With all this pain we seem to cause each other ..

[spriggig]

...It takes a lot more than that to be a good husband.

 

We're all listening. Please continue.

[HopelessinDTW]

You definitely are onto something here Gallon.

It's not the tall dark and handsome man that women are vulnerable to. It's the man that will listen to them, and see just where the void is. That void is usually comfort. A man who will say,"let me give you a hug" to a woman in some kind of distress has just done the magical thing that will make her vulnerable to him.

H's get distant, hard, and unavailable emotionally. They can cut the grass 7 days a week, it won't get to their wives hearts. The H that comes home everyday and then holds his wife and looks in her eyes and stays tuned into her, is the one that she will find her rock of gilbralter, and that's what women are looking for.

Of course there are women who want to act out and have an affair, just as there are men. Of course there are women too that are emotionally distant or unavailable.

But for most women, there is a void in the comfort dept. First, be your wife's rock of protection. Don't violate her trust, protect it as if guarding a castle. Girls want to have fun may be true, but it's not nearly as important.

If another man comes along when she's in distress and acts like that castle guard, she's going to be vulnerable. Women really do want a knight.

This is pretty much my situation. Didn't have anything left for her after taking care of the kids, house, 50 hrs/week at work. She also didn't make herself available, she worked until 7:30pm, every other weekend. Any free time she had was to take care of house cleaning, groceries, etc. So we both did the wrong things, avoided each other unintentionally. She felt I was neglecting her, she hooked up with OM, she rewrote history (told me our marriage has been over for years), and done. Even three months into our separation and impending divorce, she still blames me for everything. Still denying the OM, even though I saw them both with my two eyes. Amazing the delusion, and the pathological lying.

[spriggig]

...It's the man that will listen to them, and see just where the void is. ...The H that comes home everyday and then holds his wife and looks in her eyes and stays tuned into her, is the one that she will find her rock of gilbralter, and that's what women are looking for....First, be your wife's rock of protection. Don't violate her trust, protect it as if guarding a castle....Women really do want a knight.

 

So, where's the woman's responsibility in this? To NOT run away, NOT cheat and NOT mope about? So, if men are knights in shining armor, women will be normal? And if men are normal, women run away?

 

Women need to support themselves emotionally, as men should too--be whole, be complete and then be a partner, not a needy leech.

[You Go Girl]

This is pretty much my situation. Didn't have anything left for her after taking care of the kids, house, 50 hrs/week at work. She also didn't make herself available, she worked until 7:30pm, every other weekend. Any free time she had was to take care of house cleaning, groceries, etc. So we both did the wrong things, avoided each other unintentionally. She felt I was neglecting her, she hooked up with OM, she rewrote history (told me our marriage has been over for years), and done. Even three months into our separation and impending divorce, she still blames me for everything. Still denying the OM, even though I saw them both with my two eyes. Amazing the delusion, and the pathological lying.

 

I feel for you. As a BS (not PA by H but other issues) I can tell you that there are women out there who have been through some type of betrayal that their eyes are wide open and very afraid to ever be in a BS situation again, and will do anything to finally get it right and find someone else who values honesty and wants nothing to do with games of any kind. I think the BS's of the world are sometimes the only ones who know how to value what's important, whether they are female or male. They've been burned. Those who have never been burned or have some kind of problem within themselves are the heartbreakers.

[You Go Girl]

So, where's the woman's responsibility in this? To NOT run away, NOT cheat and NOT mope about? So, if men are knights in shining armor, women will be normal? And if men are normal, women run away?

 

Women need to support themselves emotionally, as men should too--be whole, be complete and then be a partner, not a needy leech.

 

Of course women need to assume half the responsibility in a relationship's success or failure. The WAW stories are horrendous. They're mostly women taking their knights for granted. These women haven't been burned, but I can almost promise, it's in their future to be. They're no better than the cheating lying H's.

The WAW's feel a void. A sense that they haven't experienced enough of the world. They will go out and do so, and then often wish they had their innocence back, because they've been protected all their lives, by their parents, then their H's. Sheltered. It explodes in disaster.

[Simon Attwood]

Although the original subject was WAW and there has been, as would be expected, a focus on this phenomenon and the female role, I have tried hard to keep an open perspective on the discussion and have discussed dysfunctionality in general as something not gender specific. I guess we always run the risk of the "Us" v "Them" gender wars when discussing relationships (especially when Woggle gets in on the act ). I have mentioned both "Walk Away Wives" and "Walk Away Husbands", as well as root causes of behavioural dysfunctions and their milder forms which may contribute towards disharmony in relationships.

 

I'd prefer it if we didn't let things descend in to a slanging match

 

For those that have said they have read Berne, yet suggest that there is intent or will within the games discussed in transactional analysis, should perhaps read again, detached from their side of the fence, and slower. Rarely are we consciously aware enough to have intent or will play a part in the roles we play when we play these games. The whole point of these games is that the goal is not something that we are consciously striving for, but that it is implemented and maintained by unregulated and dysfunctional primitive urges in deep unconscious "reptillian" parts of the brain.

[candymoon]

Rarely are we consciously aware enough to have intent or will play a part in the roles we play when we play these games. The whole point of these games is that the goal is not something that we are consciously striving for, but that it is implemented and maintained by unregulated and dysfunctional primitive urges in deep unconscious "reptillian" parts of the brain.

 

This is pretty much what I noted earlier. It's primitive but also a a mix of our personal life experiences. We are so dynimic it is impossible to come up with a sweeping generlization as to why any of these phenonomena occur.

 

I would say, for the most part, that WAWs and even cheating wives do so when they feel their very survival is in danger from their spouses. I don't mean physical survival (and abuse is another subject entirely), but when our emotional survival is being attacked and all hope of us flourishing in our current environments has turned to despair or at least when we feel that way. But this is my own personal experience. As I said before we are all very different... but I think at some level this comes into play.

[florence of suburbia]

Hi Simon. I enjoyed your posts on Witabix's thread and so came to read some of the threads you've started. I did not want to clog up his thread with my own story, but it seems more on topic here.

 

My problems w/ my husband are what brought me here some four years ago. I've walked away from sex with him entirely at this point, but I'm still in the marriage. He's accepted it and we continue on this way, for now, amiably enough. We just moved house and between that, our jobs, and our children, we keep fairly occupied.

 

Sex has always been a problem. I remember once, very early on, we were making out in the back seat of the car. I was actually quite involved and excited, and he stopped me and said, "You're really not relating to *me* right now. You don't know me well enough to feel this excited about me. It must be in your head."

 

Some time after that he began telling me what sex was supposed to be..." not a game, part of the sacrament of marriage, the joining of two souls" etc.

 

Maybe the attraction literally was in my head. I wonder what the stuff you know about brain chemistry says about this? Could there be two types of attraction, coming from different parts of the brain? It felt like my body wasn't attracted to his but the stories I told myself made me attracted. He undermined those stories or wanted to override them with his own until they didn't work for me anymore. That was when my attraction left.

 

He later apologized for saying those things. He saw they had a chilling affect and stopped saying them, but it wasn't so much the fact he was or wasn't saying them...I knew he was thinking them. So his apology and restraint didn't solve the problem. Our sex life was down hill from there and has been strained ever since, and more recently, non-existent.

 

As I said, I'm curious about the brain chemistry part of this. Is it possible for different types of attraction to come from different parts of the brain? I feel that the bodily lust was never there. And when he took away my ability to fantasize my way into lust, there was nothing left to work with.

[Simon Attwood]

Florence, I am going to sleep on this and answer tomorrow, but this bit concerns me

I remember once, very early on, we were making out in the back seat of the car. I was actually quite involved and excited, and he stopped me and said, "You're really not relating to *me* right now. You don't know me well enough to feel this excited about me. It must be in your head."

 

A highly peculiar response from anyone during a moment of sexual passion.

[florence of suburbia]

Florence, I am going to sleep on this and answer tomorrow, but this bit concerns me

 

A highly peculiar response from anyone during a moment of sexual passion.

Yes, food for thought.

 

Sleep well!

[controlledchaos]

i agree with what you said in your original post. the part about one adult asking another adult to change....

 

i have gone round and round with my husband about this. we are separted, have been for 7 months. neither of us is perfect, but there are some things he would need to change inorder for me to feel truly up to reconnecting and trying again. HOWEVER, i don't think that's fair of me. is it really fair of me to say " change you are as a person and i'll think about trying to work this out." he is not offering to change and when i have brought up some minor things like, not pushing me away when i want a hug, he just says something unkind or makes fun of me.

 

i know i have offered to change for him. infact, i have changed for him. but, it doesn't really fix anything or make anything better.

 

not all women want hollywood love. some of us just want to be appreciated and told from time to time that we are loved. i would love to have married a man that saw me feeling down and came and gave me a hug because he knew i needed it. however, i didn't marry that guy. but, i still loved him. i still would've done anything for him. i think there are many women that want that type of love and relationship. that level of romance. maybe those are the women that aren't appreciating the good thing they already have.....

 

i'm not sure what the walk away wife syndrome is. i'll have to google it :-) but, in my situation i approached my husband about our relationship, because there really wasn't one at all. he said he didn't know if he loved me or wanted to be married anymore. i spent many months reading about how to fix things and make them better, but none of it mattered. he wasn't interested. however, he didn't want to have the relationship end. i told him it was either he moved out or the kids and i left. i just couldn't live like this anymore. i was miserable and my kids were seeing that. and since he wasn't interested in trying any of the fixes i found i didn't see much in term of options.

 

i suppose if i had taken the kids and moved out that would make me a walk away wife??? like i said, things need to change for me to want to stay in this marriage. being ignored and pushed to the bottom of the "to do" list for 5 yrs was long enough. i have never asked for hollywood. i've only ever asked for acknowledgement and validation of how i feel. i have never even asked that he understand or agree, just acknowledge. he won't even do that. nor will he apologize for the times when he truly has hurt me. he doesn't believe in "i'm sorry." which is one of the things i would need for him to change. i teach my kids to apologize when they've hurt someone else. i believe he should be able to apologize as well.

 

 

i didn't read the whole thread, so i could be way off point. :-)

[InceptorsRule]

i agree with what you said in your original post. the part about one adult asking another adult to change....

 

It's O.K. to ask. Why wouldn't it be?

 

 

i have gone round and round with my husband about this. we are separted, have been for 7 months. neither of us is perfect, but there are some things he would need to change in order for me to feel truly up to reconnecting and trying again.

 

 

Separation is not a good way to actually confront/solve whatever the marital problems are. It is a pathway to dissolution of the marriage, not recovery of it. Look at how you phrased the problem above--circular reasoning--the problem is you need changes from him, however, you won't "try again" until he's already solved those problems (made the changes). You have to reconnect and try again IN ORDER to try to make the changes you think are needed.

 

 

 

HOWEVER, i don't think that's fair of me. is it really fair of me to say " change you are as a person and i'll think about trying to work this out."

 

As noted above, by me, it's not an issue of "fairness." It's a matter of logic. You want him to change who he is as a PREcondition of trying to work things out, when in actuality, he won't be able to change except as a CONSEQUENCE of trying to work things out (and assuming the efforts are successful, which they may not be of course).

 

 

he is not offering to change and when i have brought up some minor things like, not pushing me away when i want a hug, he just says something unkind or makes fun of me.

 

Well being non-affectionate doesn't seem minor to me, but if it's minor to you, why even bother with it? What are the major issues in your marriage according to you?

 

 

i know i have offered to change for him. infact, i have changed for him. but, it doesn't really fix anything or make anything better.

 

This is kind of vague. You're not saying what you changed about yourself, why you think your h wanted you to change in this way, and why you believe it makes no difference.

 

 

 

 

not all women want hollywood love. some of us just want to be appreciated and told from time to time that we are loved.

 

 

That seems fair. Have you told your husband this is what you want? Simple verbal love and appreciation from him? Also, was he always non-affectionate; if so, why did you marry him; and if not, when/why did he change; and why did you decide you wanted him to change at this point of the marriage?

 

 

 

i would love to have married a man that saw me feeling down and came and gave me a hug because he knew i needed it.

 

You mean, without your actually telling him you needed it? Please don't expect your partner to be able to read your mind. Also this suggests that your h was always non-affectionate.

 

So: Why did you marry him in the first place?

 

 

 

 

 

however, i didn't marry that guy. but, i still loved him.

 

Surely he must have expressed his love to you in some other way? If not why did you marry him?

 

 

 

i still would've done anything for him. i think there are many women that want that type of love and relationship. that level of romance. maybe those are the women that aren't appreciating the good thing they already have.....

 

To me hugging my spouse isn't "romance", although it is a way of showing affection. What do you mean by "romance"?

 

 

 

i'm not sure what the walk away wife syndrome is. i'll have to google it :-) but, in my situation i approached my husband about our relationship, because there really wasn't one at all. he said he didn't know if he loved me or wanted to be married anymore.

 

This is the kind of thing that people say to their spouses when they are having an affair. His lack of affection for you and disdain would be another indicator.

 

 

 

i spent many months reading about how to fix things and make them better, but none of it mattered. he wasn't interested.

 

It's impossible for you to fix a broken marriage if your h is actively engaging in an affair.

 

 

however, he didn't want to have the relationship end.

 

Maybe he's a so-called "cake eater," someone who wants both the marriage and the affair.

 

 

 

i told him it was either he moved out or the kids and i left. i just couldn't live like this anymore. i was miserable and my kids were seeing that. and since he wasn't interested in trying any of the fixes i found i didn't see much in term of options.

 

Impossible to fix the problem if there hasn't been a D-day for his likely affair yet.

 

 

 

 

i suppose if i had taken the kids and moved out that would make me a walk away wife??? like i said, things need to change for me to want to stay in this marriage. being ignored and pushed to the bottom of the "to do" list for 5 yrs was long enough. i have never asked for hollywood. i've only ever asked for acknowledgement and validation of how i feel. i have never even asked that he understand or agree, just acknowledge. he won't even do that. nor will he apologize for the times when he truly has hurt me. he doesn't believe in "i'm sorry." which is one of the things i would need for him to change. i teach my kids to apologize when they've hurt someone else. i believe he should be able to apologize as well.

 

Again the only real question here is why you married this guy in the first place.

 

 

I'm assuming that if either of you are cheating it's probably your h, I'll be disappointed if it turns out you're seeing someone else and your version is just a rewrite of the marital history to make your h look bad.

[dreamingoftigers]

Nah, women just see "true love" as the butterflies, the honeymoon stage. After that, their hormones balance out, they get antsy and start blaming the husband. So, the expiration date on a relationship with virtually all women is 18 to 36 months. The lesson here is don't bother getting married. Or, if you just love punishment, wait five years and then demand an airtight pre-nup.

 

Oh ffs, I find the guys who got the raw deal when it comes to women complain like this. My mother still loves my father after 34 years of a ****ty marriage. She doesn't even blame him for the **** he actually does. Not everything is universal. You yourself seemed to do some heavy reading at the breakdown of your marriage and seemed to take more responsibility for the intimacy dissipating. If all women everywhere had emotions for their mate evaporate and used passive-aggressive bs on them, the marriage rate would be much lower or the divorce rate even higher. Men and women both these days expect more and more from their mates and less and less from themselves.

[LittleTiger]

Although the original subject was WAW and there has been, as would be expected, a focus on this phenomenon and the female role, I have tried hard to keep an open perspective on the discussion and have discussed dysfunctionality in general as something not gender specific. I guess we always run the risk of the "Us" v "Them" gender wars when discussing relationships (especially when Woggle gets in on the act ). I have mentioned both "Walk Away Wives" and "Walk Away Husbands", as well as root causes of behavioural dysfunctions and their milder forms which may contribute towards disharmony in relationships.

 

I'd prefer it if we didn't let things descend in to a slanging match

 

For those that have said they have read Berne, yet suggest that there is intent or will within the games discussed in transactional analysis, should perhaps read again, detached from their side of the fence, and slower. Rarely are we consciously aware enough to have intent or will play a part in the roles we play when we play these games. The whole point of these games is that the goal is not something that we are consciously striving for, but that it is implemented and maintained by unregulated and dysfunctional primitive urges in deep unconscious "reptillian" parts of the brain.

 

Fascinating thread Simon and I wouldn't say it was turning into a 'slanging match'. Sometimes the great thing about LS is the differing male and female points of view, which leads to a greater understanding of each other.

 

I'm not a big fan of the WAS 'syndrome' idea though, not in psychological terms anyway, because people are incredibly diverse. Wives and husbands walk away for a million different reasons. There may be similarities that we recognise but really that's just because we 'need' to feel somebody understands and we latch on to someone else's experience being the same as ours so that we don't feel so isolated. It gives us some comfort to know that someone else has 'been through the same thing' and therefore shares our feelings.

 

Personally, I think you are generalising too much about dysfunctionality in marriages and relationships.

 

Transactional analysis and the 'games' people play is a theory, NOT a fact. You seem to be returning to Berne's 'theory' time and again to 'prove' your argument and I find the section I have bolded just a little patronising (sorry, just my opinion). Just because people don't agree with what you or Berne's has said, doesn't mean they haven't read and understood the games theory. It may just mean that they don't agree with it.

 

Undoubtedly most of us play games at some point in our lives but some do so considerably more than others. Some do it consciously, others unconsciously. Some people are incredibly self aware and brutally honest with both themselves and others and 'games' are not part of their repertoire - consciously or unconsciously.

 

My point is that human beings are individuals. Every one of us is unique, physically, emotionally and psychologically. Our backgrounds are unique, our experiences are unique and our understanding of life based on those experiences is unique.

 

Just like any other psychological theory TA and Games People Play is true for some people, some of the time - it doesn't actually prove anything about humans or their relationships.

[Simon Attwood]

My problems w/ my husband are what brought me here some four years ago. I've walked away from sex with him entirely at this point,.

 

Have you walked or been pushed?

 

Sex has always been a problem. I remember once, very early on, we were making out in the back seat of the car. I was actually quite involved and excited, and he stopped me and said, "You're really not relating to *me* right now. You don't know me well enough to feel this excited about me. It must be in your head."

 

Some time after that he began telling me what sex was supposed to be..." not a game, part of the sacrament of marriage, the joining of two souls" etc. .

 

As I said last night; that's a very peculiar response. Such an analysis is like putting a straitjacket on something that is supposed to be a free, liberating act of abandon. As I said above, have you walked away from sex, or have you been pushed?

 

Maybe the attraction literally was in my head. I wonder what the stuff you know about brain chemistry says about this? Could there be two types of attraction, coming from different parts of the brain? It felt like my body wasn't attracted to his but the stories I told myself made me attracted. He undermined those stories or wanted to override them with his own until they didn't work for me anymore. That was when my attraction left.

 

A few years ago I wrote a couple of blogs on the subject of 2 types of love. I'm not sure how closely they answer your question;

 

http://jungworld.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!86D4E3BA13CE0D0C!364.entry

http://jungworld.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!86D4E3BA13CE0D0C!324.entry

 

As to the chemical aspect of love; oxytocin is the suggested culprit, it has been shown in mammals that form life partnerships that they have higher levels of oxytocin and lower levels of cortisol than those mammals that "Mate & Go", but there is much more to it than that. I can only suggest that there is a complex combination and this combination varies widely in humans. I would suggest that cortisol is the key and, as cortisol is neurotransmitter responsible for the fear response, and prepares the organism to respond to threat by "turning down" unnecessary functions of the organism to focus energy on dealing with the threat, probably turns down, or off, the flow of oxytocin.

 

And when he took away my ability to fantasize my way into lust, there was nothing left to work with.

 

That is very sad. Your husband appears to have a major problem with intimacy and your sexual problems, on the face of it, appear to be his demon rather than yours.

 

I am not sure what to suggest; if you want to work on it then get a good marriage counselor. Although i'd suggest it is your husband that needs the work rather than you.

[Simon Attwood]

Thanks for the comments LittleTiger. In general response; I would be the last person to suggest that any particular theory of behaviour has an overall authority on human relationships. There is truth everywhere, and there is also a lot of misdirection and misinterpretation.

 

When dealing with such a multifaceted and complex subject, the limitations of language and our own limits of comprehension inevitably lead to myopic limitations in our perceptions.

 

I'm not a big fan of the WAS 'syndrome' idea though, not in psychological terms anyway, because people are incredibly diverse. Wives and husbands walk away for a million different reasons.

 

My suggestion is that many of these "reasons" are "human rationalisations" applied as answers to make sense of something that, in truth, is a far more primitive and animalistic response to something perceived as an existential threat to the organism. A primitive fight or flight response that we need to explain to ourselves in a way that fits in with our view of ourselves as sentient beings at the helm of our own authorship. i.e. that we are the authors of our behaviour rather than unseen and covert processes that tug at our strings.

 

The feeling of vertigo that hits most people when they are confronted with the notion that they are, at times, not the masters of their own ship, and that they often face winds and storms and currents that will pull them off course, makes many fear leaving the port, so they go on journeys around the port, pretending that they are sailing the ocean and confronting life and taking on it's challenges, when they have really done nothing more challenging than sail in circles.

[controlledchaos]

hi. thank you for your comments. i'll try to respond. i do think people here give great advice. so maybe it could even help me!

 

i agree with what you said in your original post. the part about one adult asking another adult to change....

 

It's O.K. to ask. Why wouldn't it be?

 

--- i have asked during our marriage that he validate how i feel, or not push me away when i go to hug him. but it didn't change anything. it wasn't always like that. we've been together 15 yrs. married 10. separated 7 mo. but, it's been like this for at least 5 yrs. so, i told him things needed to change and he wasn't all that interested in changing them. and i guess i gave up asking.

 

 

i have gone round and round with my husband about this. we are separted, have been for 7 months. neither of us is perfect, but there are some things he would need to change in order for me to feel truly up to reconnecting and trying again.

 

 

Separation is not a good way to actually confront/solve whatever the marital problems are. It is a pathway to dissolution of the marriage, not recovery of it. Look at how you phrased the problem above--circular reasoning--the problem is you need changes from him, however, you won't "try again" until he's already solved those problems (made the changes). You have to reconnect and try again IN ORDER to try to make the changes you think are needed.

 

--- oh i tried! we went round and round before the separation. we even met with a counselor. who basically told my H that he needed to make up his mind about our marriage. i was still willing to try and that the ball was in his court. he needed to step up. NOW, i am not interested in trying unless he were to say to me. "i want to change the things i can so we can work this out." he asked if there was any way this ends without divorce, and i told him i didn't think so. he has so much contempt towards me when we interact that i just don't see how i can say yes this can end without divorce.....

 

 

 

HOWEVER, i don't think that's fair of me. is it really fair of me to say " change you are as a person and i'll think about trying to work this out."

 

As noted above, by me, it's not an issue of "fairness." It's a matter of logic. You want him to change who he is as a PREcondition of trying to work things out, when in actuality, he won't be able to change except as a CONSEQUENCE of trying to work things out (and assuming the efforts are successful, which they may not be of course).

 

----- i think it's hard to change as an adult. so, asking someone to stop being who they naturally are i think is asking a lot. he wasn't this man when i married him. he became this man over the years. i didn't accept it gracefully, but, regardless it happened. i don't know that he would know how to get back to the man he used to be..........

 

 

he is not offering to change and when i have brought up some minor things like, not pushing me away when i want a hug, he just says something unkind or makes fun of me.

 

Well being non-affectionate doesn't seem minor to me, but if it's minor to you, why even bother with it? What are the major issues in your marriage according to you?

 

----- it's not minor. but in terms of an example it's a small one. we have major issues with affection and physical closeness of all kinds. hugging, kissing, sex... all of them. we have issues with communication, and priorities as well. as i have said to him, i have felt tolerated in his life for about 7 yrs now. not loved or wanted, but tolerated. he just shrugs his shoulders or says " i don't know."

 

 

i know i have offered to change for him. infact, i have changed for him. but, it doesn't really fix anything or make anything better.

 

This is kind of vague. You're not saying what you changed about yourself, why you think your h wanted you to change in this way, and why you believe it makes no difference.

 

----- there are a lot of things i do or have done that he hasn't liked. so, i stop doing them. because he'd ask over and over and over again for me to stop. and some of them i really enjoyed. but, it was important to him. every time he's wanted to move or get a new job, i have supported him. even thought it's meant leaving friends for me and my kids, or a job of mine.

 

 

 

 

not all women want hollywood love. some of us just want to be appreciated and told from time to time that we are loved.

 

 

That seems fair. Have you told your husband this is what you want? Simple verbal love and appreciation from him? Also, was he always non-affectionate; if so, why did you marry him; and if not, when/why did he change; and why did you decide you wanted him to change at this point of the marriage?

 

--- yes, i have told him so many times. no, he wasn't always like this. i'd say it started a couple years into the marriage but has gotten worse the past 5. he has not been happy with a job he's had or a place we've lived our whole marriage. so, i always figured that once we got him to the right job and right place to live he'd be happy again and then things between us would get better. maybe not back to how they had been, but better than they were......

 

 

 

i would love to have married a man that saw me feeling down and came and gave me a hug because he knew i needed it.

 

You mean, without your actually telling him you needed it? Please don't expect your partner to be able to read your mind. Also this suggests that your h was always non-affectionate.

 

So: Why did you marry him in the first place?

 

--- well, not mind read i suppose. but, when i see him feeling down or struggling i offer some sort of gesture of peace/ kindness to help him not feel so down. even if it's just sitting together. but, with him ( especially in the past couple years) he would see me visibly upset ( like sad) and he'd just stare at me. no words of comfort or physical gestures. i have never expected him to be a mind reader. never. and i really don't recall him being like that when we got married. i used to LOVE hugging him.

 

 

 

 

 

however, i didn't marry that guy. but, i still loved him.

 

Surely he must have expressed his love to you in some other way? If not why did you marry him?

 

--- he wasn't like this when we got married. he was a lot of fun, who wasn't so serious, and had friends. things weren't perfect, but we had a good time together. i think we got along really well back then......

 

 

 

i still would've done anything for him. i think there are many women that want that type of love and relationship. that level of romance. maybe those are the women that aren't appreciating the good thing they already have.....

 

To me hugging my spouse isn't "romance", although it is a way of showing affection. What do you mean by "romance"?

 

---- some women want more. when what they have already is a good thing. i have a friend who i think has a good marriage and she and her hubby are so cute with their romantic gestures. it's NOT grand hollywood wooing type stuff. just nice things between the two of them that the other recognizes and appreciates and is thankful for. we've lived in a house with a HUGE 2 person jacuzzi tub for 4yrs. i have never been able to get him in there with me. not once. so, just little things like that i would be so happy to have.

 

 

 

i'm not sure what the walk away wife syndrome is. i'll have to google it :-) but, in my situation i approached my husband about our relationship, because there really wasn't one at all. he said he didn't know if he loved me or wanted to be married anymore.

 

This is the kind of thing that people say to their spouses when they are having an affair. His lack of affection for you and disdain would be another indicator.

 

--- yeah. i have been told and asked that for years now. as far as i can tell the ONLY affairs he's ever had is with his work. but, honestly i don't know. he's always traveled for work. he's been working insane hours for at least 4 yrs now. he's a very private person and he hides a lot of stuff. but, i have always believed he's just an emotionless workaholic. he says he's never had an affair. but honestly i don't know.

 

 

 

i spent many months reading about how to fix things and make them better, but none of it mattered. he wasn't interested.

 

It's impossible for you to fix a broken marriage if your h is actively engaging in an affair.

 

---- again i have no idea.

 

 

however, he didn't want to have the relationship end.

 

Maybe he's a so-called "cake eater," someone who wants both the marriage and the affair.

 

----- again, i don't know. but, my take from where i sit, is that he was fine keeping the marriage going the way it had been. basically, i had assumed all house and kid responsibility. he hardly ever spent time with us as a family. he'd work and work, go to the gym, and come home and do more work. he'd work 14+ days. he'd pull all nighters ( a lot of these from home too though) all the time. he said to me at one point last summer ( after he started seeing a therapist at my insistance) that he had to fix his job issue before he could work on our marriage. and that it could take time ( he referenced a year at least) for him to fix the job.

 

 

 

i told him it was either he moved out or the kids and i left. i just couldn't live like this anymore. i was miserable and my kids were seeing that. and since he wasn't interested in trying any of the fixes i found i didn't see much in term of options.

 

Impossible to fix the problem if there hasn't been a D-day for his likely affair yet.

 

 

 

 

i suppose if i had taken the kids and moved out that would make me a walk away wife??? like i said, things need to change for me to want to stay in this marriage. being ignored and pushed to the bottom of the "to do" list for 5 yrs was long enough. i have never asked for hollywood. i've only ever asked for acknowledgement and validation of how i feel. i have never even asked that he understand or agree, just acknowledge. he won't even do that. nor will he apologize for the times when he truly has hurt me. he doesn't believe in "i'm sorry." which is one of the things i would need for him to change. i teach my kids to apologize when they've hurt someone else. i believe he should be able to apologize as well.

 

Again the only real question here is why you married this guy in the first place.

 

 

I'm assuming that if either of you are cheating it's probably your h, I'll be disappointed if it turns out you're seeing someone else and your version is just a rewrite of the marital history to make your h look bad.

 

 

i wish i was rewriting history. i really do. i am not seeing anyone. last year, when he said take the kids and leave, it did change the dynamic a bit because i started to take some of my life back. i started talking to people and telling them what was going on in my marriage ( for the first time EVER). i had assumed that most marriages became like mine after 15 yrs together. i learned that is not the case. i went and did some things for myself that i had wanted to do for a long time ( read tattoos). i believe he has either read here on this site, or posted even, because a lot of the things he has said to me i have read here. and the spying 101 post he basically did to me step by step. very scary to read that.

 

which is another long post and probably deserves it's own thread.......

 

he still says he's never cheated. ive always taken his word for it.........in the last year before we separated, he seemed much more interested in his hand than in ANYTHING i could offer him.

 

so, any insight would be great. i STILL feel like we're both just walking. enough though i have no idea what there is left to do or try.....

[InceptorsRule]

Well OK.

 

If you believe that he's not been having affairs on you--which I would include as visiting prostitutes on business trips and things like that--then he has some sort of really serious psychological problem which he can only address through intensive individual therapy.

 

I mean no normal human being can just dump a fifteen year relationship including walking away from his children.

 

There's really nothing else you can do about this if he's not willing to get help for himself. You've already been through counseling and he's just not receptive.

 

It may be time to move on, it sounds like you've tried all you can.

[You Go Girl]

My suggestion is that many of these "reasons" are "human rationalisations" applied as answers to make sense of something that, in truth, is a far more primitive and animalistic response to something perceived as an existential threat to the organism. A primitive fight or flight response that we need to explain to ourselves in a way that fits in with our view of ourselves as sentient beings at the helm of our own authorship. i.e. that we are the authors of our behaviour rather than unseen and covert processes that tug at our strings.

 

The feeling of vertigo that hits most people when they are confronted with the notion that they are, at times, not the masters of their own ship, and that they often face winds and storms and currents that will pull them off course, makes many fear leaving the port, so they go on journeys around the port, pretending that they are sailing the ocean and confronting life and taking on it's challenges, when they have really done nothing more challenging than sail in circles.

 

From my perspective Simon, you're a fairly intelligent and educated man, yet, you lean toward a view that disturbs me and I disagree with.

You seem to embrace forms of determinism in the name of primitive brain function extensively. So why not just jump off a cliff then, if we have so little control over our decision making?

I'm a free-will girl, and understanding the means to that freedom. I will never buy into the theory that my primitive brain is making my life decisions for me.

Although these points may be valid in some individuals, particularly those who don't bother to think deeply about their life decisions, or lack the ability to do so, I tend to believe that my decisions are a complex mix of survival instincts, calculated decision making, values I was taught at a young age, and true compassion for myself and my partner. Then again, I could just be beefing up my ego, but I don't think so, as I'm not an egotistical person, however my self-esteem is high. I suppose I pat my own back when I think I deserve it.

Therfore I think the study of primitive brain function and instincts is a valid one, but a limited one when assessing the complex decision making process of an individual.

[You Go Girl]

i believe he has either read here on this site, or posted even, because a lot of the things he has said to me i have read here. and the spying 101 post he basically did to me step by step. very scary to read that.

 

which is another long post and probably deserves it's own thread.......

 

he still says he's never cheated. ive always taken his word for it.........in the last year before we separated, he seemed much more interested in his hand than in ANYTHING i could offer him.

 

so, any insight would be great. i STILL feel like we're both just walking. enough though i have no idea what there is left to do or try.....

 

Interesting. So is he tracking what you do on the computer? My stbx installed a keylogger, is an IT person, and knows how to find all puter history.

What is this spying 101 you speak of ?

 

 

more interested in his hand? So is he a porn addict or just a lazy lover that could care less about human connection?

If he's not having an affair, then he's complacent to the point of hardly existing in life. Has he given up on a successful family life and love? Does he not have faith in these things? Does he have any aspirations?

[Simon Attwood]

you lean toward a view that disturbs me

 

I am not surprised, I am pretty sure it would disturb a great many people

 

I am on neither side of the determinism versus free will debate. I believe it is a false dichotomy and that both exist side by side and I believe knowledge and acceptance of the determined allows us to apply free will and that allows us to overcome the determined.

[controlledchaos]

he has in the past and honestly, i believe he still might be now. i know he started the monitoring in 2003. but, i don't know what he did back then or for how long. he did the keylogger. and then keylogger and screen shots. then some program where he could monitor and manipulate MY laptop from his laptop no matter where we were. i have since bought a new laptop, but i think he's used the router recently as well.

 

he's a computer guy too. so, he can do just about anything with a computer that he wants to do. he likes to make sure i know that. even though i never had anything to hide before he started spying on me. i felt violated and suddenly wanted to hide EVERYTHING!!! didn't matter what it was. he started doing some cyberstalking in the spring of this year and it completely freaked me out!

 

the spying 101 is a thread i found somewhere here on LS. it tells you how to spy on someone. so, as i'm reading it i see all of the things my H has done to me. and i'm sure there is stuff i don't know about. he has said as much, " all the stuff he hasn't admitted to knowing about." do you have any idea what it's like living like that? one night i was at dinner with a girlfriend and he sent me " i know where you are and it's not home" type texts all night long. i bought some personal items online and and he sent me texts about those as well. he knew exact what they were because he could see me buy them online :-( and like i said, he could still be doing it for all i know..........

 

as for the relationship with human aspect. he's not a people person. he doesn't really have any friends, by choice. he has said many times in the past that if he doesn't find someone interesting he doesn't see much point in talking to them. so, it's hard to have couple friends or family friends because he just never likes them enough to want to hang out with them. he wasn't happy just working and working out. but, he did it. for a long time. he even gave up sleep for a while. he'd live on like 2-4 hrs of sleep a night for almost a week at a time.

 

i don't know about faith in family or any aspirations. we talked so much about time with family and what not. his job really has been the only thing he's really focused on. he has the kids every other weekend now, for about 48 hrs and he has spent MORE TIME with them since feb. than he did in the 9 yrs we had kids living together in the same house. it's hard on the kids because they see now that they get to spend time with him and they want us to all live together again. but, they forget that when we all live together daddy is never around. he's almost always working. and the fun weekend stuff doesn't happen as a family. for 2 yrs i told him that if he wanted to quit his job i would support that. that we could move somewhere insanely cheap, live in an itty bitty house and i'd head back to work. i told him he could hand out towels at a beach club or teach tennis lessons if he wanted. i just wanted him to be happy!!! i have never cared what kind of life we had. i just wanted it to be a happy one. and it never was. even when we lived at the beach and he worked 4 days a week things weren't good. he was "discontent" as he puts it. i worked so hard to remove almost all the child and house responsibility from him so that he wouldn't have any additional stress ( besides work). and yet when i would ask him to engage in our family just a little bit more, i would get criticized or insulted that i couldn't possibly understand because i don't have a job. since i don't work i have no idea what it's like. so, your guess really is as good as mine....................

 

 

Interesting. So is he tracking what you do on the computer? My stbx installed a keylogger, is an IT person, and knows how to find all puter history.

What is this spying 101 you speak of ?

 

 

more interested in his hand? So is he a porn addict or just a lazy lover that could care less about human connection?

If he's not having an affair, then he's complacent to the point of hardly existing in life. Has he given up on a successful family life and love? Does he not have faith in these things? Does he have any aspirations?

[You Go Girl]

he has in the past and honestly, i believe he still might be now. i know he started the monitoring in 2003. but, i don't know what he did back then or for how long. he did the keylogger. and then keylogger and screen shots. then some program where he could monitor and manipulate MY laptop from his laptop no matter where we were.

The above is called "remote access" It is a simple check box on your computer.

i have since bought a new laptop, but i think he's used the router recently as well.

Assume he has set up your new puter for monitoring.

 

he's a computer guy too. so, he can do just about anything with a computer that he wants to do. he likes to make sure i know that. even though i never had anything to hide before he started spying on me. i felt violated and suddenly wanted to hide EVERYTHING!!! didn't matter what it was. he started doing some cyberstalking in the spring of this year and it completely freaked me out! I understand this as it happened to me too, very quickly after we were married, he went through every file on my puter. I so relate to feeling violated, as I was an open book, and this was unnecessary to find out any truth. He could have simply respected me enough to ask me.

 

do you have any idea what it's like living like that? YES I DO! one night i was at dinner with a girlfriend and he sent me " i know where you are and it's not home" <---He has a gps device on your car, or can track your cell phone. My stbxh installed gps on my car. Look for a cell phone attached to the electric in the trunk, hidden behind or underneath the carpet on the side of the vehicle. Check the settings on your cell phone for gps. There are other gps devices that run on batteries that he could hide in the car or in your purse, but they need battery changes. The gps cell phone devices attached to the battery electric only rely on that you start up your car again before the cell phone battery dies.

 

as for the relationship with human aspect. he's not a people person. he doesn't really have any friends, by choice. he has said many times in the past that if he doesn't find someone interesting <--He likes people to be challenging to figure out. People who are transparent bore him. He wants people who are a puzzle, vague, and manipulators such as himself.

he doesn't see much point in talking to them. time. he even gave up sleep for a while. he'd live on like 2-4 hrs of sleep a night for almost a week at a time. This lack of sleep sounds like bipolarism--the manic phase.

 

i would get criticized or insulted that i couldn't possibly understand because i don't have a job.<--He is using guilt to divert the attention from himself to you. This is simple reverse psychology that he uses to redirect focus......[/QUOTE]

 

Your man is a piece of work, and yes, I can relate to quite a bit of it.

[controlledchaos]

thank you! yeah, the past 7 months have been interesting to say the least. i started seeing a domestic violence counselor and she helped but a lot into perspective. i read the book " why does he do that" and WHOA did my head spin! but, there he was in black and white. :-( no one i know gets what this is like. i'm starting a support group at the end of the month, so i hope that helps some.

 

as for the gps thing. he was using my phone. tracking me, calls, texts, etc. and i really had nothing to hide. ALL of that started AFTER the separation started and he was out of the house. nothing quite like finding a video camera in your bedroom, aimed at your bed to make you feel completely unsafe and threatened. i am SOOo sorry you went through that as well. no one should have to go through that. after i found the surveillance stuff i confronted him and gave him the information about the legality of it all. i told him to get the rest of the devices out of the house, out of the car, off the computer and off my phone or i was going to press charges. i did file a police report. but i didn't press charges or ask for a restraining order or anything like that. i did however get a new cell phone. an iphone. which is supposed to be safer. but who knows. of course within the week, he had gotten me to leave my purse in my car ( phone was in it) and while i was getting my son out of the bedroom he went through my purse, found my phone and HID with it!!! when i finally found him hiding, he was frantically searching the phone for anything he could!!! it was insane!

 

i'll have to look into the remote access thing. i still have nothing to hide, but it's violating and unsettling to know someone is reading what you email to someone else, or a private conversation you are having with a friend. or what you're ordering online. or watching in your spare time. the list goes on...................

 

thank you, again!

Edited September 8, 2010 by controlledchaos

[You Go Girl]

thank you! yeah, the past 7 months have been interesting to say the least. i started seeing a domestic violence counselor and she helped but a lot into perspective. i read the book " why does he do that" and WHOA did my head spin! but, there he was in black and white. :-( no one i know gets what this is like. i'm starting a support group at the end of the month, so i hope that helps some.

i'll have to look into the remote access thing.<---Look up "remote desktop". There is one more simple way, I think, (I'm no expert puter security like my stbx is) but that is to change the name of your puter. Simply right click on my puter icon on your desktop, and change it's name to "no more spying" or whatever you want, haha. The other way is to disable "remote desktop". I do believe, if I remember right, it is simply a checked box, or not. Easy to fix.

 

thank you, again!

I'll have to look up this book.

Mine even tracks my posts here on LS. Oh well. Is it really that interesting or amusing?

Thank-you too...I've never known another poster on LS who understands this weird obsession.

I never wanted to learn how to check up on somebody on their puter!

But to marry someone, find that they looked at everything on my puter, and that they were hiding a porn obsession at the same time, was creepy.

Sometimes I wonder if that's why he had the porn obsession...a voyeur thing...like spying on people having sex?

Spying on people, watching people, it ties into the puter security interest that led to the career, doesn't it?