In it's place I have only managed to gain adult acne and 20 pounds.

Where did SHE go?

I am also the nag now. Because no one has the same level of expectations for our lives that I do.

Oh- and Twilight? Tee hee. I haven't indulged in more than taking SD to the movie. I think the teen girls have not come very far in their fantasy of "He's not good for me but will love me enough to change."

Such an old theme. SD eats that one up.

But I definitely hear you about the romance is gone part. I think real life just gets in the way. It would in the beginning, except for the fact that we are so excited to have a distraction from normalcy when we get a taste of romance that we make it a priority.

I used to shave my legs every morning because I was hoping there was a need to. Now I shave them because I feel obligated to, so I don't completely let myself go.

Ugh.

"Om Tare Tutare Ture Mama Ayurpunye Jnana Putin Kuru Svaha"
~Sita Tara Mantra

I know how you feel. I have been very, very depressed lately and I wonder where the woman I used to see looking back at me in the mirror went. I liked that woman. She was confident and had a positive attitude. She was also friendly and smiled easily. Now all I see is a tired, stressed out and strained woman with a furrowed brow. My bd has noticed it and so has my best friend. I feel like I have lost myself.

Sometimes I wonder how dh feels about me now too. I think that we have lost a lot of what I thought we had.

My bd loved twilight. Maybe a good lighthearted read will do me good.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

If you look back at the woman your man feel in love with, were you independent and taking care of yourself? I hate to sound stereotypical but men love women who are confident and love themself. Problem we have is the men we love make us question ourselves and thus we lose our self-confidence - we lose the woman he fell in love with. I once read that it is dangerous to a relationship to read romance novels because hardly ever does a relationship fulfill the unrealistic reality of a novel and never does a relationship maintain the idealism of a romance novel. Marriage is WORK, I believe that's why the divorce rate is so high - because we are a lazy nation and we don;t want to WORK. - I love my H and I agree when the relationship first began I would look at him and just the sight of him wuld take my breath away. Are those days gone - maybe or they may come back. When things are going bad (when SD is abusing me and H is abusing me -mentally- due to SD's antics) I look at him and I think, "Why did I do this to myself." During those times he doesn't respect me and he doesn't appreciate me - so you know what - it is up to me to respect myself and to appreciate myself - I too am a giver and because of this I feel used/abused and then bitter. Stand UP - demand respect, respect yourself - you did before HE came along - YOU CAN DO IT AGAIN. Then he will start respecting you and if he doesn't - what have you really lost? Nothing you didn't have to begin with. The strength is YOU, if he died tomorrow you WOULD go on. Stay out of the novels and know he is flesh and blood and not perfect - and respect yourself.

Sometimes family life kicks in & takes its toll...he may not see you in the "same" light but I'm sure the light he sees you in is still a great one. Every relationship takes compromise, sometimes its viewed as nagging if the other partner is not holding up their end of the bargain. You're a wonderful person & I'm sure that although your relationship may have moved beyond the lust/puppy love/honeymoon phase, its matured into real-life, seen-me-at-my-worst-and-still-loves-me-phase. Sometimes you really have to take time for yourself though...it will make you a better wife & mother!

"Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy"

When I first met my DH I was so crazy about him & he about me it was magic. We were so happy, I have never felt this way about anyone.I had lots of serious BF in the past & had been married & engaged to other men so it wasn't like this was my first time.

Ours was such a happy & giddy romance. Now 3 1/2 years later, I hate him as much as I love him it seems. I am jealouse of the life his ex wife has. She is free of him, gets half his money, gets every other weekend off & just got engaged to her dumbass BF. I know what she loves about that unemployeed idiot is that he does things, he may not have a job, but he isn't constantly sick, depressed & laying on her couch forcing her to do everything.

I want to feel some of that again, instead of all the anger & disappointment, but don't know how to get back there.

Know how those doors close and sometimes they're hard to open back up? I asked DH over the weekend if any of his "doors" had closed. He couldn't answer. Problem is, I feel the same way. There's just been too much unexpected crap happen that has built up over time. After he fell asleep I got up and wrote in shoe polish on my bathroom mirror DS + 6/7 = LC. I can't remember what I was calling the DS, but basically I am giving my relationship 6 to 7 months and that is the LC or last chance. Man, did I get questions the next day. I am leaving it up there to remind myself that is all the time and energy this will get unless things change. Like you girls, I have also my lost my "self".

I told him I wanted to have a life outside of our relationship. Meaning time just for me and me alone doing whatever I can to get my "self" back again. Even if that means having to lose him.

"OCD sucks"
Habit and routine have an unbelievable power to destroy.
--Henri de Lubac

I can understand the frustration that you Ladies have been expressing. I lived it from the male side with my first marriage. I wanted the perfect marriage, to be a a team, to have a partner, lover, hot sex, kids, career success, etc ..... My XW wanted something else. I too lost the Rags that I liked being and it took several months with the marriage counselor turned Rags therapist, a career change, selling my business to go back to school to finish my engineering degree and about four years of Rags time to be ready for a do-over on marriage. Thank God for do-overs.

The first two years of marriage #2 were awesome. Though I did occasionally have the "what the hell was I thinking getting married again" thoughts. The last time I had that thought I came to the realization that life was getting in the way of my relationship with my wife.

At that time I made a very simple but powerful discovery. The thought of her name made me smile. So, I changed my computer password, email password, voicemail password, etc ... to my wife's name. I made thinking of her an action that I take every day, several times a day. Every time I have to log in to anything I think of her...... and I smile.

Then I stole an idea from my very regimented Father. The idea is Random Flowers. Every time I open up a new planner I randomly flip through the entire planner and occasionally write in big bold letters RANDOM FLOWERS! When I get to that day I order flowers to be delivered to my wife wherever she may be. Work, home, when she is out of town on a business or family trip, etc ..... When my Mom saw RANDOM FLOWERS in my Dad's planner once years ago she busted his chops for not just thinking about her and sending her flowers, it bothered her that he had to write it down. My incredible wife gave me the same crap when she saw it in my planner. They (Mom and my Wife) give Dad and I crap about RANDOM FLOWERS whenever they get together. It is good hearted crap that they seem to enjoy discussing. The beauty of it is the glow on their faces when they are gaggling about it between each other.

It works both ways I think. Send your Hubby's a RANDOM FISHING LURE or RANDOM TOOL or RANDOM WHATEVER WILL GET HIS ATTENTION.

Text messaging works also. I will periodically stop logging in to something and text my Wife with a sweet nothing text just to let her know that I am thinking about her. Sometimes I will call her cell or desk repeatedly until she picks up just so that I can tell her I wanted to hear her voice. She usually picks up those calls with a "What!" but I can hear the smile in her tone of voice. I just say "Nothing, I just wanted to hear your voice" and hang up. Then she calls me back and gives me crap about hanging up without talking to her. It is fun banter and it works.

OK, so I am not a hot vampire bad boy type and my wife is no longer a 17yo hottie with a naughty body but ...... we still can take each other's breath away when the moment is right and we put some focus on to it. She is more beautiful now than she was when we met when she was 18. And I am putting miles and miles a week in on the treadmill in an effort to regain the high level of male animal magnetism that I represented in my teens and twenties. I believe the key to the weak kneed take the breath away romance is the effort and the action. For Christmas this year I signed us up for the Wine of the Month club. Each month we get two different wines delivered to our home. My intent is that even if life is so in the way that we forget to be in to each other, at least once a month we can dim the lights, pull out the crystal wine glasses,get a good buzz on and gaze in to each others eyes for an evening.

Give me reality over the fantasy any time. The key is making the fantasy a reality. Even if it means writing it down in your planner.

Just my thoughts of course.

Good luck and best regards,

I felt like I have lost myself and in that lost the love we shared when I was that other person

"Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one."

as a newlywed i should not be reading this post. bc i feel all that romance now and i know u all did too and im so afraid of losing it.

i can say that the first few months after i moved here were hell thanks to BM. we've been thru so much and come out w a renewed sense of priorities...that being our marriage and relationship. so maybe we've weathered the worst storm...one can only hope.

i hope i never stop thinking DH is the most handsome man in the world. i hope he never stops staring at me like im the most beautiful. i hope he never tires of telling me that i am his everything and never forgets that i saved him. i hope our daily lives dont ever come in between us and take the place of long kisses, talks in bed, date nites, i love u texts and those phone calls "just to hear ur voice". i hope we never take each other for granted or forget how lucky we are to have this amazing, all-consuming love. i hope we never forget how we got together and how it all was just meant to be. i hope i never stop feeling the way i feel when he comes home or enters a room and smiles at me. i hope...

"Given the right reasons and the right two people, marriage is a wonderful way of experiencing your life."
~the late great George Carlin

Rags awesome perspective I enjoyed reading it.
and I did try texting my FH and guess what he was too busy texting his teenage daughter to text me back.
I tried again -same issue- I took his favorite jacket - it was a mess, I spot removed some of the bad stains, washed it and dried it ..showed it to him thinking he would be surprised and happy...
nope didnt even look around at me.
I am at a loss, I am supposed to get married to him in Aug 09
sad
"Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one."

H and I were like lost teenagers in love when we first met. (which REALLY infuriated the adult Kids...his 3 Ds and my own H). One would think that they would be HAPPY to see their parents who had NO LIFE for years as they were too busy being single parents MEET someone and be happy.

That's when all the stress and change kicked in. All of the sudden, the "kids" were running the show, and it was awful...

I've handled my son. There are no more free hand outs. Must say his adult Ds have been great of late (ironically, no major incidents since I joined this site).

But I've also changed. Instead of being so "willing" to revolve my world around H and his family, I do "my thing".
As I put on another post, this year, Christmas Eve, I'm working.
Christmas Day, we already planned that we will go to mass and have OUR OWN dinner around 1:00. After that, if he wants to sit around and wait for his adult Ds (who have their OWN plans), I hope he has a ball. I'm going the the movies.
I wanna see Seven Pounds...sounds amazing!! This is something I would have RANTED over a year or two ago...that he would sit here and not come with me.

The way I look at it, if he doesn't come with me...HIS LOSS. But, it certainly has made him OPEN his eyes to the fact that I can live without him. (Men are "hunters" by nature; we make it too easy for them.) And, things between us have been getting better and better. When they know they "have you", it's very easy for them to take advantage; when they think that you can do JUST FINE without them, THEN they take notice!

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."-Eleanor Roosevelt

Was talking to SarahBernHeart on the hellophone and referred me to your post. We both must be going thru the same thing. Me...Well, lets just say that I feel as if I have become a fixture in our family. My hubby doesn't see me in the same light as he use to. I have done everything I can possibly think of...changed my hair, ect. WHERE HAS THE LOVE GONE? He says he loves me, but I don't feel it.. ALL I WANT IS TO FEEL IT, even when I ask him to show me....he thinks I'm off my rocker !

Maybe I am, maybe I shouldn't stay with him, I just don't know what I should do. After almost 17 years of marriage...I'm running out of ideas. I can't fix this. I'm just SAD...

Stepwitch
Thank you Disney for portraying a positive image on all stepmothers!!!!

MY funk is totally related to SD's draining the life's blood out of me. I think if she weren't here all the time like she has been the past 6 months, that things would be fantastic. Dh is very patient about us too. He knows that I need to be fulfilled personally, to have anything to give. Otherwise my existence becomes all give give give with no outside nurturing to replenish.

The last time he brought home flowers was after I said I couldn't live with SD this way for 5 more years. It came after SD was trying to force him to support her over me. My response was telling him I would never ask him to choose, and if they would be better without me I would go. None of what I said was in anger or a demand for loyalty.

The card on the bouquet said, "I love you and only want to see you happy." Though it wasn't his intention, I know SD read it and was peeved. She wants someone to love her that way, but has no idea that kind of love is not an entitlement. It's an inspiration.

My favorite time DH gave me flowers, has been a couple years ago but I kept the card.

It simply said,

"Because it's Sunday."

He wrote that because I used to hate Sundays. My whole life. I can't explain why. But after meeting DH, I started loving Sundays. It's our day. That's why he wrote that in the card.

Sigh.

He is a fabulous husband. I guess I owe BM one. Her insatiable need for him to fill her up caused him so much grief that he is incredibly appreciative to me for the smallest of things.

"Om Tare Tutare Ture Mama Ayurpunye Jnana Putin Kuru Svaha"
~Sita Tara Mantra