Does this count as high maintenance?

[Monodare1]

Hi there

 

After a lengthy text argument/discussion with the ex last week, she made a comment about how she felt and one of the causes of our break up.

 

She always had problems with her weight and yo yo dieted a lot, this gave her confidence and body issues. I used to tell her that I loved her and that her weight made no difference to me as I loved her regardless.

 

However, she told me that one of the problems she had with me was that I didn't tell her she was sexy every day! In my experience in the past with other relationships, the women I had been with before had confidence and knew they were sexy so I did the usual and told them so before a night out.

 

But the stbxw felt that it was not enough and that I should have told her everyday and that this led to her confidence being zero leading to her having no interest in sex. Also, she felt that I should have done more to get her in the mood such as running her a bath, massage etc.

 

My problem with that is that there was no spontaneity in the relationship and that romantic liaisons with my wife had to be planned with military precision, totally taking the sex out of sexy ness. I felt that to have any lovemaking with my wife I had to jump through hoops doing things just short of reciting Shakespeare's sonnets and going out to kill a buffalo!

 

Having to do all that took the sexiness of the romantic situations and made me me feel like she was extremely high maintenance.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am a romantic at heart and wrote poetry for her and wrote all the poems in auld Scots Robert burns style for our wedding and I moved from my friends and family so that she would be happy (which over time led a great deal to my unhappiness). I just feel that a large part of her unhappiness was her own body image and that using that is either just an excuse or her lack of confidence and body image contributed to the end of the relationship.

 

Also, I was alway reasonably confident and over time found that I was losing confidence as she wouldn't go out much unless she was with her friends leaving me stuck in the house, sometimes for over two months with no social life of my own.

 

Sorry for venting, and if any of you made it to the end of this rant, your opinions are most welcome.

[strive]

Don't get me wrong, I am a romantic at heart and wrote poetry for her and wrote all the poems in auld Scots Robert burns style for our wedding and I moved from my friends and family so that she would be happy (which over time led a great deal to my unhappiness). I just feel that a large part of her unhappiness was her own body image and that using that is either just an excuse or her lack of confidence and body image contributed to the end of the relationship.

 

You used to jump through hoops for her and then you stopped. She's thinking what did she do wrong? (Nothing, you just settled into the relationship and felt you needn't jump through hoops anymore and became complacent.) But then there may be a small insignificant comment you made (or didn't make) that made her think it's a big thing and it had something to do with her body. Or maybe she had body issues all along and she automatically thought that's why you stopped.

 

The problem isn't so much that she has body issues. The problem is WHY she was having body issues. By saying it doesn't matter, you're just brushing it off. If you had talked about the why's rather than how to compensate for her insecurities, it would have gone a long way to fixing this particular problem.

 

Just my 2c.

[Monodare1]

I know exactly why, her mum used to comment on her weight. Her mum had Crohn's disease and was always stick thin and prior to us meeting would criticise her weight leading to her eating more to comfort herself. I tried to help, I went on diets with her, encouraged her to come jogging with me and to join gyms with me, but she would give up and go back to eating. Maybe I became complacent, but after 5 years together (3 of them married) we just fell into married life with the baby/house/bills etc. I thought that's how it goes, if I were to tell her she was sexy everyday, surely I would start to sound disingenuous?

[littlejaz]

In that kind of situation, you can't win for losing. It is usually just an excuse to blame you for everything. How often did she tell you how sexy you were? What did she do to get you in the mood?

[Keenly]

I see a woman blaming her man for her body image issues. I also see a woman who seems according the the facts provided to have absolutely nothing to keep the passion of the relationship alive , and then turns around and complains about there not being passion.

 

 

Seems like all she did was yo yo with her weight and then she expected you to just so the rest.

 

 

A newsflash to women that no, you are not a princess. Relationships require work by both parties, and neither can just sit back and expect love to just happen.

[strive]

Slowing down after years together is natural. Maybe she's just missing the honeymoon phase? And if her body issues went that deep, then it's something she has to be proactive about fixing. You did right by helping her, but you eventually became her crutch. She wanted you to fix her. So maybe she's angry/resentful now that she lost her crutch.

 

I'm just guessing here. I don't know how your ex's mind works.

[Monodare1]

I tried, I really did, I tried acting sexy towards her, when we were out at parties or weddings I'd try to dance sexy with her, she would tell me to stop as she would feel embarrassed, I'd try to initiate things by talking dirty but she would tell me to stop and make me feel embarrassed about doing it. She never told me I was sexy, I just presumed that as a guy I didn't get to have compliments given to me. I started to think about exes and the things we got up to towards the end and get jealous of my past, then we would end up having "duty sex", getting it over and done with so neither of us would complain for a month until next time.

[Monodare1]

Also, I genuinely can't remember her doing anything to get me in the mood, but she criticised me for not doing things to get her in the mood. In my opinion, yes sometimes you need to work at mood setting, but also in my opinion spontaneity is also important, there was absolutely none.

[Monodare1]

As far as getting me in the mood was concerned, I likes having the tv off, music on and just the two of us talking, chatting and getting closer to each other, she did that in the early days of our relationship but not on the latter stages. She had a little diary with a plan in it, it was almost like if she was working on the plan, move in together to see if we clicked, when we did, get engaged, then plan the wedding and honeymoon, have a baby, buy a house etc. once the plan was complete, there was nothing left to plan and then the relationship went down hill. We were always so busy, we moved house 4 times in 5 years and fitted in a wedding, our son etc. I just wanted a happy married life, she wanted a military plan and once the plan was completed, it's almost as if I became surplus to requirements or she got bored once the plan was finished.

 

My father gave us (me) a 10k deposit for our house free gratis and now I'm back living with my father and she, her mother, two younger brothers and my son are living there. I'm glad I'm back in my home town but there seems to be no justice.

[Monodare1]

Gave to add, don't mind my son living there, just annoyed about my stbxw and ex mother in lay basically being gifted 10k and a house!