Dear Dan,

Even though you aren’t responding, maybe you are reading this, and I hope you don’t mind if I continue developing my understanding of you and your situation… I would like to backtrack a little and correct what I said in my previous post. In my previous post I was musing that your needs might not be primarily emotional, but rather that it’s the need for physical closeness and intimacy, as well as spending a lot of time with your wife alone, having her full attention.

Now I am thinking that those too are emotional needs, because having our partner’s undivided attention, their positive, loving and caring attention – meets a huge emotional need. We feel loved, seen, validated, appreciated….

You said something very important:

I think I wanted more attention than I was getting. Much of my happiness came from her which isn’t healthy. I would try to please her while neglecting my own needs.

My interpretation of “Much of my happiness came from her” is that you couldn’t feel happy on your own, when she wasn’t around, or when she wasn’t paying enough attention to you. You needed her to give you a  lot of attention, to spend time with you, to touch you, in order to feel happy, and even to feel good about yourself. Would you say that’s true?

If so – if you needed her to feel good about yourself, and if her lack of attention caused you to feel unloved and unworthy – that would signal a childhood wound. And it would also explain why you now feel devastated and why you cannot move on, although you are telling yourself you should.

You asked about self-parenting. If what I wrote above is mostly correct, then indeed you would need to get in touch with your wounded inner child and help him heal. There is a way out, and it doesn’t have to be as painful as it is for you at the moment.

I wish you healing! And I would be glad to keep talking to you, if you choose so.

Dear Dan,

I loved anita’s explanation of what parenting and self-parenting is. Self-parenting really is feeding ourselves – giving ourselves nurturance – both physically and emotionally.

You said you were somewhat needy in the relationship, but you couldn’t pinpoint what your needs were. This is what you said about your neediness:

When I say needs I can’t really pinpoint what exactly.

About my neediness. I think I wanted more attention than I was getting. Much of my happiness came from her which isn’t healthy. I would try to please her while neglecting my own needs.

As for my needs. Again it’s hard for me to say exactly what. I would often want to go on a mini vacation as we really didn’t have a honeymoon and she wouldn’t want to go. I also feel closest with her through physical touch. At some point that wasn’t being reciprocated. I’m not just talking about sex but just any kind of physical affection.

You also said that a couple of months after the separation, you reunited for a while and were meeting in her house when the children were at their dad’s. It was very important for you to spend time alone with her, having physical intimacy (which was great – you said you had great sexual chemistry), enjoying a glass of wine (“we both enjoyed our drinks on the weekends together”), and simply spending a cozy time together.

This “idyll” lasted for about a month, and then she asked for some space again, and you gave her space. Your meetups haven’t resumed after that, since her daughter refused to go to her dad’s place for the weekends, and then her mother moved in again in June.

Based on everything you have written, I am thinking that perhaps your neediness is not so much emotional neediness. Maybe you don’t need a “mother”, as I have assumed earlier. But rather, I am thinking that maybe you need a companion who doesn’t have so many responsibilities with children and other people in her life, but can spend a lot of pleasurable time with you, going to trips, concerts, mini vacations etc. You need someone who is free (and care-free enough) to spend a lot of pleasurable time with you, and not burdened by all those responsibilities.

Things were great before covid, when she had the children for a week, and then she had a week off, when she was free to spend time with you. But covid ruined that and you found yourself in quite a different situation. And it got worse and worse, since her responsibilities grew – because for some reason the children didn’t want to go back to spending half of the time with their father any longer. Her mother also moved in and out, and then her father too.

And so she became a full-time mom and care-taker, burdened by all those responsibilities. Perhaps she even took on too many responsibilities and wasn’t setting proper boundaries, so it was worse than it should have been. Nevertheless, in this new situation, she felt she couldn’t give you what you need (she said “what you deserve”). Perhaps what she feels you need and deserve is a much less burdened wife who can spend a lot of pleasurable time with you, and give you much more attention than she presently can?

I am not saying that you are wrong for wanting a less burdened and more available wife and companion. It’s just that she at the moment cannot be it. Partially due to her life situation, partially maybe because she cannot set boundaries with her family, and so she becomes mother and care-taker exclusively, without any fun time for herself.

What do you think?

Dear Sadlyconfused,

I am not completely sure but still, there is something about this situation that doesn’t sit well with me. I mean, it’s okay if he finds a woman attractive, you can’t blame him for that. But it’s less okay that he expressed it to her, even if “everyone in the community talks like that about one another”. Why would members of a gaming community need to talk to each other in a flirty, sexualized way?

He was adamant that he had done nothing wrong, that they’re all friends on there and that it just sounds bad out of context.

Well, is he talking like that with his female colleagues at work? Or with his female friends? Are there sexual undertones in his interaction with women? There are many places (work places included) where it is the case, but when I worked at such a place, I felt very uncomfortable.

I think part of the deeper pain though is that I thought he might be remorseful about the fact I’m upset by it, but instead I feel like he disregarded my feelings and couldn’t understand why it hurt me. I thought it might be an opportunity to get some mutually agreed upon boundaries in place when it comes to online interactions with the opposite sex, but he just flat out said that there was nothing wrong with his behaviour.

I also see it as problematic. Claiming that making flirty/sexual comments to women is completely fine and that you shouldn’t be upset about it – well I don’t agree with it. Because such behavior is disrespectful, first and foremost to you, but also to those women who feel uncomfortable being at the receiving end of such sexual remarks.

In any case, I understand why you are upset about his lack of insight and sensitivity about this topic.

Dear Katrine,

I feel soo relieved that i can trust myself and my gut instinct. We just said hi to each other and he smiled so i feel a bit better.

Aaw that’s so sweet! I am glad that you’re feeling at least a little better!

Yes i would have said yes to him. Because earlier this year i had my first intimate experience with a man it was scary and I took a couple of weeks for my mind and body to relax in it. But it only happened because i went through with it even though i was terrifiying and foreign to me.

I am glad you would have said yes to the man you like and who likes you too! You say you had your first intimate experience earlier this year with a man who said he liked you (although you didn’t believe it at the time), and so you kind of made yourself to do it, even though it was scary, terrifying and foreign to you. May I ask – did you like that man? It’s okay if you didn’t, I am just asking because there might be something I’d like to add. But please feel free not to answer the question, if you find it intrusive.

Dear Katrine,

in my previous post, I didn’t express myself well. I said “I think he is sending you mixed signals and playing with your feelings”. Well, he is definitely sending you mixed signals, but he isn’t playing with your feelings on purpose. He does it because he is afraid of relationship. So I agree with anita and am pretty sure that yes, he likes you, but he is afraid to admit it.

I needed to know that i wasn’t crazy for starting to think he liked me.

You are not “crazy” for thinking that he likes you, you’re not imagining things, your perception is correct! How does this knowing that he likes you (and that your perception is correct) make you feel?

Dear Katrine Nielsen,

it’s good to hear from you again!

I think, or rather, I am pretty sure, that he likes you. But he is very shy and it seems he is afraid of rejection, so he doesn’t want to “make a move”, although he had plenty of opportunities for that.

I’m very protective of myself and don’t want to think a guy likes me if he is just being friendly with me.

That’s a good approach in general – better not to imagine things that aren’t there. But in this case, you aren’t imagining, he shows a very strong interest in you.

I ended up leaving without saying goodbye to him cuz i wasn’t feeling well. I shut down for a week and basically avoided looking at him and talking to him

Were you physically unwell? I don’t quite understand why you later avoided looking at him and talking to him? Is it because you left without saying goodbye and felt embarrassed about it?

the week after he shut down and did the same

Probably he thought you don’t like him and felt rejected, so he shut down as well, to protect himself.

Let me ask you – do you like him? If so, maybe you should show it to him, because right now, he might be thinking the same about you: that you are just friendly to him, but nothing more.

OK, so you would ask, but she wouldn’t tell you what’s wrong? When she kept you in the dark, you’ve tried to approach her, but she refused to communicate?

Dear Dan,

As for me not being there to help in challenging times that is incorrect. I was always there to help her and I did, I did a lot to help with anything and she knew that. She even said that she felt like she was using me as I was always willing to help.

I apologize for assuming that you weren’t there to help. I assumed it because you said you went to your mother’s place when the “house got smaller and smaller” and when your wife needed some space. I thought that at those times your wife was very busy with her children and other tasks, and you felt like she cannot give you the attention you needed, so you got out of her way, not to disturb her. Even if the latter is true – that you felt a little neglected at times – I now realize that this doesn’t mean you didn’t help your wife in the household or otherwise (providing a generous settlement is a great example of that!). I am sorry for making that assumption.

When we got back together for a few weeks but then she said she needed space I asked her why. She told me that she needed to gather herself a bit as I think the feelings my have started becoming a bit too intense for her. I said that’s fine and she said it was hard to tell me that because I am always there to help and that I’m always nice.

She needed space because she needed to gather herself. Those are her words. Your interpretation is that “the feelings may have started becoming a bit too intense for her.” But you don’t know that for sure. I think she is conflicted and that’s why she needs to “gather herself”. She needs to decide what she wants. On one hand, she appreciates your help and generosity and the fact that you are always nice. But on the other, there is something bothering her, and I don’t think it’s just that her children have an issue with you.

I will dare to say that she too has an issue with you, and it could be because you never asked her those deeper things, and maybe she felt like you didn’t care? It’s again an assumption on my part, but if there was no communication between you, and the distance was growing, it’s very likely that there was some resentment on her part. She actually showed it by behaving strangely around Christmas and then giving you the cold shoulder in January…

I guess I should say through when we were being intimate with one another it was good. We had very good chemistry in that regard.

It could be that when you spend some time apart, she feels the spark again. But when you are too close together, and she feels burdened by a lot of things, and on top of that you behave emotionally needy (a little bit like a child of hers), that spark is gone.

You say:

I also feel closest with her through physical touch. At some point that wasn’t being reciprocated. I’m not just talking about sex but just any kind of physical affection.

I can imagine that if the emotional distance between you grew ever larger, then no wonder she didn’t feel like being physically close either. I’d say emotional intimacy is a precondition for physical intimacy.