Posted on 02/28/2019 7:39:15 AM PST by yandexja
Unless I can’t function anymore despite modern meds I’d have to have a friend with benefits
I’m 61
Wifey is 53 and incredible shape
I can see my run ending one day
I have a 77 year old friend who has a mistress
She’s 55 and a professional in an unhappy marriage
He loves his wife but she turned out the love lamp 20 years ago
“This is when men take up hunting and fishing.”
70 / 90 years ago— THAT WAS “FEEDING your family”..at least in Lincoln County, Missouri..and I am sure countless other parts of the USA....Many a bucket of catfish cleaned for eating, or selling to St.louis ‘kissin cuzzzins.....Duck hunting not exactly a ‘sport’ back then.... Just Saying..
Irecalled you being a member of the FR Women Haters club.
The fact that you have no idea how your wife became emotionally unavailalbe explains a lot.
I knew a couple and she left him and he was devestated and never saw it coming.
While she never talked about doing that to me, when I heard it, it did not surprise me in the least.
It’s staggering how oblivious men are to their marriage and their wives to not figure it out.
Women don’t become emotionally unavailable or lose interest in sex for no reason.
It’s just that most men don’t see that they are the reason. There is no other reason for a woman.
Exactly.
“The only drama in this story was in the title. “
WTF, we can’t even make it to 50 posts before someone chimes in who actually read the article!?
What do you mean specifically ‘emotionally unavailable’? Is this not discussing her feelings all the time?
Don’t men think women are too emotional?
Wouldn’t this be a man’s dream come true?
Not being sarcastic or nasty here, just asking. I’m not a feeely chick. Never have been. I don’t DO drama.
I’ve had several relationships end (various reasons) and all but one of the guys came running back about 6m later ‘they’re all crazy, please take me back!, I can’t stand the neverending drama’
No, it wasn’t just about the kids.
It was her going off her Zoloft. It was me doing the taxi’ing of the kids to school, after school, girl scouts, church, friends houses, etc. It was me begging her, pleading her to have a date night.
I actually made a game of it the first two years, on what the excuse for no sex would be - too tired, not in the mood, etc. After that, I basically quit trying.
So, I turned to the kids, being there for everything - concerts, school trips, etc.
I also turned to work, where people actually appreciated my time, and told me so.
I also turned to the bottle, and drank more often, and more, than I should. She mentioned it once (You really shouldn’t drink so much... as she opened another beer, 4-6 a night for her). I quit drinking for 6 months, and nothing changed about her. In fact, she would accuse me of coming home drunk during that time. I laughed. I couldn’t do anything right - laundry, sweep, then mop the kitchen, MY cooking was verboeten, because it was too much food for the 6 of us, or cooked wrong.
So, I’ve admitted to her that there’s plenty of fault for both of us. Begged her for counseling with the pastor, an actual marriage counselor, etc. She wouldn’t go.
So, I moved out. That was my mistake. I should have moved my oldest kid (15 at the time), and told her I was taking her bedroom that she was going to bunk with mom. Anyway, I moved out. THEN she decided she wanted to go to the pastor. I had her schedule it - she’s a teacher, and I’m in IT. She did - but was 30 minutes late (usually I picked the kids up, and since she had to now, it was an inconvenience). The pastor told her she can’t want me back in the house, and marriage because it’s inconvenient for her now that she’s having to do what I did.
Anyway, no. I do not now, or ever, will find a way to help an emotionally unavailable wife become available again.
Sorry for the ramble.
Every man should know that once a wife has kids, he is low man on the list.....last......
A woman’s children are flesh-of-her-flesh, bone-of-her-bone....they were part of her body for 9 months, and no marriage relationship can be anywhere that close.
Not cliches.
Scriptural truth.
In Ephesians, Paul commands men to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave His life up for it and for women to see to it that they respect their husbands.
It’s not a matter of waiting for the other person to go first. That’s immature.
The right thing to do is the right thing even if there is no immediate response. Years of damage done to a marriage take time to undo. Someone has to be the adult and do it first regardless of the outcome, but eventually, it will bear fruit.
As for your condescending attitude of “dearie”, it does not surprise me to hear of your wife’s emotional distance, especially if you treat her like that. I hope you don’t but if you are willing to talk to perfect strangers like that, it’s likely to be an ill founded hope.
Many of us women have been in your shoes with the load you bore but without the crazy spouse.
It was due to a workaholic husband who did more for evryone else than for his own family.
The only people he would say no to was us.
I’m sure you were exhausted, too.
And I won’t call you a liar for admitting that.
Which is wrong, but for many it is what it is.
Part of that is when the husband pulls away when the baby is born and when the husband becomes distant, then she pours herself into the kids.
The first few months of motherhood are gueling and men cannot figure out why their wives don’t pay attention to them like they used to.
Well, when you’re the primary source of survival for that little one who does not sleep through the night for months and needs to be fed ever few hours, yeah the mother is going to pay attention to that baby almost full rime.
Throw in the dramatic hormones changes that happen when preganacy and birth take place, it’s no surprise. Birth especially. At the beginning of the pregnancy the hormone changes at least take some time.
At birth, it happens within a few hours as you go from full blown, can’t even see your feet any more, pregnant, , to birth and lactation. That is a huge trauma to a person’s body.
Men need to understand how difficult pregnancy and childbirth are physically on a woman’s body, and I don’t think there is any real way to convey it.
Men need to be patient and give it time. Cutting her slack for dealing with things beyond her control go a LONG way to them getting better faster.
Not necessarily true.
Some women marry for something other than attraction; some women are so career-oriented that either they pass their man and so he is no longer attractive, or while hobnobbing at the office they meet someone else.
Big wide world out there.
Sometimes when she says no she means "meh" but 10 minutes in she wants to go longer than you do.
Begging is not an aphrodisiac to a woman, though.
But if a woman has set her face like flint in advance to say no, it's very difficult to get around that. Nonetheless, anger and disapproval aren't the opposite of attraction -- total indifference is.
Emotionally available and emotional are two different things.
Not all women are emotional....most are...but no worries
Soy boys sitting in the passenger side of the Prius while super hero chick drives are likely emotional enough for men and women
I make it a point here not to fight with women as nasty as i will a man...it’s a southern thing same as calling you dear
And you don’t get it i know
You don’t know me nor recall accurately given your accusations
See post 77 and my homepage and then get back to me
Woman hater as you say.....if you only knew how absurd that is given my life
All, everyone. of us old folks would have told her just exactly that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK5N2LavUZQ
If anything I've learned over the last several years it's “love” is a very difficult thing to define and implement. For example, the husband might bring her flowers when what she really wants is a day off at the spa. The husband thinks he is being loving whereas the wife might think he is being thoughtless to her situation. Communication is not always all that it's cracked up to be in spite of what the "experts" states.
And perhaps the husband might need to get away with “the boys” once in a while after working all day with a group of obnoxious people, bosses that set unreasonable deadlines, having a terrible commute, and coming home to a fraised wife and yelling kids. All the while being afraid of how he's going to support his family if he's laid off, being told the living room needs to be repainted, knowing that the grass needs cutting-again, or trying to figure out how he's going to replace the car when everyone is pressuring him to take them to DisneyWorld. And in the mist of all this being told he's not being romantic enough.
This isn't to say the wife doesn't have legitimate needs to escape to be with “the girls”. She does. It only says that it works both ways.
It does.
I think it’s good for men to have their own friends and women to have their own friends and the luxury of being able to spend time with them on occasion to get away.
As far as coming home to screaming kids, I can’t blame him for not wanting to do that, but trust me on this, no woman wants to be stuck at home with those same screaming kids who may have been like that all day. She desperately needs him to come home and do something, and it might be something as simple as taking the kids to the park or outside to play.
Just to get them out of her hair and give her some peace and time to decompress.
He’ll find a much more open and welcoming wife when she is not stressed out like that.
I remember as kids, back in the day when Father Knows Best was the thing, many times my dad would take the herd of us (four and some neighbor kids too) to the school playground to play. I’m sure that made my mom’s evening. Gave her a chance to finish the dishes and tidy up some and just have some peace and quiet.
You’re right about the love language.
I could not care less about a day at the spa or jewelry, or any of the usual things.
I cared that he was willing to take the effort to give me a hand with HIS (too) kids, and not leave the whole job to me.
The woman does have the responsibility to respect and honor her husband. I did not mean to imply that she was free from it all, but the primary responsibility for the condition of the marriage and the family, is his and if he doesn’t know what to do, he needs to find some counsel that would help.
Back in the old days, extended families helped a lot both in relieving the burden on parents, and teaching kids how to grow up and teaching them the skills they’d need to become responsible adults.
Communication is critical.
That’s a whole ‘nother issue.
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