mormondad

Thanks all I appreciate the advice and support. @Vort I really appreciate your support & encouragement. @seashmore Thanks for the link, I will check that out! @Jane_Doe We aren’t in counseling currently, and I do think we are capable of elevating our quality of communication before resorting to more therapy. @anatess2 That is a great question because I agree it can have many different definitions. I guess I’m referring more to the noun, or the spark, than the verb. I guess want her to love me for who I am and not what I do. Thanks @Sunday21 for the reassurance ? Thank you for your kind words @zil. I know I have a lot of work to do. @Midwest LDS I totally agree, thank you for your support. @my two cents I have generally accepted it was the ppd talking, but a small part of me just won’t let it go. I agree that I need to though. You are spot on with your perception that her love is more practical and I was hoping for a little more lovey-doviness coming my way. The “what you feed grows” resonates a lot, and I appreciate that advice. Thank you for the support @MormonGator. Feeling the love. @Dillon I agree there are some pieces of work out there, and I have found that when I watch too many gold-digger prank videos on youtube that one can fall into the trap of assuming all women are just in it for money or security, but that is a skewed perception. And after having dealt with depression and researching it, I agree with @Jane_Doe 100% that it is “a major clinical condition which warps the suffer's perception and memory, shrouding it in darkness and hopelessness,” and I think it’s too bad we are debating these things here. @prisonchaplain I have the feeling if she read your response about what she needs-unreciprocated love to feel safe-that she would agree 100%. I appreciate the words, they ring true. @mdfxdb I remember seeing the movie a while back, I will look into the book. That's actually popped into me head a few times. @JoCa I think you are right. I need to stop worrying about the wrong things and shift my focus. I appreciate your words and reminder of my priorities.

After about 5 years of marriage, my wife told me she never loved me. Everything I read talks about rekindling the lost love that was there in the beginning, but what if it was never there?? What if she married me for reasons other than love? Her main reasons were that she believed I would be a kind husband & father and a good provider. I admit those aren’t bad reasons, but I would have liked there to be some genuine romantic love on her part. I still feel like there was and I like to think there was, but there are just so many mixed messages I don't know what to think anymore. A little background. I majorly pursued her in college and thought that I had truly won her over when we started to talk marriage. I thought it was safe to assume that her marrying me was a signal that she was just as crazy about me as I was about her...nope. 5 years later after baby number 3 we were having problems and went to counseling. We didn't realize at the time she was in the middle of postpartum depression. But that’s when it came out. I felt devastated, cheated, and that I was no more than a sperm bank and a paycheck. I realize it might not be fair to put a lot of weight in things said by a woman in the midst of ppd, but the cynical side of me thought she was in a state of such indifference that she just let her true thoughts flow. I figured the ppd was just a vehicle that allowed the truth to come out. Fast forward five more years. We are active LDS trying to do things right, but I feel like our marriage could be so much more. I fear that our young kids will sense a disconnection in my marriage and that it will have negative implication in theirs. Even when things seem good, I always have the thought deep down that she never really loved me. It’s hard not to attribute any marital problem to that. It also wasn't very reassuring when we had another therapist a year or two later who was pretty quick to suggest divorce. Am I overthinking this? I realize we're still much better off than many arranged marriages. I think about President Kimball’s famous quote that “almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price." (Why did he have to say “almost any”?) In the same talk he says “marriage can be, more an exultant ecstasy than the human mind can conceive.” That just seems so far out of reach for me. Do I just settle for the fact that my wife settled for me? Or do I fight for something more? How do I come to terms and stop thinking about it? Do I talk to her? It's come up occasionally but usually in an argument (she never really acknowledges it, but she never denies it either). Do I just endure and hope for the best of the afterlife? That seems like a bleak prospect. Thanks in advance. This one is my humdinger of the last decade.

No, she isn't bothered by any of that stuff. It's more that she thinks that my parents don't think she's good enough for their son and that they don't appreciate her enough. So any comment that can possibly be twisted in a negative way to fit that thought pattern usually is.

Respectfully Vort, "doesn't matter, just do what they say" is not a helpful response. I agree that it does not matter. Most of the lingering questions I have are trivial, but that doesn't mean they can't be explored. Some temple workers make you sit every other seat while others give you free reign. I'm just curious if this is another instance of that sort of discretion or something more.

I realize some questions just don't matter, but at the same time, it is good to ask questions! Thank you Sheri Dew for reminding me of this. "The incident" was a few years ago during my first years of attending the temple. I'll keep as many specifics out as I can given the subject matter. Nowhere in the presentation does it mention the string/ribbon that hangs from the male cap. Yet everyone ties it down. Just because everyone else was doing it didn't mean I was going to. Since there was no verbal instruction, I just tucked it up under my cap. On one occasion, one delightful temple worker brother did not appreciate this and instructed me to tie it down. Is it really necessary? My theory is that it's so we don't forget to position the cap correctly and that it's more for convenience than doctrinal. Any thoughts? Was I in the wrong?

My wife was hurt by a comment my mom made. The thing is, I was in the room and didn't think anything of it. We interpreted it completely differently. It was a neutral comment. Even if I wanted to convince myself that there was an intent to criticize, it still wouldn't make much contextual sense. And that's just not my mom. My wife has always had a tendency to assume the worst in things that are said. Anyway my wife said she realized that it's always been "like this", and that she doesn't want to go to my family functions anymore (she says she still will for our kids' sakes). Here's the tough spot: By apologizing and saying I'm really sorry they said that, I'm basically agreeing with her that my mom has this passive aggressive mean streak. But by defending my mom, I'm totally invalidating my wife's feelings. And in her view, it's either or. I have to take one of those sides. I'm either "with" her and against my parents, or with my parents and against her. I don't think either of those is right. It is really hard for me that she believes my parents would intentionally hurt their daughter-in-law. She's generally rational with most things, but I'm really scratching my head on how to reconcile this one. Am I over thinking this? I'm curious what other daughters in law have to say. Would you put your husband in that position?