4scene

Raykay, very astute assessments on the "honeymoon period" and the security/personal identity thing (she has said a few months back that she felt as though she needed to find herself). To address the issue of my commitment level and other topics of this nature. Honestly, the only real deal breaker for me is the children issue. I'll feel like I'm sleeping alone while I'm alone on my side of the bed (my wife actually wants the biggest sized bed that we can get, currently king sized, and I think its so there's maximum room between me and her -- although she has stated that she can't wait to have a dog to cuddle up with in bed and that she has her stuffed animals to curl up with as she sleeps in the mean time), but it's something I can handle even though I'll likely be perpetually saddened slightly by it. The social anxiety and different levels of personal growth are things that can be covered by simple patience which I have in abundance (I listed them because they give color to the situation and are added stressors). The ethnicity may very easily be the result of me questioning many things as Raykay said, although I'm still not too sure what to make of it myself. I know that if something were to happen between my wife and myself such that I would be single again that I would likely not go for another caucasian woman again, but this is not something that would really merit a desire to leave my wife. Granted, the thought of being with someone whom I'm very sure will not cheat on me is very appealing to me, and I would be lying if I said I don't think about that when I make my list of things that I like about my wife (even if I don't officially count it as one of the things on the list). Yes, my wife and I got married a bit fast for me. I had only been legally divorced for 10 months (and living on my own for 11 months) by the time I married my wife. The reason I asked her to marry me is because I was having an incredible time with her, and I was moving to NY from FL (she lived in FL). I asked her if she would move up with me and live with me up there, and she said she couldn't live with a man before marriage or her parents would disown her (her family is very very religious even though she really isn't). Thus, I asked her to marry me. I've always thought that as long as two people are willing to talk things out and are nice to each other that any two people could work in a relationship as long as they don't have major issues regarding children and religion. Perhaps my view of marriage as permanent has been somewhat skewed by my divorce, but I did everything I could (within the boundaries of "sense of self" preservation) to save that marriage, but in the end my ex-wife would not end an affair that had been going on for a year (and 9 months after I found out about it) and I watched her lie to my face about continuing the affair while I knew the truth of the matter thanks to a rather sloppy cover-up on her part. I do snore on rare occasion (like if I've gotten drunk or if I'm overtired -- for the record, I drink less than once a month, never alone, and rarely to the point of being very drunk), but usually, I'm a quiet sleeper. She said she slept on the couch because she couldn't sleep on the bed because she has trouble getting comfortable in new places. The couch was hers from FL vs. a bed that was newly bought (although she did not have this problem when we got a new bed about 9 months later). It looks like a thesis and very thought out because I have spend a great deal of time thinking about this subject and I think the bold words make an otherwise very long post a bit more easily readable. I worry about the number of problems that we have, and I do worry about future resentment regarding children/intimacy. We have previously gone to couples counselling regarding various issues we were having which are very similar issues to those I've described in this post, and I'm sure she would go again. However, ever since we've gone to a couple counselling sessions, about 3 months after getting married, she's constantly asking me if I'm okay, and she seems to expect there to be a problem (she hadn't been in reciprocal relationship before she met me and sometimes I think she's just waiting for me to leave her like the ones before me had done). I've said a lot of negative things here, but this is what I think about when I'm not with my wife. When I am with her, I am either thinking about this stuff, cheering her up, or laughing, snuggling, playing games, or watching TV/movies with her. She's somewhat affectionate while we're not trying to go to sleep, but it's often comforting her when something is bothering her or when she's feeling insecure (the kind of hugging where she lowers her head against my chest rather than pressing herself up against me in an equal fashion). We do have normal affection experiences, but that happens about as often as the comforting sessions. I suppose I'm really just venting here, and I could go on about this for a while. I think I'll go talk to my solo counsellor again. I think I really need to get the children thing figured out even though she doesn't like talking about it. Thanks for all the comments and thoughts/insights!

Current situation I'm married to a lovely, respectful, caring women who makes me laugh. I love this woman. However, I have a couple of nagging issues that keep creeping into my thoughts that make me wonder about the relationship. First some quick background I am going to be turning 30 in a few months and my wife turns 25 about a month before my birthday. My wife and I have been married for about a year and a half. We knew each other for about 4 and a half months before getting married and two of those months were spent over long distance (I had moved to NY and she lived in FL). We are both caring and respectful of each other, and we rarely have raised voices. Also, I had a previous marriage which ended because my ex-wife was having an affair and wouldn't end it (and lied about it in the process -- I gave her 9 months to resolve her feelings and called it when I saw no real change). I am a fairly laid back person with a great deal of patience and resolve and a nice sense of humor about life. I try to work through all my problems to an amicable end although I do over-analyze issues at times. My wife is a shy woman who loves to read and watch old movies and specific Sit Coms. Both of us play online games together (World of Warcraft mainly). She is a bit on the sensitive, nervous and jittery/high strung side, but she is a very caring and loving individual who is in love with dogs (mainly the small cuddly kind). I would apprectiate any thoughts or comments that anyone can provide on these issues. My marital issues 1. Children I love children. I love the thought of having children, and I have wanted to have children since I first hit puberty (I've always been rather family oriented). My wife was enthusiastic about having children until about 2 weeks before the wedding when she changed her mind. I figured that was just cold feet and jitters talking so I didn't take it too much to heart. A couple months into the marriage, I discovered that she didn't really want kids before she met me, and she changed her mind upon meeting me, but that she had kind of fallen back to the idea that she didn't want to have kids. This floored me at the time, and I was a breath away from wanting an annulment on several occasions because of this info. The issue has mutated and taken a couple twists, but the current stance from her is that she doesn't want kids right now and doesn't want to think about kids right now. She's not ruling anything out for the future, but she just doesn't want to talk about it, and it's a taboo subject to bring up. For those of you "Friends" fans out there, I feel like Monica when she broke up with Richard: "I want to have kids, but I want to have kids with someone who wants them too, not someone who will have kids for me because I want them." (not the real quote, but the general thought behind it) My wife's problem with having kids, as I understand it, is that she doesn't want to feel like a "host" for the kid while it's growing inside of her (and I think she doesn't want to have any body disfigurement from the pregnancy either -- she's had a problem in the past with anorexia and he's always obsessing about her hips even though she wears a size 4 waist). She has asked if I wouldn't mind adopting a kid instead of her getting pregnant, but I'm not too keen on that idea (this may sound a bit haughty, but I come from a family line of inventors and I'm the only one in my generation that got the "inventor" spark. Thus, I would feel a bit sad if I didn't pass on those genes.). I'm worried about waiting around to see if she changes her mind about kids (this is a make or break issue for me) and what if at the end of it all I can't stop thinking that she's just having kids because I want them. 2. Ethnicity This is going to sound weird, but I used to relish in the idea of being with someone of a different race than I am (I'm caucasian as well), and I have a persistent feeling that I'm going to feel dissatisfied in the long run if I'm not with someone of a different race. I didn't think that this would be such a problem in the beginning (I used to have no problem with dating caucasian women because I thought race didn't matter, but in reality I rarely dated "white" women), but my desire to be with someone of a different race isn't diminishing with time. The interesting twist to this is that I'm in engineering grad school where I'm surrounded by people of different ethnicities and caucasian people are a minority. To add to this situation, my ex-wife is hispanic, and the only significant relationship I had between my divorce and second marriage is one with a Fillipina woman who I broke up with mainly because of timing (I wasn't ready for a real relationship and I found stupid reasons to break up with her -- such as "ick, her teeth are rather messed up" or "she's way too spastic when I tickle her... she must have a problem with self control"). I find myself reminising back to those relationships, not because of the people, but because of their skin tones and other ethnic features. I feel weird about this, but this does seem to be an issue for me, and it's not something that can really be solved by anything other than me getting over it or finding another relationship. 3. Intimacy My wife has a problem with intimacy. She doesn't like to kiss on the lips too much (she often says its because she's afraid of having bad breath). She doesn't like to take showers with me (she doesn't like other people watching her as she cleans herself). She doesn't like to cuddle when going to sleep and actually doesn't like even holding my hand as we go to sleep (she says she just feels uncomfortable with me being so close to her and it keeps her from sleeping). She doesn't like sex with the lights on, either. I love intimate moments, and I love to do all of the things listed above. All of the previous relationships I've been in have had these intimate activities as a given without ever asking for them, and I feel rather put out at times because of this lack of intimacy. When I bring this topic up with her, it just makes her feel badly because she doesn't like these things. I try to tempt her into taking a shower with me by offering her massages or other things I know she likes a lot, but she always passes. Actually, when she and I were first married, she slept on the couch for all but a couple days out of the first two months. I offered to let her sleep on the bed and I would sleep on the couch, but she didn't want to put me out like that. She said she didn't feel comfortable sleeping on the bed with me because she wasn't used to it. She didn't start sleeping on the bed with me until I had a long talk with her about how badly it made me feel. I'm not sure what to do about this, but I feel a bit affectionately starved after a year and a half of this (didn't find this intimacy thing out until after we had gotten married as her religious family would have freaked had she spent the night with me before then and she was living with them at the time). 4. Social Anxiety My wife has a problem with social anxiety, and I used to be a performer before changing to engineering. I have little problem getting on stage and talking to a large group of people that I do or do not know (I worry about what I'm going to say, but not the size of the audience). I also am very comfortable with myself and have no problem talking about intimate issues in private or quietly in public. My wife is the kind of person who doesn't want to talk to people she doesn't know, avoids public places (the mall, the grocery store, etc) and public or private gatherings with more than a few people(parties, night clubs), doesn't adapt well to people of other cultures (she does have to interact with my school friends sometimes, but she often can't go to the parties or group dinners because her stomach gets upset thinking about going), and who comes from a family where they all are that way (and she was raised as such -- private, religious schooling, an overly religious mother straight out of "Carrie" from Steven King, wasn't allowed to talk to other kids that didn't go to their church or many of the kids that went to their church ...she's not very religious now, and I have never been religious.). My wife is currently on medication for social anxiety and it has lessened, but she still doesn't like to do most of the things listed above. I realize this is a personalized issue, but any related story is very welcome here. 5. Personal growth difference My wife and I have a small age disparity, but she's a bit psychologically underdeveloped as well due to her sheltered upbringing and her axieties and her feelings of low self worth. She is almost half way through her bachelor's degree and is narrowing down a major, and I am entering the final year of my Ph.D. I try my best to be a well rounded individual, and she has topics that she could care less about and isn't interested in knowing about (like math and science -- the two topics I deal with the most). I am very comfortable with who I am and being who I am while she needs constant affirmation that what she's doing is okay and that it's okay to be who she is. She prefers that I talk to her in a soft voice and not with a normal voice. She does not take criticism well even if it's meant as contructive criticism (most suggestions that she do something different that she is doing it is a suggestion that she's stupid and is doing something wrong -- I have to word our discussions very carefully). She has a self worth problem that is related to her home schooling and works in synergy with her anxiety problems that can lead to hysteric results (not hysterical as in funny). Due to her religious schooling and a lack of a decent math teacher during that time frame, her math and science skills are below average for a high school student, and she has no real desire to improve this (or if she does, she masks it with disdain and avoidance). There are actually quite a bit of differences (our differences far outnumber our similarities), but I'm thinking this is not too uncommon (even though in my previous relationships I've had much more in common with my significant others than I do with my wife). This section is probably more for coloring the post than actually looking for comments, but please comment if you see something to comment on here. Sometimes I feel like the real reason I'm with my wife is because she and I have fun together sometimes and we treat each other with kindness and respect, but that we're not that compatible otherwise. Thank you very much if you took the time to read this long post, and thank you ahead of time for your responses.