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Last night my wife and I were intimate. It was good....mind movies came to me but I was able to push past them and we both felt good afterwards.

Early this morning my wife initiated intimacy....started good but then I couldn't finish. The fact that i had to stop made me feel like I had hurt her. I felt like apologizing. I LOVE morning intimacy....which adds to my frustration I am feeling.

I feel a strong "ownership" of the state of our marriage. I do not enjoy seeing my wife in any pain....my stopping this morning brought pain to us both.

What am I missing? Do others struggle as I do? Not with sex....I understand that....but with this desire I apparently have to own so much of this.

Pride is a part if me, as I go through this I am just now starting to realize this. I never thought of myself as particularly pride-full..I see and point out my short-falls...but as I evaluate myself I DO take on things by jumping in with both feet. As such, when things go well I feel really good, but I think I share the credit with all involved. When things go bad I feel really bad, and reserve passing the blame around.

Am I so selfish that EVERYTHING has to be centered on me? Is this why I do this insane act?

My counseling also paints a clear pattern of "extremes"...all good, all bad sort of operating inside me. Very little "grays". A coping mechanism that I developed in childhood, has served me well sometimes...but hurts R now.

Thanks for any insight into this.

I know this is unique and person-specific....but hoping someone has reacted similarly and can give me some tips...or at least help me not feel so crazy.

God be with us all.

[This message edited by blakesteele at 10:40 AM, April 28th (Sunday)]

Were you raised by an addict? Sounds like many of my FOO issues, steaming from being the scapegoat as a child. Being an adult child of an alcoholic has messed up my head so bad ;(

((((((Hugs)))))

Blakesteel,

I understand the black and white thinking, but I wonder if you feel you have the need to control?

All of my weaknesses have been magnified x4 with this affair.

Don't beat yourself up right now. Be gentle to yourself.

It's good you're approaching intimacy. And it's really good you have some control over your mind movies. I'm not there yet, it's tough.

I think sometimes in a relationship we want everything to be centred on us, specially if you got hurt. You want to feel taken care of, loved, even spoiled until youre healed.

Your R is going in right direction. You and your W obviously exchange loving feelings, you don't want to cause her pain, remember stopping isn't what hurt her, but feeling your frustration and having intimacy cut off is what hurt her, your pleasure is what matters to her at the moment.

unfortunately I don't have advice for you, but nothing seems to be wrong with you. your R is going well. Others are struggling with desire and can't even approach intimacy. Hopefully soon u feel better.

btw I like when u say "I feel a strong "ownership" of the state of our marriage" sounds like a good thing to me

I can relate to your situation. It was much worse for me the closer it was to DDay (the last of our DDays, to be exact). I felt really down on myself when I couldn't 'perform' with my WW, especially with mind movies going, etc. But then something snapped in me, and I no longer feel down on myself.

This is what it was. I actually stopped for a moment and thought about what I was feeling and why. I felt like I was trying to be intimate with someone who has violated and hurt me in the most profound of ways. And it was no wonder I was 'protecting' myself, and had a mental block with her. Intimacy is a very close thing (for most), and it's incredibly hard to try to be intimate with someone who has wronged you on so many fundamental levels. It just is.

As a man, though, I can totally see how you may feel down on yourself for the 'performance' thing, I know I did. But again, something just clicked inside me one day (couple months ago, I think?) where I no longer cared or felt responsible for performance issues with my WW, because I realized that the performance issues were solely with her. That is, I would have absolutely NO performance issues with anyone else. That made me feel that the issue wasn't something with me or 'wrong' with me, but lied with her. Ever since that realization, I no longer beat myself up anyone over that topic, or try to take control of the situation. I just say to myself, "well, I can't perform because you've really hurt me, and I just don't feel that intimate toward you right now".

Also, in terms of mind movies, those have almost completely stopped. I attribute this to the fact that after really seeing the OM my WW was cheating on me with (pics of him, learning about him, etc.) I can see that he is absolutely hideous. Like really fucking nasty looking. Ever since realizing that, he is the absolute last person who would ever enter my mind in that sense. Not sure if that's helpful or not. Thought I would throw it out there just in case.

Really try to find the source of the control you feel you need exert over the intimacy situation and see if it is similar for you. It likely is. And if so, once you're able to identify with it, you may see what I saw, and something might just click within you, too, in that same way.

[This message edited by Theradin at 12:18 PM, April 29th (Monday)]

Blake, for me there are two components about me that I am going to look deeply into from here on out. My need to control any given event/person and my long time discomfort with intimacy. And by intimacy, this can mean having an in depth conversation whether difficult or not. Not just sex.

The A. There is nothing I can control about it. I can't go back in time and change what has happened. I often play a mind-movie of me catching them in the act. I realized that this one particular movie must say something about ME. I figured it had to do with control.

The A has made us vulnerable. I have to face my vulnerbilities now.

I like what Undone1 said about the A magnifying weaknesses. So true! I recall saying two years ago that having kids made me aware of the unbeautiful parts about me. You think you are patient enough? Have kids and you must face the fact that this is not one of your best qualities! The A has revealed the same to me.

I do read your posts and it sounds like R is going well for you. Like you, I felt it important to take ownership of how I contributed to the breakdown of our marriage. I recognized this immediately. There is some truth to it. If people say, "don't blame yourself..." I have to say that I am not blameing myself for HIS behaviour but I CONTRIBUTED to our messy marriage. I did.

Keep plugging away. I don't think there is anything wrong with you but we all have things that we need to investigate.

Hope the comments are helpful to you.

LA

H's A's have made me a thousand times bipolar!! I'm extremely up or down, as well. I think it's normal for the trauma we've faced.

I tend to beat myself up emotionally about H's A's. But, sexually, I enjoy the moment. I think it's nature's survival mode for me to have pleasure when I've experienced so much pain (heartache). I have no problem initiating or enjoying sex.

And, yes, everything should be about you and how you feel or how to make you feel not just better, but actually good.

.."not finishing' is not about something wrong with you, but rather a condition brought about by the A.

..if your W feels badly and causes her pain, she needs to own that.

..it's bad enough that these A's cause us NOT to be able to FINISH, without having to worry that WS feels badly for the far reaching fallout of their actions.

..it's not like you're not finishing..on purpose..

please don't think it's something wrong with you!!

the last 4 years of R has had a number of 'DNF's and both of us have reasons to feel badly, but it is not me feeling badly for her.

..in my case, fWW is very willing to try again to finish me off as soon as i think i am able

..let her know what you want and need ....and don't be shy about asking for it!!

smy

Thanks for the supportive comments...so very nice to read them.

LA44...we sound similar in nature...thanks for following my posts!

God be with us all.