Hi - its 3 am now and my W has gone to sleep. We have 2 kids and have been married for 8 yrs. After my son was born last summer things started to "go downhill" so to speak. We have been fighting and we havent been intimate for a year. We are both faithful to one another but the arguments get to me espcially since I am an emotional person. She has told me on more than one occasion that she doesnt like the emotional side of me and that what matters is the bottom line. <P>She also has a large family that she comes from and they are very close. Last April we had an argument and she took off to some hotel for the night leaving me with the kids (my daughter woke up later and kept asking me where mommy was -fortunately I made up a good story.)<P>Well - I called her brother and he tried to locate her and told the rest of his family as well. They were all very worried until she finally came home the next morning.<P>She now keeps blaming me for being a big mouth for telling her family about the problem.<P>This is the second time in our marriage that she has run away from an argument like this. <P>I am trying to set up therapy for us both (she wants to go too).<P><BR>Any advice? I am really feeling depressed as she can be a very cold matter of fact person. Can turn it on and off like a light switch.<P>thanks,<BR>Alonely

Hey Alonely, It's rough, at least you're home. I'll tell you now make sure the both of you go to counseling with positive attitudes and a desire to fix what ever is wrong with your relationship. My wife spent last night in a hotel room also, and we've been to counseling, though she has lost any will to resolve our relationship...I'm staring at the big "D" and I'm scared as hell!<P>My wife and I are at the point of hating each other, I think it's the only way I can deal with what's going on. Keep your emotions, some women may claim you were never emotional enough(my situation), of course this comes after they tell you it's over. My wife and I haven't been intimate for a few months either...my wife's traits are similar to yours.<P>I feel your pain! I'm not the most holy man, but I've been picking though Battlefield of the Mind each night prior to hitting the hay. It seems to help me stop wondering.<P>"Winny" provides some pretty comforting counsel, at least I think. I'll send her your way...<P>GFB<BR>

Hi GFB!<P>I'm glad that you replied to my post. I'm REALLY sorry to hear about your situation... And hope that you guys can work something out somehow...<P>We are going to our first session tomorrow evening. There are alot of issues that I want to talk about and that have been going on for a long time, I didnt bother posing them on the board. <P>What is amazing to me is that there are SO many women out there that complain that their H's are not emotional enough or dont show emotion or want to talk about it..I am the exact opposite. My W really says that this part of me bothers her. I told her that most women actually complain about the lack of sensitivity in their H's.<P>She says that I should have (and she) should have married other people (who - she never says).<P>Maybe I am too sensitive. Or maybe she needs to learn how to be more so? Hopefully in therapy we will resolve these things as she did say to me that its important for her as well. <P>(Her sister told me that my W said to her that she actually does love me but that there are times when she finds this to very difficult) this is an encouraging sign.<P>keep in touch,<BR>Alonely

Alonely, you wrote:<P>>>What is amazing to me is that there are SO many women out there that complain that their H's are not emotional enough or dont show emotion or want to talk about it..I am the exact opposite. My W really says that this part of me bothers her. I told her that most women actually complain about the lack of sensitivity in their H's.>><P>Hi, Alonely...<BR>I'm Winny, and have been around this site sine March 2001, so I'm a relative newcomer myself. My H and I are in the beginning stages of Recovery since his EA of last year. It's been a horrible year, to say the least, but I'm here to tell you that Plan A truly can work. Note the operative word is 'can' because there are no guarantees in Life, no matter what. <P>One thing I wanted to tell you is that a big mistake many women make is to assume that men are "unemotional" beings. Human is HUMAN, period. True, we sexes look at things from different perspectives and operate accordingly, but when you get right down to it, everyone feels joy, excitement, pain and sorrow during their lifetimes. It's what we do with those emotions that differentiate us from one another.<P>Your W comes from a big family, so I am guessing that you do not (or you would have said so, right?). People that live in big families learn early on in life how to interact with others much sooner than those who come from smaller ones. The reason is obvious: more people and more chances/opportunities for contact. Where she has learned to let certains things roll off her back easily, perhaps you did not. To her, disagreements were the order of the day (all siblings argue!), so perhaps they're 'no big deal.' When you emote, or show your emotion, she probably doesn't know how to react to that. It's probably not within her frame of reference--but that doesn't mean this problem is insurmountable.<P>Really, what I see are differences in childhood backgrounds and sometimes, those differences can really color how we look at situations and handle ourselves as adults.<P>What struck me kind of odd was that she was upset with you for talking about your recent arguement (when you called her family looking for her), YET...she talked to her sister and confided her feelings to her about you. This is no big deal, just a thought that hit me kind of funny.<P>I agree that you both need some kind of counseling. Your W needs to know, and perhaps from a professional, that men DO have feelings and that it's OK for them to show them. She doesn't really realize how fortunate she is to be married to someone with such sensitivity. Coming from a large family, this is probably very hard for her to grasp, but she really needs to know about this.<P>I made the same mistake with my H. Although my family is larger than his, we also communicated very differently. Where his parents stuffed their feelings down (and he learned to do the same thing), my folks were very open and so that was what I learned. When he wouldn't open up to me, or show emotion in the way I was accustomed to, I thought he was 'emotionless.' Or, at the very least, very insensitive. Boy! Was I ever wrong! He is deeply, intensely emotional but on the outside, you'd never suspect that. That's one of the main reasons we had so many problems this past year: if he had only opened up to me and TOLD me what was bothering him, things would have been vastly different.<P>Now that I've been Plan A'ing these past 5 months and am truly meeting his EN's, things are slowly coming around. <P>Differences. We all have them--no one is immune. The trick is to find out what those differences are between a couple, and how they can color things a totally different shade of gray sometimes. Good luck to you, and I wish you the best!<P>Hugs,<BR>Winny<BR>