# Getting back the 'honeymoon' phase.



## synonimous_anonymous (May 31, 2010)

Again, in an article I read on relationships there seems to be a phase that people go through. I've heard of the honeymoon phase where you are first in love and all those happy hormones are just filling up your body. Apparently that's to bring people close in order to become mates and have children. However, that honeymoon phase eventually turns into a bonding phase which can get boring. This can lead to a bunch of problems including infidelity. Infidelity brings back some of those happy hormones you once had long ago. BUT it can also bring on some serious pain and guilt and destroy lives.

At one point the writer said that 'taking a week' off from each other can sometimes bring back those lost honeymoon feelings. Does anyone have experience with this? I was planning on leaving for a week in the beginning but my wife didn't want me to leave at that time. Now, I'm wondering if I should tell her I'm going away for a week so she can have the entire place for herself, her days off for herself...and then, maybe, come back home a week later and find her to be 'receptive' to me.

I don't know if this is something that you should do just a month out from dday, whether it would work or not, whether I should have done it before the infidelity or if it would really work at all if she's not focused on our relationship...

Advice is welcome...


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## iamnottheonlyone (May 9, 2010)

Funny you should ask. A couple of months before I discovered my wife's affair I was thinking that my relationship was healthy. I concluded, incorrectly, that because my wife was away a couple days a week it kept us fresh. Bull. Absence makes the heart grow fonder only if the people are committed. Otherwise it gives the affair a chance to grow. She can't see the changes you are going thru if you are not there. I would say, don't leave.


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## lbell629 (May 10, 2010)

I wouldn't leave within a month. My H had an affair 6 months ago and I finally felt like leaving - for 2 weeks - because I desperately needed a break. But he was also okay with me leaving and had suggested I do the 2 weeks instead of the 1. So it worked for us - well sort of. My H decided to contact the OW while I was gone and slept with her.


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## Tanelornpete (Feb 2, 2010)

synonimous - I've been following your posts for some time, and it seems to me that you are missing some important points. 

Thing's I've noticed: you are almost obsessed with sex, as if that will solve the troubles in your marriage. Your wife asks you why you are so focused on that portion and you tell her you aren't - but nearly every post on your threads either are directly related to, or hint at this particular issue.

Another issue: you minimize your part in your marital problems - and you miss a HUGE part of the trouble: you tell your wife that you weren't aware of any troubles in your marriage, and that the affair pretty much hit you by surprise. _That's most of the key to solving the troubles in your marriage right there!_ It's also quite common for this to happen - not singling you out.

Also, you say you read up on affairs a lot - but it seems to me that what you are doing is gleaning through them to find proofs for some presuppositions you already have. This particular thread is indicative: you found a survey from a behavioralist viewpoint tat claims the honeymoon phase is 'designed' (a contradictory flaw in behaviorism) to increase the chances of the species propagating. Because you are looking for ways to have sex, you suppose that if you can just put some distance for a while between you two, that she will be ready to have sex when you come back.

The point you are missing is this: sex for most women is a response to feeling wanted, understood, and safe. It is not the primary cause of the relationship - it is a _result_ of the relationship. 

I suggest that if you want to have some quality intimacy with your wife that you take the time to create the relationship first. 

This means taking the time to do the work necessary. Your marriage was damaged long before the affair took place (it was the result of finding an _improper_ means of solving the trouble). Until you find the trouble, work through the pain it caused, and begin to do things in an entirely different way, I am quite afraid that all your wife will see out of you is someone who wants to get laid via extortion. Not a romantic thing - and certainly damaging to your marriage.

While your wife's affair was wrong, and her responsibility, you spending your time furious at her, wanting her to make up for all the pain she cause you and reveling in being the innocent victim in all this is equivalent to someone spending hours being furious at the ground for hurting them after they fell off the roof. Instead of analyzing the situation - 'oh - gotta be more careful on the roof' - the person spends all their time and energy cursing the ground for being hard and causing pain. What happens next time they are on the roof? Unless they figure out what happened - it is due to happen again. Their anger was pointless in that it led nowhere...


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

I agree with the post below with one big caveat. If you are "over loving" her you WILL kill her desire for you. Nothing smothers the flames faster than a lack of oxygen. 

The best test of this is simply to ask her a few questions:
- Do you think I treat you well? 
- Are there any specific things I am doing that are bothering you? (She may say - pestering her for sex) - just listen don't argue

If she says you DO treat her well you likely ARE over loving her. The solution to that is to focus on being fun / upbeat etc. when together but stop all the loving gestures. Let her come to you. Stop with the touching, hugs, requests for sex. Stop saying ILY so much. 

Spend less time at home and more time at the gym.

Forget about sex for a while and keep ratcheting back until the point where when you walk in from work end of day she gives you a big smile and a big hug. Until you are THERE focusing on sex is counterproductive.



Tanelornpete said:


> synonimous - I've been following your posts for some time, and it seems to me that you are missing some important points.
> 
> Thing's I've noticed: you are almost obsessed with sex, as if that will solve the troubles in your marriage. Your wife asks you why you are so focused on that portion and you tell her you aren't - but nearly every post on your threads either are directly related to, or hint at this particular issue.
> 
> ...


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## synonimous_anonymous (May 31, 2010)

There are most certainly parts of our relationship, and why it got to where it is, that is my fault. My wife has said "You've changed and I see that. I know you are doing your best." The mistakes I've made, the presumptions that 'because we were married this and that will be taken care of' are now no longer presumptions. For nearly 2 months I've put in the effort to change my behavior in that respect...at least I think I have and my wife has acknowledge that changes have been made.

I bring up sex perhaps because of kissing. When I first heard my wife say she doesn't feel like she can kiss me that was a blow to my stomach. I tried to get to the root of that but haven't yet. I figured that the better I can make her feel in bed, the more chances are she will feel 'closer' to me and recapture some of those lost feelings and kiss me again. The idea of spending time apart made me think (From my perspective only) that we'd miss each other. I guess thinking harder about it perhaps I'd miss her more and she'd just go on living...

Sex is important. How to get that intimacy back so that we are not just roommates is something I would love. We spent the last couple of years barely having any sex and a lot due to stress of taking care of her mother. I see now that there is more to it and yes I want to fix that. I'm focused on fixing all areas. The areas where I know the answer I can handle on my own, however sex is one area where I don't know the answers and that's why I ask here.

Do you think I treat you well?
I asked her this and she said "Yes." She did add however that there were times I made her really mad. I let her vent. However, she ended it with "But yes, you treat me well."

Do I bother you with things that I do or don't do?
Now, after making some changes her answer is "No." She added "Before all this though, these are some of the things that REALLY bothered me." She had 2 specific issues, both of which are now no longer an issue. It's a matter of whether I can keep it up (I'm sure I can) that will be the challenge.

My wife and I had a few deep conversations. One was "I feel like a flower that is almost all brown, dried up and ready to be tossed out. But there is still a little green left and that flower can be, with the right time and care turn back into a flower." That's how she described her feelings at one time. I asked "If you are the flower, is it possible that I'm the one giving you water and maybe over watering you." As in smothering her. Her answer was no.

I do my best, at least in the last week (It's still just a month from dday) to not wear my feelings on my sleeve. I keep confident and I stay upbeat. Last night I came home, had a glass of wine with my wife. We were both pretty tired and went to bed early. She didn't seem like she was in the happiest of moods, her PMS is hitting her hard and with the rain it makes things even harder for her, but no big mood swings.

I appreciate all the advice. What I hoped for from her most was to see a therapist so she could unleash her feelings (With me there or alone) to someone who could be unbiased and just listen and give her advice that was pro-marriage. I like the idea of getting 'homework' or assignments to work on your marriage. I'm all for building it up to a point where she wants to be intimate and not trying to avoid it. I would love it if we went back to the days where we both looked forward to same days off so we could do whatever we wanted, together.


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## Tanelornpete (Feb 2, 2010)

> There are most certainly parts of our relationship, and why it got to where it is, that is my fault. My wife has said "You've changed and I see that. I know you are doing your best." The mistakes I've made, the presumptions that 'because we were married this and that will be taken care of' are now no longer presumptions. For nearly 2 months I've put in the effort to change my behavior in that respect...at least I think I have and my wife has acknowledge that changes have been made.


It's very good news that your wife sees changes - hopefully they are positive ones! Humor aside, in most cases, it takes some time for someone who has been hurt (or at least perceived they were hurt) in the past to trust that the changes they see are permanent - you've only been at this a very short time. Patience is something that is way too underrated.

Presumptions in marriage almost always spell disaster. The way to keep a marriage healthy is to live deliberately, all the time. It takes a lot of work, but the joy of such a marriage is worth it all. That means that you most likely will always be checking up with your spouse from time to time to see how things are going. My wife (affaircare) and I did over the weekend - there was a problem that was not being addressed, and we worked through it. 



> I bring up sex perhaps because of kissing. When I first heard my wife say she doesn't feel like she can kiss me that was a blow to my stomach. I tried to get to the root of that but haven't yet. I figured that the better I can make her feel in bed, the more chances are she will feel 'closer' to me and recapture some of those lost feelings and kiss me again. The idea of spending time apart made me think (From my perspective only) that we'd miss each other. I guess thinking harder about it perhaps I'd miss her more and she'd just go on living...


I think you've figured this out a bit here: First, there is no guarantee that making someone feel good in bed will translate into 'I love how he listens to me when I am upset about things and need a shoulder to cry on.' A hooker can make you feel very good in bed, but you may not want to hang around later. There is a great deal more to marriage than good sex. It should be the natural result of a strong marriage, not the cause of one: if that were the case, what happens as age kicks in and your sex drive diminishes? End of marriage?



> Sex is important. How to get that intimacy back so that we are not just roommates is something I would love. We spent the last couple of years barely having any sex and a lot due to stress of taking care of her mother. I see now that there is more to it and yes I want to fix that. I'm focused on fixing all areas. The areas where I know the answer I can handle on my own, however sex is one area where I don't know the answers and that's why I ask here.


So how do you find out these areas? Suggestions - a set of questionnaires: Love Busters, Emotional Needs, Love Kindlers, Love Extinguishers. Unless you find out what has caused the troubles, you will simply find yourself floundering around grasping at anything that seems good at the moment - and finding many disappointments.



> Do I bother you with things that I do or don't do? Now, after making some changes her answer is "No." She added "Before all this though, these are some of the things that REALLY bothered me." She had 2 specific issues, both of which are now no longer an issue. It's a matter of whether I can keep it up (I'm sure I can) that will be the challenge.


Again, I'd like to point out that it may be that YOU think you are doing things right, and she may be waiting for something completely different. Regardless: how were these resolved? Has this resolution only been is play since D-Day?



> I appreciate all the advice. What I hoped for from her most was to see a therapist so she could unleash her feelings (With me there or alone) to someone who could be unbiased and just listen and give her advice that was pro-marriage. I like the idea of getting 'homework' or assignments to work on your marriage.


A hint: if you find a counselor that does NOT give you work to do at home you are wasting your time. That counselor is a scam artist that simply makes money off of sitting in an office while people talk near him/her - and charges lots of money for it. 



> I'm all for building it up to a point where she wants to be intimate and not trying to avoid it. I would love it if we went back to the days where we both looked forward to same days off so we could do whatever we wanted, together.


It will take work but you can get those days back. Here's an assignment for you both (if she wants to do it):

MBTI personality test.
Descriptions of the results

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Now playing: Rush - Turn The Page
via FoxyTunes


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## synonimous_anonymous (May 31, 2010)

Tanelornpete said:


> It's very good news that your wife sees changes - hopefully they are positive ones! Humor aside, in most cases, it takes some time for someone who has been hurt (or at least perceived they were hurt) in the past to trust that the changes they see are permanent - you've only been at this a very short time. Patience is something that is way too underrated.


A few weeks before Dday is when the changes started to take place. So it's been just under 2 months since I've started to play a better role as husband. She had said a week or so bad after a fight, talking through tears, that she wasn't sure this was just a 'now' thing or whether I would go back to my old ways. I can see how she may think that. I wish she could see how she may think that when she's 30 minutes late coming home that I may think she's doing something not so good...



Tanelornpete said:


> Presumptions in marriage almost always spell disaster. The way to keep a marriage healthy is to live deliberately, all the time. It takes a lot of work, but the joy of such a marriage is worth it all. That means that you most likely will always be checking up with your spouse from time to time to see how things are going. My wife (affaircare) and I did over the weekend - there was a problem that was not being addressed, and we worked through it.


This is something we've both learned. I hope we can apply this to our future together. 



Tanelornpete said:


> I think you've figured this out a bit here: First, there is no guarantee that making someone feel good in bed will translate into 'I love how he listens to me when I am upset about things and need a shoulder to cry on.' A hooker can make you feel very good in bed, but you may not want to hang around later. There is a great deal more to marriage than good sex. It should be the natural result of a strong marriage, not the cause of one: if that were the case, what happens as age kicks in and your sex drive diminishes? End of marriage?


When age kicks in and both libido's go down I would assume that sex would be more infrequent but I'm 32 NOW. I would love for my wife to want sex. After sex we always have some of our more pleasant conversations and it's also about the only time she'll ever take a nap during the day and not be upset that she slept away part of her day. It's the lead up, the doing it and the after talk, cuddling, napping that is all fun. A part of me is still thinking "If you could so easily get naked for THAT person why is it so hard to get naked with me, your husband." And it makes me angry, like I'm a used toy that no longer does it for her. It may not be the case at all, but I can't get beyond these feelings, not so soon after dday I suppose.




Tanelornpete said:


> Again, I'd like to point out that it may be that YOU think you are doing things right, and she may be waiting for something completely different. Regardless: how were these resolved? Has this resolution only been is play since D-Day?


Before D-Day she mentioned she was needed time. I interpreted this as being unhappy and I was right. At the time she said she wasn't. So, I did what I could to make it so that she could come home and have some time to herself. After D-Day I told her time was up (I was angry as hell). In the first few days she wasn't completely open, then she started opening up. I made those changes as they came out. Her biggest issue was my health. I decided to put powerlifting to the side and focus on pure weight-loss (Which also means muscle loss). She thought it was an unhealthy way to eat and while I disagreed I never thought it was that much of a concern for her. Powerlifting is great, but I could use that time to do other stuff and it would be nice to fit into some smaller clothes without them being tight all over. The weight-loss also has to be done properly since a poor diet would result in just muscle loss and little fat...making me unhealthy.) The issues, the one that she has brought up, have all been addressed and she has said "I see the changes and I see how hard you are trying."





Tanelornpete said:


> A hint: if you find a counselor that does NOT give you work to do at home you are wasting your time. That counselor is a scam artist that simply makes money off of sitting in an office while people talk near him/her - and charges lots of money for it.


In this country, counseling isn't a big area of practice. I see a psychologist today and his office will give me more information when I see him. They didn't have any information on hand when I was there a few weeks back simply because it wasn't something they had ever needed to look into.





Tanelornpete said:


> It will take work but you can get those days back. Here's an assignment for you both (if she wants to do it):
> 
> MBTI personality test.
> Descriptions of the results


I will take a look at these. I've asked her if she wanted to some of these types of things but she's still not ready. She feels 'lost' and 'broken' and thinks that only she can put all the pieces together, with time. She says "Yes, I can work on the marriage but you have to stop pushing me." And by pushing she means of me asking "Do you want to do something that will help our marriage? Some couples homework?" I guess that's pushing for her right now.


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## Tanelornpete (Feb 2, 2010)

Just a quick note: a lot of what you are experiencing right now is the emotional roller coaster that we all ride after something tragic happens in our lives. In time it will slow down, the ups and downs will become less. For now, just understand that this is happening and let it happen. 

The best advice though, is that you make NO decisions based upon how you feel at the moment. Keep focused on what you need to be doing, and simply let the emotions happen. That is a very tall order, but it can be done - and gets easier over time.

As for the changes you mentioned (diet, etc.) - I'd like to point out that these are most likely things that she feels SAFE in telling you about. My guess is that these are not the main reasons things happened - they may be part of it, and for now this is what you have to go on. But I'd stay very alert to any small clues she may throw your way on occasion. Practice active listening, and be calm, supportive and let her know you are and want to be her best friend.


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## synonimous_anonymous (May 31, 2010)

I figured she wouldn't let everything out. Clues that you mentioned have been tossed my way and I have made those changes as well. Most of them are lifestyle choices with food and diet as well as cleaning and HOW to do it HER way.

Every night this week when she comes home from work I'm there and we eat and talk together. Last night we had salads and she started to nag at me for the way I was sitting and holding myself. It wasn't anything new as to how I was holding myself or my posture. The way you eat 'properly' in this country is different than back home as far as manners go. HOWEVER, now she's on her PMS so I've just riding those waves as calmly as possible.

The super ups and super downs are no longer with me but I imagine if I run into the OM at some point then a super down will follow. Now I'm kind of balancing between mid ups and downs.

The way I feel is that 9 years where I thought I was the center of this beautiful person (I really think she is the most attractive woman I have ever met) universe, and the she was most definitely at the center of my universe. THEN to have it all come down and feel like she hates you all within the matter of a single moment. It's hard to take physically and emotionally. I don't know if she realizes the pain there.

I saw my doctor yesterday. He said that in this country there was no specialist except that dealt with marriage counseling. While there are other types of counseling, none were 'marriage' focused. Not a big field in this country. He had given me a number earlier in the week and I tried to make an appointment but I kept getting voice mail.

So it looks like I'm on my own for 'couples homework' in order to rebuild what we have. There is a little bit of a language barrier for my wife, her English is great but for the more difficult words I need to explain. Good practice for her but I wonder if it would take the focus off the actual marriage building process.

Any other good 'homework assignments' or over the net counseling tips?


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