I looked all over your website and found your philosophy agreeing with what I believe about marriage, but I couldn’t find a solution to my problem, therefore I’m asking for your help.
My husband and I have been married for 12 years. My husband is a very sensitive, intense, passionate, artistic(in terms of literature, poems, movies), philosopher kind of person (all of which neither of us really understood very well for a long time). I’m more a pragmatic, matter-of-fact person, mother of 4, not a big independent thinker, more of a follower. Recently, my husband started revealing to me feelings that has been a growing concern to him and he says that as he thinks back over the past 12 years, he remembers several points where he had concerns about our relationship and frustrations, although our marriage was really doing great, but we were never really soulmates. He needs someone to discuss philosophy and the like and as much as I love to listen to him, I can’t really interact with him on the subject. Most of the time, I feel I can sum it all up in one bottom-line sentence. I always felt quite fulfilled in the relationship, but he has not. He feels that he doesn’t love me as a husband should love his wife, but only as a friend and has never really loved me so passionately. He says that looking back, he knows that he really married me because he was lonely and saw in me someone non-threatening, which is what he needed then since he was still young and insecure in himself. I understand all that, my only problem is that I really love him and always have. He says he doesn’t feel that I bring something to the relationship that is beneficial to him in terms of stimulating him in thoughts etc. He feels most of what I would like to discuss with him is really trivia to him and he has always hated talking about those things. He feels we’re not interdependent, that he wouldn’t miss me much if I would be gone and that he doesn’t feel jealousy if he thinks that I might fall in love with another man (which he knows is extremely unlikely, since I love him though).
I don’t know what to do, I’ll do whatever I can to make this marriage as great as it can be, but obviously I can’t change the way my brain functions and my basic personality. I suggested we develop some common interests. When we got married, we didn’t have that many, but our faith was one of the strongest. Recently though, he has changed his views on almost all of that too, so that common interest has changed into a point of disagreement many times. But he feels that if we develop common interests it will be frustrating for him again, because I experience things on a much less intense way as him and he needs that interaction with someone who experience it the same way he does.
He respects me though and doesn’t want to change me, he feels that is unfair and he feels that I really deserve someone better than him. He feels very hurt over the fact that he is hurting me in this.
We are both desperately searching for ways to make this marriage work. I am concerned that he has an idealistic, unrealistic view of how passionately a husband should love his wife after 12 years, but he says that it has never been there.
Can you offer any insights?

Woellie, what your husband is saying to you sounds like what a wayward spouse says about his marriage. Have you asked him if he is having an emotional or physical affair with someone? My husband said stuff like that about me when he was flirting with, having friendship with a coworker. Now, possibly your husband isn't doing that, but how suddenly did your husband bring this subject up? And what were the circumstances that led up to it? Has he been acting distant for a few days, months, years? You have a lot of questions to ask yourself about how he has been acting and what situation/s he might be involved in that would make him suggest he doesn't love you like he should.
Take care and good luck.

Just a thought. Is your husband educated in this field? If so, he might find an outlet by teaching night courses at the local college. If not he could find fulfillment in attending those classes. He can through this process qualify himself to become a professor in this field. Would this be challenge enough for him. At 55 I am back working toward my B.S. in english Ed and a Masters in Creative Writing. I am lucky enough that I have access to hungry minds when I substitute teach at the local high school. He might even consider teaching High school equiv courses at the local vo tech. I don't know if that would challenge him or not.
Mid life crisis can kick the old brain around something terrible, and we guys have these hormones that cause the old brain to short circuit and do stupid things. Hense my recent urges to buy a a two seater that I couldn't even get my fat a$$ in and out of. I got over the urge to sky-dive, My wife showed me pictures of a field of crators and said "Fat men in Parachutes landing area". Nough said there!
Sorry, I can't offer something concrete, but I hope this will help with ideas.

Agape. fudd.

Dear Woellie,

Oh my gosh...this is OUR life you are talking about!!! I have heard these exact words out of my husband's mouth countless times!! It can work out beautifully if you guys can keep from having the pain of an affair to deal with!

Do all of the basic stuff on this site, the emotional needs questionaire, etc. Then run, don't walk to the nearest bookstore and buy you each a copy of Harville Hendrix's book called Getting the Love You Want . (We actually found ours at the thrift store for 50 cents each.) It will give you a common interest, tell you why you chose each other as mates, and will help you to help each other meet each other's needs.

People are not disposable. If he doesn't like you for a wife, then he's going to be just as frustrated with his next one. She is going to have about 10 good traits with 10 negative ones just like you. They'll just be a different set. If she makes him feel passionate enough for him, then she might be a "fly by the seat of her pants" type of gal that would make him crazy in some other way once he lived with her for awhile.

Just don't let it move into an affair for either of you. I can't tell you the pain that you are saving BOTH of you if it hasn't gone there yet! If it has then beg him to be honest about it. It's honesty that will get you through. Not knowing just puts up a wall that won't allow him to feel passionate about you if he has had an affair.

There are some other things you can look into too. Enneagram types are fasinating. Here's a test you can both take to determine your types:

http://www.9energies.info/test/

There are many tests out there...this is just one I kind of liked. You sound like you know about your basic personalities already, but this kind of fine tunes it. It's really a great way to find out where you really "come from" in your day to day thinking.

I have a feeling that your hubby is either a 4 or a 5....it'll be interesting for you guys to check it out. Plus it'll be something that you are researching TOGETHER...which is a step in the right direction.

Another book that I'm reading now is called The 10 Second Kiss by Ellen Kreidman, Ph.D. It's excellent if you don't already have it. It will help you to put the passion back into your marriage.

I know that I just said "put the passion BACK" and I'll bet your husband will think it was never there. He's going to be surprised when he finds out that he just couldn't remember it. IF he is a type 4, then they tend to long for the passion they need. They aren't particularly thrilled with it once they possess it, but they feel a deep need to long for it and pursue it. They feel things very deeply and they feel like others can't feel it like they can.

When you guys read about your types it will be like they wrote the book about you!!

I also married my husband because of his deep faith and at about the 10 year mark in our marriage he changed his mind. He needed more...to know more...to feel more. I really feel like I know both of you because I know us!!

My husband has finally found the answers for himself and it's like a miracle. I know that he'd do anything possible to help you guys through this. I know that I would too.

God bless,

Stillwed

<small>[ April 28, 2003, 12:13 AM: Message edited by: stillwed ]</small>

Wow, same line of talk that my husband spooled out at me back in '98. My guess: There's someone who does meet his intellectual stimulation needs, someone he's not telling you about. There was in our case. Only I already knew about her, and had some uncomfortable feelings about their friendship.

All the things your husband said were either identical or once removed from what your husband said.

I understand the hurt, the pain, confusion, disbelief. He has rewritten and revised your history.

Get counseling with the Harleys. Don't do anything until you do.

woellie,

I'm worried about you guys...haven't heard a response! Are you okay?

Stillwed

Hi stillwed and everyone else who responded,

Thanks so much for your responses. I have been having trouble logging in that's why you haven't heard from me. I'm really "woellie" but I registered again to try and log in. I appreciate the concern.

It is great to know someone understands how I feel.
I did go to the bookstore and found "Getting the love you want". It is definitely a great book. My only problem with it was that we've done all the things that he has in the book just not in the formal way but we talk a LOT and have talked a LOT. We know how each one feels and that is sometimes the issue. We can almost know what the other one thinks and it hurts. My husband's reply to all the books that we've gotten is that he has never really loved me as he should, not even when we got married and he can't fabricate passionate love for me. He says that he believed the church that you should practise agape love (1 Cor. 13) and the rest will follow and that he mystically believed that God brought us together. For one we were born on the exact same day, same year etc. He asked more than one person's opinion before marrying me since he had his doubts if we would be compatible. They all told him that our differences wouldn't be that much of a problem,so he went ahead. He feels he has grown so much now and now he knows that that was all just nonsense and now he feels trapped. Even when I suggest that we start finding common interests he says that it won't help, it will only frustrate him even more since he experiences everything so different from me. The way I experience music for example is hard for him to deal with, because I love music and we play together occasionally, but after a song I won't analyze it and he will. I don't mind him doing it, but he feels it's not worth it to discuss it with me if I'm not able to interact with him about it. Same with movies and so forth. And then because of our religious differences now, many times if he does discuss it with me we disagree about issues in the movie/song/poem. It's not a fight but still we don't see eye to eye.
Does it sound at all familiar to anyone and what can we do? I've been praying a lot and thinking, but can't think of anything else to suggest to him. He still says that he really wants this marriage to work so that gives me hope.
Sometimes I feel terrible though to feel like I'm holding him hostage keeping him from pursuing his dreams and happiness.
He says that we should give it all time and redefine our relationship and maybe that's all we can do.
I hope I'm giving you all an accurate picture. It's so hard to be objective when you're in it.

I'm telling you...he's a near carbon copy of my H! Try and get him to take the Enneagram test. It will help you to understand yourselves. We've had all of these conversations about me not feeling things as deeply as him.

Also, doing the exercises in Getting the Love You Want is a really important step...even if you think you know everything about each other. Going through the actual process is what is healing. Don't miss out!

What were your childhoods like? Unless they were perfect, you might find the book Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw helpful. It's an older book and can often be found at a thrift store. My IC just recommended it to me and so far it's excellent. She's the same one that recommended the Enneagram information.

This isn't going to get better on it's own. Since you know how he feels, you are going to gradually start shutting down toward him. I'm not trying to be mean, but it's either got to be resolved or eventually it'll be dissolved. (Probably about the time that the kids are self-sufficient.) I just hate to see you end up without each other in the long run if you can avoid it. He's put out a cry for help in a very unlovable way, but still a cry for help. I hope you guys can work it out.

If you have any concerns about the Enneagram stuff, please let me know.

Stillwed

Hi stillwed
We did the enneagram tests, it was fun. With both of us, it came back with 2 options, mine was type 1 and 2 (helper and reformer) and H was type 4 and 8 (individualist and challenger). Does that sound familiar?
It just adds to H's argument though that we are so different, he thinks incompatible.
It is true that it is not going to get better on its own and by constantly getting hurt over and over (something I'm not used to) it does feel like the love I have start diminishing at times, and I don't want it to. I'm getting the "Getting the love you want" book and I'm going to try to get him to do the exercises, I'm sure he will co-operate.
How is your marriage now, can you tell me a bit more about how you met and why you fell in love with each other if you're also very different-only if you want of course. Did your marriage have a turnaround after you worked through the book?

Hi again!

Glad to hear that you did the Enneagram test! I think that you can only be one basic type, with a wing of one of the numbers next to you in the Enneagram. For example, if you are a 1 you could have a 9 or 2 wing. If your H is a 4, he could have a 3 or 5 wing. Does that make sense? Guess what?! I'm a 1 with a 2 wing and my H is a 4 with a 3 wing! I'll bet your H is a 4 with a 5 wing...but you'll have to check your results. You can have both wings equally developed so it's possible to have 2 wings. I'm just off by .7 of having both the 9 and the 2 equally developed.

For the record, a type 1 and 4 combination is common and a good one! The trouble is that 4's are very dramatic and in our down times we ones can create drama with the best of them!! As a 1 we can also find ourselves kind of ignoring the 4's drama since we are much more practical and down to earth. A 4's heart point is 1! A 1's heart point is 7, which can make us more fun to be around, as we can get more playful and not so serious.

I'm no expert at this stuff...it's quite new to me also, but I am truly fascinated by it. It's really helped us to understand each other's point of view regarding issues in our marriage.

You asked about our story and I'd love to share it. Much of it is in my first post back in Feb. Here is a link to it:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=29;t=002451

Please feel free to ask anything that you didn't find in there! You also asked about the exercises in Harville Hendrix's book. We are just doing them now. We found two therapists that use his techniques along with other techniques and we just love them both. We are both seeing the same one for IC and then the other for MC. They are just the neatest people...we feel like friends with them after just a few short weeks of therapy.

The reason I'm so convinced that the therapy works is that it's so healing just to realize that you got together to get your childhood wounds healed! Once those are dealt with, we aren't afraid to grow as individuals and grow up with each other and put some of our damaging childish ways behind us. (It's okay to hold onto the good parts!)

We are trying to move into a place called the "conscious marriage". We are taking responsibility for our own happiness by letting each other know our needs. We express those needs, but we don't demand that they be met. We give each other solid, concrete things that they can do to meet them. If we have a concern, we speak up so that it doesn't snowball on us down the road.

Here's an example: I went to see my Mom years ago, but after his first affair. She lives several states away and we can't afford to get together often so I usually stay for a week to 10 days. At the time, long distance calls were expensive so we didn't call each other much and also that way I could shop till we dropped with Mom. So...I get home and I'm all excited to see everyone. H is kind of distant. I give him some time to see if he warms up. He doesn't and when pressed for what was wrong he says, "we got along just fine around here without you". Now those words have haunted me for years! I hear them in my head every time he or I go on a trip away from each other. He was obviously upset about something, but very unclear about what and he gave me no hope for helping to solve how he was feeling.

Here and now, with our new way of thinking, I asked him what that was all about. He said that he didn't feel my love while I was away (typical for a 4) and that I didn't call often enough. He didn't think that I cared about him and loved him. He was feeling sorry for himself about it and decided that he did just fine with the kids while I was gone and that he'd hurt me back with an emotional jab.

With a conscious marriage, when I got home he would have said something like this: Honey, when you are away, I get really lonely for your company. Next time could you call me more often? Let's pick a time to connect each day so that we can both feel each other's love and not let any distance grow between us. How could I possibly argue with that? I'm loved so much that I'm missed...that feels good! Much better than "we don't need you around here anyway"!

Our marriage is at a very happy and yet fragile place today. We are just 4 months from our D-day. We are both thrilled at just being together, at having survived raising 3 amazing kids, 2 of whom are excellent parents now themselves. We spend a lot of time looking at each other in disbelief. Mine is wondering what the heck just happened here (with his revelation of 8 affairs at one time). His is wondering how I can find it in my heart to forgive him. So we cry a lot of happy tears and a lot of sad ones as we grieve what might have been. The happy ones are outweighing the sad ones by far. We feel like we looked the death of our marriage right in the eye. We didn't like the way that choice looked so we are doing the hard work to restore it to a healthy place. It's working and it's paying off big time! We feel like best friends again. Best of all, we feel like lovers for probably the very first time in our marriage. We just didn't know how to be that to each other before, but we do now. The timing for it is right. The kids are grown and now it's time for us! I wish we would have made more time for us before, but we didn't and it's just one of the things we have to face and change. We did our best.

Stillwed

Hi everyone that responded to my messages,

I'm especially thankful for Stillwed's advice. Thank you so much. It is going GREAT!!! I don't think our marriage has been this good maybe ever. Thanks for being there for me when I felt so alone. It was a great comfort. Please continue to pray as we work hard on our relationship.
My H read Getting the love you want first and that was the first thing in months that gave him some hope and kept him interested for longer than a few pages. It was not the end though, he still thought a lot and read some other books, but eventually after all our discussions, it became evident that no matter what he tried he still was trying to change me into what he needed. Once he decided to accept me unconditionally for who I am and to start living for others again and not focus inward on himself so much, everything changed. I still believe that my prayers to God for something to happen in his heart so he would fall in love with me were answered, because now he appreciates me so much and tells me he loves me and he's so glad to have a friend like me. Needless to say I have completely forgiven him for hurtful things he said because I know he was always just trying to figure out what to do about this situation. I am sooooo greatful to you all and to our dear Lord.
We also realized how we really needed time alone away from our 4 kids. We've started to do that and also just be ourselves more because now we know the other one accepts us the way we are. It makes a world of difference. I also learnt some lessons from all of this and the most important I will say is to focus on the others' happiness more than on your own. Truly, what you try to keep, you will lose. I was so defensive sometimes and that pushed him away and made him feel I wasn't really hearing him or wanting to, even though that was not my intent.
Praise God with us!!

Dear Woellie,

Wow! I'm so excited to hear your news! I'm so glad that you guys have gotten in touch with your own feelings, needs and each other! What a blessing.

I want to share something with you that I have learned about myself lately since we share the same personality type in the Enneagram. I tend to be pretty prudish sexually and I found out that a type one is actually VERY sensual by nature, but he/she will try to turn it into a moral issue (fine if you are dating, but not with your H!). Type ones find that they have a distaste for their own sensual nature so they try to REPRESS it! They ignore it, push it down, deny it...you name it. I have personally found that to be helpful information for me to know. It may not apply to you, but it does to me and now that I know that about myself I have chosen to think differently about myself and to think of myself as a sensual person. I really had a hard time doing that when the kids were little! I was so focused on being the perfect Mom and I can only do one thing perfectly at a time...hehe! Anyway, something to keep in mind to keep the marriage running smoothly...sex is good...sex is desirable...H is desirable....you are desirable...you get the idea! Have you had the same problems with being a type one? I don't mean that we didn't ever have sex or anything, but I didn't LET myself desire it the way that I really wanted to.

Take care and I hope things continue to bloom between the two of you!

Stillwed