#3 Face it…

i love this side of your face (Photo credit: sinkdd)

‘I like it when you say ‘I love it’’

A few days ago I was caught staring at him (by him)

He asked what I was looking at…to which I replied ‘your face’
he asked why…  and I replied (in a slightly babyish but more cutesy whilst blunt and matter-of fact tone) ‘because I love it’

He smiled

Its something I used to say every now and then before shit hit the fan but during the awkward stage of not knowing whether or not to drop the L bomb I stopped saying it as much.

Turns out he had missed hearing it and actually likes it when I say it. 🙂

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#2 Prove it

Love is not about how much you say ‘I love you,’ but how much you can prove that it’s true. (Photo credit: deeplifequotes)

I text him one night and told him I missed him ‘despite not telling me a genuine, good thing today’ wink wink nudge nudge lol lol etc etc

The morning after, he came home and found me in the kitchen; he looked flustered and anxious so immediately I was concerned as to what was wrong. He said he wanted to talk to me -my heart sank and I took a deep breath preparing for more bad news. Noticing this he took my hand and reassured me that it was nothing bad, ‘it’s a good thing…it’s the good, GENUINE, positive thing’

*sigh of relief*

He looked me in the eye and said:

‘I think I love you, I mean I don’t get the butterflies or the tummy feelings but I know that I do want to be with you…forever, I like being with you, I know that I never want to lose you and I want to make you happy…I mean…that’s got to be love …right?’

*smiles*

I hugged him after and said I loved him back (and front) and we went about our day as normal – without saying it again.

I’m taking that as it is, its honest, its not covered with glittery, flowery shit that makes me feel amazing; its not bullshit that he knows I want to hear because he would have elaborated and made it sound like something more if that were the case. Its basic, its blunt, its him trying his best to make sense of his own feelings – and that makes me love him so much more, purely for trying to understand himself and expressing those thoughts to me.

I believe it, probably because I really really want it to be true but what would be the point of lying at the stage? And about something so important? I haven’t been begging him to tell me he loves me or trying to persuade him that he cares; I have however asked him questions about it, about him in general which would make him think about things himself and that was what he concluded.

I have noticed since we stopped saying it that day that every now and then, for example when we are cuddled up in bed and I’m just falling asleep he will kiss me on the cheek or forehead 3 times in a row -which is a new thing for him- and I THINK that’s his way of stopping saying ‘I LOVE YOU’ at times when we usually would. Almost like a secret replacement – which I’ve already figured out. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

(Hides and waits for the bubble bursting comments to stop)

xBx

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Positively Dahling

Light Bulb (Photo credit: anthonystoro)

I asked him how many times he had impulse lied without telling me, he said a couple but they were over little things that weren’t relevant, one example he gave was when I asked what he was thinking about (yup that old cliché) well we often ask each other and he said on one particular occasion he said “nothing” when in fact he had been on a random thought tangent,  i.e. ” where can I get a new bulb -> light bulbs and flower bulbs probably share the same name because they’re the same shape -> boys and girls often share the same name, Sam, Jo…. -> ooh look a squirrel”

I do the same quite a lot so I understand why he said “nothing”…Because I’m guilty of doing it too.

He was adamant that any others were along the same lines. Sometimes when he’s said overly sweet or nice things I’ve flat out asked if he’s impulse lying and he will either say no or he will give me the impolite or dulled version… But that’s where I get confused; how do you differentiate between impulse lying and just being nice or polite to make others feel good?

I’ve often asked how someone is out of politeness, I’ve made small talk about shit I don’t care about and I’ve said dinner was great when really it was only OK. So where do you draw the line?

I suppose the thing is for him to learn that if he said “dinner was OK” it wouldn’t make a difference. Yeah it’s rude but it’s honest so I’m assuming the point is for him to recognise that he does it and that there is no point in lying no matter how insignificant. right?

I asked whether the thought of telling me has made him lie less so that he doesn’t have to tell me or whether it’s stayed the same. He told me that since telling me the truth THAT day, he had been consciously trying to stop anyway so it’s not really made a difference to the amount.

A few days later we had banter and I ended up making a joke about feelings – or lack of- as a retort to him. I know I know, slap my wrist but he knows I need to laugh or I’ll cry. He asked me (nicely) to please not make jokes about his “feelers”. I apologised and said to be honest I don’t believe that he doesn’t feel anything because his actions contradict his words. Immediately he said he thought so too as his therapist had explained about burying emotions and how childhood trauma can result in subconscious coping techniques etc which he agreed with – LIGHTBULB MOMENT YES! Finally! He’s on the same page as me.

Ok so it needed someone else to tell him – god knows how she worded it so he understood- but it finally clicked for him that he isn’t a monster and that he isn’t alone and that there IS hope.

With all of this considered i asked him to tell me one good, genuine, positive thing each day or every other day,… Or every other week… big or small, whether it’s that dinner was actually nice or that he enjoyed hanging out.  Just so I don’t lose sight of why he’s with me- and neither does he- and so I can learn what makes him tick, what makes him happy and I can understand his way of thinking as far as “we” are concerned a little bit more – plus it makes for a good blogging category (joking – kind of)

He said he would so – as I’m a soppy, sentimental fool with an abandoned “happy book” -I think I’m going to make him his own happy book (in blog category form) and document each genuinely good thing he tells me- so I can re read them whenever I lose sight. They will be my reasons to carry on, part of my motivation and my reasons to smile.

xBx

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We’re going through changes

…change… (Photo credit: ĐāżŦ {mostly absent})

Its been hard to say the least. Over the past few weeks I’ve literally been going through the grieving process (posts and pages on that to come) over the death of my former husband. It sounds silly…it sounds extreme…but its how I feel. When he told me that our entire relationship had been a lie it was literally like he had died…we had died…I had to mourn our relationship because our marriage as I know it is dead. Yes we are still together, we are trying to work through it but life as we knew it will never be the same again.

He’s been trying; trying to be honest, to be himself and trying to keep me happy too. He almost humours me in a way, its like he is weaning me off the old him and introducing me to the new one. I’ve told him he doesn’t need to do that but at the same time I think too many changes at once would kill me…and he knows that. The hardest one is not hearing ‘I love you’ anymore.

It stopped on the night he left and it didn’t come back when he did…that hurts. What makes it hard is that I’ve stopped saying it as much to him too – because I don’t want him to feel pressured to say it back…but then if I stop saying it I feel wrong. I feel like part of my everyday life is missing…part of my marriage is missing and I don’t want him to think that I don’t love him..because of course I do! I wouldn’t still be here otherwise.

One night after he returned he said it to me, ok so it was post orgasm on his part so I took it with a pinch of salt but hearing it and seeing his reaction when he realised he had said it through habit was a real kick in the gut. We talked about it briefly and moved on. A few nights later while chilling out together he looked at me sincerely and said ‘I love you’! I tried not to react, I tried to not instantly blush, I tried not to glare at him but I noticed him curse himself too and it was then that he told me that he missed saying it to me. He had to break the habit though, so we turned it into something different, we made a joke of it and said ‘I love you’ now means something completely different…something like ‘I enjoy your company’ or ‘I appreciate you’.

I’ve had to do that with a lot of things, I’ve had to make them funny or I just wouldn’t survive. I don’t mean I take the piss out of him but we banter about our issues, we make light of the situation and its what sees me through it. Like they say ‘you have to laugh or you’d cry’.

In the last week he hasn’t slipped up with it at all, and that’s upsetting. Its good that he’s being honest but it made me think that it meant he no longer missed saying it to me and that it was that easy for him to move past it. Apparently that’s not the case though, he still misses it; he’s just trying his hardest to do what’s right and to be true to me.

Despite not telling me anymore, he’s still being affectionate, he still comes home from work and kisses and cuddles me every evening, we are still laughing together and still doing what we used to do but there’s a definite barrier there -from both of us, which is understandable. I’m living off hope at the moment, hope and tiny little positives either new things that happen or that simply things that haven’t changed…yet.

xBx

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Part 2: Clearing the air

Clearing (Photo credit: maury.mccown)

Once married and living together we kicked our experimenting up a notch, dressing up, role playing, oils, blindfolds… But still nothing seemed to work. I was happy to try things and although it was hard not to feel responsible or like I wasn’t good enough for him, i always tried to stay positive. Despite this, he told me he felt pressured because he felt he was letting me down or disappointing me.

Around this time he began distancing himself, he told me he didn’t like cuddling me in bed – despite doing so frequently and even initiating it, he told me that he didn’t enjoy doing some of the things that we did together – some of the things that made our relationship special- and finally he confessed that physically he rarely felt anything during sex and therefore didn’t really want to do it anymore.

All of the above came as a surprise and was massively upsetting. Newlyweds and he’s already fed up with his wife! Newlyweds who have bypassed the honeymoon period and gone straight to middle aged resent and no sex…

We had a long talk in which we cleared the air. He agreed he should see a doctor about the lack of physical sensitivity, we established which activities he had been pretending to like – apparently because he wanted to show an interest in things I liked… Which is sweet but I would have been fine about it if he had told me earlier… Regardless you can’t blame him for trying right? We talked about sex…he put the evenings revelations down to stress, frustration and embarrassment; he had felt it was easier to stop doing things which didn’t have an obvious answer rather than working through it. I told him that’s not how we work, that I’m here to support him…and ended on a high note, both feeling positive and hopeful of things to come (excuse the pun)