March 9, 2010
but he's so nice
3/9/10
Yesterday's comments were, as always, truly insightful and awesome. As I suspected, people were actually quite sanguine about "settling" for their day job, even if that meant settling for something you'd experience more often than your family. That kind of compartmentalization is truly a skill - one that I don't possess at all - and probably makes you able to deal with a lot of things that would flummox others.
I asked about the relationship "settling" because that subject has been on high rotation in the NY/LA literati echo chamber of late. Lori Gottlieb, a prolific 42-year-old New York writer who chose to raise a child without a partner/husband, wrote a book called Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough - largely borne out of the experience of solo parenting. The book set off a predictable firestorm of invective, especially from other women writers. Here's Jessica Grose writing in Slate:
Gottlieb's argument is that college-educated women in their late 30s and early 40s who are still single are without husbands because they were too picky when they were younger and more marketable... She is not benignly trying to share her experiences, she's trying to scare women.
Perhaps the best takedown of Gottlieb - or really, the best ass-kicking I've read on the Web in months - comes courtesy of Liesl Schillinger, an old friend of mine and Tessa's who writes with vitriolic flair:
The way [Gottlieb] sees it, a generation of women... were tricked by the women's movement into "ego-tripping themselves out of romantic connection." That's right girls: If you're unwillingly unwed, blame it on mom and Title IX for duping you into educating, respecting and supporting yourselves...
...[F]or anyone who dares order millions of people she doesn't know to sell out their dreams, regret their accomplishments, fear their futures and "Marry him," whoever he is, I have two words: You first.
Now let's get something straight right off the bat: Lori Gottlieb did not write this book because she actually wants to set back the women's movement or frighten 29-year-olds, she wrote it because she got a book deal. This is the way the non-fiction world works. If you have an idea that is compelling, salacious, vaguely relatable and able to piss off half of the Conde Nast building, you have a check waiting for you at your literary agent's office.
But it's not so easy to turn away from the book's content, because the fact remains: there are a lot of successful, awesome, physically attractive, smart, funny women in their early 40s who are wondering why the fuck they aren't married and why they now have to get sperm donation to have a kid. Lori Gottlieb wants you to blame them, which is not entirely inaccurate, but you know who gets off scott-free in this exchange yet again? That's right: dudes.
Nowhere is there a book called "Stop Picking Your Butt: How Guys Need to Cease Being Such Emotionally-Stunted Babies" and there isn't likely to be one. When women choose to spend their thirties drinking apple martinis and taking the Jitney to the Hamptons with no plans to settle down, it becomes the Tragedy of a Lost Era; when guys do it, it's called "2003 through 2010".
But here's the rub... no matter what they tell you, a woman's fertility starts being an issue after 36. Sure, you can often use cutting-edge (and expensive) science to give you a shot into your early forties, but that window eventually becomes an arrow slit. So if you want to get married and have kids, you really do have to hope this intersection occurs:
To me, the worst thing about a book like Gottlieb's is that her advice is impossible to take. Nobody in their right mind is going to marry someone they don't love if there's a .001% chance of meeting your soulmate in the next few years. The stakes of personal self-actualization are far too large (at least in self-oriented cultures like ours), and the promise of actual true love is far too inspiring to marry the guy you happen to be kinda dating.
A word about "settling". I realize it's a very charged verb, one that chafes against every movie you've ever seen, every novel, every dream you had for yourself in your teenage bedroom. And let's be honest: for an 18-year-old guy, anything south of getting a blow job on the roof of a Suburban going 75 mph through South Beach while shotgunning a vat of Cuervo is "settling". So our definition changes wildly as our wants. But it doesn't mean that "settling" isn't very real.
Here's the sad truth... finding the love of your life (or even "a" love of your life) is akin to Dean Smith's quote about winning national championships: you have to be very good, and very lucky. You have to be "good" enough to truly know yourself, get healed, salve your childhood wounds and mature into somebody who understands the glorious panorama and limitations of love.
And you have to be "lucky" enough to find somebody else who has done the same, and find them in your time. The rest is fashion.
Posted by Ian Williams at March 9, 2010 11:33 PMArranged marriages have a decent "success" rate, although whether that's due to people becoming fond of one another (and maybe good sex), or to cultural bias toward monogamy, I don't know.
I wrote a feature article once on a historian who studied marriage contracts in medieval and Renaissance Florence. Fascinating! "Love" had nothing to do with these formal alliances. The concept of love -- falling head over heels, worshipping the ground m'lady walked on, etc. -- was reserved for extra-marital infatuations. No one assumed that such romantic attachments "should" lead to marriage. At that time in that society, the construct of marriage as familial economic and political agreement (at least in the upper classes) worked pretty well. Sexual fidelity on the part of husbands was never assumed, however. Not sure I'm down with THAT! But maybe it was realistic.
I was lucky to fall in heart-pounding love fairly young and to marry that guy. I mean, I was lucky that the resulting union has survived. It hasn't always been easy. Rare is the couple that does not need to WORK at staying together, and I think young people don't always appreciate that fact.
By my 40s I had to acknowledge that my beloved would never share certain interests and passions of mine. With the exception of Spenser detective mysteries (RIP, Robert Parker), we have no overlapping taste in books. I am a music fanatic and love live concerts; no such luck with hubby. Etc etc. Whereas once I might have thought, "I can't stand that he won't do these things with me!!! We're incompatible!!", I realized, Hey, being in love doesn't mean being psychological twins or joined at the hip. (God forbid.) I began to find the friends who could do things with me that my husband didn't enjoy. Far from eroding our marriage, this ending up making it better. I no longer looked toward M. to meet all my emotional and recreational needs. Must be a relief for him, too! And we're still the best sports-fanatic couple I know. :-)
Sorry for the treatise. Must walk dog now.
Don't blame the dudes. It is all about timing. And about staying together after the wedding. Many of my friends found wonderful partners when they were all in their late 20s. They were good matches, no settling. A lot of them are recently divorced now. Very sad.
Life is tough and marriage is a challenge. Doesn't matter what age you marry/whether you settle/etc.
Thank you! Nothing has pissed me off as much as the idea of that book. There is a grain of truth in that women (and men) who have a really specific list of requirements - if they include things like height and salary - have to pare that down to things they really care about. You can't reject a man because he has a wimpy first name, like that woman did.
But but BUT....there are thousands of women who are just looking for someone nice and sweet, and still can't find him. Sure, some only want a rich guy or a guy who's this or that, but some just want to feel happy and comfortable with someone. Don't we all? That is not being picky - that's being human.
And the guys ARE off the hook. Where is the pressure on guys to stop looking for women who are skinny as a rail? I can't tell you how many internet dates I went on where guys told me how relieved I was that I wasn't fat and how they couldn't stand fat women -- even supposedly nice guys who were looking for a nice girl and moaned over their past rejections...they all felt they had the right to sit in judgment of women who were sometimes maybe five pounds overweight. Even guys I am close to who are nice guys will still point out a girl on the street who they say 'should not be wearing jeans' or whatever...and the girls look perfectly fine and pretty to me.
Even the guys who complain they are "nice guys" and are always being rejected, seem to be rejected by the beautiful, stunning women they pursue rather than chasing 'nice girls.' If you are a nice guy, then look for niceness in women too, and stop pursuing women based on looks; those women may be just as looks-oriented as you. Sorry.
So...this is NOT all about the women.
But...there are, I have long said, two kinds of single people in NYC and in general. There is the Hamptons crowd who do care about money, fancy cars, etc. Those people would never do what my friends and I did to make friends and meet men - they wouldn't hang out at trivia night in the Villiage, they wouldn't date guys in low-paying yet creative jobs, they would never live outside Manhattan or date outside Manhattan proper; they wouldn't do down-to-earth things in search of that sweet, interesting, kind guy. They are just IN A DIFFERENT WORLD.
I love Sex and the City, but I am nothing like them. I would never never never choose the vacuous Mr. Big. Carrie even chose him over Aiden, who hangs out in the country with his dog instead of going to parties in the city.
That's just the way life is. Guys who are jerks will probably stay jerks, but maybe will become nicer for the right girl, one would hope. Girls who find a guy early in life will be the lucky ones, because yes, fertility does decline (if that's what they care about). (By the way, I know plenty of women who got prego at 37, too. After that it's harder...)
Maybe someone will slap single men and tell them that it's ok for women to be a little fatter and that THEY should be less picky. But unless a plague wipes out most of the world's women, it's not going to happen.
The great equalizer used to be that "nice girls" didn't "put out" right away, so guys had to be on their best behavior. That's gone. Right or wrong, it used to make a difference.
By the way, all of this has nothing to do with women's lib...women SHOULD be able to make career choices like men. That really has nothing to do with wanting to find someone you fall in love with. Anyone who says this has to do with the "women's movement" needs to be slapped upside the haid.
One last comment and I'll end my rant: I think everyone has to learn to be a little less picky in certain ways, and that happens when you mature. There were some things I thought were a lot more important when I was 21 than when I was 31, but they were not superficial things. Even then I was never like this author, rejecting men for ridiculous reasons. I think we all - both sexes - learn what's important and what we can't handle as we keep dating. It's something we all learn. But it is not exclusive to women. This author of that book was too super-picky like the Sex and the City/Hamptons-type crowd and ended up alone. That's not why most women are alone. They are alone because they only met judgmental jerks.
I think that with the financial incentive to cleave together in couples for mere survival almost completely gone in our society, it's understandable that we've become more picky. But I think that's exactly what has happened. It's the same thing with jobs, and I think you're right to point that out. There's been a lot of research that has been done that shows that when humans have too many choices, we become less satisfied with any of them. So if you're in a small town and there are only a half dozen possible mates and four or five possible jobs, you tend to be less choosey and more content with the result.
I'm not advocating that people "settle" with anything, but I do think that people tend to get frustrated and move on (from both jobs and partners) after the most trifling of complaints these days, when sticking with something is the only way to get where we all want to be, with a rich, fulfilling relationship and a solid, productive career.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/business/media/10adco.html?scp=3&sq=barbie&st=cse
I am always amazed at how willing people are to shed their deepest feelings in the space of this blog. Even anonymously. Is this the new group therapy? It's really fascinating!
I have a theory about romances between older men and younger women that ties into why the dudes get off in this whole equation. And I will share it here, anonymously, because I am scared of being flamed or offending my married friends who boast a 10+ year gap.
It starts early. Most ANYONE who has raised a boy and girl child of similar age can tell you the developmental gap between the two is tremendous (emotional maturity is only one aspect of this gap). As soon as you pop out of the womb with a penis, you should be labeled with a disability. How men have managed to rule the free world is beyond me, and probably has evolutionary roots -- once upon a time your brute strength offered the ladies protection and safety.
There are studies which identify a gap in brain development and physical development between boys/girls, but i wont quote them. Let's just say on these two fronts the guys and gals catch up by their mid-twenties.
Now I have read no studies to back up my assertion, but my empirical evidence suggests that the gap in emotional maturity closes at about the same time for perhaps only HALF the gents.
So, we have stable, ready-to-move-on-with-our-lives ladies, and men who are still trying to live the frat house experience mixing it up. The power of love is amazing and a lot of couples hook up around this time despite that awkward mix. Then your wife spends the next five years or so raising you to full adulthood.
Now, what about the peacocks who still want to strut their feathers, get drunk and score some the honeys? After losing many of their running buddies to wives, families and the next stage of life, they start to realize that everyone is moving on but them. So, they start thinking serious, and look around to see who they might match up with for the rest of their lives.
And here is where it gets tricky for these guys. The ladies their own age have either matched up or they have moved on with their lives. These attractive, available ladies have grown up, accomplished great things, and established their identity without a guy on their arm. Mature, grounded women have a different set of expectations of their potential mates than they did in their 20s. No longer does it suffice to be handsome and fun. Now you need to be handsome, fun, kind, considerate, accomplished, like kids, have built a few assets for yourself, have a decent job or career, etc. The ladies have RAISED THE BAR on your ass while you were out partying. And you are not prepared to meet that bar.
So, you maturity-stunted dudes decide stake your hunt for your life partner on the fertile ground of 20-somethings (no pun intended), telling yourself that women your age are just worn out and grouchy. But really, it's because you want someone who will not judge you so harshly for being retarded in the first place. The ladies your own age can see through that shit in a heartbeat and they are too wise to SETTLE for it. The younger ladies don't know what they don't know and think you're the bomb. Ego satisfied, let's get married.
hypothetical.
Characters
Woman: 40, attractive, healthy, good job, educated, funny, strong character, independent, and ready to marry.
Woman: 27, attractive, healthy, good job, educated, funny, strong character, independent, and ready to marry.
Man: 40, attractive, healthy, good job, educated, funny, strong character, independent, and ready to marry.
Man 27, attractive, healthy, good job, education, funny, strong character, independent, and ready to marry.
Scenario
All four are in a room, each has had a cocktail and are chatting each other up with an eye towards possibly finding a marital relationship.
Question Presented:
Realistically, based on your own tastes, experience, and those of the women we all know that fall into the description by Ian, which person is in biggest demand (using market terms).
My Answer.
Woman 27 = completely acceptable to Man 40 and Man 27
Man 40 = completely acceptable to Woman 40 and 85 percent acceptable to Woman 27
Man 27 = completely acceptable to Woman 27 and 15 percent acceptable to Woman 40
Woman 40 = 90 percent acceptable to Man 40, and 5 percent acceptable to Man 27
Final question; Which of the character descriptions for Woman 40 willing to "settle" on in order to be equally "competitive" with woman 27?
Finally - I married my wife because I struck by a bolt of love lightning. However, we are from different countries (France/US) and she is younger (12 years). We have been together 7 years without a hitch but I am amazed always at the depth of her character, her strength and drive, her love. These were all things that I am so lucky to have in a partner and while I knew she possessed these traits, I did not appreciate the depth. However, I also believe that in seven years the very act of being in a trusting partnership actually brings forth our better selves and allows our better traits to rise and develop and our more base needs to fall aside.
Sorry, got a little carried away.
I'll just clarify that raising the bar is not about assets, but about having accomplished something, and having emotional depth.
I married a peacock. He's great, but I spent 10 years raising his ass. He can still be dense on the emotional front, and if I met him today, I'd find him charismatic, but narcissistic and lacking depth. Not his fault, it's my bar which has changed...
I'm posting with the same name name I posted under yesterday because I'm fairly certain that I'll catch some flack for this, but so far in my opinion marriage is a crappy deal for men, it has been so far for me and most of my married friends. Maybe, just maybe, if young men could honestly hear stories about marriage that were positive for men rather than the one or two great marriages and warnings from the rest that once the ring is on everything changes and once the kids arrive you can say goodbye to physical intimacy (and in my case it didn't even take kids for the intimacy to diminish greatly). I've noticed in my marriage and in many of my close friends the goal of the woman is to get married and have a house and the things that go along with it and that sometimes we men are just a means to that end, so no wonder we feel like marriage is a ridiculously bad deal for us - once we're married we have to be the diligent husband, we have to remain faithful even though the wife gives us no reason to, we have to suck it up and be responsible for this thing that sucks up time and money and if we want to have anything of our own, any kind of fun, any kind of hobby or anything we are reminded constantly that there is no longer "me or I" there is "us" but it is strange how almost all of the "us" decisions are made by the wife without much thought to what the husband wants or needs. The successful marriages I've seen, and I hope most of the ones of people on here are like this, are based on on finding the person you want to, or can, spend the rest of your life with with and makes you happy, and then marriage is a step along that path, rather than the end goal. If marriage is the end goal, then once that goal is reached the one that reached it will stop trying, regardless of how hard the other may be trying. If this is the case and it is echoed and reinforced through generations down to young men with advice like "wait as long as you can to get married" or "don't get married" or "once the ring is on everything changes" and all other kinds of things that fathers, grandfathers and uncles might say to young men, is anyone really surprised that dudes want to put off marriage as long as possible? Maybe I'm just being cynical and jaded because my marriage has been all about my wife and once she had the ring, the wedding and the house she stopped trying, no matter how many discussions we've had, no matter how often I tell her that this is not fair and that she needs to start trying and out in at least some effort. Of course she's happy, she has what she wanted all along and has had to give up nothing and really hasn't put in any effort for a couple of years and has only started recently because I told her that I was done and out and only when faced with the prospect of losing what she cares most about, her house and the ability to say she's married, she begged for one more chance has finally put forth some token effort. I know I need to sack up and just tell her it's too fucking late and get the hell out, but that would break her heart and breaking anyone's heart is not really in my make up so it's taking me a damned long time to muster up the nerve to do it.
so yes, my advice to my younger single guy friends is to wait as long as possible and if they have the opportunity of "getting a blow job on the roof of a Suburban going 75 mph through South Beach while shotgunning a vat of Cuervo," then they need to hop on that roof and fill up that funnel. The best thing to do is to end it and run screaming to my freedom, but that is easier said than done, and I just have to get this out somehow, sorry to rant on your blog Ian.
So many opinions, so little time...
First, I suspect that Man 27 is gay, which throws off your hypo somewhat.
Two, Ian, please tell me more about these LA literati. It will be good exercise for shortening your paragraphs.
iii, I agree about the book deal factor ("If you have an idea that is compelling, salacious, vaguely relatable and able to piss off half of the Conde Nast building, you have a check waiting for you at your literary agent's office.") The legal equivilent of this is that in order to be published in the Yale Law Journal, your idea must be (a) original, (b) very clever and (c) completely wrong.
Forth, if you think this book pisses you off, wait until you see "Undateable", which is due out... I dunno, this summer? It's a real-life version of Liz Lemon's "Dealbreakers."
E) My version of not settling at 18 was nothing like Ian's crass little fantasy. It involved waxing poetic to a gorgeous raven-haired girl in Père Lachaise. She would have been holding the bouquet I had given her to her realistically-sized and unenhanced bosom. Then I'd guzzle a vat of red wine and get a blowjob.
What?
Of course... my "crass fantasy" was merely to make a larger point. MY idea of "not settling" at 18 was finding a girl who listened to "Skylarking" and had an opinion about T.S. Eliot's later work, but then again, I married her.
"There are studies..." Aren't there, though? Always and for everything? But yeah, of course men are callow, objectionable dickweeds. QED.
Can't it have been both, Ian?
First time poster anonymous or otherwise but long time reader dating back to the second win by Bush and the classic posts that followed.
Makoshark hits it right on the head. Women joke about getting married and smiling because they have given their "last blow job" and then they shut off the sex except when they want to make babies. And yet they're shocked, SHOCKED when a man strays to "get some" on the side when they don't offer any such opportunities at home.
Its why I refuse to judge any celeb who gets caught up in a nightmare-ish cheating scandal because I bet at the root of the cheating is a smug wife who isn't holding up her end of the bargain. I think the idea of a discrete mistress is long over due in this country and I wonder if any intelligent sex withholding woman on this blog would be offended if their man did all of the marital duties but got his sex on the side and kept it private to avoid humiliation for her. Seems like a winning propisition for both.
Full disclosure:
Mid-30's
Married 5 plus years, wife two years yonger
18 month-old child and thinking about another
I completely agree with everything Makoshark said. I have been the wife in that scenario, and my husband has called me on it several times. It works both ways for us . . .for both of us, our marriage and our dual incomes gave us what we wanted: financial stability, our home, our child. The question becomes: do we still want each other? To be honest, sometimes my answer is HELL NO and if we did not have the home and child, we probably would have ended things a long time ago. We both go for long stretches without putting any effort into our marriage, and the strain shows. But, we are able to regroup periodically, remember what we liked about each other in the first place and trudge along.
Like someone said, we tend to reveal all on this blog, no? I will disclose my biggest fear/concern: I cannot imagine entering the retirement phase of my life with my husband. For now, we are busy with work, child, life events. We don't really have to DEAL with each other. With work over and child living her own life, I can't imagine us agreeing on where to live, what to do, or how to process our retirement. Our interests are so dissimilar. . . I want to move to the beach, he wants to stay put. Our hobbies don't intersect. My fear is that our retirement will be the time when we decide to end the marriage. There, I said it. When I get heartsick about this thought, I look back at the period in my life when I was hoping to find a husband and LAUGH.
Makoshark, if this is a relationship you aren't feeling able to leave, have you considered therapy? Considering Elephant mentions a similar situation, I assume it's a dynamic couples counselors frequently encounter. I find it profound that you say you aren't leaving because you haven't mustered up the courage to break her heart. Are you certain there isn't some fear of loss for yourself and that protecting her is an excuse?
How about helping your wife to explore libido issues? Oral contraceptives have been shown to decrease female libido. http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002795.html As women near menopause (even late 30s) progesterone drops and which also causes loss of libido. Natural progesterone may successfully restore some of that spark and has other health benefits, as well. It may be well worth exploring physical as well as emotional bars to intimacy.
I don't think marriage has to follow the dynamic you've described. Of course it's normal for exhausted parents of small children to have no energy for sex. We had years of that. But that should just be a phase. How about behaving like you did early in your relationship? It occurred to me a while back that when I was younger the best sex often involved alcohol or marijuana. So now, my husband and I start date night with a good buzz, followed by sex that's more uninhibited than ever. After all, now we've got the good buzz AND a trusting relationship. You might be surprised - Maybe Cuervo and good head would do you both good!
My wise older brother once had this to say to me about marriage, "as long as ya'll are getting' some, you can work everything else out."
If this were France, I would suggest that Elephant and mako have a fling. But it ain't France, so nonathatshit.
I do agree that Makoshark, since you are near the breaking point, you and your wife should get some couples counseling so you can figure out how to make each other happy and have a neutral party to guide you along. Most of what you say puts the blame on your wife, and maybe that's right, but maybe there is a way you can make her happier too, and so why not explore these issues? Why just trudge along as it is now, when you may someday be too late for therapy? Since you were close to leaving but you are giving your wife a second chance isn't it worth a shot? And the fact that your leaving would 'break her heart' means that she must REALLY love you. In which case, maybe she was just not aware that you felt unappreciated or didn't know what to do about it? SOunds like maybe you suffer from what a lot of men do - you don't know how to kindly (and without sarcasm) express your real emotions?
Now on to Shark Boy...is it really that bad? What happens when the man takes a misterss, picks up clamydia, and brings it home to the wife?
Maybe if the wife loses interest in sex it's because the guy is not really trying to please her in bed. Many of us girls just work on pleasing you for years because it's easier than to keep saying "A little higher, a little slower."
Of course, I'm sure there are bigger issues going on after years of marriage, but I hope there are better ways to deal with it than cheating.
And I really doubt most of the cheating is because they're not getting sex at home. Charlie Sheen could have had any woman and he still paid big bucks for high class hookers. Why? Some men are just not satisfied. Maybe you watch too much porn and think that's reality.
If you have a faithful, kind wife who loves you, that's a start.
I wonder if I am the only woman who thinks about having a fling? I know my hub would never do it, but I think about it often. And it's not about sex - get (and give) plenty of that. I just feel that sometimes I get taken granted for and/or that during the dating process I got a "snow" job for lack of better words b/c what my hub did and (supposedly liked to do) back then is not nearly the same as now. And to be fair to Anne's point, I could go out and do those things with other like-minded people, but the snow job also deals with mind-sets, parenting issues, and underlying beliefs.
I could never discuss this with any of my girl friends - I believe half of them would gasp in horror and call me a fool, but I'm just wondering...
It's amazing how many couples appear to "have it all" when actually they are saying to themselves, "This is it?" I know plenty of wives that have unhappy marriages, but don't leave because they think to themselves that nobody else would want them.
As for my own marriage, I have to say that being out of the baby/toddler stage of kids has been good for us. It's easier to find time for intimacy when your not already physically exhausted. Of course, now my oldest is almost 11 and I foresee that parenting is soon going to become more difficult. So maybe we're just in the calm period between 2 storms.
Makoshark - meet me on top of the Empire State Building on the first day of Spring and we can begin our affair to remember!
Ha! Sadly, I have become so beaten down by the disappointments in my marriage that I would not have the interest or energy in an affair. If my marriage were to end, I just want to be left alone. Alone with my books and pets and children. That would make me very content.
sorry, but it is a must see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlaWbCbZhAA
Elephant - I'll be there ;)
as far as the counseling suggestions, I think they're great, I've been suggesting them for months, the answer I've gotten has been "I won't go, I'm fine, if you're not happy you're the one that should go, I'm totally happy"not to make it all sound like her fault, because I'm sure I have caused some of it, but I've suggested counseling, I've tried to romance the hell out of her, I've tried a few drinks, romantic dinners and holidays - I've tried being blunt and direct, etc etc - the only thing that got her attention was when I told her I was done with it and getting out. Then after insulting me a couple of times and that not working, she begged for one last chance, my opinion is that it's not me she's afraid of losing, it's the life she's got that matters to her.
so yeah - things are bleak
my last post (as makoshark at least) I'm not one of those whiny insecure guys who says "my wife doesn't understand me" because she does understand me, perfectly. She's just used that understanding to skew our relationship towards everything being catered towards her.
I really just need to sack up
OK, Mako, then props to you for suggesting couples therapy! She shouldn't be so defensive and claim she has no issues - that's not what it's about anyway. It's about the combined relationship. There is nothing wrong with couples therapy. Maybe she's afraid of it opening wounds - getting the right couples therapist is important. When I was trying to find one, I asked several of them if they ever tell the couples they shouldn't be together. The ones who were flippant were not acceptable in my opinion. Then there were some old biddies without degrees. I found one who was also a real doctor.
Anon, what do you mean, "I know my hub would never do it"? Maybe he says the same about you.