Continuing therapy...thoughts

[Odysseus]

Okay...So this week I had a really good session with my therapist and we drilled down deeper into my avoidance of making love to my wife.

 

Important: I am NOT the stereotypical man who can separate love and sex. For me I can't have one without the other. Period.

 

Okay...so I completely have no sexual interest in her. This goes way beyond physical appearance. I care about her, and we connect on our children, but we really disconnect in so many ways. She's very insecure...I am not. Her career ambition is first and foremost to get some kind of respect on the job, I just want to do the best I can (I'm successful and have really built my career on this). She (even after she's received lots of counseling and is much healthier mentally) still spends a lot of time judging other people. I do not. I'm not perfect, but generally I accept people for how they are.

 

She does love me...I know that. I don't know if I love her anymore, and this is breaking my heart. We are now (after a lot of counseling) able to talk about these things, but this train of thought is a tough one to open up with her about. God...we just bought a house.

 

My kids are 8 and 11. Can I stay in a marriage like this if we can't fix it? How long? Is it fair to either of us? Any advice from folks who are in like situations would be helpful.

 

I haven't given up. It's just very frustrating and troubling. I'm not depressed anymore. These are some pretty clear emotions and feelings I'm having.

[Excalibur]

She doesn't reflect well on you anymore, as she once did.

 

You now get to decide if the marriage is a business arrangement you can renegotiate and live with because she has character and integrity - but is not your type - or if you've got to end it.

[jenny_mcs]

 

She's very insecure...I am not. Her career ambition is first and foremost to get some kind of respect on the job, I just want to do the best I can (I'm successful and have really built my career on this). She (even after she's received lots of counseling and is much healthier mentally) still spends a lot of time judging other people. I do not. I'm not perfect, but generally I accept people for how they are.

 

 

There is a pretty big disconnect in this paragraph. You list several areas where you obviously feel superior to you wife, and then add that you don't judge people.

[Odysseus]

There is a pretty big disconnect in this paragraph. You list several areas where you obviously feel superior to you wife, and then add that you don't judge people.

 

I've been married to her for 18 years and both of us are aware of her problems with insecurity. This is no mystery in our relationship.

 

Superior is the last thing I feel when talking about how this aspect of her personality has complicated our marriage. I don't understand your comment.

 

If you are suggesting that I go back to our old relationship, where I was constantly protecting people around us from her insults and paranoid anger, taking the bulk of her verbal abuse when she failed at something no matter how much I tried to coach her, help her.

 

Those days are over and things have improved somewhat. There's nothing superior to feel about watching your spouse ignore pleas for couselling and my attempts at reaching out for a better marriage be twisted and categorized as personal attacks.

[Excalibur]

Try this.....self-actualization.

 

when you were both immature, insecure, thinking with feelings - both of your insecurities were puzzle pieces and fit. Her need of your validation, her willingness to serve - it meant you both 'felt better about yourselves as individuals" while in alliance.

 

You say that you've evolved, morphed, and actualized into someone who's come to terms with your value and worth - not as others define it, but as you perceive it. You're okay with being you - and you don't need validation and affirmation to be okay with being you.

 

Okay - so now you're an adult. Instaed of doing things on the terms of others for identity and security - you do what you know will meet your needs, and deal with the results.

 

You're saying she's still a child - looking for approval and validation in your eyes, in the eyes of others...she's constantly seeking to serve and please...in order to find her value.

 

That now sickens you - as it indicates how inferior she considers herself to be. Whereas when you considered yourself equaly inferior - you didn't see it as you do now.

 

So now you get to determine if living up to your contractual obligation is what your newly found self-esteem and respect demands....can you live without her being a reflection on the new you that you find admirable, while realizing your commitment to your "commitments" speaks to who you are?

 

 

and you do have to draw a line to where her insecurities of giving, doing, allowing, and prostrating herself for approval would put your security at risk - for you and your children.

[Odysseus]

See my previous post. My wife's emotional problems had other, more damaging effects on our marriage and our children. I enabled by not throwing down earlier.

[Excalibur]

Well, ask yourself if you're "enabling" now - by staying?

 

If so, go.

 

the past can't be fixed, undone or made up to you.

[Odysseus]

I know I can't fix the past, and we really have made progress in the last year and a half to the point where we can actually talk about our relationship. I don't feel superior at all. I just want her to be happy and not feel like the world is against her.

 

I feel as if prior to us getting counseling, it was my job to temper her life. That she expected me to be in her head, fixing the things she couldn't.

 

I can't do that. No one can.

[Excalibur]

If you wanted that role, and she needed/expected that role previously - okay. Past is over.

 

Now you know that is not a job description that you can possibly hold, even if you wanted to - so stop protecting her from herself, let whatever happens happen.

 

If it helps - think addict and enabler. That's the dynamic you're in.

 

The addict lives in unreal reality, doesn't see the actions have consequences correlation, and has expectations and needs not based in factual assessment of the people they deal with or situations as they present.

 

The enabler runs around trying to fix and undo, create, and modify the world the addict lives in - despite the actions they take. So enabling is giving someone a lifestyle or an impression of self that is not in accordance with the actions they actually take in real-time. IT's giving them the reality they expect, and you believe they deserve or need to have in order to "act right".....while thier actions are doing nothing to create the situation in which they're living.

 

Ceasing to enable is just stepping away from "saving this person from themselves". You let thier actions, have consequences to them...rather than be the buffer. The kicker is that their actions do affect you and the children, as you are in cohabitation.

 

If this puts it in a better example......bad parenting is allowing the new baby learning to walk, never to fall. It's following behind them with your hands under their arms, so that if they stumble or toddle and falter, they remain upright. It's one thing to catch an infant from a harmful fall impact with a table edge. It's another thing to have the baby toddling uncertainly in an open floor - and rush to eliminate them going plop on the diaper out of a lack of balance and ability.

 

It's hard to watch the 'adult" who's never learned to walk, and believes that other people shouold catch them before they fall - fall. It'smuch harder on an adult to fall - the depth is greater to span and hit, and the impact is harder as a result of more girth. But that's really what it amounts to.....when she proposes to do something socially, that you nkow is going to result in her being disassociated from or made fun of - you can advise against it, while watching her toddle towards that action with the realization 'the reason she doesn't know on her own, or pay attention to my input, is because I've always ben standing there, behind her, to catch her beofre the fall." And this time you know you're not standing behind her - and when she goes plop and has a shock and a cry - you stand there goign "get up you can do it".