My wife and I are divorcing this spring after a 9 year courtship and 17 year marriage. This was her idea and it's going down as she wants it. I'm at peace with this but something much bigger bothers me.

I have injested for the last year Dr Harley's books, His Need Her Needs, The Four Gifts of Love and Love Busters. My thinking is so transformed it haunts me day and night. I'm left with an understanding of how much fun it could be to build a relationship. I find no error in the way his material is presented. It fits like a glove. It is like a born again experience to me.

However...I have never felt so alone in my entire life after this undertaking. I have yet to talk to any married or unmarried freind relative or stranger who seems to remotely identify with any of Dr Harleys concepts. I've given away 7 copies of His Needs Her Needs and I can't believe how little conversation the book seems to inspire.

Is it me? I ask this simple question. I mean no disrespect by it at all.

Can a woman with average intellengence read one or all three of these books and come away with at least half of the profound understanding they have on me? This bothers me more than my entire divorce.

Looking for an answer

If you are looking for people with whom to discuss His Needs, Her Needs, you will find a lot of them on the Emotional Needs Board:Emotional Needs

A thought from this mornings episode of "The Lockhorns": he says to her, "If you keep taking umbrage like that, pretty soon there won't be any left."

Donnie

I was introduced to the Harley concept by my pastor years ago and years before I knew my marriage was in trouble. I love the ideas, I'm an intelligent woman, ( not NASA material granted but college degree, asst VP title, head of office)

I understand your frustration. It is very hard sometimes to accept the Harley concept unless you are willing to see the areas in your life that you are handling wrong. For me it was disrespectful judgements. I thought since I paid the bills, handled the household, raised the kids, planned the vacations, etc that my ex wanted me to handle everything. I was not a control freak but he simply didn't care. Instead of working towards unity in our marriage and forcing the hand a little to communicate more, i just held my course, made excuses for his unwillingness to help with anything. But I built up a lot of internal resentment. I would plan things I thought he would like ( like the movies) and although he didn't want to go, I basically made it hard to refuse. All along, I thought I was doing it for him, to make him happy. I never saw that he didn't want it, therefore it made him unhappy. Of course once OW came on the scene, he was looking for a reason to be unhappy with me.

I too was in a 17 year relationship.. We became the best of friends but had little in common except the children. Our core philosophies on work, money, play, church, etc were different. But because I had made a committment, I was faithful and honestly didn't mention the resentment I was having due to lack of financial support, emotional support, companionship, SF (towards the end) or honesty.

As soon as he made the I'm unhappy speech. I immediately went to His Needs/Her Needs, love busters, and this forum. I feel that I really tried. I did all I could do. I do like most of these concepts although maybe sometimes I ignore the ones that will cause conflict. However.. now I feel stronger than ever about a new relationship and what it will take to build and maintain one. I recently dated a guy ( only the 2nd since my divorce) who on the cover seemed perfect. I once again saw myself making excuses for those things that were red flags. While he was a great guy, I was able to recognize the areas that our EN's were not in sync. I re-read HNHN and it gave me the strength to see that no matter how good it felt to have someone say they cared about me again, I knew it wasn't right and there was no future in the relationship. I had never in my life been the one to end a relationship. I never had the strength. I was always the one who got hurt ( thankfully not often due to long relationship with ex)

The Harley concepts have given me strength to be a better person, look for the better qualities in people but also recongize some of the reasons why people behave as they do.

So, I guess I'm saying. Yes... there is at least one gal in South Carolina who believes that her next relationship will be a better one because of Harley and his writing.

Keep the faith. Don't preach it. They have to get it themselves but there will be some who do and want so much to build something together. I know will always be a care giver and a good provider for my family, but I will no longer be only a giver and withhold my feelings or totally sacrifice my core values to try to make another happy. I did realize I can't make them happy. They have to be happy on their own.

Still working on my happiness, but doing good and really looking forward to the future.

Good luck to you.

Lynn
(Sad but still very proud Panther fan in SC!)

Dear Peoplepleaser:

Could I ask you few question? When you got the I’m unhappy speech could your ex at that point and time sit down with a pad of paper and write down exactly why he was unhappy and what would make him happy? Could he be very exacting about this and understand why he would want to do this? How would you respond to that?

What you said about the guy you recently dated. What things did you excuse and how was HNHN useful in helping you figure out there was no future in the relationship?

What are EN’s?

In your opinion would I be setting to high a standard to expect a woman to have an enthusiastic agreement with me about the content of Dr. Harleys books?

Thanks for responding

Donnie F

ENs are Emotional Needs. LBs are (in the plural) Love Busters. LB in the singular is can be Love Buster or Love Bank depending on context. Check out the EN forum, the first thread for all the lovely abbr. we use here.

And it’s not you. I got very little support for Dr Harley’s principles. Especially POJA. That got no support. My STBX read LB and HN/HN in 6 hours. He disagreed with the principles almost totally.

When someone reacts with strong negativity, it is usually because they don’t want to admit they’re responsible for some of the problems and therefore need to change.

When people are bland about it, I suspect they haven’t bothered to read it, or they are complacent, thinking “Well, my spouse would never….” They should come here and see all the perfectly nice Wayward Spouses (WS). It makes you think twice.

I do think that there needs to be some shared philosophies between spouses if Dr. Harley’s principles should work. I realized that one reason my STBX couldn’t follow the MB plan for recovery is meeting my needs, eliminating the annoying behaviors, and following POJA would have made him miserable. In fact, in many essentials of life, POJA would be impossible for my STBX and me.

A funny side note: When my STBX was saying how he thought we were similar enough to be happily married, I asked him how we were similar. He answered “We both like to read, and we both like to eat out and travel.” Okay, so we have some common recreational activities. But that’s not enough.

And actually, my STBX and I can have pleasant conversations so long as we don’t talk about money or core values for our children, and we steer clear of telling the other what we don’t like in their behavior.

Hmm. Probably more than you asked for.

I do think Dr. Harley’s principles are one reason why there’s been a couple of MB romances. You know that you each go in with an understanding of what it takes to maintain romantic love. The rule of protection, the rule of time, the rule of care, Policy of Joint Agreement (POJA).

Donnie,

Sure, ask me anything you want. I don't post as often as I used to but I like a good topic. Especially one about growth and learning to be a better spouse/dating partner/etc.

As your your questions..

No, my ex would not have been willing to sit down and have a rational conversation. He never really was able to do that but especially by the time of his "unhappy" speech. By that time, he had already been with OW maybe 18 months without my knowledge and the pressure she was applying and the guilt he felt were too overwhelming for him. All he wanted to do at that point was run. Run somewhere safe where he didn't have to face the pain he caused me or his children. He told me that he never knew really what triggered all the resentment he built up towards me. All he knew was that as soon as I came in from work ( I work days, he worked 3rd shift), that he tensed up and hated being in the house with me. I never could get a good reason about what I did from him. But I did see some of my problems by reading Love Busters. I also saw from re-reading HNHN that I had basically met his needs and he had met none of mine. This wasn't because he was mean or lazy or a bad person. I never really shared with him what my needs were. He became very comfortable with me putting 100% of my salary towards living expenses while he put 25% towards the family and he horded the other 75%. We didn't talk about money. We didn't share in things. At one point I owed $5000 on a credit card and he had over $7500 in cash in a safe lockbox in the basement that he used to buy cars, motorcycles, boats, etc to fix up or trade.

But I didn't see the problem. I just went along. He didn't nag me about what I spent. I never had to ask permission to buy a new outfit or something for the kids. I enjoyed that freedom but I also knew to stay within what I could afford because I would get no help from him. I now look back and see this as my rationalizing the situation and making excuses why he shouldn't have to provide for the family. Does this mean that I will not even consider dating someone without a degree or someone who is poor. No. I still am not turned on by the love of money or greed. I do not need a man to support me. What I need is someone to share with me, work towards common goals and to help me be the best I can be. That person can make $10,000 a year or 1,000,000 a year, the money isn't really the issue. It's the ambition, the desire to work towards and have something, to be proud of what they do and contribute to me, to themselves and to the community.

My ex was not a bad guy. He was raised in a classic southern poor family. Stay at home mom with 10th grade education. Dad couldn't read or write. Never had much growing up but his parents taught him the things I thought were important. They taught him the concept of working hard for what you want, being kind to others, to love his family, and to accept responsibility for his actions. I admired all these qualities. For one, I was 17 and my parents had recently divorced and I truly wanted someone who would depend on me, who would appreciate what I offered to a relationship, someone who would need me.
I came from a middle/upper class family who was not the sunday dinner at grandmas/lovey-kissy/family is everything family. My Dad owed his own company and had an affair with his secretary. It almost destroyed my mother and I wanted to make sure that never happened to me.

So I married me a country boy <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> Hard worker but selfish and hard headed as they come. Used to doing what he wanted and having to scrap up pennies to buy a soda. You might say he married up. I'm not one to brag on myself but I did introduce him to opportunities he never would have had otherwise. I sort of started living out my dream of making him happy. I really thought I could for many years.

I wanted someone who would love me, not money, who would never risk a good thing by having an affair. Honestly, all the things my father was not to my mother.

I took a relationship that should have lasted 6 weeks and made 17 years out of it. I look back now and see all the sacrifices I made, but I don't regret them.. I could have stopped and made him accountable, forced him to become a parter instead of a coat-tail rider, and involved him in more of the decision making. But I hated conflict. I did not understand how to start a normal conversation without getting frustrated, and he was from a household where his mom was the more dominant personality. She took care of the household things without much input other than a paycheck from his dad.

My Ex and I did not have common views on many things. However, I would just plan things I thought that would meet his needs. For example, for 4 years, I spent my vacation at the BassMasters Classic fishing tournament because I knew it would make him happy. I didn't really mind because I convinced myself that if he was happy, I was happy.

A long answer I know. I just thought I would explain more about the dynamic of our relationship so you would see more about why he would be unwilling to work on marriage. He told me after I filed that he realized that the anger and resentment he built up towards me was just the guilt he felt for the affair. It was just too easy for him to say I was a messy housekeeper or that I put my career ahead of him. Any excuse he could see to blame me and want out. His new 28 year old girlfriend was more intellectually his match, although he was not a stupid person by any means. He said I always made him feel stupid. I never did intentionally but yes, I did continue to educate myself and expand my horizons while he stayed glued to the TV and learned all he needed to know from HBO and Cinemax.

Anyway, today, 3 years later, I think we could sit down and make a list, talk about issues, needs, etc. But then, it was just too raw for him. I was not what he wanted. He wanted her and nothing was going to change his mind then. I forgave him many times for the affair. Honestly that didn't bother me near as much as I always thought it would. BUT the lying and the inability or the lack of desire to discuss issues and/or work towards an agreeable solution was more than I could bear. I tried for over 9 months to reason, listen, wait, etc but he wasn't ready. Like I said, if he hadn't remarried 6 weeks after the divorce and if he wasn't just totally miserable with the choices he had made, perhaps now we could sit down and make some progress. Of course I'm done now. I would never go back. If he came back it would only be to escape the responsibilities that his money-spending, no income earning , declining health spouse has put on him. I see lots of changes in him. I see them because she has made him be the primary breadwinner, the primary child-rearer, the primary cook, etc. He does now appreciate more of the things I did and has told me that he is sorry things worked out like they did. I had sheltered him from the reality of it all. I have done him no favors for sure because of it. Reality hurts, especially when it isnt' what you thought it was. That grass wasn't really greener, only a bit younger and dumber and more demanding <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

whew... This is like therapy. Thanks for asking these questions. I feel like I've healed a little more just by expressing these feelings.

As for the dating guy.... He is disabled. I thought that financial support was not important to me. I was used to not having it and I do ok for myself salary wise. He also was way too needy. I thought I wanted someone to need me but he was one of those, "I love you" on the first weekend type of people. BIG RED FLAGS!!! I thought it would be nice to have someone to love me again but the more I learned about him and the more I saw that he had "no spine", the less I was attracted to him. He allows himself to be used and taken adavantage of because he is a big time "peoplepleaser too". He would never break free from his parents and make me a priority. At first I thought I was being selfish and crazy for thinking that. However, after he cancelled 3 or 4 things we planned in a row due to issues at home or his health, I realized I needed someone who I could depend on. I never thought I would be shallow enough to let poor health be an issue. I have had about every kind of surgery I can over the years but I'm one of those tough, don't let it get you down types. I had a hysterectomy last March and missed just slightly over 2 weeks from work. I just don't slow down. He lets his headaches or whatever dicate his life. He hasn't worked in 11 years. I thought that wouldn't matter to me.

BUT I re=read HNHN again (3rd time I think post divorce) and I stopped and paid attention to the financial support sections, the recreational companion sections, and several other sections that I thought before were not that important to me. I have changed over the past 3 years. Maybe not much at the core of my beliefs but definately enough not to think I am responsible for other people and their happiness.(other than the safety and moral upbringing of my children).

This guy and I had a lot in common on the surface and honestly could have been good friends but as a romantic interest, I just don't feel that way anymore. I thought that because he was a nice guy that was enough. He was also great fun with the kids and I loved those short times we spent playing ping-pong, air hockey, or chess with them. He would sing karaoke with my 12 year old daughter and just laugh and laugh. He was funny at first but annoying in long spurts. Kinda of the goofball type that is cute up front but you hope he will just shut up after an hour or so.

I guess you really can't make a heart love somebody. He still hasn't figured out that I'm not attracted to him on a romantic level anymore. He wants to jump ship from his no-where life into mine. I dont' want to go through that again. If he is not happy on his own ( he's not), I can't create happiness for him. He is not strong enough for me. I don't want to be told what to do or to tell someone what to do. I want to discuss it together.

HNHN made me realize that he could not meet my needs and our philosophies were too far apart. Also I learned there were mental issues in his family and it scared me. Again, I never saw myself as shallow. I'm not judgemental in general and I accept people for who they are not some pre-conceived notion, but in this case, I just knew it would not be healthy for me or my children to continue this relationship.

As for your last ? about your expectations being realistic.... I think with the right person and the right personality, the Harley concepts will build a terrific marriage/relationship. I think it is a good basis for a start. I do think you have to recongize and accept that not everyone can be radically honest and even less people can accept radical honesty without being hurt. It is very important to me to have conversation, as you can tell by the length of my response LOL...

No, I don't think it is unrealistic to have your potential mate/date/whatever understand these concepts but at the same time, I'm not sure that following them letter for letter without some tweaking for personality type is healthy either. I think they are a great foundation and that the two people will build the rest through communication and cooperation. Love is a great thing but it can't always be reduced to a textbook. For me, I would love to sit down and debate the finer points of meeting each others emotional needs. However, I know that not everyone is ready for that. I also know that I'm a bit odd, so what do I know????? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

I just know there are no perfect people and no perfect relationship, but I honestly have to beleive that there is a potential for happiness which includes love, compromise, and sacrifice. At least I hope so.

Please feel free to ask me anything you want to. You have given me a lot to think about.

Lynn

<small>[ February 02, 2004, 08:11 PM: Message edited by: peoplepleaser ]</small>

Donnie,

After re-reading my last post, perhaps I should apologize. I say I'm not judgemental but that post was full of disrespectful judgements. Wow.

I guess I'm just a bit irrirated that my ex was un willing to sit down and openly discuss his and my feelings when he first started feeling the "unhappiness" . Maybe I could just relate to your frustration with the people in your life being unwilling to open their hearts and minds to the Harley concepts.

I don't know exactly what triggered that deep response I wrote. Sometimes I just sit and type and emotions just pour. Last weekend at my son's basketball game, ex and I sat together and he went on and on for an hour about how poor he was and how he didn't like having to pay all the bills because his wife wouldn't work. He is now seeing the other side of the story and he doesn't like it. He even told me he was going to start a secret account to save some money because he could no longer live like he wanted. Funny, I thought he got exactly what he wanted.

Perhaps it's just sad that I spent 17 years of my life with someone who I thought was a good friend but who really refused to put any effort into any aspect of the relationship that wasn't self-serving.

I guess your question about people ignoring Harley concepts hit a button with me because I too think that my way of thinking and how I treat others and myself have changed drastically since I read those books.

I also sounded like a terrible person when talking about the guy I dated for a couple of months. Yes he had been given a disabiity award (at first he said due to migraines but I later found out being bi-polar had much more to do with it.) But the first couple of weeks we were going out, he seemed perfectly capable of working to me. Then I started to see things like him running out of pain meds before he should or needing a valium just to relax. Those things are big triggers for me. At first I ignored it because he was meeting my needs for conversation and some domestic support things( fixed light fixture, doorknob, etc).

I thought that if he met 3 or 4 of my emotional needs, I should be happy. However, the 3 or 4 he was meeting were not the ones that mean the most to me.

Then of course, he started all that I love you stuff and pressure way too early. At first I played along because I had missed that so much for the past 3 years. But then I realized I didn't love him, I just loved the idea of having someone in my life again. However, this time I was already put on guard as to not be a total provider in this relationship. Yes, I paid for dinner and movies, and even bought concert tickets. I knew he couldn't do a lot of things because most of his money went to medical bills. But he lives at home with his parents, didn't even have insurance on his own truck, hadn't worked in 11 years at anything, even side jobs.

Again this sounds judgemental because I'm sure he has some reason why he lost his desire to work hard and make a life for himself. He spent way too much time at home on the computer and was not physically in good shape. This led to him not being a good recreational companion for me. Not that I'm a marathon runner or anything myself but I do like to stay active and he basically was a homebody who didn't want to or would be too out of breath to walk at the mall, go to a theme park, to the lake, whatever.

I guess I don't owe anybody this explanation but again, it is just another way that I stopped and looked at what was happening, reviewed what HNHN said about the most important needs I have and realized that he could not meet those. I also looked and realized that I would be unable to meet his EN's without resentment.

One of my core values is that you work hard and earn what you have. You don't play the system or deceive people to get what you want.

In him, I saw someone who wanted to do the least they could to get by so they could draw a check. Again, at first I made excuses, etc but the more I learned, the more i realized that I could never deal with someone who was always looking for a handout.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that Harley concepts have helped me alot to learn about me. To work on me and to understand what my needs are and which ones are important. Now i feel more capable of meeting someone else's needs in a better way.

Have a great day, and please excuse my nasty jabs at OW and ex in the last post. Even after 3 years, I guess it is still frustrating sometimes.

Thanks!

Lynn

Dear Greengables & Peoplepleaser (Lynn)

Wow! Thanks for your thoughts. I wasn&#8217;t expecting so much. I&#8217;m sitting here this morning grinning from ear to ear and feeling so happy inside. Today is the first time in almost 2 years to hear anything from anybody with any kind of insight about HNHN, Love busters, etc. At the risk of sounding greedy I find no place in my current state of mind to understand statements like &#8220;Probably more than you asked for.&#8221; No such thing. I&#8217;m hungry.!

I feel so much like the Hover Dam. I&#8217;ll all filled up with knowledge and no where to go. Today I feel like the floodgates are beginning to open a bit and if you would both permit I would love to ask so many more questions. Since I posted &#8220;I&#8217;m Miffed&#8221;, I have printed out all this information to date and have it in a 3 ring notebook. If you two or anyone else feel like filling up my book I would be honored! Time is short this morning but I will keep my book near me all day at work today and read, and reread and leave some questions tonight.

If you need to know anything about me please ask, I have no secrets, just a hunger to learn and this is a big need in my life these days. Thanks Lynn for all that you shared. It&#8217;s more than enough to keep my mind busy today.

I&#8217;ll get back
Don

Oh, dear! Lynn and I seem to have lived a very similar life! And our perspectives seem to jive. That perhaps doesn’t give you, Don, as wide a range of perspectives on HNHN as you might hope.

Lynn, I don’t think you were disrespectful. Honest about the situation and your needs in the situation is what I’d call it. Sometimes, people bend over so far not to make disrespectful judgments that they end up making excuses.

I haven’t read Dr. Harley’s newest book Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders yet, but have read about the concepts. And Steve Harley and I spoke of them during my MC work. I think that the Basic Concepts are never acceptable to Freeloaders. Those people who want to enjoy the benefits of a relationship without any of the responsibility and work.

If I were looking at a new relationship, I would do as PP and examine our ENs. If they appeared too different, I would cut it off. I would also discuss POJA. That would be a deal breaker for me. I would never become serious with someone who disagreed with POJA.

But, I also would use what I learned from a book called Will Our Love Last? This work deals with compatibility. Dr. Harley believes compatibility can be created. And I think in some areas it can like modus vivendi or way of living which would include day-to-day activities. But, I believe it can only be created if it was there to begin with or the people aren’t too far apart in the spectrum.

I don’t believe compatibility can be built in the two other areas this work discusses: sexuality and life view. I actually think that pre-marital sex is good in part because it eliminates the chance you are completely incompatible in bed. You’d find that out before hand.

The life view t is just so fundamental that people can’t change it. It’s really who people are. How they see the world. How and where they find meaning. Deep values and beliefs. Now, provided you knew your spouse well before marrying, you should be compatible in your life view. But, so many of us here didn’t know our spouses well before we got married. Then, we find out we have serious disagreements. Gulfs that cannot be bridged by POJA.

Policy of Joint Agreement says that both spouses have to enthusiastically agree. Even when working with Steve Harley, I found that for my STBX and me, POJA meant both of us would end up feeling we were making sacrifices. The things that made each of us happy were exclusive. Or so it seems to me now.

So, what’s your story?

Thanks Greengables. I'm glad I didn't come across as nasty as I thought I did. I do have a tendency to overthink sometimes and it usually is over something I've said and how I think people who hear/read it will perceive it.

It is extremely hard sometimes to properly express ideas, especially those that trigger emotional responses. I too think we are similar in our viewpoints. It will be interesting to learn more as time goes along. PS. I'm glad you mentioned the premartial sex issue. The physical side of a realtionship is something that I really place a high important on and quite frankly, if that area between a couple isn't right to some degree, it sets the whole balance of the relationship off. I'm not one to sleep around but I do know that since SF is one of my top 5 needs, I would never leave it up to chance and wait until marriage. I know that is not a popular opinion and I'm glad you shared your view, one which I happen to agree with completely.

Hopefully we will have something to offer Don and I do hope that others join this discussion. Like you said, our viewpoints may not provide Don the variance of opinions he is looking for. I am, however, glad he was happy this morning for reading our responses.

Don, I look forward to reading more about your story and answering more of your questions. I appreciate very much you allowing me to share my story with you. I've basically quit posting here on a regular basis because I felt, being 2 1/2 years post discovery of affair and almost 3 years living on my own, I didn't have much to offer that others weren't already offering. My initial feelings of pain and anger and betrayal have subsidded and while I keep in touch with a few of the friends I made here during my "darker" times, I try to withhold my advice for those in a more similar situation to mine. These boards were tremendously helpful to me at first and I am thankful for the things I've learned here. I just don't think it's healthy for me anymore to relive the betrayal and heartbreak on a daily basis.

However, I've needed another outlet to discuss how to apply MB principles in new relationships during the get to know you/ dating stage. I want to be a better person in my next relationship.

I want to be a better person in general. I really liked the idea of having a forum or designated area to discuss the application of Harley's principle during the pre-marriage period of time. I do understand why it is not necessarily appropriate to promote dating on a site primarily devoted to building an existing marriage.

I also feel, like you, that I have a lot to offer and it is nice to discuss the concepts with others who have read them. I never really posted on the emotional needs board and unfortunately when I did try, I got very little response. Maybe I just didn't feel it was appropriate to ask for advice about a new relationship when most of the people here are desparately trying to hang on to the one they already have. Or they are still so raw from the betrayal that they are looking only for a short term fix to ease the pain.

My marriage is over. It has been for several years and now I'm left to analyse what went wrong and try to use what I've learned to make me a better person and worthy of a new relationship that will grow and prosper. It may not be now, I don't really know. I'm not really seeking it out anymore but I do want to be ready when the right opportunity comes along.

Anyway, I look forward to our future discussions. I cannot post at work (well, I could but I'm supposed to set an example <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> ) so I'll try to catch up with things at night or in the morning before I leave.

Take care,

Lynn

Lynn,

You should not apologize. The basis of HNHN and all of the other books is to provide you information so that you can discriminate. YUP, that bad old word. Perhaps you would prefer to use the word assessment to judgement, but I will tell you that the ability to discriminate what is good for you and what is bad for you is the mark of intelligence.

Think about it. This is what you are trying to teach your children. You discriminate between what is good for them and what is bad for them. That is what HNHN is also trying to teach you or at least offer you a method for evaluation for what is good and bad.

I realize that the book is meant for people to evealuate where they are failing to meet their spouses EN's in a marriage, but it is also an excellent format to examine a FUTURE relationship.

Sadly, most people don't want to learn unless there are dire consequences hence the responses that Donnie is finding.

But I was once told that there are three kinds of people:

1. Those that never learn

2. Those that learn from their mistakess

3. Those that learn from other peoples mistakes.

Sadly, the first category is pretty heavily populated. But when people seek knowledge as Donnie has done and you have done as well as others here, then tend to value it.

Must go, but Lynn I felt that you were perfectly clear and NOT being disrespectful, just honest in what you have learned.

God Bless,

JL

Dear lynn, greengables and Just learning (such as myself)

I fail to see any disrespect at all here. Perhaps I don&#8217;t understand the word well enough yet. If truth be told, I&#8217;m starting to like the two of you! I&#8217;m beginning to sense a certain flavor to your personalities. I sit here and laugh for no real reason. Thanks!

I try to reduce my thinking down to it&#8217;s simplest form and reason that if something really fits on a tiny level it has to fit on a much larger scale. Something tells me I&#8217;m going to find out you don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s true. I&#8217;ll brace myself. LOL This is how my thinking is beginning to evolve at its simplest level.

I love chocolate. It makes me feel good to eat it. It is the perfect-pick me up. I cook for a living and chocolate is my favorite food. I like it best in its&#8217; purest form although I do like to bake with chocolate as the key ingredient. I know this makes me feel good and therefore I can express it to others. It&#8217;s a little EM that I have and I meet this little need just fine. Others could meet this need also. When others meet this need something changes.

Along comes a certain Miss Wonderful. Why is she wonderful? If for no other reason apart from life&#8217;s mysterious chemistry I find I&#8217;m attracted to her. I get to know her. I find out she loves Walnuts. Eating Walnuts has the same effect on her as Chocolate has on me. Eating Walnuts makes her feel good.

We now possess a juicy bit of information about each other. It doesn&#8217;t take long to figure out that something we both liked that predated us knowing each other could be brought to a new level of emotional enjoyment. We begin to independently supply each other with these important necessities of life, Chocolate and Walnuts. We feel so good about this that we might confess that our farts are starting to sound like a Symphonic Band.

At this point we might say that what we have in common is eating but I would like to think the biggest thing we have in common is the desire to feel good and this is the methodology we employ to bring about a positive sense of well being. I avoid the use of the word love because I don&#8217;t believe love has anything to do with emotion. To me love is pure action. Emotion is present when our EN&#8217;s from the smallest to greatest are met or unmet. Love sits on top of our emotional make up and directs our emotional nature, or lack of. It&#8217;s our intellect, will and thinking ability. Something in our nature has to be unfeeling for the most part so our emotions don&#8217;t rule the day. Getting chocolate might make me feel wonderful inside but I&#8217;m not qualified to say I Love You until I get up, go to the store and buy Miss Wonderful her Walnuts. Love is the acting power to do this even if it&#8217;s the worst day of my life.

So&#8230;time goes on and on and on&#8230;&#8230;..

We begin to notice two things. The first thing is, we start to get lazy about supplying each other with our essential treats. Then, God forbid, we start asking for our essential treats. This may go as far as, should I say it? Nagging!

For the sake of this little fantasy illustration I&#8217;m avoiding Love Busters. Do you think Cinderella had to deal with Love Busters? I don&#8217;t think so. Anyway&#8230;

So we have a little chat. We come to realize a few things and the biggest one is that we just don&#8217;t feel to good about each other anymore. Suddenly a fart is just a fart. Donnie says to Miss Not So Wonderful Anymore that although I&#8217;m getting chocolate it just isn&#8217;t satisfying when I have to ask for it. I feel like I&#8217;m meeting my need through you when I would rather you meet this need. As all good fantasy stories go she feels exactly the same way. So now we&#8217;re getting somewhere.

Now we observe the second thing. Donnie says, Nestle&#8217;s chocolate twice a week isn&#8217;t enough. I would really like Lindt chocolate 4 times a week. Miss Wonderful would rather have Diamond Walnuts 6 times a week rather than then Brand X walnuts once a week. So we make a qualitative and quantitative adjustment to our need and once again the natural order of the universe has been restored. She is now Miss Wonderful again!! Need I tell you what our farts sound like? Did we do this because we loved each other or because we each had a common desire to feel good and feel good about each other or both? I see Love as the engine that drives the thinking reasoning processes to put the right actions together to support our greater common goal and that would be to feel pretty good and to feel pretty good about each other.

To sum it up

1 I know what makes me feel good, Chocolate
2 Miss Wonderful knows what makes her feel good. Walnuts
3 We both know a heightened sense of enjoyment about a thing we already like when the thing is given.
4 We both agree that having to ask for the thing we need over and over greatly reduces&#8217; our emotional enjoyment
5 We both agree that quality and quantity are important parts of a need met well.
6 Love is our willingness to put the right actions together
7 Feeling good is the result of love but for the most part not an expression of Love
8 If my wife read this she would call me centered

Overly simplified? Yes and No I believe. I hope this didn&#8217;t bore you but I have to keep comparing the simple with the more complex because I know there is a good bridge between the two. I would have to say this is just the beginning of a good foundational spot for me at the moment.

Can I say without sounding centered or selfish that I want to go out in the world and seek marital fulfillment not because I long to make someone happy but because I long to be fulfilled.

I don&#8217;t question my motive but my methodology has to be in my lover&#8217;s best interest for me to succeed. Her best interest should be her sense of wanting to be fulfilled. Our biggest common interest would be the desire to feel and to feel good about each other.

It would stand to reason that what makes us feel good is an important thing to find out in our selves. Would you say this has to be our first and most important understanding before we can maintain a good feeling about anyone else for a long period of time? To be able to explain to our partner what makes us feel good is information to be had for the asking. Why do we ask? Why should we know? It is for our sense of fulfillment. I need to know about Walnuts and my lover needs to know about chocolate for our sense of fulfillment.

Although I have no one here at home with any kind of an ear to hear I have tried to apply some of what I think I&#8217;m coming to understand in all of my relationships outside of home. Until my divorce is final I can&#8217;t seem to begin to learn the deeper levels of my newly understood principles.

I shouldn&#8217;t say that I don&#8217;t observe some important things at home in light of the Harley principles. I remember coming home one evening, I opened the front door and my wife as usual was at her desk with her back toward me doing lesson planning. As I stepped inside our eyes met for a moment and we said hello. No one smiled and no one frowned-just a blank, empty hello. This was normal. I turned to walk into the garage and &#8220;BEHOLD&#8221; my unfinished canoe awaited my attention! I smiled form ear to ear. I thought about this deeply! It hit me all at once. I had this observation this last year after being in counseling with my wife for 12 weeks at Harley School. My wife is living proof of two things. Teachers are bad learners and if you just don&#8217;t want to learn you won&#8217;t. And that&#8217;s that! It began to teach me that my wife did not do the things that would produce a smile from ear to ear in me, but my canoe did. I&#8217;m passing no judgement on her or myself but rather observing a difference between what exists and what should exist. In my mind (My love area) with no real feeling at all I&#8217;m acknowledging in myself that I want my wife to learn to do the things that my canoe is already doing in part for me and feel protected from so many others who give me the impression they would be glad to do it.

Forgive me if I sound self-centered. I can only illustrate what I know and my wife doesn&#8217;t give me enough information about herself to include her in this letter. I did share this with my wife and no it didn&#8217;t go well for me. (Radical Honesty) It was a few years ago and I&#8217;m sure some love busters might have been included in this conversation with her, BUT&#8230;&#8230;.I really believe if she had been willing to step up to the plate a few years back and read HNHN she might have been able to see just a little tiny bit of light through my love busters to get a small glimpse of what I was trying to communicate to her. Hay&#8230;I&#8217;m learning.

If I could paint the picture all over again it would sound something like this. I sit my wife down and express this observation about her, the canoe and others. I explain to her that I really want my smile to come from her but at the current time it doesn&#8217;t. Let&#8217;s pretend for the moment that Love busters don&#8217;t exist. She is taken back by this but soon begins to absorb this thoughtfully. She thanks me for my honesty but admits she can&#8217;t really talk about this right now, could I have some time to think about this? I agree. Later that evening she says to me I still need more time to think about this but in good faith so you know I&#8217;m concerned about the way you feel, what is it that I can do for you in the very near future that would make you feel good? I&#8217;m now thinking, &#8220;Damn, I&#8217;m glad you asked that question!&#8221; At this point in time, knowing my wife the way I do, I would consider that a deeply profound question from her and here would be my answer.

I would like to arrive home some night this week and I would rather not know which night (that&#8217;s up to you) and find a note on the front door. It reads, when you enter the house don&#8217;t turn left or move straight ahead but rather turn right and head to the bathroom. No signature. Just a little heart drawn in. WOW! I will enter the bathroom and find it&#8217;s lit with a single candle and you my beautiful naked wife will be half covered up in foamy soapy bath water. All you need to say is, &#8220;Feel like washing my back?&#8221; Would this make me feel great? Do fish do it under water? This is my chocolate! Chocolate makes me feel great! I know this about myself. My wife has this juicy bit of information about me and she is giving this to me

Could I say it&#8217;s fare for her to use this to her advantage? Is it ok for her to feel motivated to do this and to know exactly what she is doing because she is looking for and expecting a certain kind of response from me? Like Walnuts?

As the story goes&#8230;I get up in the morning and sure enough I have Walnuts on my mind. What do I do? I move directly to the both litter boxes and clean them out and sweep the floor around them. I move around the house and be sure things looked picked up. Let&#8217;s not forget the kitchen. It should be clean and wiped down. The coffeepot is set up, the button being pressed when I hear her stir. I brush my teeth and get ready to greet &#8220;The Morning Babe&#8221; When she sees me I have a smile from ear to ear and tell her, &#8220;This one&#8217;s for you Kid&#8221; I hug her, kiss her gently and tell her that I love her. She doesn&#8217;t wonder how I knew that she loved Walnuts because she already knew this and told me.

This is my attempt in my thinking to build a bridge from simplicity to more complicated. No love busters yet but would you say this is unfolding for me in a healthy direction? I might point out something I believe is true. I could only tell my wife I Love You if I gave her Walnuts. If I didn&#8217;t do all of those things I just described the morning after I could still thank for making me feel so good by meeting a big EM. That was her act of Love and it may not have given her nearly as much pleasure as it gave me but she didn&#8217;t mind this at all because after all see married a good Walnut supplier. She loves Walnuts and Walnuts make her feel good.

Aren&#8217;t we at our best when we feel our best? Does our giving depend a lot on receiving? I see this like a clock. I&#8217;m sitting at the 9:00 o-clock position and she is at the 3:00 o-clock position. When she moves to 4 I must think about getting to10 to maintain our greatest common interest and that is to feel good and feel good about each other.

Is this fantasy island thinking? Should I be looking for little TaTo, Boss, Boss, De plane, De plane. I hope you aren&#8217;t thinking thoughts like, God Donnie, Gag me with an entire place setting! I had to read this while I&#8217;m eating dinner! We&#8217;re writing to guy who want&#8217;s to talk about Puppy Love.

I will get to my story but this is just so built up in me at the moment and I want you to know that everything I question or ask about or share with you is coming to you via the Harley Filter.

At this point I have to save my questions for later out there in cyber-relationship land and Lynn, please don&#8217;t think I&#8217;m being insensitive or rude or disrespectful when I get back to this. I&#8217;m just a half-full person looking for the other half of some understanding. I really appreciate the time and effort you took to share a good slice of your life and I understand that I&#8217;m getting a view of you at a place in history so I can&#8217;t really know the whole story. As I reveal my own story you will probably say the same thing.

Donnie

Hello Again,

To get back to what I started. Can I tell you something? The little fantasy story about finding the note on the front door of the house is in reality a true fantasy of mine. I have never experience anything remotely like this in my entire life. Can I shed some light on where I&#8217;m at in the entire area of sexual fulfillment? I hope you can get a good laugh at this but I really find it hard to believe that any woman would do what I described in my story and do this for me. It&#8217;s gigantic! A mountain! It&#8217;s too good to be true. This is where 17 years of married life has left me. I feel disabled. When I read your post today about finding out about someone sexually before you made any kind of commitment to them I felt like someone just pounded me in the chest. The hair on the back of neck stood straight up. Is this true? You are a woman and you did mean what I read? Is there something wrong with me that I react like this?

I&#8217;m 47 years old and still feel like a virgin. I&#8217;m married 17 years this month and I still don&#8217;t know what it means to be sexually fulfilled. This never happened for me. Sex got tabled as quick as our marriage got started. It&#8217;s hard for me to figure out why and much harder still to figure how I let this many years go by without a real sexual relationship. This is tough for me as a man. The impact of this hit me 5 years ago. I fell in love. This had to happen. I really had no choice. Every important emotional need in my life went without any attention. I do not blame myself or my wife.

After sex is tabled the next level of life is independent behavior. That would best describe the only married life I ever knew. I have no real complaints. Life has been good to the two of us. We have no children, a nice home, 2 ½ acres of land, 9 cats (my true and only source of affection) two good jobs, two good salaries, summers off and plenty of money. And yet&#8230;I would trade half of this for the warmth of a good woman. A woman who would hold my hand and fall asleep with me almost every night of the week. My wife never could feel the importance of ending each day together. OH&#8230;Well So I should wonder why we never had sex?

On a lighter note-I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ve heard it said that behind every successful man is a good woman, right? So what&#8217;s behind a good woman? A good behind! LOL

Two very important things kept me anchored to my life style-neither of which had anything to do with marital fulfillment. The first and most important for me was I was happy with life. God has given me a heart felt grateful feeling about life and how to enjoy it. I could almost say that anything above this, such as the little things in life like marital fulfillment would be the gravy of life,LOL. I said almost didn&#8217;t I? The second was the other woman for these last 5 years. I couldn&#8217;t help being amazed at reading in HNHN when Harley said often times relationships improve at home during an affair because some emotional needs are being met outside of the marriage. He was talking to me. I found this to be true. It took the loneliness out of my home existence by adding some emotional content to the other part of my life. This was very eye opening. I had this little creed going on in my head that reads like this. I live with a woman who I don&#8217;t love and I love a woman who was not available. My heart gets stuck. I balanced this against my gratefulness of life and it seemed to keep me stable. This is another story.

I became a living vacuum, open to anybody who might give me just a slight sense that they could meet a need or two in my life. The balance got tipped in favor of my needs but not as far a full blown sexual affair might have taken me. It&#8217;s funny Lynn that you would tell me about your ex and his affair and after being so filled up with Harley concepts I would have placed him exactly where you described him to be, getting what he wanted. I would love you to know that I am one man who can see with new eyes just exactly where an affair leads and that&#8217;s right back to where we started. No free lunch. I&#8217;m so glad you shared that with me. It firms up one more of my Harley understandings. I will get to my questions but I also though maybe I should supply a little bit more information about my life and marriage.

Donnie

Donnie,

Yes, of course I meant what I said. I'm no nympho (see I can't even spell it <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> )but Sex happens to be very important to me and I think it is extremely important to an adult relationship. A lack of sexual compatability is one of the reasons I knew my last dating relationship would never work. There were other red flags of course but without providing way too much information, he couldn't keep up with me. He seemed to have a hard time relaxing and enjoying the moment. He had a hard time accepting that I wanted to please him ( we are all adults here, right ?) It was extremely frustrating to me that he would not allow me to meet the SF need for him. Perhaps that's where our core differences were way off. I don't know. Like I said, I have very little experience in this area and when people don't react the way I would expect them to, it makes me wonder what's going on. Ok, now I've shared too much.... and you just thought your bathtub fantasy was out there <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

I'll be 38 in a few months and I spent 1/2 my life with one man. Therefore sometimes, now that I'm single, I sort of feel like a virgin too. I can relate to what you are saying.

I would like to discuss this more with you but not here. I don't have anything to hide really and I will honestly answer any question. It's just that I would be more comfortable discussing my viewpoints on SF in another way. Perhaps e-mail or IM, etc. I'm not sure I could openly share in an open forum. Just sharing what I have in this post makes me somewhat uncomfortable since anyone can read this and some of the people here know me. My views on this topic are most likely different from some and while a few may understand, I'd rather not open that can of worms, if you know what I mean.

I'll leave that up to you if at some point you would like to get more detailed into that topic.

My life is a bit upside down at the moment as my 86 year old grandfather had a heart attact yesterday and is in intensive care. I'm actually sitting in my office in a cold downtown office building at midnight trying to get some things acccomplished so I can focus my attention on my family. It's been a long day but I take my responsibilites seriously and it's hard to me to rest knowing I might not meet some of our clients expectations.

Oh well, I just wanted to check in briefly and let you know I did read your post and I do understand. In fact, I'm quite the analogy person myself. I was not the one who had the physical affair but I do feel like I understand the concept of why people cheat. While I did not go outside my marriage for SF, I did allow other things in my life to meet my other emotional needs. Therefore, I may be guilty somewhat of having Emotional Affairs. Strangly not with other men but with a best friend/coworker(female) who I allowed to meet my need for admiration(praise over completed work projects) and conversation. There were obstacles to recreational companionship due to our conflicting work schedules and his addiction to cable TV. This also interfered with the Sexual Fulfillment need but honestly I think he failed to meet my need there much more often than I failed to meet his.

I need to get back to work but I'll catch up more later and see if you have any more questions for me. I want to re-read your chocolate/walnuts story and make sure I absorbed all the details.

I will completely understand if you don't feel comfortable e-mailing me outside of this forum and I will honestly try to answer anything you ask me even on that topic. I just know I could express myself more clearly in a more private setting.

Have a great day.

Lynn

Lynn, I don’t know why you’d worry. No one has picked up on this thread except us. And I’ll bet my own attitudes are further out there from most. Most of my life, I’ve been what you’d call “liberated.” And ending up with someone who couldn’t talk about fantasies was very difficult for me. For me, the way I like SF is with lots of openness and honesty about how we can please each other, including fantasies that we may never act upon. Also, admiration. I want a man who openly acknowledges he wants me physically. So for me, it’s all wrapped up together.

Just on note: Since birthing two girls, I’m no longer as liberated in my views. Plus, I realize I had some serious issues about sex, love and a mess of other stuff.

Donnie, you nailed down the Emotional Needs concept as well. Whether or not you call what you call the feeling is really semantics. I loved the way you carefully defined “love.” I personally call that “caring.” And the emotional response, I call romantic love.

I take it from what you’ve been writing the affair is over. Why?

Only thing it would be great to add to your analogy, D. How about the two people concoct a wondrous dish involving chocolate and walnuts? Why walnuts? I like walnuts, but pecans would go better with chocolate. Oh, shoot. Now you’ve got me thinking about pralines. And I’m in Phase one of South Beach!

Excellent South Beach Diet dessert:
½ cup part skim Ricotta
1 tea. cocoa
1 package splenda
½ tea. vanilla.
Sprinkle with almonds
Mix. Serve chilled.

Please note I doubled the cocoa powder in the receipt. It’s much more chocolatey now, with only a tinge of the bitter.

Well, FWIW, I think your attitude is right on the moeny Lynn and GG.

I don't find your comments at all DJ's are condecensing or anything else. I find them as you saying what you have leanred about yourself, about people in general, about some of your past choices and thoughts, and about your future plans and ideas.

So many i think hold on to things that just shouldn't be. Yeah, its good to try and to fight and to improve things, especially marriage. But I know that some people hold on longer than they really should, for everyone, and it is very hard to learn that.

I guess since we have all gone through it, it becomes more "clear" perhaps. But while oging through it, it is extremely agonizing.

Just another voice here that resonates very well with you three in this post.

Yep, some folks can read the books, hear the words, but it seems to stop there. It's like there's a disconnect between the words, ideas, and concepts and how it RELATES TO THEM. No discussion, no analysis, no opinions, nothing. I don't know why, but indeed, some folks are that way.

Phew...sure not for me, that's for sure!

Lynn

I&#8217;m very open to a conversation about SF off board. Is this OK to do? I&#8217;m sitting here thinking about that and I&#8217;m laughing. I often laugh when I&#8217;m thinking and I don&#8217;t know why. This thought just came to me-

I started this letter with the intention of explaining to you how I have applied HNHN to other relationships and suddenly, Bingo I see a new application with you and how it&#8217;s importance is becoming a little more relevant. Let me see if I can walk my talk and practice openness and honesty.

My first feeling is am I&#8217;m being unfaithful to the forum by stepping outside of it and having a conversation with you on the side? I&#8217;m new to this forum environment. Are there rules about this? The next thing I feel is some genuine interest in you because you have begun to meet one of my EN&#8217;s and that makes me feel good inside. I&#8217;m certain you understand this and to date you are the only one I know of that could. Just saying this adds more relevance to what I started out saying.

The last and best application of the Harley principles and you I find in his concept of the love Bank. Please remember I told you that I see for the most part in my life these days through the Harley Filter. I carry his description of the love bank close to my heart. It fits! It explains to me how we each all have an effect on each other. Your first response to my posting started an account in my Love Bank. By meeting to some degree my EN for conversation and a good bit of openness and honesty you have perhaps without knowing it deposited love units into your account.

It isn&#8217;t my intention to make a big deal out of this but to just express it the way it is at the moment. It comes out in my thinking like this, &#8220;Wow, the start of a new friendship.&#8221; What I expressed would be my way of beginning to lay a little bit of ground work in the area of openness and honesty and what I&#8217;m seeing is a budding friendship or in the words of Harley, a new account.

Can I count this posting as my way of setting my own kind of example concerning the things I have come to learn and apply with some newly formed principles? Is this staying in the spirit or in part of the spirit of the MB web site? I would invite anyone to add to this and this especially applies to you Lynn.

Donnie

Fiftytrees@aol
Lynn- Drop me a small note and I&#8217;ll get back to you

Greengables

If you read my posts you know my response would be the same as I expressed to Lynn, near disbelief! However&#8230;.I like what you both wrote and wish to talk much more about SF, but I don&#8217;t know how much to say on this &#8220;THREAD&#8221;??? Did I get that term right? It was on my list to ask you about that. Also STBX?? I have been working on that one.

Your next paragraph has a dark tone to it. It suddenly makes me think of my wife.

Just on note: Since birthing two girls, I&#8217;m no longer as liberated in my views. Plus, I realize I had some serious issues about sex, love and a mess of other stuff.

After re-reading several times the first paragraph and trying hard to read between lines I can&#8217;t come up with &#8220;serious issues about sex&#8221;. I would hate to hear &#8220;SIAS&#8221; has anything to do with fantasies as part of your SF. This is coming from a guy who has had to live in his own mind most of my married life. My mind and SF go hand in hand, no pun intended. How will I ever communicate that to any new relationships I may have in the future when it is the only near ethical thing I could do to sort of meet my need for SF. It&#8217;s a big one. Part of my sexual makeup at this point in my life has to be undone and can only be adjusted in an atmosphere of true acceptance by my lover. My reward for trying to express in only a verbal way all that I understand about sex and my sexual response is in more than half of my wife&#8217;s grounds for divorce. Sexual rejection began early for me and has now become the biggest fear in my life as I look toward the future. Part of my reaction to what Lynn said and what I&#8217;m reading from you is this thump in my chest and I realize it comes from fear. I&#8217;m tired of being afraid.

Thanks for your comments about how my EN concept is unfolding. This is the first time I&#8217;m able to get any feed back. Did I pass a little test? It would please me if you, Lynn or anyone else would challenge me. I&#8217;m still weak in much practical experience. I made an attempt with Lynn in my last post to apply some learning.

As far as the EA (emotional Affair) is concerned I won&#8217;t say it&#8217;s over because I&#8217;m still not sure what really started. She is perhaps the reason I invited my wife to counseling and indirectly the reason why my wife and I are splitting up but not in ways that you&#8217;re probably thinking. I would have to write about 2 pages more to share that story. If this would interest you I would share it. Please let me know. We are and remain good friends. We work together. She has a conservative balance in my Love Bank (to coin a phrase), a stable balance that I wouldn&#8217;t care to have grow any larger so long as wisdom has anything to do with it. The only real emotional need she meets in my life is attractiveness. I would consider her everything I would find physically beautiful in a woman. This need is important to me. She does however rank very high on my list of HNHN empty heads (my wife included just to be fair) so that could point to the idea of the gulf between 2 people I think you described in one of your posts.

Thanks so much for more words. One more thing. I&#8217;ve been cooking and baking all my life but what is &#8220;Splenda?&#8221;

D – no my issues didn’t stem from the M. LOL. Rather the usual mixing up sex and love, using sex to fill the void, with some good old Freudian Father/Daughter stuff thrown in.
As for the mind/SF relationship, don’t worry. For women it’s all in the head. That’s one reason we need such a long warm up period. A friend of mine is actually specializing in women’s sexual dysfunction because it’s all chemical.

This is an okay place to discuss it, though usually SF gets a lot more play on the Emotional Needs board. Just put SF in your title and you’ll see lots of action. And many people are quite candid. Just remember that while this is an anonymous place, when you share bits here and there, people may be able to place you in real life.

Sometimes it’s easiest to be the most candid when you’re new. I now know one person physically, e-mail with several. And I pretty upfront with them. BUT, I’m no longer anonymous.

And you used “thread” properly! STBX is Soon To Be X. It’s useful in preventing people new to your story from thinking you are working toward saving your marriage.

Oh, Splenda is the new low calorie sweetener. But it’s made from real sugars and has no after taste and does not induce sudden, intense migraines. It’s great unless you plan to mix it with egg whites. My meringues turned out terribly! It ruined the texture of the whites, turning them suddenly grainy. And I did NOT over beat either!

It works well in dressings and sauces though. A nice alternative if you have to watch your blood sugar like I do.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">by gg: A funny side note: When my STBX was saying how he thought we were similar enough to be happily married, I asked him how we were similar. He answered “We both like to read, and we both like to eat out and travel.” Okay, so we have some common recreational activities.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Hi GG, this is a little OT for this thread (I love talking about HN/HN stuff, too, btw, and have trouble finding a sparing partner, outside of my H)

But your quote really caught me. This is so funny... My H used to always say we were the same, and he meant exactly what your H did; similar interest and hobbies (and YES, we do have an amazing # of similar interest). Both of our ex's did not share are interests.

Last year, I got into the Myers Briggs personality typing, and guess what... we are 4 letter opposites (ENTJ vs ISFP)! We could not be any more different! He does however, place high priority on this marriage, and does believe in all the work we've done to keep it working, and in MB. He's a good fit, even if he's a Introverted, sensing, feeling, perceiving type <img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="images/icons/tongue.gif" /> .

btw, I'm DYING to talk Myers/Briggs with someone. I think it's so facinating.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">by pp: I took a relationship that should have lasted 6 weeks and made 17 years out of it. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Ooh... same here, but 7 years... I can really relate to your story with my 1st H. I thought that I should just work harder since it was bad; concentrate on HIS needs, while mine were not met. The comment about 4 years of bass tourneys really hit home <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" /> . I did so much in hopes of making him happy, while my needs were labeled as 'insecurites'. He saw my needs for conversation, affection, and rec compan. as a weeknesses on my part, that I should 'learn to overcome'. My need for DS was just 'stupid'; he should be able to spend all he wanted w/o regard for me (also a Southern boy). I made the money, he spent it.

And amazingly, he was shocked when I told him I was divorcing him. Just shocked. I'd been asking him for MC for 4-5 YEARS, we fought constantly, but he seemed to think I'd just take it forever. I am SO smarter now... (I was 19yo when we married <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> ).

Now, personality wise, exH was a xxTJ, like me, so he was dry-ly logical and organized, like me, and unlike my current H. But exH used his thinking and organizational skills against me... just to prove how wrong I was all the time <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> .

I'm much happier with my more feel-y, less 'neat' current H. Such a good fit. Goodluck! - Dru