but she allowed herself to loosen boundaries far past where they should have been (hence the aversion). When I stepped over those boundaries (and I did, badly) it was such an incremental step that I honestly didn't even notice.

The question is whether it is necessary for her to understand the this dynamic, and other ones like it, or whether we can cleanly start new habits without analyzing the past. I'd like to think that we've learned our lessons (she has grown tremendously into her role as a mother and I know much more about how to make her feel fulfilled) but there is always the danger that an external stress (illness, finance, or family issues) could force us back into bad habits if we don't understand them fully.

Any thoughts on this?

She's afraid she will start to sacrifice for you again. That's a danger for anybody while in the state of intimacy.

Over time she will see you will not allow or accept her sacrifices. That you know it will cost you as dearly as it costs her.

YES, My thought is that I wish you would stop blogging and start focusing on this program. You will not blog your way to success in this program. Your wife is in withdrawal. THAT is where your focus should be.

WHERE are you in the program? Did you get the book, Lovebusters as has been suggested multiple times? Have you read it?

Regardless of whether or not it is relevant for the program, trying to figure out how I hurt her unknowingly is kinda important for whether or not I can live with myself for the rest of my life.

DW have talked about LB and are in complete agreement that LB are not a major issue with us. Sure they exist, but a minor annoyance every third day hardly justifies a whole book. I told her I was quitting the gym and she immediately came back with a response that it wasn't necessary. I have pushed back, but she hasn't had a chance to reply yet.

Your lovebusters are a massive issue. I can see them from light years away.