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#114218 - 04/10/07 06:59 PM Ageing marriages
mrs_madness Offline
Member

Registered: 09/29/05
Posts: 217
Loc: Moscow
Our kids are grown. We spent our entire married life working, working, working, and taking care of the family. Cooking working, cleaning working, household chores working, taking care of kids working. There has never been time for "us". But now there is.

And now after more than 20 years of marriage there seems not to be an "us". Though it was never evident before--as though anyone had time to notice--we do not really have developed a one-on-one relationship, my husband and I. And I am very unhappy.

What is it about men that they don't understand that just because you married someone and spent half a lifetime of daily chores together, it's the intimate connection between the two of us that really matters? They figure that if they bank the paycheck and come home for dinner and mow the yard that everything is just honkey-dorey. It's not.

After 20+ years I want to be me now, I want to be *us* now, I want our turn and he just doesn't get it. Never never has he told me that I'm beautiful or special or the love of his life. Never. I feel used and neglected an unappreciated. I know he loves me but it's like the comfortable attachment to a pair of well worn slippers in your pajamas in front of the TV. I am no one's well worn slipper.

Not feeling much like ditching a long term marriage for....what? And yet always thinking that being a warm slipper is not the ultimate culmination of a lifetime of aspiration and dreams and hard work. I lived over 50 years for this???

Ladies, what say ye?

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#114219 - 04/10/07 07:57 PM Re: Ageing marriages [Re: mrs_madness]
Edelweiss Offline
Member

Registered: 06/05/06
Posts: 4136
Loc: American living in Europe
Oh boy this is a tough one. I assume you have said all this to your husband. No? And he still hasn't changed? Some men have to get a shaking, to wake them up and make them realize what they have in their spouse.

All I know is that a good marriage doesn't usually happen by itself. You have to work at that just like at everything else. Have you tried to start the romance yourself? What do you do on your free days? How about a ride in the country with a surprise picnic, or just do a touristy sightseeing thing. Anything…just get out…and pretend you are young lovers. Sometimes pretending can develop into the real thing. Kiss your man in the middle of Moscow, and see how he reacts. Hah! That might just shake him out of his doldrums. Then go to a lingerie shop and let him pick out what you should wear that night.

Believe me…our marriage has had a crisis time and time again, but as long as you feel love is there, it's worth fighting for. And You can rekindle the love; but maybe you have to take the reins.

Quote:

From a Daily OM, I quote:


There is no secret recipe for happiness and contentment. The individuals who move through life joyously have not necessarily been blessed with lives of abundance, love, success, and prosperity. Such people have, however, been blessed with the ability to take the circumstances they've been handed and make them into something great. Our individual realities are colored by perception-delight and despair come from within rather than without. Situations we regard as fortuitous please us while situations we judge inauspicious cause us no end of grief. Yet if we can look at all we have accomplished without dwelling on our perceived misfortune and make each new circumstance our own, the world as a whole becomes a brighter place. A simple shift in attitude can help us recognize and unearth the hidden potential for personal and outer world fulfillment in every event, every relationship, every duty, and every setback.



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#114220 - 04/10/07 08:25 PM Re: Ageing marriages [Re: Edelweiss]
Q_ball Offline
Member

Registered: 03/03/07
Posts: 201
Loc: Ozarks
Grab the old photo albums, your beverage of choice, turn off the TV - on some days gone by music from your dating & young married life and take a cruise back throuh your lives in pictures. Maybe after a refresher course in all you've been through - the wonderful times etc some old feelings and laughter will come back & inspire a venture back to do something you use to do before mid life dull droms took over. My husband & I went for a drive last fall in search of the resort we stayed at on our honeymoon at the lake. We found it and though it was now apartments. It really stired up a day of reminising & we realized we kinda liked our shared memories as well as our new found "comfortable" love.
_________________________
Q~Ball aka Q~Ball101

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#114221 - 04/10/07 10:57 PM Re: Ageing marriages [Re: Q_ball]
NewLeaf Offline
Member

Registered: 12/26/05
Posts: 1066
Loc: Deland, Florida
WOW, these are all great suggestions! I couldn't add much more except, do something surprising, entirely out of character for you, at least what he perceives as character for you....:) Go skinny dipping in front of him or buy a massager and start with his feet and work your way up. Is he worth the effort?

Buy yourself flowers and have them delivered with an anonymous (sp?) note?

Parade around the house revealing more than you would ordinarily....slip some V in his morning coffee..:)
_________________________
Aarikja Ann

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#114222 - 04/11/07 04:40 AM Re: Ageing marriages [Re: NewLeaf]
celtic_flame Offline


Registered: 11/24/06
Posts: 2930
Loc: Belfast/Northern Ireland
nice quote hannilore

If you said this to him and hes aware of it i would lead by example talk to him the way you would want to talk if you had that intimacie in your life...compliment him, search back throw your memorie for good recent or long gone times that showed him at his best...tell him hows hes been for the last 20 yrs has been exilent in all respects (keep esteem in tact) but now change is needed becouse the situasion has changed and its time to take advantige of it...after a few weeks then tell him how you been treating him is how you like to be treated..then hes got an idea of what thse new changies are about and also how to do them...

i need emotional intimacie in my relashionships or they dont work for me..that means that a times i gotta be a bit vulrible, admite things i dont want to and look at thing in a new light..or just from my partners view solie but its important enough for me i am willing to do it all and whatever else it takes for that intimacie.
I like an easie feeling around the house within me and my partner so tough honest but loving talks are necassarie, they know everie thing relivent that fears me at this time and i them... apart from the easie loving feeling thats an aim for both of us to achive....i like a 5 or ten minuet cheek in at the end of the day. These talks help us keep abreast of things and each other but gives a nice end to the day to have 5 or ten miniets true pure connection...Some days its longer but not an aim becouse it be excousting and maybee even suficating to have that everie day, kinda lose sence of one self if it was like that everie day, well for me...

hope that helps. communicate and lead by example. Rember its worth it if theirs love and you want fullfilment from him...much better him than someone else which is sadlie the choice some people make...Dose he have hobbies could you take an intrest or do one of them with him?..
_________________________
"Our attitude either gets in the way or creates a way," Sam Glenn

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#114223 - 04/11/07 04:56 AM Re: Ageing marriages [Re: Q_ball]
mrs_madness Offline
Member

Registered: 09/29/05
Posts: 217
Loc: Moscow
Quote:

Grab the old photo albums, your beverage of choice, turn off the TV - on some days gone by music from your dating & young married life and take a cruise back throuh your lives in pictures. Maybe after a refresher course in all you've been through - the wonderful times etc some old feelings and laughter will come back & inspire a venture back to do something you use to do before mid life dull droms took over. My husband & I went for a drive last fall in search of the resort we stayed at on our honeymoon at the lake. We found it and though it was now apartments. It really stired up a day of reminising & we realized we kinda liked our shared memories as well as our new found "comfortable" love.




We don't have any old photo albums and we never had a date or a honeymoon. We got married on a Friday and went back to work the following Monday. He had 2 children and I had one. We started the marriage with 3 kids and had the 4th two years later. We have never been alone together.

I have adorable lingerie. Like a chicken going to roost, he turns off the lights and goes to bed ever night at exactly 10PM. Cute undies are not helping and I can hardly parade around the house in some French maid costume, our 18 year old son lives here.

My husband works 6 days a week. Every Saturday morning at 8AM he gets up, takes a shower, and goes for breakfast with the aged geezers he works with from 8 to 5 Monday through Friday. We have Sunday morning.

I have talked to him, but he just doesn't get it. Then I get so frustrated and unhappy that I quit talking to him. That doesn't help either. Sometimes I feel like I wasted half my life in a marriage that's going to dribble away, now that it's too late to do it over again.

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#114224 - 04/11/07 06:13 AM Re: Ageing marriages [Re: mrs_madness]
NewLeaf Offline
Member

Registered: 12/26/05
Posts: 1066
Loc: Deland, Florida
Sounds like he's pretty set in his ways. I wonder if he likes it that way or could he be thinking similar thoughts?

Without sounding accusing or demanding or needy, could you approach the topic with him? Maybe ask him where he sees your relationship 3 yrs. from now?

My husband told me men start to lose their sexual desire in their 50's or at least they aren't as interested as when they were in their 30's or 40's. He said it is frightening to a man who has always been virile.

Some men are a lot harder to spur into activity than others. Would it help to see about herbs or vitamins or maybe a prescription that would boost his androgens?

Is there some way to touch his very heart? What kinds of things seem to touch him besides coffee with his cronies?? There's got to be a way. I hate to see you so unhappy in your relationship.
_________________________
Aarikja Ann

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#114225 - 04/11/07 11:56 AM Re: Ageing marriages [Re: NewLeaf]
Edelweiss Offline
Member

Registered: 06/05/06
Posts: 4136
Loc: American living in Europe
Mrs. Madness...it's never ever too late to seek happiness.

We are all around just once...unless we come back as some cow or whatever. This is your life and you, only you are in control of it; never give up on your life. And if you think you could live a happier life, then do it. Fifty isn't old. Hey, for many that's when life begins!

But first, you should try everything in your power to create a happier life with your husband. Maybe he's too comfortable with you and sees no reason to change his ways. That's what I meant about some men need a shaking up. If you can't change him…then you have to change, and even if it means that you have to show him you mean business. Just the act of packing a suitcase can sometimes change the most stubborn man's attitude.

I know, ... I've been there.

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#114226 - 04/11/07 02:20 PM Re: Ageing marriages [Re: Edelweiss]
Dianne Offline
Queen of Shoes

Registered: 05/24/04
Posts: 6123
Loc: Arizona
It's not that they don't get it...it's that they don't want to get it sometimes until the only thing they get is you are on your way out the door. Then suddenly, they get it if they still care.

This is why I believe women need to form a social circle outside the marriage so they don't depend on the man for their enjoyment.

I did the "walk in front of him in the nude" and the only reaction I received was..."where are your clothes, girl?"
_________________________
If it doesn't feel good, don't do it twice.
www.eadv.net



Boomer Queen of Shoes

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#114227 - 04/11/07 06:58 PM Re: Ageing marriages [Re: Dianne]
Jane_Carroll Offline
member

Registered: 07/06/06
Posts: 1521
Loc: Alabama
This is coming from a long-time single woman...but I think we see things very differently than men do...on one hand...I can see that he may get his reassurance from the comfort of the relationship just the way it is...when the rest of the world falls apart...he knows you're there...and what feels better than your favorite pair of slippers (to borrow your analogy) on a cold winter's night...who'd want to come home and slip into a pair of brand new tight fitting high-heels...okay, Dianne would...LOL...but seriously...from his perspective...you may have the perfect marriage...

Sounds like you are wanting to know him better...and wanting him to know you better...maybe you can try focusing on the things about him that you really like...make a list...think about what attracted you to him in the first place...what I know is that you can't change him with your actions...
_________________________
Jane Carroll

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