She's trying to drive you to be the one to either leave, or to be the first to really go ballistic so that she can have the cops move you out. <P>The good news are that these are not the actions of someone who can get to the place they want to be on their own. If the marriage is to be rent asunder, she will have to get your cooperation in destroying it, at least right now when she's not feeling ready to move out on her own. <I>Are you actually falling for her crap?</I><P>To the extent she has signs that her gambits are moving in the right direction, getting closer to that hidden red button that will make all hell break loose, her frustration is tempered by the progress she feels she is making. <I>You</I> are the only one giving her a sense of progress. Or denying her a sense of progress. Denial is obviously the better course. Hopefully, the result will be that she quits that. <P>Right now, the <I>sham marriage scenario</I> where you maintain appearances in a dead marriage ... is the most she feels she can offer you. Take that as your baseline. You can complain about whatever she does to negate that appearance. You cannot ask for more substance. She must offer that freely, and if she wants to pull it back, you must be accepting of that. Your job is to simply continually offer the next step more than that sham baseline ... and do so patiently, until she feels both safe to match it and compelled to match it. Then you move your bar up a little higher and wait for her to join you on the next level. <B>You do not act as though you can make any claims that history would not support, and you do not offer anything <I>heavier</I> than what's appropriate for the next step above where you are now in the relationship.</B> It's the moments when you do that--jumping over intermediate rebuilding steps ... those are the moments that cause <I>most</I> of the trouble. <I>If</I> she reciprocates, then at some later time she feels a compulsion to undercut the closeness that she fears. <P>You have every right to ask why she is doing something so cruel. Well, she is simply feeling the absence of certain things in her life. You are available to provide those things. She lacks the resolve to swear those things off, even when the results are messy for her. And when <I>you</I> come running and provide for her needs ... then can be stuffed back in your box ... well, the results aren't <I>too</I> messy for her.<P>There are a lot of strange dynamics at work. Regardless of how <I>you're</I> feeling, she is feeling <I>much</I> more confusing feelings, because the onus is on <I>her</I> to <I>act</I> if she is going to get the changes she wants. You're not handing justification to her. Are you?<P>Supposing you "fail" and she ultimately walks. Do you want it to be over some single large <I>faux pas</I> or a pattern of ongoing bad conduct on your part? Or would you rather she have to leave for the flimsiest of manufactured excuses? In which scenario do you <I>clearly</I> occupy the moral high ground? My point is: you <I>must not</I> <B>punish</B> things she does that displease you. <I>Reward</I> is the only thing you can safely offer.<p>[This message has been edited by Sisyphus (edited June 28, 2001).]

<BR>I disagree with the recent posts here reacting to this incident.<P>[QUOTE]Originally posted by impulsive:<BR><B>She then said that is why we can't be together because every thing she say or do I analyze and turn it into something it's not. I'm over reacting.</B><P>Are you hearing her and thinking about this? Because I think there is a lot of validity in it.<P>If she had grabbed a towel and hid in the bathroom, wouldn't that have ticked you off? Is that what you want?<P>If she had let her rub oil on her back, might that have led to a situation where she would have to remind you of her boundaries?<P>If she had chosen to complete her deal with your daughter by going to another room or asking you to leave, would you have exploded on that?<P>You are back in the bed <B>over her objections</B>, you have to expect some awkwardness on intimacy issues.<P>I think she honestly feels that she is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't, and that is what she is saying. She's tired of being damned.<P>How might you have handled this differently? Harley told me, when my W was being touchy on intimacy issues, to act "casual" and <B>respect her boundaries</B>. What if you had ASKED if she needed help on her back rather than touching her? What if you had just bantered lightly with your daughter during the massage instead of overreacting? Or casually wandered out of the room to do something else? <P>You don't need to pick fights right now, that is the last thing you need. You are not going to guilt trip or discipline her into a state of intimacy. <P>You are entrenching on your rights of "intimacy" and your "rights as a husband", but you aren't hearing her -- she isn't playing by those rules anymore, whether due to your 6 years of admitted neglect and lovebusting, or perhaps an extramarital entanglement on her part. You only hurt your position by pushing those intimacy issues right now. She doesn't feel comfortable with you giving her a massage right now. That hurts, that is painful to hear, but that is the situation, and railing against it and acting "disrespected" due to her acceptance of affection from her daughter and her rejection of it from you will only force her hand to remove herself from an uncomfortable living situation.<P>I'm not blind to the fact that she may be engaging in some low level "dissing" and testing with some of this. But ask yourself -- did you pass the test? <p>[This message has been edited by Mike C2 (edited June 28, 2001).]

Well, impulsive, I think you handled that situation about as well as it could be handled.<P>I don't think that there can be <I>any</I> question that your wife was deliberately trying to provoke you, and frankly I think it is despicable that she used your daughter to do it (although your daughter is, of course, innocent in the matter). Your wife is clearly trying to drive you away. Her accusation that you overreacted is the twist of the knife, as nasty as the twisted logic that says harmonious living is impossible if you are so observant as to notice it if she happens to slap you in the face. (By that logic, only an inanimate object would be capable of living with her.)<P>You did <I>not</I> overreact, despite what your wife said. If you had pretended that such disrespect was acceptable, you would have appeared weak and your wife would have despised you. If you had pretended that what she did had no effect on you, it would have appeared that she didn't matter to you, which would likely have provoked even more outrageous acts as your wife attempted to measure the emotional distance in your relationship.<P>I appeal to your love and to your pride. For your pride's sake, don't give your wife the satisfaction of driving you away through such petty manipulation. For your love's sake, recognize that this was a sick act by a very troubled soul, and forgive your wife. She does not really know what she is doing.<P>Regarding the possibility of your wife having an affair, I don't know what to think about your wife's retraction. <BR>But if it's her retraction that's the lie, then I'm guessing the details she initially provided are pretty close to the truth. I don't think it's typical for someone who is guilty of something to make a spontaneous confession of something they <I>didn't</I> do, when no suspicion was cast on them in the first place. That situation calls for keeping a low profile.<P>So I suspect that either she made everything up and was frightened by the strength of your reaction to her revelation, or that she pretty much told the truth and was frightened by your reaction, or that she was feeling you out for the possibility of a full confession and had second thoughts. But I don't know how to tell which (if any) of these possibilities is the reality.<BR>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mike C2:<BR><B>I think she honestly feels that she is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't, and that is what she is saying. She's tired of being damned.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Of course she is, but she's damned <I>herself</I> and doesn't want to admit it.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><B>How might you have handled this differently? Harley told me, when my W was being touch on intimacy issues, to act "casual" and respect her boundaries. What if you had ASKED if she needed help on her back rather than touching her? What if you had just bantered lightly with your daughter during the massage instead of overreacting? Or casually wandered out of the room to do something else?</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>All of that would have been advisable and appropriate. Calling her on her disrespect doesn't require hysterics or histrionics, but I think impulsive still needed to say what he said. <P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><B>You don't need to pick fights.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Sometimes, I think you <I>do</I>. What's important is that you pick the <I>right</I> fights to pick. Er...yeah.<BR>

An important clarification: When I said your wife was <I>deliberately</I> trying to provoke you, impulsive, I didn't necessarily mean that she was <I>consciously</I> trying to provoke you.<P>I think it's highly unlikely that someone exhibiting behavior as erratic as your wife's is carrying out some machiavellian plan. She would have to be an incredible actress with an extraordinary intellect to pull something like that off.<BR>

The wife wanted to talk Thurs. morning I listened again. She wanted to say she was sorry for the massage issue and let me know that she loves my daughter like her own and never treated her like a step daughter. I basically told her that I never questioned her love for my daughter. I told her that over the last 5 months she has said some very hurtful things. That on Father's Day she told me to go have sex with someone else because she can't be there for me sexually. That she made up a fictitious affair, then recanted. Then the massage issue. I told her that for some reason ALL I WANT TO DO IS LOVE AND NURTURE HER, AND ALL SHE SEEMS TO WANT TO DO IS HURT ME FOR SOME REASON. She started crying but I didn't have it in me ot go hug and hold her like I normally would. I just told her that I was praying for her and i wished her happiness but my days of sitting around being hurt and slapped in the face were over. <P>Friday night was nice the SF fairy showed up again and we had tremendous oral sex. It wasn't the traditional intercourse but after 2 months who's complaining? My primary focus is to make sure I don't do anything to make her regret the SF. Not overstep my bounds or act as though the Sf intitled me towards something. I'm not jumping off the wagon because of last night but it was very nice.<P>

I have to say I don't see where she did anything wrong.<P>Impulsive, she has said she's not ready for intimacy from you. Why can't you respect that? In the past, massages with you have NOT been affection, only a prelude to SF. She wanted a massage, not intimacy with you. Why shouldn't your daughter give her one? I just don't see the big deal? In her place, I'd really be wanting to leave a situation where I couldn't do anything without being blamed for trying to hurt you.<P>She knows you can't do the massage without getting worked up. And believe me, having been there and done that, it does not make a relaxing massage when SF expectations that you don't want to fulfill are there (same goes for "hugs" "kisses" that are not affectionate but obviously where one partner wants them to lead to SF on a withdrawn partner).<P>Impulsive, why do you think her every action is designed to hurt you? Do you really believe that the woman you married is that cruel? Can you work on your self-esteem to help that? Or anti-depressants?<P>Those are just my thoughts, having been the withdrawn spouse. My H let me have lots of space while I was learning to trust him again. That helped a lot.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by married2alcoholic:<BR><B>Those are just my thoughts, having been the withdrawn spouse. My H let me have lots of space while I was learning to trust him again. That helped a lot.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>This is a great post, and I hope Imp heeds the thought. I opined to him in the past that the episodes where his W "allowed" him to massage her were actually him getting his affection need met, masquerading as him meeting some EN of hers. So what looked like an EN met was actually a LB for her.<P>I would guess that the most recent sexual contact was more a case of her guilt kicking in, or perhaps could be a positive sign that she wants to do the minimum to keep him around while she continues to assess the changes.<P>The concept of space is important. I'm not sure, but on my optimistic days I sort of feel like I am in this "giving the W space" phase while she mentally regroups in our relationship. The discipline is keeping your ups and downs under wraps while your mate recovers, for months or maybe even a year or more.<P>This thread illustrates the wild swings of the steering wheel that Imp goes through. We all do, I did too, but I know my up and down periods lasted weeks, and his seem to change daily sometimes, which must be very wearing on his W, particularly as there is a dynamic where she is blamed for triggering these reactions, whether through actual overt slights or misperceived actions. <P>

Married2- I appreciate your opinion. It was a matter of principle to me. I felt disrespected. The wife admitted that for some reason she wanted to hurt me in the worst way. She wanted me to feel the pain that I caused in the past. She says she has a problem with my sense of absolution. She says that deep in places she doesn't like to think about she knows that our family should stay together because it's best for the kids. Her main objection is that she doesn't feel as though I deserve another chance. Then it's the risk aspect of the situation. I'm close to perfect now but what happens if I discontinue my relationship with God? She has said that the only way I can be the person I am is when I'm close to God. She feels like there is alays a chance that I can go back to being the person I was. SO right now we are on a real positve roll. We are sleeping in the same bed. No pressure for sex. No expectations. Yesterday we went to a party out in the country at a friends cottage with the kids. We had a great time. I gave her space and just enjoyed being able to spend time in each others company. I would have liked to be a little closer but hey it's better then alot of scenarios over the last 5 months. We have another camping trip scheduled for the 4th that we are really looking forward to. So alls well in Lala Land right now.<P>Mike- I understand and accept your interpretation of me getting my needs meet under the guise of meeting her needs. I try not to intiate any contact unless she gives me a indication that she is open to it. (Tricky) The last SF situation was intiated by me. Laying in the bed, I asked if she would be offended if I masturbated because I couldn't sleep and was hot and bothered. Next thing I knew she had her hand on me. She asked me to go down on her as gave me the big O and I didn't object. So whatever the implication it was welcome.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by impulsive:<BR><B>The wife admitted that for some reason she wanted to hurt me in the worst way. She wanted me to feel the pain that I caused in the past. She says she has a problem with my sense of absolution. She says that deep in places she doesn't like to think about she knows that our family should stay together because it's best for the kids. Her main objection is that she doesn't feel as though I deserve another chance.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>These admissions are encouraging, not so much because she made them to you, but because she made them to herself. Unconscious feelings tend to be more dangerous than conscious feelings, because there is no way to put them in proper perspective.<P>Regardless of whether or not you "deserve" a second chance, your wife is punishing <I>herself</I> in order to avoid giving you that second chance. Very sad.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><B>Then it's the risk aspect of the situation. I'm close to perfect now but what happens if I discontinue my relationship with God? She has said that the only way I can be the person I am is when I'm close to God. She feels like there is alays a chance that I can go back to being the person I was.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Once one has lost one's naive trust, one can never get it back. But although your wife understands that she cannot give <I>you</I> that kind of trust, does she understand that she will never be able to give it to anyone <I>else</I> either? (I'm <I>not</I> suggesting you ask her that question right now, since you don't want to jeopardize the current positive vibes.)<P>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by impulsive:<BR><B>Laying in the bed, I asked if she would be offended if I masturbated....</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Ahh...the classic, suave Cary Grant approach. <BR>

Well I don't want to type to loud but I think I may be on the brink of a minor breakthrough!!! Thank You God!!!!!!!!! Last night was very positive she made some encouraging comments that blew me away. She came u to me and said would you be upset if your daughter gave me a back rub? Then she started talking about how she's really trying not to upset me and then she said this. You know just because I haven't said OK let's make it work doesn't mean I'm not trying to make it work. YYYEEESSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Things have been very good for the last couple of days so it was encouraging. I'm trying to not jump off the deep end, but I'm as happy as I've been in 5 months. Then last night while sleeping together she came up behind me and cuddled with me. Then we cuddled watching a movie before bed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Could this be the real deal????????????

Now might be the perfect moment for a weekend marital retreat. PAIRS, Retrouvaille, Gottman or the like. <P>Remember, you're not going to suddenly break through into marital nirvana. Rather, you're going to gain one step at a time, and occasionally slip back a bit. But if you find your equilibrium, sooner or later you'll be moving ahead OK, and you'll be in familiar and hospitable territory.

Well that was a short lived break through. We ended up in a relationship talk and she said that al she is doing is trying to be nice to me. I am taking her niceness and turning it into maybe we have a chance. She says she still doesn't want the marriage just the friendship not the relationship. Everytime I get close I get excited and throw caution to the wind. This is becoming a pattern <P>Positive Optimism<BR>Negative Hopelessness<P>Why do I continue to put myself through this?<P>We had just enough SF today for her to have a not so invisible orgasm and then decided that SF was not what she wanted before I could have a orgasm. <P>She is sabotaging any chance for happiness. I'm convinced she does not want to be happy.

Actually, impulsive, this is all encouraging. Remember the analogy of the skittish wild animal? Every time your wife gets closer, she shies off again. That's <I>exactly</I> what you should expect in your situation. But the overall trend is still toward greater closeness.<P>Remember, a few weeks ago you would have been overjoyed to find yourself in the position you are now in. I think you just have to be patient and stay the course. Don't let your expectations grow so fast.<P>

Slow and steady wins the race. But be sure to satisfy the last shadow of a doubt about the existence of an affair. <p>[This message has been edited by Sisyphus (edited July 05, 2001).]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by impulsive:<BR><B>Well that was a short lived break through.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Actually, a statistical analysis of this thread shows that it was within 4 percent of the mean average survival time for a breakthrough.<P>Impy, I'll ask you a few questions that Harley would periodically ask me in our counseling....<P>Do you know what her lovebusters are, and how are you addressing them?<P>Do you know what your annoying behaviors are, and how are you addressing them?<P>When you can't make progress on ENs, you have to tackle LBs, because you can't make any progress while annoying behaviors and LBs continue. Call it a hunch, but given the back and forth nature of her actions and reactions, I think that annoying behaviors and lovebusters are the area you have to conquer before you make substantial progress.<P>What were her LB questionaire results? Maybe it is time to ask her to take it again. I had to ask my W to take it three times before the dam burst and I got an honest set of answers.<P>I would also echo Sisyphus that you need to settle nce and for all whether she has an outside relationship influencing the situation, and you can't settle that by confrontation, you have to settle it by investigation. <p>[This message has been edited by Mike C2 (edited July 05, 2001).]

I am confident there is no one else. Things seem to be turning around very well lately. Wonderful Sf yesterday morning and more and more she seems to be calling me sweetheart and honey while talking to me. It's almost like the intiamcy is coming back but without any fanfare. It's obvious the wife is still committed to the marriage, she just doesn't want to say she is. She obviously doesn't want to leave or divorce she just doesn't want things to follow the old pattern<P> extreme frustration - sex - act like everything is ok.<P>The lovebusting is trying to force her to do thngs according to my timetable and my way. Financial security is her #1 need and I'm working hard to meet it as we speak so off to work i go and keep me in your prayers. For the first time in a long time I am encouraged by her actions and not by my perception of her actions.<P>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by impulsive:<BR><B>It's obvious the wife is still committed to the marriage, she just doesn't want to say she is.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Heh, heh. Yep. But whatever you do, don't let on that you know this. In fact, if <I>she</I> realizes what's happening, you may have another setback. It's kind of like walking on a high narrow ledge. She'll be OK as long as she doesn't look down...<BR>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by impulsive:<BR><B>It's almost like the intiamcy is coming back but without any fanfare. </B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I've been getting a taste of this lately myself. Harley was constantly on me about needing to be <B><I>casual</B></I> about sexand affection, and it is an incredibly hard discipline to master. ButI recently find that breaking my pattern of being either clingy or angry, and trying to be calm and in the middle, pays wonderful dividends.<P><BR>