littlekitty Posted November 3, 2005 Posted November 3, 2005 I'm really glad you feel you've sorted things out Walk. And it's great that you have been able to look at both his and your own behavior, and been able to see how you got to where you were, and what had gone wrong. I can definately advocate talking to your partner, calmly and without emotion as one of the best tatics possible for keeping your relationship sweet. Talking things through allows you both to get a clear sense of what the issue is, rather than just reacting emtionally to the situation. Which as Walk points out rather nicely, tends to just escalate things rather than calm them down. Let us know how you get on using the new tatics... you have my best wishes!
noclobber Posted November 3, 2005 Posted November 3, 2005 He comes home Wednesday. I think I was mostly calm by then, and so was he. I'd already put most of my belongings in my car, and I figured I'd hear him out, we could discuss it, and if I still couldn't make sense of it, then it'd only take me three minutes to get out the door. I laid it all on the table, then listened. He said his comments were meant to wake me up, and take this seriously. That he isn't saying he wants me to ask for sex more often, but to not sound so ambivalent about having sex when I say it. (He put it nicer then this.) He gave the example of saying, "I'm going to dinner, and if you'd like you can join me." Versus: "I'd like to go out to dinner and I want you to come with me." So if you put that in sex terms. I say "If you feel up to it, I'd like to have sex" Versus: "I want to have sex with you. It's kind of a question of semantics. But I can see where he's coming from. A lot of the way I phrase my "requests" for sex sound fairly non-caring on whether he's there or if we have it. I don't mean it like that, but it sounds like that. He gave me the example of: "I want to be here." Or "I want to be here with you." Expresses the desire to have that person there with you, not just that it's okay, or you're willing to go along with it. But an actually expression of wanting that other person in your life, or wanting to make them happy. Not just a "yeah, if you wanna... I was having a hard time with the "getting his sexual needs filled elsewhere" comment, so I went back to that again. What he says is he doesn't want to, he wants me. No one else. But he felt I wasn't taking this seriously. He doesn't want to lose me. That if he didn't love me, then he wouldn't be out there working 90 hour weeks so I could go back to school, and still try to spend every spare second he has with me. (Which is true.) There were a lot more reasons, but I don't really want to go into all the details. I feel like an ass, sort of. I know it's not all my fault, he helped escalate the argument, but I sure didn't help. I get so wrapped up in how hurt I am. I hear one negative comment about him being unhappy earlier in the weekend, and I shut down and got defensive. Irritates me, because I've been working really hard to change this behavior. So I don't think he's an ass anymore. But it does say a lot for actually asking your SO more questions and not getting defensive and hostile about it. And not letting your emotions get the better of you. If I'd asked better questions in the first place, this probably wouldn't have gotten so blown out of proportion. But I felt hurt, and all my questions were aimed at proving I was doing everything right, not in trying to find out all the information or understanding why he felt the way he did. Which meant nothing could get resolved, and neither of us were happy. Next time I get on here and rant about something, one of you better remind me of this!!! Great to hear this Walk! I am very glad that things fell in place for you.. I always believe that when couples shed their egos and have an open dialogue it would fix majority of the problems.. ok now plz go to your other thread and bash me
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