HELP, please

[Lost Soul]

Hi
Advice please, Been married over 10 years, I married very young and sometimes, very rarely wish I had experienced more before settling down. foolishly I had a very brief fling with a much older woman recently, where I very quickly learnt, that I am not well suited to being unfaithful. How ever I also learn't what it is like to have woman appreciate and want you, more importantly I realised this is what I have been missing from my own marriage since the birth of my son 9 years ago.

For my sins I do not share my feelings often or well, so my wife is blissfully unaware although I suspect she has issues with our marriage herself.

In this situation, I am proposing we both put together notes on how we feel which the other can then read.

For the wives out there how would you react to the following...

Feelings

1.taken for granted, just a financial provider, guilty for not providing enough, in a job I Hate partly due to financial pressure

2.feel that as a husband I am of little importance and fall way down the pecking order, even sometimes below the dogs, I have been undermined
in front of Adam so many times now that he also little or no respect for me as a father

3.feel under pressure because I am unable to provide enough, for us to go out at the weekends, book holidays or even take day's out

4. think that you often find reasons to get annoyed at me because you fail to understand the above or are frustrated by your expectance that
I need to provide you a certain level of living.


I understand that sime of the above comes from me, but these feelings are magnified by your interactions with me


5.feel that for the most part you can't bear me to touch you even cuddling is strained, rigid soon shyed away from, If I indicate this upsets
me, it is made to be joke, or even teasing. it is not a joke, the way this upsets me is very very real, it is rejection.

6. cuddling and intimacy is rarely if ever initiated by you, and is never spontaneous, in fact any intimacy seems regulated by your menstrual
cycle and at that time I have a feeling you are making do, with me, I wonder if you still find me physically attractive at all?

7. it seems that at any other time any advance I may be brave enough to make, even for a cuddle is met with a fear I want to have sex and a
excuse is given, headache, leg ache, arm ache, upset stomach, feeling sick, or even simply your too hot to cuddle, all these may be valid,
but it is difficult to accept this 30 days out of 31.

8. during sex I would like to feel that you want me that you find me & my body attractive, little things like carressing my chest would make
all the difference.


Advice please???????

[Raymond]

I am not a woman LS but as a man I know where you are coming from.

It is good if you both share notes with each other in a give and take way. I would advise not to unload it on her all at once and listen to her as well. I was the opposite to you. I found out that my wife loved the cuddles and touch which I was only giving during sex. I put that right years ago.

You sound like you just need a bit of encouragement which I am sure you will get when you share with each other your feelings. Avoid the poor old me syndrome though. Be prepared to give as well. I am sure your wife has needs also. Anyway I will get out of the way to let the females share.

Raymond

[dave123]

Hello,

Your situation rings so many bells with me it is quite scary! I think your idea of a list is part of the way to moving forward together. It might be worth re-writing it with a more positive slant, including what you want you both to do to get beyond the problems. Being faced with a list of negatives from your partner is pretty soul destroying. I might also be worth trying some marriage counseling to try to get the W to recognise that your feelings are valid and very important to you. Feeling that despite providing for your family as best you can and still rating below the dog is exactly how i felt, and it is not healthy at all!

Kepp talking to the W and try the new list and the counseling, maybe just ask her to start afresh for 2009 would be a start.

Good luck for you both,

Dave

[FJM]

Hey there, I am new to this site but after reading this I could not believe how similar this is to me and my wife. I confronted my wife with these issues and she told me that she does not love me anymore (she said she loves me as a friend but is not in love with me). She says this feeling started over a year ago. We are now sleeping in seperate rooms and my kids think it is because I am snoring. I do not know what to do. I would like to go to counciling but she doesn't know if she wants to fix things or not.

[James2009]

Rewind 9 years, I feel as though I am heading the same way.
We have been married for almost 2 years and have just had our first child 6 months ago, she is due to go back to work in March and is dissatisfied with my input to the household chores but I do muck in (sweeping floors and tidying up, doing dishes etc).

[Hilary]

Lost soul and others

One of the biggest destroyers of marriage is lack of attentiveness to the needs of the other person. It seems as if you have all been suffering from this from your Ws.

Don't think that shared counselling is going to be the answer - sometimes it is useful, mostly its not.

How do your wives know they are loved? Are you attentive to their needs (like you need them to be attentive to yours)? Do they need to be told something? Or do they need to see something? Or do they need to be touched in a certain way? do they need little active service? And ask yourselves the same questions.

My husband needs little acts of service - his favorite biscuits baked, his clothes washed and put away, dishes stacked for him to wash, his favourite meals cooked.
I need to be stroked with no idea of sex in the next couple of hours. I need him to do the things he commits to doing (like the dishes in the evening and the accounts so I don't have to worry about them). And then he does some extras like make me fresh vegetable juice in the morning.

Then when each of us does our little things for the other then the other has to appreciate it and tell them so - perhaps not every day for everything, but often enough to know we are appreciated.

My Dad came out of a very abusive family and my Mum from a good one. Mum told Dad at the beginning of the marriage that he needed to say that he loved her every day and that he appreciated her. He did that, with meaning every day for 25 years till he died. They didn't have one fight or falling out in the marriage as they were attentive to each other and worked to meet each other's needs.

My husband and I don't have the track record on lack of fighting, but we now have 40 years of marriage - and despite getting married at only just 18 and 21 we have made it work.

So do you need to see your wife do something for you, hear her say something, receive something you can hold (flowers, chocolates, fancy meal), receive little gifts of service?
And what does she need?

You can only change her by changing what you think, say and do - then she will change in response - hopefully in a useful way. Loving is action. Feeling follows action.