I think I am ready to open up to my wife.

[allina]

To me it seems that many women would consider that boring and complain about the lack of passion.

 

I think rolling around the floor and making out on a snowy day is passionate

 

I'm glad to hear things are going well, I hope your positive and loving attitude for your wife sticks.

[silktricks]

My gf hates the history channel, national geographic channel, and discovery channel.

 

Those are the best 3 channels on the TV!!

[Woggle]

Why can't we have the cozy scenes AND the passion?

 

To many women drama=passion.

[silverfish]

For some reason today both our workplaces panicked over a little snow and told us to stay home so we had the house to ourselves. All day today we were rolling around on the floor and making out then we cuddled on the couch together and watched the history channel which I know is a bit weird but we both enjoy watching it. Pretty soon the cat cuddled up to next to us and we were petting him. It was just beautiful and I was thinking about how different it was with my ex when we had nothing to do. She would use a day like this start some drama and an argument and hear my wife and I are home being perfectly content which is a big plus. Guys if a woman can enjoy contentment then that is big because so many of them can't.

 

I feel that most men in relationships or marriages would do themselves a world of favor by ending but I am starting to realize that I am in one of the few that is actually worth a man's effort.

 

I had one of these days recently with my ex as he got stranded at my place in the snow.It didnt involve cuddling but lots of talking, tea, and cricket watching (the sport not the insects). It was the first time for years that we've done something like that. We also had about the kids running in and out all day, and their friends...there were cats involved too

 

Its the most fun we've had together in years, and made me think it might be worth another shot. It was even more poignant considering what we've been through the last 2 years, and I just enjoyed it for what it was without getting into that 'what does it all mean' stuff.

 

Its hard to take things one day at a time and learn to be happy in your own skin until you've lived with the consequences of not doing that

[quankanne]

To many women drama=passion.

 

you're obviously hanging out with the wrong kind of women. Time to start associating with a better quality of gal ...

[Woggle]

To many women drama=passion.

 

you're obviously hanging out with the wrong kind of women. Time to start associating with a better quality of gal ...

 

Sadly this seems to be the case everywhere I go but I am looking at my marriage in a new light. All the crap that other men have to go through makes me appreciate her even more. I know what I will and won't put up with and she knows it as well so why don't I just appreciate the fact that I have a great woman in my life? I figure any woman who would plan on using as a doormat would have been long gone by now after seeing what a complete exercise in futility it would be. I can spot a no good woman from a mile away and my wife gives me none of those vibes.

[quankanne]

that's very encouraging to hear. Now just imagine if there is ONE woman like her, surely there are more scattered throughout the world. You might not meet them in your lifetime, but they do exist!

[Woggle]

that's very encouraging to hear. Now just imagine if there is ONE woman like her, surely there are more scattered throughout the world. You might not meet them in your lifetime, but they do exist!

 

There are more. Meeting good women is like hearing a good song on top 40 radio. Most of it is crap but once in a while you find a gem.

[Ronni_W]

Meeting good women is like hearing a good song on top 40 radio. Most of it is crap but once in a while you find a gem.

Hhmmm...that's been my exact same experience as far as meeting men.

 

Women and men with something in common? Please say it ain't so, Woggle.

[Pyro]

Hhmmm...that's been my exact same experience as far as meeting men.

 

Women and men with something in common? Please say it ain't so, Woggle.

 

no, according to him the only reason men are like that is because of women.

[White Flower]

For some reason today both our workplaces panicked over a little snow and told us to stay home so we had the house to ourselves. All day today we were rolling around on the floor and making out then we cuddled on the couch together and watched the history channel which I know is a bit weird but we both enjoy watching it. Pretty soon the cat cuddled up to next to us and we were petting him. It was just beautiful and I was thinking about how different it was with my ex when we had nothing to do. She would use a day like this start some drama and an argument and hear my wife and I are home being perfectly content which is a big plus. Guys if a woman can enjoy contentment then that is big because so many of them can't.

 

I feel that most men in relationships or marriages would do themselves a world of favor by ending but I am starting to realize that I am in one of the few that is actually worth a man's effort.

I'm very happy for you Woggle as you've always seemed to feel that women can't be loyal. (Most women feel this way about men, but that's ok--not your experience). But what do you mean you are ready to open up to your wife? It sounds like you're already there.

[Woggle]

By opening up I mean trusting. I see what happens to many men who trust a woman and I didn't want that to happen to me. There is an exception to every rule and maybe my wife is one of those exceptions. Reading this board and listening to women at work openly brag about their affairs does not put a man in a romantic mood.

[whichwayisup]

Reading this board and listening to women at work openly brag about their affairs does not put a man in a romantic mood.

 

Then stop reading this board so much. Take some responsibility for it, meaning, you read something, don't like it, FORGET about it. Move on, push those yucky thoughts out of your head and log off, call your wife at work, or if she's home, cuddle up next to her. You don't have to fly off the handle by hearing awful stuff around you! You listen to those women at work, why? Why let what they are saying go into a tailspin? You can control how you react to stuff Woggle..

 

I see you're at a good place, the effort is there, you see your wife as someone you want to trust more.. Let her in, tell her how all this stuff around you gets you going, that you need more reassurances from her, so you can get to more comfy level of trusting her without letting outside influences get to you.

 

One thing, stop comparing her to your ex. Your ex is your past, and it isn't fair that your wife is constantly being compared to 'life once' with your ex.

[sally4sara]

Then stop reading this board so much. Take some responsibility for it, meaning, you read something, don't like it, FORGET about it. Move on, push those yucky thoughts out of your head and log off, call your wife at work, or if she's home, cuddle up next to her. You don't have to fly off the handle by hearing awful stuff around you! You listen to those women at work, why? Why let what they are saying go into a tailspin? You can control how you react to stuff Woggle..

 

I see you're at a good place, the effort is there, you see your wife as someone you want to trust more.. Let her in, tell her how all this stuff around you gets you going, that you need more reassurances from her, so you can get to more comfy level of trusting her without letting outside influences get to you.

 

One thing, stop comparing her to your ex. Your ex is your past, and it isn't fair that your wife is constantly being compared to 'life once' with your ex.

 

Ooooh or - when you read posts on here from people who have good things going on for them and post about how good their relationship is - you can give just as much credibility as you do the bad ones and accept that there ARE good relationships and people out there instead of just dismissing it and calling them liars.

[Woggle]

Ooooh or - when you read posts on here from people who have good things going on for them and post about how good their relationship is - you can give just as much credibility as you do the bad ones and accept that there ARE good relationships and people out there instead of just dismissing it and calling them liars.

 

For the most part I believe they are right at the moment but women very rarely suatain romantic feelings over time. It usually quickly turns to contempt and resentment.

[sally4sara]

For the most part I believe they are right at the moment but women very rarely suatain romantic feelings over time. It usually quickly turns to contempt and resentment.

 

You don't know that because you have not dated very many women. The ones you've dated are less than 1 percent. And any relationship you've seen where it didn't workout after a while? Well it wasn't YOUR relationship and you were not a 24/7 fly on the wall to really know the path of its demise. I have had both guy friends and girl friends who have had a relationship fail and CLAIM "I don't know what happened, I did everything right". Yet I can remember things they did that likely completely contributed to their end of that relationship's failure. People don't like to take responsibility all the time. We also struggle to step outside of our own actions sometimes and recognize that yes! even we can be a jerk now and then to the person we say we love. YOU have been doing that and keeping it a secret. See what I mean? You don't know that the friends of your own who have had a relationship fail were completely blameless. You can't, you were not always around them. You only want to believe your friends' belief that they did nothing to contribute because it supports your damaged life's views to think of them as victims of women.

So while yeah, some are up against a foul partner who leaves them in the lerch or treated them poorly, but it happens with no respect to gender. It is your hate that says the women who it happens to probably made it happen by being a witch and the men it happened to were victimized by other witches. But we've already had the Witch Burning Trials wogs. All we got was a buch of innocent women burned alive. They couldn't ALL have been witches. You dig? Stop looking for the mark of Satan in every woman you meet and just be happy about the love in your own relationship.

[Woggle]

I have dated quite a few but only had two serious relationships and I married both of them. I have observed enough to know that for the most part trying to make a relationship work with a woman is a complete and utter exercise in futility. Somebody said that most women would love a cosy day like this but then how come my coworker said it sounded like an utter bore when I told them what I did on my snow day?

 

I am not trying to burn the witch but I know the score in modern day male/female relationships. Just look at this board as an example to see what I am talking about.

[Ronni_W]

There is an exception to every rule and maybe my wife is one of those exceptions.

Woggle,

I understand your conundrum. As I'm reading it, your growing insights and current experience (of your wife) are not supporting your old beliefs and generalizations (about women as a group.)

 

[so] You're now facing having to change your old beliefs (which you are calling "the rules"), or clinging to them like a man who is drowning (which will require you to continuously add more and more "exceptions".)

 

It's difficult, I know. For reasons that I can't fathom, people intensely loathe having to say that they no longer believe what they once believed. They'd rather come across as inauthentic and disingenuous...and sometimes downright unintelligible and illogical.

 

What if your "rules" are actually based on wrong information? What if your ex is one of the "exceptions"? What if those women you hear bragging about their affairs are "exceptions"?

Are you confident enough to at least entertain such possibilities?

 

As long you're needing, seemingly desperately, to see your wife as "an exception", you won't have the courage and conviction of belief to consistently and persistently back-up your current perception and experience of her. In my opinion and experience.

 

If you just continue to cling to your old beliefs instead of using your current insight into and experience of your wife to establish a more accurate belief that fully encompasses and honours who your wife really, truly is...then you leave her at a serious disadvantage, and your marriage always at risk. In my opinion and experience.

 

[because] Your long-term faithfulness will be to your false beliefs, and the smallest incident will be taken as "evidence" to support those false beliefs. You're leaving your wife very little leeway to make normal, human mistakes -- you're leaving yourself open to turning against her in a nanosecond.

 

You'll jump to defend your false beliefs instead of looking for ways to give your wife compassion, forgiveness, comfort...whatever she may need after she makes normal, human mistakes that, yes, will sometimes hurt you.

 

In my opinion and experience.

[Woggle]

I do not feel that my beliefs are wrong through. That is what people don't get. I have tried to be in denial about them but everything points to my beliefs being right.

[sally4sara]

I do not feel that my beliefs are wrong through. That is what people don't get. I have tried to be in denial about them but everything points to my beliefs being right.

 

Sure! Except all of the times you're wrong. You just choose to not believe the things that show you are wrong so you can still say "everything points to my beliefs being right.

 

You're still wrong even when you chose to ignore the evidence.

[Woggle]

Sure! Except all of the times you're wrong. You just choose to not believe the things that show you are wrong so you can still say "everything points to my beliefs being right.

 

You're still wrong even when you chose to ignore the evidence.

 

What evidence?

[Ronni_W]

I do not feel that my beliefs are wrong through.

(Bit of trivia for a Saturday morning : That's a thought, not a feeling. If it was a feeling, we'd be able to insert one of the words "glad, bad, sad, mad or scared" after the word "feel"...and the sentence would still make sense. )

 

Wogs,

NOBODY wants to think that their beliefs are wrong.That is, in my opinion and experience, a HUGE part of where relationships go sideways. EVERYBODY wants to just cling to their same-old crap, no matter how much crap it is. That's what I meant: people intensely loathe examining and updating their core beliefs about themselves, others, Life, Love and the Universe in general.

 

Nobody wants to consider that their habitual ways of thinking about and doing life and relationships *may* be based on seriously defective inputs.

 

Your current beliefs are only "right" for you; they are your personal truths not The One And Only Truth. You do have the absolute right to have them. [so] I don't get why you'd want or need to "be in denial" about them.

I have tried to be in denial about them but everything points to my beliefs being right.

I am not arguing that you believe what you believe. But, if everything points to your current belief that your current beliefs are 100% accurate and flaw-free...then you would not need any "exceptions".

 

You are relying on "exceptions" to help keep your beliefs afloat, and "exceptions" are necessarily going to enable you to say that your beliefs are 100% accurate and flaw-free. THAT is part of the conundrum.

 

But. What if your need for an "exception" is actually the opening and invitation for you to explore your own beliefs further? Just "what if?"

[Woggle]

I would love to be proven wrong and for women to not be as bad as they appear to be. It is a dismal situation for any single man looking for love when he looks at what is out there but I am a person who deals in reality.

[sally4sara]

What evidence?

 

People who don't hate their mate. People who don't hate entire groups of people based on gender. People who are happy in healthy relationships. Oh, anyone who doesn't fit in your very narrow view of reality really. They exist even if you don't want to believe it or you do not currently know them well enough to recognize them for who they are and how they behave.

 

You don't have enough evidence to support your beliefs because you don't know everyone. Yet you refuse to acknowledge this fact and still believe what you believe. It is willful. You just don't want to accept it or see them.

[Woggle]

People who don't hate their mate. People who don't hate entire groups of people based on gender. People who are happy in healthy relationships. Oh, anyone who doesn't fit in your very narrow view of reality really. They exist even if you don't want to believe it or you do not currently know them well enough to recognize them for who they are and how they behave.

 

You don't have enough evidence to support your beliefs because you don't know everyone. Yet you refuse to acknowledge this fact and still believe what you believe. It is willful. You just don't want to accept it or see them.

 

Then where are the women on here who are with kind and loving men who are actually happy and attracted to them and are not ready to leave? I keep asking for it but nobody ever seems to show me any evidence.