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I have been thinking on this.

Would he be open to sitting down with you and coming up with a list of things that are important to each of you in your marriage?

For example, for him it might be having a clean house to come home to (acts of service) or buying his favorites every now and then (gifts). For you, it may be complimenting you (words of affirmation) or cuddling on the couch (physical touch and quality time).

Whatever the things are that demonstrate both of your love languages in a significant way would be things to add to the list. Then once a week, sit down and talk about ways that you both succeeded in those areas and ways that you may like to improve. This way it isn’t just him doing the little things for you or you doing things for him, it’s both of you working on something together.

Providing each other feedback might help you see some of the things he is doing in a different light and vice versa, he may appreciate all of the little things you do as well.

Godheals, I will give you a bit of advice that's worked really well in my marriage. Come to your husband with your problem rather than the solution.

If you overly focus on specific acts that you want him to do more, it just becomes another task on his "honey-do" list, along with taking out the garbage and changing the oil in your car.

But if you come to him with the problem, he will figure out how to fix it. You're engaging him in the process rather than making demands.

Spend some time thinking about the meaning of the acts that you wish he was doing. What is the ultimate goal? What are you need you're hoping these acts will fulfill?

Once you understand what your core need is, bring it to him. For example, instead of saying, "I wish you would do more little things like make my favorite drink," say, "I appreciate that you say you love me all the time, but I really need more actions that demonstrate your love and affection through out the day."

He will ask for specific solutions and you can give him some ideas so he doesn't feel like you're being coy or manipulative, but make it clear that this isn't a chore... you want him to find a solution that feels natural for him.

From there, let him devise the solutions. The acts you will receive in this context are likely to be more heartfelt and genuine. He might even come up with wonderful ideas to make you happy that you would've never thought of yourself.

And to tie in WOEz advice, you can incorporate this into a discussion about what he needs to feel more fulfilled and connected in the relationship.

For example, if he gives you a specific solution such as, such as, "I like when you clean the house," ask him why. He'll probably say because he prefers when the house is tidy and orderly, but if you keep delving, you'll find that it's really the "act of service" (as WOEz mentioned) that he really appreciates. Once you understand this, you will come up with your own ideas that he never even thought of to bring to joy into his life.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 8:35 AM, June 27th (Sunday)]

Have you tried MC?

Some exercises can be very constructive.

godheals,

I'm sorry to hear this after so long. By crossroads, do you mean that it's an intolerable condition in your marriage?

I like WalkinOnEggshelz' idea of talking about it. There are several structured formats for periodic marriage check-ins that you can do weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or whatever works. You can do a Google search. They often start with something positive like an expression of gratitude or appreciation for a thing your spouse has done in the past week. Then you discuss improvements/wants for the next week. Sometimes they include practical discussions of upcoming schedules. They usually close on a positive note. MC does help couples implement these types of exercises properly.

A update.

Last night the H and I had to date night. At first it was not going to happen but then we ended up going. Which lead us to have a talk about this topic.

He didn’t want to go on date night and wanted to make it a different night. I asked him later why. He said he didn’t feel like going.

I was trying to explain to him what can I do for him and him only and what he can do for me and me only. Not take every day life stuff that is a given and show we appreciate one another. At first he kept talking about how we each as a parent/spouse go above and beyond for this family that some people dont and wants to take that “above and beyond” as showing love to one another.

He feels like him going above and beyond work wise is showing that love to me because some people don’t put in that extra effort. He thinks I go above and beyond for this family everyday that same parents/spouses don’t and that is showing my love for him.

But to me this is a “given” and this not showing love as husband and wife. What can we do for each other and not as a whole. Again I was getting the money talk. We can have worse. He don’t need to work hard but we would not have everything we have now that same don’t. Some of this talk was leading into a fight.

Later at home it was just us and the kids were laying down. I finally got an answer from him. More hugs, cuddle time and telling him thank you. I told him I do say thank you but he says don't thank me it’s my job. He says yes I do that and I need to stop. He still wants to hear it. He told me after thinking about it we do need to do more for each other and not just the everyday life stuff. He then said to me he listens to this song but always thinks about me. I told him I didn’t know that. He never told me this. He reads a note I gave him after dday. We both wrote a note to each other and we still have it. Again I didn’t know that. I told him he needs to tell me this stuff and show me.

I also was thinking this morning I feel like this every day life stuff we do for each other is getting lost in the mix. That we are so use too it we just expect it. Like him making money and with me cooking and cleaning. I told him last night I cook every night and make a real meal because that is what he wants. I could never get away with doing frozen pizza for dinner because he wants FOOD. He said he didn’t know that. He works hard and he deserves a real meal that is why I do that.

It’s like going outside of the box. We can put making money, cooking, cleaning, pay bills and doing everyday life stuff in this box but say this what I do to show my love but after a while it’s just gets lost in the mix of stuff called life. And it can get lost in the mix of showing love because we just expect this from this person. It’s just going outside of the box and doing something special for this person.

godheals, I may be way off base here, but I get the sense that there's a tiny, tiny part of him that has died and not come back to life. The part that desires to do some of those little things but simply cannot due to the A. I know I went thru that and even remarried there are a few parts of me inside that are just gone. They are hard to pin point, but I never attained a point of forgiveness and those that do, often never reach the point of absolute forgiveness.

Perhaps your love language needs a few adjustments to match what your H can give you.

Just a thought and if I have offended, I do apologize.

IDK ... the day-to-day stuff IS love.

I know I'd have worked as hard for myself as I did, but I would have chosen different work. I gave stuff up to be with my W. She gave stuff up to be with me.

Neither of us make or made a big deal out of what we gave up - after all, we did so by choice. We gave something up to get something we thought was worth more.

But giving stuff up is important. It may be everything, even though we get so used to it that we forget.

I don't mean just that we deserve points for giving up some desires. I think I'm recommending an attitude of celebrating the choices we make, or at least the good choices, both about giving up some desires and also about satisfying others.

*****

I'm not sure what prompted the above or if it's on topic, but I'm leaving it as written. Feel free to ignore.

[This message edited by sisoon at 11:56 AM, July 2nd (Friday)]

To kind of expand upon what thatbpguy said, there have been countless threads here that discuss how often the WS thinks they are fully reconciled, yet the thoughts remain with the BS every day. Maybe it isn’t the case here, but perhaps it is. You had close to a year and a half affair, that’s not easy to get over.

Sometimes the resentments are manifest in little ways. After my EXWW affair I was pretty much a monster. I would actively try to hurt her (never physical). After I came to my senses about that, I hurt her not with the things I did, but rather the things I didn’t do. Some examples are I always pre affair made sure the tires in her bike were ready to go if she ever wanted to ride it. After, not so much. I would fill it if she asked, but was never pro active.

Probably the best example is I commuted to NYC thru GCT. Anyone who has been there has seen the flower stands that sell really beautiful flowers. I would a few times a month on the spur of the moment buy a bunch and bring them home. It always brought a smile to her face. It was a little thing, but meant a lot to her. After her affair I never did it again. For a lousy 10 bucks I would have made her happier than if I bought her an $80,000 Lexus. I just resented what she did, so this was my way of a FU back. I’m not proud of this, and hated the person I became. So much that a good part of the divorce was so I could get away from being such a prick.

Again, my wife would have said we’re were reconciled as she felt the danger of me leaving was gone, but I don’t think she ever knew how much the affair still affaected me. She would didn’t think we were happy, or at least has happy as we were before.

Maybe you are 90% happily reconciled, but there is 10% of him that isn’t. It’s not bad enough to do things that hurt you, but enough not to do things to make you happy.

I will give you credit for bringing it up to him. My EX didn’t want to even open up the discussion as she wanted to avoid it coming back around to the affair.

Do you ever ask him if his lack of effort is a residual behavior due to the affair?

Just something to think about.

godheals,

Search youtube for "Mark Gungor point system". It may give him a different perspective of the way spouses view efforts in a marriage. Granted, it is given with relatively healthy relationships in mind, not in the aftermath of the travesty of infidelity, but it is a humorous look at how we "keep score" in a relationship. If it is not helpful just disregard.

Perhaps your love language needs a few adjustments to match what your H can give you.

My thoughts on this is we need to be cognizant of how our partner naturally expresses and wants to receive love. While we should certainly accept and appreciate how they naturally express their love for us this does not alleviate their responsibility to try, with some positive reinforcement from us, to express their love in a manner that is more compatible with our needs. Attempting to change their love expression should also be accepted as a sign of their love for us not an expectation and we should realize this is a journey not an immediate transformation.

Of course the same applies to us!

waitedwaytoolong. In other words, and maybe looking for the raw center (or one of the) of the point, but I told him the same things too at Godheals

Waitedwaytoolong. I take this opportunity to tell you that your story is really shocking and upset me like no one, I felt total empathy for you and reading it and rereading it I felt great moments of anger for the other 2 protagonists (negative) of the story. But I'm glad to see that you managed to go further (even if I understand very well why you gave yourself that nick) even if your wounds are seen in almost every comment, but you also see your strength

godheals,

Your husband sounds similar to mine. He "showed" me his love by doing things. Yardwork. Laundry. Going to work. Putting a kid to bed (while I did the other). He did this because it's the only thing he saw modeled in his home. (He also only saw love from me as sex and "desire". Seriously. That's it. Not sure where he came up with that!)

Beyond the Love Language book, we also read Gottman's 7 Principles for Making a Marriage work. We read and discussed. (Discussion was important). I explained that while I appreciated the laundry and yard work, I did not ever see it as love, I saw it as duty. After all, I made dinner every night, wrangled kids, their homework, extra-curricular, all of our social lives, cleaned the house. It was divided domestic duties, not love IMO. Now if he did something FOR me (say cleaning out the kitty litter), I did see that as for me because he went out of his way. If I lived in the house or not, the trash would go out, yard would be mowed, his underwear folded, YKWIM?

We started something about a year or two after our first DDay, and that was to tell each other every night what we are grateful for. Every night. Even when he traveled for work. I'll give you an example of yesterday (it's specific so you can really get an idea):

Him: Thank you for cleaning up the house before people came over. Thanks for making brats, they were tasty and you know I love them. Thanks for worrying about your aunt and trying to help her (she's going through some stress). Thanks for coming out to the pool this evening to talk with me and for waiting on me to eat dinner. I know it's been a hard weekend (Bad triggers) and I appreciate you pushing through and even laughing during Taboo with all of us. I love you, and I sorryI my affair has given you those triggers that make some days so hard. I love you.

Me: Thanks for bring me coffee and breakfast this morning and for remembering to pull the buns out of the freezer. I would have forgotten. Thanks for grilling the food and for cleaning up all of the mess after lunch. Thanks for taking out the trash and folding all of the laundry. I'm proud that you took some time for yourself to sit and watch soccer instead of finding more work or getting onto emails. You did a good job of setting boundaries for your vacation day. Thanks for ordering the part to fix (daughter's) toilet. Thanks for talking about my triggers and my fears, I always feel better if I can let it out. (He told me he felt lonely and shame because of my triggering and disconnecting from him) I know you felt shame and understand that can be hard so I appreciate that you still gave me space and support.

It seems a little silly, but it's honestly been so good for each of us to feel seen by the other. We go through days of doing, doing, doing, and it's nice to be acknowledged for the duties and the little things. Everything from "thanks for the random hug" to "thanks for cleaning up the cat poop" gets recognized now and I don't hold any resentments anymore or feel unappreciated. In fact I do LESS around the house and feel more appreciated.

Just a thought for something you could try!

[This message edited by TX1995 at 4:50 PM, July 6th (Tuesday)]

Sorry for the possible t/j:

it's honestly been so good for each of us to feel seen by the other

Just wanted to say my IC recently said we ALL need to have our person for comfort, and that the comfort consists of being:

1. Safe

2. Seen

3. Soothed

It's not just WRT infidelity. These are basic human needs. If we don't have those three bases covered in some relationship (ie if we do not feel we can find comfort), we suffer - as humans who need connection.

And maybe this isn't a t/j bc what Godheals describes sounds like she does not feel she's getting the SEEN part in the M (e.g., "I feel like I am always doing stuff for him. Thinking about him"... but it doesn't feel reciprocated - i.e., that she is not "seen" when he is going to the store, or whatever).

He then said to me he listens to this song but always thinks about me. I told him I didn’t know that. He never told me this.

This kind of sounds like he is "seeing" you, but it's only in his mind - ie until you FEEL that he sees you, that stuff in his mind doesn't do the trick, KWIM?

I dunno. Just a thought......

[This message edited by gmc94 at 8:55 PM, July 6th, 2021 (Tuesday)]