| Sorry for the longevity of this message, I'm a long time lurker, first time poster so my apologies in advance. My wife and I have been together for 16 years, married for 13, have two great kids whom mean the world to us. We have been having issues on and off for pretty much the entire time of our marriage. The issues really stem from my Mother whom is quite domineering and controlling in nature. She is really the only issue we ever fight about and lately the Mom issue has reared its ugly head once again. When my wife and I first became engaged she ended up giving me back her ring due to a large issue that transpired between my sister and my mother on Mother's day. My wife (fiance) at the time saw this and basically said she didn't want any part of this relationship going forward if there was any hint of her being treated the way my mother would treat her own daughter. It was at this time, I told my fiance that I would handle my mother and get tighter reigns over how the two of them would interact in the future. Fast forward 15 years later and I'm still dealing with reigning in my mother. Therapy has taught me due to my mothers controlling, manipulative nature that no one in my house, even my own father had much of a voice in the family dynamic. I'm now much better at dealing with my mother and her demeanor. However, my wife sees it differently. She still feels I'm not handling "my side of the family," the way she handles hers. Now I'm the first to admit that I haven't done a good job in the past of handling my mother so I can totally understand why she is upset with me and doesn't necessarily believe what I tell her that I feel I'm doing a better job now. I kept the two of them totally separate. My wife never attends any of my side of the family affairs, holidays, birthdays, vacations etc. And for the past 3 years that has worked pretty well, or so I thought. I also don't give my wife a complete blow by blow of my conversations with my parents. I sort of filtered the conversations so as to not offend my wife or get into a big argument over conversations that most of the time didn't involve her or have anything to do with her. However, when in the past I have involved her and asked her advice, it often times resulted in an argument because she is so sure that my mother is being underhanded, manipulative, and calculating in her entire thought processes and conversations. So now we have been to therapy on/off for the last 4 years and I understand my wife's hurt feelings. I understand she is mad at herself for possibly staying with me all these years and now might feel slightly trapped with two kids whom she doesn't want to break up the family as a result of her hurt feelings. Here is some background on me. I'm a paid professional so we have been lucky so that my wife doesn't have to work at a full time job. I love my wife very much. We have a great time together both just the two of us and with us as a whole family. She is a stay at home mommy and I know what work that can be so I'm not in any way shape or form diminishing what all that entails. My kids lead a pretty active social life with school and sports etc that my wife and I when I can get there is is heavily with. We don't drink, smoke, do drugs or anything like that. I have snooped into our cellphone records and she is a heavy user of mins talking to her GFs I know because I have all their numbers and I know she isn't cheating on me at all. She isn't hiding money or planning on leaving me anytime soon so far as I can tell. My questions arise from this. She has in the past been mad at me for my lack of dealing with my "mommy issue" as she calls it but eventually has gotten over it to point where we just keep it on the back burner and don't discuss it. And I thought this was all fine until last November she drops this bomb on me and tells me she is still highly upset with me and we need to go see counseling again. Now at this point, I get it that I haven't been doing all the little things a husband is supposed to like taking her out on dinner dates, really sitting and listening to her, being interested in her all the time, etc. Our sex life up until this past Nov. had been really healthy and something I thoroughly enjoyed as did she. I was able to give her orgasms both orally and through penetration and she likes games. We had what I would consider to be a very satisfying sex life. That's never been an issue. Now fast forward to now and its been 4 mos since we have had sex. She is totally unemotionally attached to and told our counselor that she is "Emotionally turned off" by me. When I inquired as did he (the therapist) what exactly that meant she claimed she was upset with me and had tried everything she knew to get through to me about "mommy issues" and the only way she knew now to make me understand her frustration is to withhold sex from me knowing that I absolutely LOVE sex with her. So now I believe I have a handle on my issues with mom. I know she isn't going to change but I can change how I deal with her which seems to be working pretty well for now. And since November I've tried really hard to be attentive to my wives needs, staying on top of household chores, being a better listener, taking her out on dates, cooking dinner, etc. However, I haven't even asked for sex, figuring she would probably throw that subject back in my face since I was being nice to her now juts so I can get into her pants as she says. While yes, I would love this, I get ZERO reciprocation unless I engage it. No good bye kisses, no good night kisses, won't hold my hand in public unless I initiate. I guess I'm asking for additional advice that I may not be getting form my therapist now whom I see once a week. She advises me to wait and see and let my wife come to realize what she maybe giving up something and that deep down I'm not a bad guy just have had misdirected attention not necessarily on the family environment like it should be. I personally think my wife is mad at herself for staying in the marriage because I haven't handled my business and she is somewhat stuck. She doesn't want to go get a job, nor do I want to pay for day care if she were to get a job and our deal was she could stay home and raise kids while I went to work. Which by the way I do feel she thinks my job isn't that big of a deal and hers being at home is much more important. My questions are this. How long do I continue to "woo" her and get no affection in return? Am I being crazy for staying in this marriage as long as I have? Will I always be dealing with these issues? Thanks for letting me vent. I do feel much better now. | |||
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