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Post by Apocrypha on Nov 28, 2022 12:14:58 GMT -5
Weird exchange yesterday. She was watching her game on tv. At half time she ticked some clothes in a magazine for consideration as Christmas presents. I leafed through and found a dress I though she would look good in. I showed it to her and she slapped my hand away and shouted at me. I was shocked so left the room. She came in to the library and apoligised, saying she thought I was deliberately messing about to make her miss the game. Then she demanded I apoligise to her for making her hit me!!!! Okay, maybe she had a point in slapping me away and it was more of a surprise than hurt. But the demand I apologise, was thst weird, right or just plain wrong? The slap was abusive. Obvious when you flip the genders. Your response and questioning about that slap, let alone making you apologize for her abuse? I think you think you have a handle on this situation. I think a few years from now in the aftermath, you are going to have a very different perspective of her and yourself. Try not to beat yourself up too much when that happens. The trap that people get into when they are caught in this is that they take their tolerance of their partner's toxicity and contempt as evidence of their suitability together. Like, at a future point, their partner is going to wake up and realize how horribly they've treated you, and will fall in love with you all the more for it. It's like every time they hit you or humiliate you, you can boast that "you can take it" because who else would bother sticking around? Surely then, they'll see that only you could handle them, and then fall in love again. It's the romantic equivalent of buying lottery tickets as a personal financial plan. It's fool's gold. Worse even. It ends up using the horrible, abusive treatment as evidence that you should be together, instead of the opposite. Crossed wires.
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Post by deadzone75 on Nov 28, 2022 13:31:15 GMT -5
Weird exchange yesterday. She was watching her game on tv. At half time she ticked some clothes in a magazine for consideration as Christmas presents. I leafed through and found a dress I though she would look good in. I showed it to her and she slapped my hand away and shouted at me. I was shocked so left the room. She came in to the library and apoligised, saying she thought I was deliberately messing about to make her miss the game. Then she demanded I apoligise to her for making her hit me!!!! Okay, maybe she had a point in slapping me away and it was more of a surprise than hurt. But the demand I apologise, was thst weird, right or just plain wrong? As others already said, seek therapy. Your W is abusive, and her elevator clearly does not go all the way to the top. You obviously are not going to find the strength to leave here, so seek a professional who might be able to make you aware of what has been, and still is, happening to you and your son.
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Post by northstarmom on Nov 28, 2022 15:20:18 GMT -5
Lessingham, I think this was your first post here. It was 3 years ago. Has anything changed including your reesponse to your wife's intrusive, controlling, and abusive behavior?
"Hi one, hi all Jan 23, 2019 at 9:24am via mobile QuotelikePost OptionsPost by lessingham on Jan 23, 2019 at 9:24am I hope this is the right place to say hi. I'm lost in a sexless marriage and have no idea who to turn to any more. Things have always been bad, sometimes less than bad other times harrowing. We muddled along for years, full of begging and pleading and new hopes. It destroyed me, I felt a thing, unloveable and ugly. I self harmed and I tried like mad to hang in there. Why? I wanted desperarely to be loved. When the internet started I found a buddy who would listen.she would listen to my woes and offer solutions, normally to walk out or leave. I met her a few times but always platonic. Looking back I think she was a vampire type, feeding on my misery. My wife broke into my emails and read them. All hell broke loose and we agreed to try again. There was a price, I had to never talk to the friend again, ever. I had to leave my emails and phone open for inspection. So, two years on and emotionally we are fine but there is no sex. We went from infrequent to nada. The old feelings are haunting me of no self worth and ugliness. I am not self harming but I want to. I hate myself for betraying her, hate myself because I am so ugly even my wife won't make love to me. So, I am here to try and vent my feelings as frankly my wife does not care whether we make love or the humiliating effects of her rejection."
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Post by Apocrypha on Nov 28, 2022 23:39:15 GMT -5
Lessingham, I think this was your first post here. It was 3 years ago. Has anything changed including your reesponse to your wife's intrusive, controlling, and abusive behavior? "Hi one, hi all Jan 23, 2019 at 9:24am via mobile QuotelikePost OptionsPost by lessingham on Jan 23, 2019 at 9:24am I hope this is the right place to say hi. I'm lost in a sexless marriage and have no idea who to turn to any more. Things have always been bad, sometimes less than bad other times harrowing. We muddled along for years, full of begging and pleading and new hopes. It destroyed me, I felt a thing, unloveable and ugly. I self harmed and I tried like mad to hang in there. Why? I wanted desperarely to be loved. When the internet started I found a buddy who would listen.she would listen to my woes and offer solutions, normally to walk out or leave. I met her a few times but always platonic. Looking back I think she was a vampire type, feeding on my misery. My wife broke into my emails and read them. All hell broke loose and we agreed to try again. There was a price, I had to never talk to the friend again, ever. I had to leave my emails and phone open for inspection. So, two years on and emotionally we are fine but there is no sex. We went from infrequent to nada. The old feelings are haunting me of no self worth and ugliness. I am not self harming but I want to. I hate myself for betraying her, hate myself because I am so ugly even my wife won't make love to me. So, I am here to try and vent my feelings as frankly my wife does not care whether we make love or the humiliating effects of her rejection." Well hold on there. Let's separate the weave here. There's someone in a relationship without intimacy, running a range from bad to harrowing. Fair enough. There's an emotional affair, discovered with evidence, on Lessingham's side. I'm sure many would agree that Lessingham was justified, but affairs are almost always justified by those having them. You can't just handwave reading someone's private correspondence (generally to find evidence of an affair) as being intrusive and controlling if there was ACTUALLY a connection that threatened the married relationship - such as it was. It's also reasonable after an infidelity to go NO CONTACT with the affair partner. Most infidelity advice takes that as a bare minimum or walk. It's one of many reasons why I discourage infidelity in this situation. It will take at least 2 years of your life, with tortuous hard work just to claw back UP to the sexless and unsatisfying starting point at which you left, and you'll likely be no farther ahead. Sounds like that's where this one landed. One thing was certain then and now - it's not that Lessingham's wife doesn't care whether they make love. You don't gamble your whole life, lifestyle, and family on "I could take it or leave it." It's very, very important to her that she doesn't have sex with Lessingham for whatever reasons she had now and prior to the peccadilloes she caught him in. And that's one of the reasons it hurts so much. Commitment to the "Format" of a marriage is evident on both sides here - though locked in an unresolvable conflict. Lessingham wants to save the marriage by avoiding the calamity he sees approaching due to the absence of romantic intimacy and the respect, care, and unique attraction that is its pre-requisite. His wife wants to preserve the benefits of the marriage by avoiding attention on the core of their association, because saying it out loud will compel a truth that she also is not prepared to deal with. Even if the relationship (such as it is) is awful and they both agree on this - the discovery of a third party tends to destabilize it and is viewed as a threat to their mutual goal of preserving the household. If her goal is to direct attention away from the shared open secret that they aren't happy together, an affair tends to focus attention on it and that's the opposite of what she intends to do.
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She won
Nov 29, 2022 8:55:08 GMT -5
Post by northstarmom on Nov 29, 2022 8:55:08 GMT -5
Apcrypha: My point was that several years later, he's still just as miserable because the physical and emotional intimacy he would like get from his wife doesn't exist. His only option to get such intimacy from a woman is to reach out to other women. When his wife realizes that's happening, she breaks into his email, phone, etc., discovers his actions and shuts them down, something he agrees with.
Years after his original post, he is still acting the same way by taking his misery out on himself, and trying vainly to change his wife. Meanwhile, he remains in a marriage that makes him miserable. He also bows to his wife's desire that he not seek intimacy from other women. Result: He continues to be self-hating and miserable. And thus he continues the cycle.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
He needs to be in therapy with a good therapist. He can't break the cycle on his own. On his own, he can't even see how dysfunctional his marriage is nor can he see how he allows himself to be trapped in misery. As I've said before, what's the worst that can happen if he tells his wife that due to the lack of intimacy in his marriage, he'll seek it elsewhere? If she divorces him, so what? He'd no longer be in a miserable marriage.
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Post by lessingham on Nov 30, 2022 5:06:52 GMT -5
I think that is a hard realisation. One of the books I read said the problem with affairs is you lose. No matter what drove you there, no matter how awful your partner is, you acted and you lose. Leaving is the only honourable course. What do I fear, what do I not face? The admission that 40 years of my life was a waste. Very hard. The fear all sex is crap. Maybe there is no great sex out there for me. Maybe I am crap in bed. The fear there is no more sex in my life. Lonliness. Poverty. Both are not things I fear. I survived awful poverty as a child and my inner landscape is wonderful, I can survive being alone.
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She won
Nov 30, 2022 5:07:33 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by lessingham on Nov 30, 2022 5:07:33 GMT -5
I tried therapy for years. It was not life altering. Maybe I got a poor therapist.
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Post by Apocrypha on Nov 30, 2022 13:37:32 GMT -5
I think that is a hard realisation. One of the books I read said the problem with affairs is you lose. No matter what drove you there, no matter how awful your partner is, you acted and you lose. Leaving is the only honourable course. What do I fear, what do I not face? The admission that 40 years of my life was a waste. Very hard. The fear all sex is crap. Maybe there is no great sex out there for me. Maybe I am crap in bed. The fear there is no more sex in my life. Lonliness. Poverty. Both are not things I fear. I survived awful poverty as a child and my inner landscape is wonderful, I can survive being alone. I used to frame it in a similar way. I used "sex" as the object of the dispute, which allowed my wife to argue with me - positioning the conflict as "sex vs marriage". Sex vs marriage. It's absurd on the face of it. After all, what is assumed included in the nature of a marriage, as opposed to other kinds of familial and intimate relationships? This allowed me to see it as an either/or thing, where I questioned MY emphasis on romantic and physical intimacy, rather than her defiant avoidance of it with me. I also considered that if my wife didn't want sex with me - the one person who would want it more than anyone with me - then certainly no one else would. So I compared my terrible prospects and occasional physical exception against a hypothetical desert. Here's how I changed that frame and moved forward. The error here isn't in the affair or in the lack of sex (on her part). Suppose both are ACCURATE reflections of how one feels about the partner, or about the the situation of being married to him/her? Your wife is not having sex with you because she doesn't want to. She REALLY doesn't want to, with you. So much so that she's willing to live with the fight about it for the rest of her life, she's willing to override her own natural libido (because there's no one around that she wants to have sex with enough), and she's willing to risk the end of the marriage even. The error you are making in framing this is in not starting from that premise (the evidence is that she isn't having sex with you, when it would be easy), and so you aren't getting to the truth of the relationship you have. What's the truth of your relationship. You don't need to complicate this by comparing it to another person, real or hypothetical. There's always a hypothetical out. There's always a choice to not participate or to choose something else. So, putting aside other people etc - consider whether or not the relationship you actually have is a benefit on its own merits, rather than thinking of it as switching horses to a new partner. Create the life you want to create within the parameters that you have. If you were single again, what would you do? How would you be an interesting person? What would you do on your own that would make you enjoy your life more and feel more comfortable and attractive in your skin? DO THOSE THINGS, and do them whether or not your wife shows up. Figure out the things/jobs/tasks that she does - whatever you hate doing that she does - the things that you fear the most about having to do if you split. Then do them, or find ways to handle them yourself. Take the scare out of them. Then, get yourself out of the same bed with her. Try sleeping at night instead of stewing about it. Why would you need to sleep with in a bed with someone with whom you don't have a sexual relationship? Don't make a big deal about it - it's not for her or to make her do anything. Just adjust your narrative and expectations down to something that actually fits the relationship you have - the truth of it.
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She won
Nov 30, 2022 17:17:07 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by sweetplumeria on Nov 30, 2022 17:17:07 GMT -5
[quote author=" Apocrypha" Don't make a big deal about it - it's not for her or to make her do anything. Just adjust your narrative and expectations down to something that actually fits the relationship you have - the truth of it. [/quote] I am glad I read your whole response because I think this is kinda what I did. When the college kid is away I sleep in that room. I don't expect or want sex from my H now. Thanks for this well thought out response!
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She won
Nov 30, 2022 20:46:26 GMT -5
Post by mirrororchid on Nov 30, 2022 20:46:26 GMT -5
I think that is a hard realisation. One of the books I read said the problem with affairs is you lose. No matter what drove you there, no matter how awful your partner is, you acted and you lose. Leaving is the only honourable course. What do I fear, what do I not face? The admission that 40 years of my life was a waste. Very hard. The fear all sex is crap. Maybe there is no great sex out there for me. Maybe I am crap in bed. The fear there is no more sex in my life. Lonliness. Poverty. Both are not things I fear. I survived awful poverty as a child and my inner landscape is wonderful, I can survive being alone. I'm always touting informed outsourcing. i.e. Telling your spouse you're going to outsource. Normally, this is the approach I suggest for people who still love their refusers and may see a non-intimate partnership ahead for them which they could stay in for teh rest of their lives. They even can see it as a good choice. You, I don't see having a happy future with Mrs. Lessingham. What I do see for you is a way for you to nurture your self-respect by standing by your ailing wife despite her gob-smacking lack of gratitude for your help. You don't leave because it feels like abandonment, like you're the bad guy. I'd be suggesting informed outsourcing to you so you might be able to find positive (intimate?) reinforcement from an additional partner. Such a new partner may very well respect your looking after your very ill wife. They may find you an enviable partner for that kind of dedication. Supposedly a word of wisdom to ladies is that if they want to know how well they'll treat you, observe how well they treat their mothers. I've also heard that bad mouthing an ex is a red flag for a guy. I'd figure that treating an ill, ungrateful wife well might fit in the same vein?
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Post by lessingham on Dec 1, 2022 3:48:20 GMT -5
I doubt outsourcing could work. Though I read a letter from a guy who had a regular escort. His wife got pally with her and even went shopping with her. Sounds kind of far fetched. But sounds fun too
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Post by northstarmom on Dec 1, 2022 12:32:49 GMT -5
lessingham: "What do I fear, what do I not face? The admission that 40 years of my life was a waste. Very hard."
You are a victim of the "sunk cost fallacy."
"In economic terms, sunk costs are costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered.1 In the previous example, the $50 spent on concert tickets would not be recovered whether or not you attended the concert. It therefore should not be a factor in our current decision-making, because it is irrational to use irrecoverable costs as a rationale for making a present decision. If we acted rationally, only future costs and benefits would be taken into account, because regardless of what we have already invested, we will not get it back whether or not we follow through on the decision.
The sunk cost fallacy means that we are making irrational decisions because we are factoring in influences other than the current alternatives. The fallacy affects many different areas of our lives leading to suboptimal outcomes.
These outcomes range from deciding to stay with a partner even if we are unhappy because we’ve already invested years of our lives with them, to continuing to spend money renovating an old house, even if it would be cheaper to buy a new one because we’ve already invested money into it."
You also are using black-and-white thinking. Leaving your marriage because you now realize that it's making you miserable, and you deserve better, doesn't mean that the last 40 years were a waste. You did the best you could. Maybe, too, your wife treats you better than your family treated you when you were growing up. Maybe, too, your relationship with your wife started out better -- and that's why you married her -- but over time it deteriorated. Probably every single minute of your 40-year marriage wasn't awful. There were some good times.
Still, right now, your marriage is horrible (sexlessness is really only a minor part of your marital problems. That your wife constantly treats you with contempt is the main problem) and there's no indication that things will get better. You can keep clinging to the known misery or you can take steps to make your life better. "Steps" doesn't mean having to outsource. And, frankly, outsourcing won't solve your problem. At best, you'd get sex, but you'd still be living with a woman who treats you like garbage.
Steps could mean getting a good therapist that you feel comfortable with, can openly share things with, and can see that your life is improving (this doesn't mean that your wife treats you better --that's not under your control, but that you treat yourself better and feel better about yourself); developing and maintaining friendships with people who treat you well; going on vacations by yourself or with people who support you to places you'd enjoy visiting; developing hobbies and other activities that are independent of your wife's interests; not celebrating your anniversary, Valentines Day, etc. because, in truth, there's nothing now to celebrate. In other words, not continuing to live your life to please or not disturb your wife. Instead, you'd live your life to make yourself happy.
When you get to your death bed, there will be no prize for continuing to remain in a miserable marriage while ignoring your own needs and not setting boundaries. Instead of dwelling on your investment in the past, think about how you'll feel on your deathbed if you never give yourself the chance to live the life you wanted.
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Post by worksforme2 on Dec 1, 2022 13:23:57 GMT -5
northstarmom's analysis above is spot on. I had fought this economic premise repeatedly during my 2nd marriage. I agonized about divorcing when thinking of the years we had together. But eventually I went back to my old college econ classes and remembered one cannot recover sunk costs. Relationships should always take this into account. Focus on the present and the future. Learn from this mistake and apply the lesson to how you live going forward.
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Post by northstarmom on Dec 1, 2022 13:58:01 GMT -5
lessingham: "I tried therapy for years. It was not life altering. Maybe I got a poor therapist."
Either you had a poor therapist or you didn't do the work required to change. If you really want to change -- so you have confidence and do things under your control to live a happier, more fulfilling life -- you'll return to therapy --with a new therapist. You'll do whatever it takes including spending whatever is necessary to get into therapy with a therapist whom you feel comfortable enough with to openly discuss your concerns, including concerns about things you are ashamed of. And when you start seeing some hard truths about your life, you'll continue therapy instead of fleeing and settling for the miserable life you currently have (which is what you did when you suddenly left ILIASM before).
Therapists aren't magic. They can't force you to change. A good therapist, however, will with your help (and that means going regularly to therapy, being honest and open with your therapist, and taking the actions under your control to allow yourself to live the kind of life you want) help you see your problems more clearly including seeing how you are contributing to your own unhappiness and how you can change your own behavior so as to live more of the kind of life you desire.
It's possible to sabotage yourself in therapy in these ways: Selecting a therapist who from the first you didn't like, didn't feel a connection with or felt that the therapist didn't like you (One of the top predictors of whether patients think therapy was successful is whether they liked and felt a connection with the therapist at the first visit); selecting a therapist based only on price; not speaking up if you feel that the therapist doesn't understand you or has said something that hurt you; quitting therapy completely or skipping sessions because the therapy is having you confront some hard truths about your life and instead of changing your own behavior, you just want the therapist to sympathize with you, change the other people in your life, or just listen to you vent; hiding things from your therapist because you fear that if you told them the truth, they would reject you; not accepting medication even though you've had longstanding problems with anxiety and depression and your therapist thinks medication will help (This was me. It took me more than 30 years to accept antidepressants. When I finally did, with the help of concurrent therapy with a wonderful therapist (who although I was not employed and my insurance wouldn't cover her, I chose to use my savings to pay out of pocket for -- because I finally decided I was worth the best help I could get), my behavior changed (I became more outgoing, more able to select friends who supported me, not people who used me), my self-confidence improved, and I eventually let go of my marriage without any angst because it was so obvious to me that my husband and I weren't compatible).
Your giving up on all therapy because you haven't seen results yet would be like a person with severe heart pain and breathing problems who gives up on medicine because they haven't yet found the right doctor and treatment.
Frankly, I also doubt that you've made no changes from therapy. I've seen you make changes in your life while being here on ILIASM. The problem, however, has been that you start to change and then back off and leave here while bowing to your wife's pressure on you to continue to be her whipping boy.
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Post by lessingham on Dec 2, 2022 4:34:14 GMT -5
There was a casino that won big. The roulette showed black five times in a row. Everybody bet on red. Black came up. So agsin they piled in on red. Again black. Two fallacies, past results predict future ones and gamble to win losses is a good bet. I did a lot of work in therapy and yes she did improve me. But the sessions ended in stalemate. I could not get over the final hurdles and she became as frustrated as me. I will keep on the journey though and try hard to get over them.
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