I screwed up with The Talk....am I screwed?

Shammy said: “It probably feels good to do that "in your face" stuff but I've never met a woman who that wouldn't cut them deeply. “

Meet me. After 8 straight years sexless at the end of my 35 year marriage, I asked for a divorce. My husband, 62, then revealed he had been having an affair and was supporting a toddler he thought he had fathered in the Phillipines.

I never exploded. We lived as polite roommates for almost a year until just before the divorce was final.

Frankly, I was relieved he’d been having an affair because that was my get out of jail free card. I also was relieved that his detached behavior had been due to an affair not the Alzheimer’s that is rampant in his family. Learning about the child (which dna testing later revealed wasn’t his) made me disgusted and repelled because I did not want a man who could live such s lie.

Not one time did I raise my voice at him. My romantic love for him was long gone. He wasn’t worth the energy of explosive anger. I also got a divorce settlement that was fair to both of us. I didn’t try for revenge.

Yeah, I thought it odd, too. But the "look on the bright side" of another poster made me think of the line, "So other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"

I just spent a day and a half with my daughter, son-in-law and grandkids.


My wife has a history with my daughter doing what she wants even when daughter tells her explicitly not to. So when daughter was in labor, she told wife not to go to the hospital and she did anyway. She told wife not to EVER bring a baby to bed to sleep with her (where the baby could be smothered) and she did anyway.



To put it mildly, my daughter is wary of any help my wife offers to give.

Daughter has had a hard time at work these last couple of weeks, a management shakeup has left her with a supervisor who is making her life miserable.

But when she told my wife about her problems at work on Friday, my wife sent back an email that was caring, well thought out, helpful and maternal. 

My daughter was taken aback. Wife 1.0 would try to be helpful but would take over the problem, tell her what to do, act insulted when advice wasn't taken and  my daughter would have to calm her down, in a role reversal. Now she was actually acting like a mother. 

The reason this is relevant here is that if my wife is only interested in an elaborate reset with me, there is no reason she would also act differently with our daughter. Wife 2.0 is also Mother 2.0.

This turnaround has much bigger dimensions than the marriage, it appears.

Or, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is happening for real.

Just a brief update....

I'm going tomorrow to see my wife in the middle of the country and then to drive back with her over 4 days.

How things go may indicate whether this sea change in our marriage is real or not.

We haven't been able to try out any sexy phone talk, because she has no privacy, but honestly she'd have no idea how to do it if she wanted to.

And that's part of what I need to figure out. We are very, very different people. It would be hard enough to reconcile if we had lots in common, but we don't.... unless we start to build new memories and habits and interests together. Better 31 years late than never!

I'm finding quirky (and practical) places to stop off on the way; places with high Facebook picture potential. Up until a month ago my wife had NEVER put any pictures of me on her well-updated FB page. And still none of us together. I'm interested if she wants to put any smiling selfies of both of us on her page.

So while I'm enthusiastic about the next few days.... something I would have dreaded not long ago....I'm still going to be trying to analyze the situation with part of my brain while trying to have as much fun as possible with the rest of it.

The thing I'm trying hard NOT to do is to compare my wife with my most recent AP. This is hard for me since I am analytical, but it isn't fair to her. Wife would fall short in most ways, but it is comparing something I have with something I never can. I'm working on it. Cue up Steven Stills' "Love the One You're With."

One other bizarre thought entered my head today. My marriage is no longer sexless according to the standard definition for this calendar year. If anyone would have told me in July not only that I'd be looking forward to a trip with my wife stuck in a car with me for 18 hours, but that our marriage would no longer be sexless a month later, I would have assumed they were insane.

One good month does not a marriage make, but as of this moment, IDLIASM.

So. Fucking. Weird.

Great question, and one I have been thinking about.

There are two separate and related things going on (probably more, but I'll simplify.) One is that she is suddenly enjoying sex. The other is that our communications have gotten immeasurably better.

I mentioned a couple of cases where I told her that I was uncomfortable about something she said and she appreciated my telling her. Yesterday was a small but significant example of her doing the same. the conversation went something like this:

Her: You are doing a great job with planning the trip.
Me, thinking she was being sarcastic because I don't think I'm doing that great a job: Yeah, right, you don't really mean that.
Her: That's actually insulting. I do mean it.
Me: Really? I don't think I'm doing that well, you really think so?
Her: You are doing it better than I could (which is true.)
Me, uncomfortable with being complimented: Um, well, okay.
Her: When you are complimented, you should say thank you, right? (It was not said in a condescending way.)
Me: Thank you very much.

A couple of months ago, even if she would have complimented me, I wouldn't have believed her or I would have said thanks without really feeling she was being sincere. And if I would have answered as I did this time, it would have started a fight. 

So because we are doing so much better in communicating, combined with the sex, the automatic defensiveness and attack cycle has been 90% replaced with assumptions of good will , giving each other the benefit of the doubt and the knowledge that we are being heard and understood. 

The good will spills over into other stuff. She seems to be much more flexible in which activities she would want to do with me, and I would probably be the same. 

Old habits still come up a little, but in general we are heading off issues as soon as they come up rather than letting them fester as we used to.

I still don't want to see her movies (but if she asks me I will) and she doesn't want to see mine. (I haven't tried asking her to watch a movie I like with me in a long time, might be a fun thing to try.) We can't discuss politics or philosophy or (most) books. We do share a general outlook on how we should both grow in our faith, we do share a tremendous love for our kids and grandkids, we both like to learn from the other and hear the others' viewpoints. 

All this is being said with the full understanding that we are still in a honeymoon phase (the zip code therapy does not seem to have cooled that down at all) and we might be far more willing to let things go than we might in a month/six months/whatever. 

To more precisely answer the question, the dealbreakers for me that caused me to want to divorce were lack of sex (along with the feeling of being worthless that came from that,) lack of respect, lack of trust and a generally toxic environment where we couldn't talk and where we assumed the worst about the other. . The other incompatibilities seemed like further nails in the coffin but they weren't the major issues.

I'm glad your daughter is OK, but what an upsetting experience for all of you! I hope you have safe, easy travels home.

Thank baza and northstarmom. And thanks to TMobile for an hour of free WiFi on the plane 😁

Hearing from your daughter that her heart stopped during a routine laproscopic appendectomy does not make a fun day.

Now if only I could get some sleep... 30 hours and counting.