Ads for divorce services started popping up on our PC. She questioned me about it which I ignored and later when I was busy working in the yard found MMSL and she read many of my threads and postings. She was very upset. This was 3 weeks ago and I have not posted to MMSL since. She has been reading MMSL and the forum since then.
The things that I remember that upset her were that I considered myself SR higher than her, that I felt I was Phase 4 ready for an ultimatum, that I questioned my attraction and love to her. Also she was pretty upset that I would share those intimate details with strangers and not talk to her about it. There are probably more but I am jumbled trying to remember it all. Lots of yelling, talked about divorce and it freaked out our kids. She questioned if I was really willing to work on things and if she really wanted to keep trying.
Clearly as lots of forum members told me while I had done some good work myself I had not made enough changes in how I interact with her or given it enough time for her to believe in the changes. In the end we both agreed that she is not happy and I still have work to do but we are both still willing to work on us because of the good times that we have had and can have and because we are both committed to try to do the best for our kids.
I posted some very hurtful things. I was angry and I wrote that in the context that we weren’t talking, listening or willing to believe the other person because of what happened in the past. I felt she didn’t care and wouldn’t read my MMSL or MAP books on my bedside table and that I didn’t care if she read my forum posts when I clearly said some hurtful stuff in them. She suggested that it was very passive-aggressive that that I let it come up this way. I now regret this attitude of mine. It came from the fact that in the past years I have searched so many resources to try to improve our marriage many of them turned out to be very ‘blue pill’ and just told me to help more with the kids, buy more flowers, do the dishes, etc…. it didn’t help with attraction.
My thoughts on being phase 4 ultimatum ready were that I was ready to say something to her and I was trying to work out what that was. Not at all ready to leave but I was ready to bring something brought out in the open just should not have done it this way. So often I have read to take action not to talk about it so I was trying to show her through my action that I had changed before bringing it up.
On the “my SR higher than hers” I felt like we were similar when we met physically, both hot. We were both fit but she had her career/life more together than me so she was higher than me. Now her weight has gone up with kids but she is down to about the weight when we met and is pretty awesome for our age and has recently gotten tons of compliments from lots of people we know. I am currently more fit, my career has done well and just the Male/Female thing as we are in our early 40’s. I am/was not trying to discount what she has done and is doing for herself and our kids.
On questioning my attraction for her I think this is 2 things; one is when she is negative it is not attractive and second is where when I trigger her drive it is really attractive to me. The fact that I have done such a poor job in leading us and bringing out her drive I began to resent and blame her. I began to wonder if I was attracted to her because I was doing such a poor job of bringing out her interest.
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Childcare has been a challenge for us all along. We went through a nanny that only worked 2 weeks, daycares/dayhomes that were crappy, one daycare that was working and eventually shut down due to bad management. One nanny that lived in and did very little but care for the kids. Good with the youngest but challenged by the older 2. Through all of this (past 11 years) my wife was very stressed by the childcare and it affected her in a couple good jobs. Finally since our 3rd she stayed home. She never planned to or wanted to be a SAHM. She had a great career from her 20’s until being at home for the last 6ish years.
She is resentful that I didn’t do much with finding/interviewing nannies. Granting that I helped find, check etc the daycares/day homes but she did more of the work finding the nannies. The nanny allowed me to go back to work and we did that together because I wanted her input on it with the ones since then she has done the majority of the finding/interviewing etc as she was at home at the time.
A big part of the problem is that she has never really recovered from the hurtful compulsive porn use that I did around the time our first 2 kids were born. I was in the cycle of she is recovering with the new baby, I am so nice I won’t pressure her for sex just use the porn…. At the time I justified it as a good thing but it got out of control. When there was a 2nd ‘discovery’ after our 2nd child was 2 the secrecy and lying was very hurtful. At that time we separated for 6 weeks at her requirement. We worked it out and I got help and stopped soon after that but she never really believed it. This fueled a cycle of her not trusting me, sex not really comfortable for either of us, me resenting…. I have seen that over and over this has destroyed her trust and how it wrecked her believing me when I said how beautiful she was.
The recent discovery led to some deep painful discussions about all this which has lead to a lot of openness. She understands the that I want more sex and after the first couple days of trying to figure out where we stood on all this we have had sex more often and it has ranged from her forcing herself to do it for me to very hot. Being physically fit definitely helps with responsiveness. But far more so does directness and confidence. My wife definitely is more responsive to my advances if they are strong, confident and direct. I still am very poor in my communication with her. I know she doesn’t really want to be cooking and cleaning etc so I struggle to ask her to do those things. Recently I caught myself indirectly asking her to make dinner so I could work in the yard.
It has been an enlightening time for me. We have been more open about what we want and are missing from each other. Listening to her - literally hearing what she says and remembering details. Show her she is beautiful. Acknowledge her in front of others.
Clearly my wife has indicated that she feels threatened by this whole situation. She has set herself back career-wise for our kids if we were to divorce she would have limited options. I tried to reassure her that I am not trying to get out of my obligations to our kids.
So what does this all mean now? We both have committed to try to make this work. I have a lot of work to do and the Gym is the easy part.
The secret to happiness is being able to answer.....
...if I wanted to, I could.
@ddad - Miscellaneous thoughts here (I'm responding only to you b/c you're the only one who's provided info):
1) Why on earth is cooking and cleaning even an issue? If she's a SAHM and you work full-time, it only makes sense for her to do most of it - whether or not she likes it. This is an issue to the extent that you let it be one.
2) Something absolutely has to be done about her guilt-tripping and her assorted resentments. Your marriage cannot withstand something that toxic. The porn stuff is ancient history, she made her choice to stick it out and, assuming you made amends adequately, that needs to be left in the past where it belongs. Do not feed into whatever she says or does in relation to that.
3) It's unfortunate the MMSL discovery played out like it did. Perhaps there were things you should have brought up with her first before posting them here, I don't know. But it wasn't like you were gossiping with the guys on a camping trip - you came here to improve your life and your marriage.
4) When you screw up, make a complete and thorough apology, but do it only once per transgression. I suspect you're letting her shame you long after the first acknowledgement of wrongdoing, and you need to make it clear that you've already offered a sincere apology & that you're not going to endlessly revisit it.
@ddad, keep coming here to learn, and work to be the best version of you possibly. Your wife will continue to take notice, and will appreciate what you are doing.
I encourage you to give your side of the story. People tend to post things that make themselves look good and perhaps ignore some of their own flaws. It is human nature. It is likely that @ddad did some of that as well. I think you'll find the forum to be a surprisingly balanced place that will help guide you both through some troubled waters. The trolls seems to be well moderated and modulated here. The goal is to make better marriages through understanding and leveraging the inherent differences between the psychological and biological proclivities of the sexes.
- KELINDA Star Trek TOS, "By any other name"
1 she is doing a lot cooking cleaning and organizing our house with no prompting from me. I struggle to ask her specific requests in those areas because I know it is not something she likes.
2 we both agree the porn is ancient but it is a marker in our relationship as she has not trusted or believed me since then.
D
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Fuck Culture. Live your life - Beatrice
He was wrong to say the hurtful things he did about you, but the other side of the coin was that he was looking to help his relationship. So his approach wasn't good, but his intentions were.
@eightbit told me he was reading it and I didn't think much about it until I realized how much he was changing. I knew about the forum for a while and he asked me to join because we still struggle at times. I have found it's a nice tool that brings up a lot of communication between us. I hope you find the same is true. Welcome.
I'm guessing ddad made negative comments about his wife and his marriage. Most of us here, men and women, have done so about our spouses. Sometimes it's just victim puke and sometimes it's truth. Sometimes it's a combination of the two. My advice for dmom is to look at those negative comments made by ddad. Look at them with an open mind. Try and decide if there is some truth in those comments and own it if there is truth. dmom is no different than any of us. We all fuck up. We all contribute to problems in our relationship and we all have our areas of weakness. No one can fix their 'red areas' if they can't see them and own them.
Those assertions that ddad has made that dmom disagrees with should simply be viewed as areas ripe for open and honest communication.
Welcome to the forum. Now it's time for you and ddad to get to work.
The Secret to Why Your Wife Doesn't Initiate; Top Two Reasons Your Husband Doesn't Want Sex; Dominance-It's Not a Bad Word; Top 10 Ways to Increase Testosterone Naturally
The Secret to Why Your Wife Doesn't Initiate; Top Two Reasons Your Husband Doesn't Want Sex; Dominance-It's Not a Bad Word; Top 10 Ways to Increase Testosterone Naturally