Her father had a pretty explosive temper and clearly resented his wife. Overall, while he had his way of being loving toward his children, he scared the heck out of them. He's calmed down a lot, but my wife is the only one of the kids who still has a relationship with him and things usually aren't that close between her and him. Her mother was often cold and distant, which provoked great sadness and loneliness in my W. This accounts for my wife's approach to parenting that I described earlier; she doesn't want our kids to ever feel like she did. My MIL clearly loved my W, but often shut out everything and everyone. Hence my FIL's resentment. My MIL had a pretty sad childhood and it definitely affected her the rest of her life. I think depression runs in both sides. My W is very aware of what she's repeating from her childhood. Unfortunately, when it comes to our relationship, that tends to fill her with the sort of shame and dread that paralyzes her, rather than pushing her to work hard against it.
Yes, I realize this might explain a lot of the current situation, especially considering how I was before I started working on me. I think one of the side benefits of what I've done with myself is to show her that I'm not like her dad (or mine, either). But I also doubt that has fully sunk in with her yet, although she seems to have some awareness of that. Posted via Mobile Device
Emotionally broken people usually suffer from some combination of PTSD and a personality disorder.
This makes it extraordinarily difficult for them to take responsibility for their actions (which leads to blameshifting) as they are literally afraid of harsh punishment if admitting a mistake. Their right brain/subconscious warns them that harsh punishment is coming - as it often has when they've screwed up.
All her relationships will be this way until she addresses it.
Deep down she is likely very angry.
And, you are the recipient of those emotions. The anger "understudy" who now plays a leading role.
One of the most difficult parts about fixing yourself is that it often isn't "all there is to do".
You're on target with what you say. There is an underlying anger to my wife that explodes to the surface when she's pushed into uncomfortable territory. Plus, my wife has admitted multiple times to always being afraid of getting in trouble because of her childhood. Besides preventing her from sticking her neck out at important moments, it's definitely led to serious blame-shifting on her part. Some of our worst arguments, including a few that have almost finished us, have come from that fear-driven blame-shifting. Most of the issues she's done this blame-shifting about are very minor and life would have been a whole lot easier if she just dealt with the actual issue, rather than sending things careening off in some other direction to try to put the blame on me. [In fact, I can't think of a very serious problem we've ever had that started as a big problem. It's almost always been something relatively small or ridiculous that gets blown up into a disaster that didn't need to happen.] I have always had a strong commitment to owning one's mistakes and accepting whatever fallout comes from having screwed up. I've done a lot of stupid stuff in my life, but I've been willing to cop to it and take a beating (figuratively or literally) when it's called for. I hold others to the same standard. So, that sort of blame-shifting, especially when it's done with so much anger behind it and in situations in which she's clearly saying pretty much anything she has to in order to escape the consequences of what she's said or done (or, even more commonly, so that she doesn't have to admit certain bad feelings she has about herself), would just set me off about as bad as anything could. It really feels like a betrayal when it happens.
There definitely is nothing I can do to change this about her, no matter how much work I do on myself. I am a lot more aware of this blame-shifting and am less likely to fall into arguments with her when she moves into this mode. Over the years, I've found that directly calling her on it only makes her explode worse. The times I've dealt with it best have been when I've told her that the discussion is over and I refuse to engage any more, and have just walked away. I have no stomach for being a target of that kind of misdirected anger.
FNG:
I suspect you're probably right in what you say, too. I don't know if it's a test of where I'm at now, but I agree that what she says about not swooning and some of her behaviors stem from a desire/need on her part to avoid dealing with heavy feelings. I'd bet that's all part of the mess of stuff Conrad highlighted.
I'm going to continue responding to her as I have been, but I think for now I need to keep the temperature lower on my side when it comes to initiating things. Maybe it doesn't need to be kept quite as low as I've recently set it, but I do think it's good for her to have the room to take the lead for a while and see where that goes. It's definitely important that I respond to her efforts, though, so that it reinforces those behaviors.
I love her and very much want things to work. I don't suffer from some "she's the only one" delusion and my patience isn't eternal. But once things get outside the zone where her issues kick in, she's a very high quality woman and presents a unique package of strengths. I'm willing to take the chance that things won't work and that my efforts to re-build the connection with her will fail, but I'm not really worried any more about getting hurt. One of the things I've gotten pretty good at is reminding myself that I'm going to be fine no matter how things go with my marriage. It would be a damn shame for it to not work out, as I do think we could have a really great life together. But I can't make that happen by myself.
You're on target with what you say. There is an underlying anger to my wife that explodes to the surface when she's pushed into uncomfortable territory. Plus, my wife has admitted multiple times to always being afraid of getting in trouble because of her childhood. Besides preventing her from sticking her neck out at important moments, it's definitely led to serious blame-shifting on her part. Some of our worst arguments, including a few that have almost finished us, have come from that fear-driven blame-shifting. Most of the issues she's done this blame-shifting about are very minor and life would have been a whole lot easier if she just dealt with the actual issue, rather than sending things careening off in some other direction to try to put the blame on me. [In fact, I can't think of a very serious problem we've ever had that started as a big problem. It's almost always been something relatively small or ridiculous that gets blown up into a disaster that didn't need to happen.] I have always had a strong commitment to owning one's mistakes and accepting whatever fallout comes from having screwed up. I've done a lot of stupid stuff in my life, but I've been willing to cop to it and take a beating (figuratively or literally) when it's called for. I hold others to the same standard. So, that sort of blame-shifting, especially when it's done with so much anger behind it and in situations in which she's clearly saying pretty much anything she has to in order to escape the consequences of what she's said or done (or, even more commonly, so that she doesn't have to admit certain bad feelings she has about herself), would just set me off about as bad as anything could. It really feels like a betrayal when it happens.
There definitely is nothing I can do to change this about her, no matter how much work I do on myself. I am a lot more aware of this blame-shifting and am less likely to fall into arguments with her when she moves into this mode. Over the years, I've found that directly calling her on it only makes her explode worse. The times I've dealt with it best have been when I've told her that the discussion is over and I refuse to engage any more, and have just walked away. I have no stomach for being a target of that kind of misdirected anger.
T-Man,
Just make sure you separate standing up for yourself from anger. All that does is escalate.
Make her own her own chaos.
All you tell her is what you are and are not ok with.
Seriously, "I'm not ok with that kind of treatment"
And, you leave it there.
Let her fight with herself.
The beauty is, you don't have to "convince" her why you "should not" be ok with that.
As a no longer "nice guy" you no longer require her sign-off for your feelings and convictions.
I need to keep the temperature lower on my side when it comes to initiating things. Maybe it doesn't need to be kept quite as low as I've recently set it, but I do think it's good for her to have the room to take the lead for a while and see where that goes. It's definitely important that I respond to her efforts, though, so that it reinforces those behaviors.
I think Conrad is right about setting firm boundaries. You can't take the bait and engage.
Beyond that, I think it is a waste of time to devote mental energy to understanding/fixing your wife and her issues. That is her job and you have enough to do on your end.
My main concern about your quote above is that you still seem very focused on her and her mood. The fact that you took the conversation and her comments so seriously makes it look to me like you are still being triggered.
Is the hose still attached?
Detaching the hose ties neatly into the boundary setting - let her spin by herself, while you calmly stay grounded and centered. There is also a big difference between smothering (which us NG's have a way of doing, particularly when we need reassurance) and tiptoeing around.
By the way, who initiated the conversation? If it was you, were you looking for reassurance?
It's so close to my situation that I could have written your post. She's working through issues. The problem was that in the meantime I was going nuts.
I finally declared a sexual moratorium the other day. No sex for a set amount of time. It's plenty of time for her to work through her issues. She doesn't know how long it is so there's no date she sees coming that provides pressure for her. It allows me to be affectionate, and for her to enjoy my affection without feeling the pressure that I'm after sex. I gets rid of the open-ended timeframe for her fixing her issues that was driving me nuts.
Mostly what it does is make it MY decision, not hers. It puts me in control, not her. It really feels so much better.
I initiated the conversation. It was in response to a fit she started to throw. Basically, she immediately got stressed out when I asked her if she had ten seconds for one big passionate kiss (I figured I'd give that trick from MMSL a spin, just for fun). My thinking was the kiss probably wouldn't lead to sex, but if it did, great. If not, it would be a nice burst of intense affection that would have been great on its own. She balked and went right into full-on "I don't feel like having sex tonight" mode, with an agitated tone of voice and the insinuation that she's some sort of victim in all this. I calmly tried to explain to her that sex wasn't really what I was directly after, although I admitted that it wasn't too far from my mind, either. And then I said I was still interested in having that ten seconds with her. Since she can't admit that she screwed up or overreacted (see Conrad's post above), she ups the ante and says she doesn't feel like being passionate at all, even for ten seconds. Then she said something about all the pressure she feels from me just waiting around for her to give the green light. I tried to explain to her that I don't just sit around waiting for her to give the green light and that I found it insulting that she thinks that's how I spend my time. In response to that, I got a small lecture on the difference between how I perceive things and how she perceives things. From there, I pushed to try to address what was going on. She didn't want to have the talk, but I felt like since she had opened the can of worms, I was going to get some answers about what was behind these not-infrequent overreactions. I kept the talk focused and made sure to end it quickly, rather than allowing it to cycle back over all the same painful stuff.
In retrospect, I would have been better served by simply saying that I didn't appreciate her overreaction and that she's got the wrong impression of me when it comes to that waiting around stuff. I should have followed that up with a wisecrack about going on to do something else that she'll probably interpret as a time-filler until she gives me the green light. And then I should have left her to spin on her own.
I definitely still need to work on letting her deal with her things on her own and not letting that stuff enter my thinking. It is making me a bit nuts at times, because I'm not always clear what's really driving my behavior. If I do X, I can just as easily tell myself a story that it's because I really wanted to do X for me as I can that it's because I'm looking for (or to avoid) a certain response from her based on her issues. I think what I need to do is just act. So long as it's not coming from an obvious place of validation-seeking, I shouldn't over-think things beyond that. I tend to be highly analytical and this sort of retrospective hyper-scrutiny of my motivations is one place where that trait is unhelpful. It definitely undermines my confidence in myself and has led to some rubbish validation-seeking behavior in the past when I've convinced myself that I acted for a bad reason and got anxious about it.
In connection with that, I have to quiet the information-seeking part of my brain. As badly as I might want to know exactly what's going on on her end, until she works on them, I'm not going to understand her issues any better than I do now. And I sure can't do anything to fix those issues for her, even if I understood them perfectly. So, it's not going to do me any good to mull them over.
Having just said that, I think it is helpful for me to keep in mind that she has both the emotional issues Conrad highlighted and a nerfed libido (which is likely due to a combination of stress, hormones, and those emotional issues). I love her and I am genuinely concerned for her well-being. And I know the lack of libido and my unhappiness with our sex life eats at her and makes her feel worse. This isn't a woman who is doing to me the awful things I read about on this forum or hear about other places. And while there's an important way in which we're not connected now, there is a healthy connection in the rest of our relationship. So, while I want to do a better job keeping my focus on what I need to do to work on myself, I don't want to lose (or give the appearance that I've lost) my concern for her emotions and well-being. While it's a hard trick to pull off, I just can't let the latter interfere with the former.
Lastly, I know the moratorium has been advocated before and Drover just brought it up. I'm giving it more thought. I'm still not sure that it's right for my situation, but I'm not ruling it out, either.
Good advice, as usual, on all counts. I'm aware of the risk that the concern for her could lead to more NG behavior, if I'm not careful. So, I'm going to be on the lookout for it. So long as I stay away from doing things that are aimed at anticipating what she's feeling or achieving particular outcomes when it comes to her well-being, I should be okay. I don't want to walk on eggshells with her, but I also don't want to turn into a bull in a china shop, either.
I don't want to walk on eggshells with her, but I also don't want to turn into a bull in a china shop, either.
Are you scared to piss her off?
Given her last response to your kiss, I think you should really consider the moratorium. The fact that you have to think so hard about doing something as simple as giving your wife a kiss is a huge red flag for me.
The moratorium is in place. That happened the night of my last post in this thread. I didn't handle it particularly well - it ended up being part of an anxiety puke - but it's there.
Since then, things have gone smoothly, especially considering how stressed my wife has been with work over the last few weeks. She's been affectionate and engaged in lots of important ways: she initiates saying ILY more than I do, affectionate touches from her usually occur multiple times a day, she sends me e-mails from work meetings (nothing detailed or romantic, but more of a "just saying hi" sort), she initiates kissing (not passionate, but not chaste, either), she's complimented my appearance (anything from "You're the most handsome man I know" to "That shirt looks good on you"), we're laughing together a lot, and she's proposed plans for us to go out alone together for a night coming up soon and to do a few 5Ks together starting in the fall. And the level of underlying tension seems to have dropped considerably. Aside from one stress-induced fit that she almost immediately apologized for, we haven't had an argument or rough spot since the moratorium was installed.
Still, I just don't have the feeling that the lust is going to return any time soon. This is a bad/weird position for me to be in, as I'm getting enough from her to convince me that she loves me and feels a certain kind of connection to me, but I really think she has zero libido. I have a lot of motivation to give this time and patience, as I'm getting pretty much everything I want and need, except the not-so-small detail of a decent sex life and being desired by her. However, that missing intimacy component makes me really miserable sometimes and I don't know how long I can go without it, despite all the other good stuff going on.
It's apparent that her squashed libido goes well beyond anything that could be affected by improved relationship dynamics stemming from the work I've been doing on myself. I don't know whether it's a matter of getting a good hormonal shift (she's nearing her mid-40s and is probably perimenopausal, which would explain her more intense bouts of irritability and the thinning of her hair that's happened over the last six months or so), having her levels of stress and fatigue reduce as the kids get older (we still have one younger than five) and she gets her career more in line with what she wants out of it, letting time smooth over various rough spots, or her directly dealing with some of the emotional and psychological issues that have come up in this thread. Likely, it will take some combination of those things. And maybe her libido never comes back. When to have and how to handle a conversation about her end of things is something I'll be thinking about. Now is not the time for that talk, though, as she's very much aware of what she's not giving me and the pressure and guilt she feels about that makes things worse. So, hammering away at that topic any time soon would be a dumb idea on my part. I would like to avoid getting to the point where I'm giving her an ultimatum, but I'm not sure that will be possible.
It's good to know that the work I've done on myself has helped improve things between us, as she's responded positively to the changes I've made. That's not my primary motivation for doing that work, but it is something I hoped for. In a weird way, it's also good that I've realized that the problems in our relationship aren't all due to me. That takes a lot of the pressure off, which helps reduce the frequency and severity of my bouts of anxiety. Since that anxiety has such bad effects, I'm happy to eliminate as much of it as I can.
It's apparent that her squashed libido goes well beyond anything that could be affected by improved relationship dynamics stemming from the work I've been doing on myself.
Why are you so sure about this?
That is mostly a rhetorical question TMan so I don't really want an answer.
Consider this:
Are you so concerned about figuring everything out that you never occupy the present moment?
Sure sounds like it from here.
If that rings true at all, I think, in addition to the sexual moratorium, you need to go on a moratorium from thinking about your relationship with your wife. I suspect it will be hard for you to do. The harder you find it, the more it tells you about what you need to work on.
No amount of thinking is going to change the current state of play with your wife.
Your W wants to know you want and love her. All this affection and everything else is about that. She wants/needs to know you are committed.
Because you haven't controlled your emotions for so long, she doesn't respect you at a "core" level. Meaning, she doesn't think there is any point at which you calmly and steadily begin with detach - really detach. And why should she, you seem unable to.
The proof is in the fact that she is perfectly happy to repeatedly engage in affection with you - which gets her emotional need met - even though she knows it makes you feel intense desire - frustration and then rejection.
You really haven't turned the temperature down. You have lowered it'- and then allow her to instantly raise it to whatever temp she wants - but not one degree higher.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tigerman
The moratorium is in place. That happened the night of my last post in this thread. I didn't handle it particularly well - it ended up being part of an anxiety puke - but it's there.
Since then, things have gone smoothly, especially considering how stressed my wife has been with work over the last few weeks. She's been affectionate and engaged in lots of important ways: she initiates saying ILY more than I do, affectionate touches from her usually occur multiple times a day, she sends me e-mails from work meetings (nothing detailed or romantic, but more of a "just saying hi" sort), she initiates kissing (not passionate, but not chaste, either), she's complimented my appearance (anything from "You're the most handsome man I know" to "That shirt looks good on you"), we're laughing together a lot, and she's proposed plans for us to go out alone together for a night coming up soon and to do a few 5Ks together starting in the fall. And the level of underlying tension seems to have dropped considerably. Aside from one stress-induced fit that she almost immediately apologized for, we haven't had an argument or rough spot since the moratorium was installed.
Still, I just don't have the feeling that the lust is going to return any time soon. This is a bad/weird position for me to be in, as I'm getting enough from her to convince me that she loves me and feels a certain kind of connection to me, but I really think she has zero libido. I have a lot of motivation to give this time and patience, as I'm getting pretty much everything I want and need, except the not-so-small detail of a decent sex life and being desired by her. However, that missing intimacy component makes me really miserable sometimes and I don't know how long I can go without it, despite all the other good stuff going on.
It's apparent that her squashed libido goes well beyond anything that could be affected by improved relationship dynamics stemming from the work I've been doing on myself. I don't know whether it's a matter of getting a good hormonal shift (she's nearing her mid-40s and is probably perimenopausal, which would explain her more intense bouts of irritability and the thinning of her hair that's happened over the last six months or so), having her levels of stress and fatigue reduce as the kids get older (we still have one younger than five) and she gets her career more in line with what she wants out of it, letting time smooth over various rough spots, or her directly dealing with some of the emotional and psychological issues that have come up in this thread. Likely, it will take some combination of those things. And maybe her libido never comes back. When to have and how to handle a conversation about her end of things is something I'll be thinking about. Now is not the time for that talk, though, as she's very much aware of what she's not giving me and the pressure and guilt she feels about that makes things worse. So, hammering away at that topic any time soon would be a dumb idea on my part. I would like to avoid getting to the point where I'm giving her an ultimatum, but I'm not sure that will be possible.
It's good to know that the work I've done on myself has helped improve things between us, as she's responded positively to the changes I've made. That's not my primary motivation for doing that work, but it is something I hoped for. In a weird way, it's also good that I've realized that the problems in our relationship aren't all due to me. That takes a lot of the pressure off, which helps reduce the frequency and severity of my bouts of anxiety. Since that anxiety has such bad effects, I'm happy to eliminate as much of it as I can.
It's apparent that her squashed libido goes well beyond anything that could be affected by improved relationship dynamics stemming from the work I've been doing on myself. I don't know whether it's a matter of getting a good hormonal shift (she's nearing her mid-40s and is probably perimenopausal, which would explain her more intense bouts of irritability and the thinning of her hair that's happened over the last six months or so), having her levels of stress and fatigue reduce as the kids get older (we still have one younger than five) and she gets her career more in line with what she wants out of it, letting time smooth over various rough spots, or her directly dealing with some of the emotional and psychological issues that have come up in this thread. Likely, it will take some combination of those things. And maybe her libido never comes back.
Hi Tigerman ~
Libido in a woman is as much a part of her mind as a part of her physical self. BUT, getting the physical self in good working order helps immensely.
Something you wrote above that I highlighted bothered me. Because it sounds like me several years ago ... hair loss in a woman of middle age can not only be a sign of perimenopause, it could also be a sign of thyroid problems.
If she hasn't gone to her doctor for a thyroid check, she should. It's a simple blood test. If she's sub-clinical hypothyroid or even just borderline normal high, she could try thyroid replacement hormone and see if it helps her.
Thanks for that. She had her thyroid levels checked a few months ago and they came back normal. I don't know where in the normal range, though. FWIW, she usually doesn't sleep well now, either, and is more stressed, and more badly affected by stress, than I ever recall her being. Her periods are still pretty regular in frequency, as far as I can tell, but I have no idea if they've changed in any way.
FNG AND MEM11363:
Thanks for your feedback. I know I'm overly analytical, but that's only when I'm by myself. One of the things that's been most frustrating is that I have very much been loose and playful with my wife and kids, but my wife is often just not up for it. Or only up for so much of it. Frankly, she'd fail the "second date test" pretty regularly - anyone who so often came off as this mopey, easily agitated, or stuck in her own anxieties and stresses would have turned me off fast, if I were just getting to know her. It's hard to be fun and playful and light, when the other party gets into spells where she shrugs at everything or simply refuses to let go of her unhappiness for five minutes. There are flashes of the old her and I can sense that person is still there under all the other crap that's there now. Maybe that's wishful thinking on my part. Only time will tell. I think there is something to what MEM says. I want to reinforce with her that I like the affection she shows out of her own initiative. On the other hand, doing that might just be enabling her to continue on in this way that's easy and rewarding for her but that leaves me frustrated and lonely. Maybe the best thing for me to do is to simply be available even less than I have been, whether that's being out of the house or busy with other things while at home. I've been good at creating that sort of distance and I think it's been beneficial (for me and the relationship), but maybe a heavy duty focus on being unavailable is needed to get her to kick her thermostat setting up further. Anyway, there's a lot for me to consider in what both of you say. Posted via Mobile Device
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Re: Tearing down walls 
