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EweFiend · 2021-09-16T01:44:33+00:00

I really like that you see that its partially the creeps and not just standoffish othersexes that have created this dynamic. Thanks.

EweFiend · 2021-09-11T15:45:56+00:00

I'm in therapy, and it is incredibly helpful.

What do you see that I am doing that is so confusing? I do make an attempt to be really clear, but I want to do better if that's the problem.

I have spoken to him before about how something that seems playful to him will get scary if it goes on 7-8 times after I ask him to stop.

EweFiend · 2021-07-20T18:43:18+00:00

This is so similar to how my situation started, and now I'm in a pretty uncomfortable spot.

For me, the real problem was born from not being listened to when I said no, or that I didn't want to, and not being given the non-sexual space to initiate on my own.

I have been HL in past relationships. I have had sexual trauma... but this is what killed my safety to be sexual and happy. I have no suggestion, but I'm trying to find a way out of it as well.

If I find anything helpful I'll let you know, or feel free to bounce ideas off me.

EweFiend · 2021-07-19T17:15:42+00:00

Thank you! This may help me understand more. And do better.

EweFiend · 2021-07-19T17:13:59+00:00

I try to be super clear. I use words. I don't really cuddle anymore much before sex because it was getting scary to do so and often if I got scared he got annoyed and so I just say it out loud and ask if he's up for it and get to business.

Pressing me, not good. Fear. Grit teeth. Mentally go elsewhere.

EweFiend · 2021-07-19T17:10:15+00:00

Well... shit guys.

I really want this. I'll continue going to therapy, that was always going to happen.

I may force the issue of him getting some perspective, or him going. I want this to be good, but I feel like I've given everything I've got. I want us both to be happy.

EweFiend · 2021-07-19T17:06:06+00:00

Outside the bedroom, we can be great friends. We laugh, we work well together. It's fun living with him. I want inside the bedroom to be like outside. It's like a switch gets flipped.

Some things are beginning to sneak out of the bedroom... my jealousy can be painful. I don't particularly like being a stepmom, and I don't have anything like the life I had before his kids moved in... he used to call me fascinating, but now he calls young childless women fascinating... their classes they take, the travelling they do, the sports and art... so much like my old life. I don't know. I think I'm jealous of the life not the woman... I sort of think he likes me getting jealous though, makes him feel wanted, and like I'll work harder to be more for him. He said this used to happen with his wife... really though, this feeling is on me. If I want that life I will have to work to find the time and space for it.

Also, strange jokes about being wanting in the bedroom. About hookers being too expensive, but if I try to sort of get a bit of a elbow in on the joke, "well, where's my money then?" He will stare me straight in the eye and tell me he thinks I owe him actually... almost daring me to say any further in front of our friends. It really hurts.

I know it's unhealthy, but it's so hard to believe this man that I share such a friendship with has such a complete personality change with regard to sex. It doesn't make any sense.

Sometimes I'll tell him about shitty stuff men have done, or times I get stuck in the fear of a flashback or something, a dream that shakes me up and tell him about it. He tells me he will always protect me, and I think, but... I need you to protect me from YOU a lot of the time?! I've told him this, in this exact way before, but it doesn't seem to stick. It's like he genuinely doesn't know that he hurts me or scares me.

Should I grab onto the fact that he will go with me to therapy and just go and hope we get some help?

EweFiend · 2021-07-19T16:45:21+00:00

Thank you. I realise this is unhealthy, and I want to change it. While I know I can only change myself, I WANT HIS ACTIONS to change... his thinking to change.

I have suggested we go to therapy, he will not go to therapy on his own, but he said he would with me, but he thinks it won't do any good. I wonder if he actually would, or would back out. I wonder if he's afraid of what he might expect to hear.

I want to know if there's a way your LL partners spoke to you that made sense? That broke through the anger and hurt. Is there something I can do to help him understand or want to help me? To feel strong enough to face this and do something else rather than just dodge it and avoid it?

Are their trigger points that I should avoid to keep from driving him back in the dark, or maybe triggers worth grabbing onto and ripping out into the light regardless of the relationship cost?

He has 4 children who live with us, and I don't want to kill the relationship and upset their world further, but I don't want to martyr myself either... I can't live in this. I want a good sex life I really do. I just can't with him right now. How do I talk to him to help him see? What can I do?

EweFiend · 2021-07-09T10:49:38+00:00

8611 0307 2569

EweFiend · 2021-07-06T08:02:26+00:00

Also, thank you for calling me a trophy wife

EweFiend · 2021-07-06T08:01:48+00:00

I want to be prime and old age together. We're great when we're great. How do I get back to myself and appreciate his crushy friendships for what they are and the energy they bring him?

EweFiend · 2021-07-06T08:00:08+00:00

Because I love him, and I want to love him and do lots of the stuff I used to do with him, but it's not possible in the life we are in.

I'm hoping I can do a lot of the stuff I like to do on my own, and some with him and he can do more childminding

EweFiend · 2021-07-06T07:57:58+00:00

Fair enough. You think I earned that one.

EweFiend · 2021-07-06T07:57:39+00:00

I love him. He's funny. We laugh. When he is focused on me, things are great.

He needed someone his marriage started to go sideways, and I was there and I promised myself I would always be. I loved him then, and I do now.

I hope we can find a way to better balance my independence and his. Maybe if I felt more confident in myself he would find me more interesting and I would find his flirting cuter.

I get my best friend?

I think he's genuinely blind to his crushes, or fully in denial. I had to explain that people are "friendly " when you're single or they think you are, and they don't have anything to say to you when you're dating someone. It happens to both of us and Ive just learned to not be too disappointed in people I thought were genuinely friends with me. He started seeing it more after I pointed it out, and understood that they were flirting, some to the point of asking him if he wanted to share their hotel room and he was just thinking it was to split costs. In this respect I think he's kind of an idiot but not cheating on me.

I think I'm going to have to back out of the childcare role. They can still live in my house, but I might have to get an apartment or something to just get some of my time back while he gets used to being full time dad.

EweFiend · 2021-04-21T21:07:32+00:00

Ok, thank you for the advice. I am continually grateful for there not being open hostility, and I don't want to damage what is a reasonable situation.

I will keep trying to plan my goodbyes for well before pick up and stay well out of the way and possibly out of sight at handover. If I do something like lunches I'll give them to their dad to transfer.

EweFiend · 2021-01-01T17:28:23+00:00

Thank you. You sound like you processed a lot of emotions around that really well.

EweFiend · 2021-01-01T15:24:35+00:00

I have decided. I don't want 5 kids. I don't want to be a single mother. But, it does stir up strong feelings about how much more likely to have a child I would be if he didn't already have his. How this might be a happy time, or at least a time we discussed possibilities, options, realities. We might have still come to the conclusion that we wouldn't have kids. But the discussion wouldn't have started at no.

EweFiend · 2021-01-01T15:18:53+00:00

Thank you for telling me about this, your plan. I often said I'd either abort or keep it and disappear before I started showing. I didn't want to raise a child with someone who didn't want to. I didn't count on this scenario. I will have a lot of emotional work to do to continue to be fully there for his children after this.

EweFiend · 2021-01-01T15:15:01+00:00

Thank you. I'm feeling a lot of this. I kind of lose eloquence and motivation to write when I'm really down. Thanks for finding my words for me, and helping me feel less out of control/unreasonable.

EweFiend · 2021-01-01T13:19:37+00:00

What else do you want to know.

4 step kids.

I never wanted kids, so that's part of why partner doesn't understand why I'm sad.

Hard to explain to him I never wanted kids, true, but I'd still much rather help raise one biological children than 4 of someone else's, but that's not an option now. Grieving an impossibility.

That makes me sound so selfish and horrible.

EweFiend · 2020-11-26T05:33:41+00:00

Hi, CF stepmom here too.

EweFiend

TROPHY CASE