|
Post by flyingsolo on Feb 5, 2018 16:30:19 GMT -5
To me, "date night" is so contrived for married people. One of the main reasons I got married was to avoid dating! LOL. I mean, seriously, I get the concept of date night, but it just seems weird when you've been married for 20 years or so to call it that. FWIW: I think "date night" is not for married people... it is for married people with kids. "Get out of the house, spend some time with each other; talking about the kids and household to-do lists is strictly off limits." Those were pretty much the exact instructions of our marital therapist. Did your marital therapy work?
|
|
|
Post by greatcoastal on Feb 5, 2018 16:37:56 GMT -5
We do lots of things together that we both enjoy. Walks, kayaking, camping in our vintage camper, movie nights, our hobby farm, gardening (her), canning (me). It's a good life and I wouldn't change much of it so there you go. Lovely days spent doing things we enjoy together just don't end in the sack. I am grateful that the SM tension has been relieved (because I gave up "talking about it"). Passionate? No, but mostly pretty good. She just doesn't do intimate. I 'm not sure I could handle that? I went through that ,sort of okay, for 10 yrs or so...just fooling myself really. Being passive and settling. Thinking "we" were compromising, when the only one compromising was my self. the irritability rises and the falseness begins to crumble.Then it becomes easier to go separate ways.
|
|
|
Post by flyingsolo on Feb 5, 2018 16:47:26 GMT -5
I do still have fun with my wife, just not always the kind of fun that I am in the mood for. She likes for us to get together with other couples a lot, which I don't necessarily mind. However, I'd prefer we get together with each other in the bedroom....... We recently got back from a trip out west with the kids. It was a fun time, but the car ride out and back was very quiet. She spent most of it with headphones on listening to books, while I drove the entire way out and back. If we spoke for more than an hour (cumulative total) during the entire drive out and back (almost 40 hours of driving), I would be surprised.
I find myself asking a different question and will ask you all the same - Do you spend more time thinking about what your spouse is, or more time about what he/she isn't?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2018 17:24:29 GMT -5
We do lots of things together that we both enjoy. Walks, kayaking, camping in our vintage camper, movie nights, our hobby farm, gardening (her), canning (me). It's a good life and I wouldn't change much of it so there you go. Lovely days spent doing things we enjoy together just don't end in the sack. I am grateful that the SM tension has been relieved (because I gave up "talking about it"). Passionate? No, but mostly pretty good. She just doesn't do intimate. I 'm not sure I could handle that? I went through that ,sort of okay, for 10 yrs or so...just fooling myself really. Being passive and settling. Thinking "we" were compromising, when the only one compromising was my self. the irritability rises and the falseness begins to crumble.Then it becomes easier to go separate ways. That's why i'm still on this forum, to manage the irritability. If there is a compromising scale of 0 to 100 and a true median is that two people meet at 50 then we're on 97 and I started at 0. In the world of "why don't we have sex more often" then I clearly lost. In the world of "do I want to be angry and resentful about it all the time" then I won. I had to let go. Not ideal and not what I wanted but I'm not going to leave for all of the reasons people give for not leaving.
|
|
|
Post by greatcoastal on Feb 5, 2018 18:21:22 GMT -5
I 'm not sure I could handle that? I went through that ,sort of okay, for 10 yrs or so...just fooling myself really. Being passive and settling. Thinking "we" were compromising, when the only one compromising was my self. the irritability rises and the falseness begins to crumble.Then it becomes easier to go separate ways. That's why i'm still on this forum, to manage the irritability. If there is a compromising scale of 0 to 100 and a true median is that two people meet at 50 then we're on 97 and I started at 0. In the world of "why don't we have sex more often" then I clearly lost. In the world of "do I want to be angry and resentful about it all the time" then I won. I had to let go. Not ideal and not what I wanted but I'm not going to leave for all of the reasons people give for not leaving. I certainly understand the "reasons for not leaving" I stayed married for 25 yrs. you have my empathy. Perhaps I should thank my wife for being the zero empathy person she is. One small example: the night I told her "I was ending the marriage" there where no tears, no remorse, just instant "self preservation tactics" . She went straight home and started moving money. Others get dragged through the " I'm sorry, forgive me, I'll change, remember all our good times, I need you, etc...." That fake guilt was not placed on me. (Their are other guilt's like the children, but even that is quite low)
|
|
|
Post by jim44444 on Feb 9, 2018 10:17:13 GMT -5
Do you still have fun doing things with your sexless spouse outside the bedroom? I am not referring to going to events as passive audience members, I mean doing things together than you both enjoy. Yes we do. Tonight we are going shooting together. A cruise next week. And we also enjoy the passive audience member events and discussions afterwards. Much of our time is taken up with grandchildren. This is all well and good to have fun together but it does nothing to solve the SM.
|
|
|
Post by choosinghappy on Feb 9, 2018 10:34:42 GMT -5
I find myself asking a different question and will ask you all the same - Do you spend more time thinking about what your spouse is, or more time about what he/she isn't? flyingsolo I think this is a great question buried in the responses here. As for me, when I was happier with my H I spent more time thinking about what he WAS (all his good qualities) and overlooking the bad. But now that I am unhappy and frustrated in the marriage I spend more time focusing on what he ISN'T. I'd be willing to bet for those of us in unhappy SMs that is likely more often the case. If you were to try to work on your marriage you'd need to actively try to focus on the good qualities of your spouse.
|
|
|
Post by cagedadventurer on Feb 9, 2018 12:42:18 GMT -5
I find myself asking a different question and will ask you all the same - Do you spend more time thinking about what your spouse is, or more time about what he/she isn't? flyingsolo I think this is a great question buried in the responses here. As for me, when I was happier with my H I spent more time thinking about what he WAS (all his good qualities) and overlooking the bad. But now that I am unhappy and frustrated in the marriage I spend more time focusing on what he ISN'T. I'd be willing to bet for those of us in unhappy SMs that is likely more often the case. If you were to try to work on your marriage you'd need to actively try to focus on the good qualities of your spouse. Yes lonelywifey, that is actually a huge help when the focal point is changed. Unfortunately the black cloud of rejection and frustration remain; weighing heavily. So it is difficult to re-focus longterm if the rejection is month upon month year upon year. JMX once stated that maybe we're spoiled as so many other things in life are good. Healthy kids, jobs, no chronic issues, etc. So to focus on those good things can help. But no matter what, the rejection from those who CAN perform vs. a spouse very ill who cannot are very different types of frustrations.
|
|
|
Post by flyingsolo on Feb 9, 2018 18:58:58 GMT -5
I find myself asking a different question and will ask you all the same - Do you spend more time thinking about what your spouse is, or more time about what he/she isn't? flyingsolo I think this is a great question buried in the responses here. As for me, when I was happier with my H I spent more time thinking about what he WAS (all his good qualities) and overlooking the bad. But now that I am unhappy and frustrated in the marriage I spend more time focusing on what he ISN'T. I'd be willing to bet for those of us in unhappy SMs that is likely more often the case. If you were to try to work on your marriage you'd need to actively try to focus on the good qualities of your spouse. Agreed, but focusing on the positives can be SO difficult when one has gone through years of rejection. My wife and I have been in marital counseling since June. I do believe it is helping on some levels and I do still enjoy spending time with her. As you noted though, it is difficult to focus on the positive qualities of someone and everything that is going well in life when there's always the elephant in the room when it comes to emotional and physical intimacy with my spouse. For me, it would change by leaps and bounds on both a physical and emotional level if once, just once, she would initiate physical intimacy. We are coming up on a year without sex, and when I say without sex, I mean without any sort of physical intimacy other than a kiss and not even any passionate ones at that. My wife thinks it is perfectly normal to go a year without any kind of sex when you are working on marital issues. I've stated many times to her that I believe we need to work on both emotional and physical intimacy to fix our marriage. She has made it clear that emotional intimacy is way more important to her and that nothing is happening on the other front.
Now, I will preface this by saying my wife has lost a lot of family members in the past 20 years. We've had kids and I've spent a lot of time growing my business over the same time period. There are a lot of factors on both of our sides that have led us to where we are today. There is blame on both sides. The trick is overlooking the blame side of things and focusing on what is still good and worth saving in our marriage. However, going back to same old sex with me initiating every single time isn't something I am really willing to accept at this point. If I am working hard at becoming more emotionally connected and open with her (which is very difficult to do when being rejected for so long), I would expect her to be working on how to become less inhibited physically and actually take some role in our physical relationship. I don't think that's too much to ask. In the past 20 years, I think I can count on less than one hand the number of times she was the one to initiate sex. That is more than a little disappointing.
So, as I have stated on here before, I will give it 100% for my kids' sake if nothing else because I still do love my spouse. However, I do have the foggy idea of a timeline in my head where I either need to see marked progress on both intimacy fronts or we are going to have a serious discussion about how we plan to live the rest of our lives as I can't continue to live without intimacy. If we get to two years without some re-establishment of sexual relations, I think I'm done. It will suck and suck badly, but there are plenty of other beautiful fish in the sea. I don't mind going fishing to find a few.
|
|
|
Post by deadzone75 on Feb 11, 2018 23:41:08 GMT -5
We used to have silly fun now and then, and even date night was amusing until the weight of knowing I would get no sex in the end made me just want to stay home.
Now, it's pretty much resentment and anger 24/7.
|
|