Emotional Blockages and Apologizing

Athol:  The set up to the reader email below is that she complained he didn’t make enough money, so he made some career changes and made lots of money but wasn’t around much anymore. By his own admission he started ignoring her. He caught her affair just before it became physical. After that the cold war starts with her blaming him for driving her to an emotional affair, and him quiting the big job and not finding that helped with reconnecting… five years later he finds MMSL…

Reader:  I’ve waited for a long time to reply because I wanted to see how things were going to shake out. That said…you were fuckin right on the money. I went back to stage 3 and once again concentrated on myself while waiting for things to sink in with her. Finally after a couple more weeks she came to me and asked me if was leaving her. I told her I didn’t want to leave her but she was pushing me away a little more every day.  Well, our little talk turned into a huge fight until finally she yelled out “why don’t you just leave me like everyone else has!” That was the turning point. I sat there for a couple of minutes, pointed at her and told her I was going to leave the room for a few minutes and I wanted her to think about what she just said. When I went back she was still crying and I told her that I never left our marriage but she did. I told her I would never leave my wife but she stopped being my wife a long time ago and I just wanted my wife back. I also suggested that she was projecting her feelings from her parents divorce onto our situation and that it wasn’t fair to me. She said that her mother complained that her father was never there and that was why they divorced. I told her that I made a mistake working too much but I had been there at her side for five years and that she was the one acting like her father not giving any effort toward our marriage. I asked her if she would read something and I pulled up your January 4th post “Captain and Bored Passenger.” I told her I acknowledged my mistakes working way too many hours and not being there for her. I also told her she was doing the same thing by being there in body but not in spirit. Since then she has been making steady progress and things are much much better. In Individual Counseling she has discussed her mother’s LTR with a married man and her aunt (who she was very close to) cheating on her uncle many times while he was in the military. The counselor says that is most likely where she developed bad boundaries due to terrible role models.

I know you like to hear about your reader’s and their success stories. I just wanted to write you and let you know to make another chalk check-mark in the success column for me on your Saved Marriages Board. Thank you for everything you do and make sure to tell Jennifer that her sacrifices allowing you to do such good work helped save my marriage.

Athol:   Note the lack of a need for an ultimatum in this story. He just ran the MAP for several months and she brought it all to a head. Him simply becoming more attractive and starting to slowly withdraw from pursuing her was all it took.

Also as “non-Alpha” as actually apologizing and owning up to a mistake is, it’s absolutely key sometimes to breaking an emotional deadlock. And yes I agree, she shouldn’t have had an emotional affair and should have come to him with a fair warning of how things were slipping away. But that doesn’t excuse his wrongdoing of ignoring her for several years. Apologizing for your errors is fine. Just do it once and don’t repeat the behavior you needed to apologize for. Do not repeat the apology over and over, if they can’t accept it, that’s now on their end of the problem not yours.

Once you break the barrier on your side of the cold war, it’s far easier for her to break it down on her side. If she doesn’t of course, then there’s not much you can do about it apart from sadly wishing her the best of luck as you really do head for the exit. If she wants to hate you, she wants to hate you. It’s pretty hard living with endless hate when you want to love.

Also during the five year cold war, sex did resume and happen with some frequency, but she wasn’t orgasming. This in fact was the issue that drove him to seek me out. So… how is she on the orgasm front now?

Reader:  She says she is orgasming just like old times and I have also noticed a big difference. In fact the other day after a particularly energetic evening she said she could tell she had multiple orgasms the night before because she was still feeling it the next morning in work.

Athol:  Well giggity giggity giggity giggity, alright.