I don't know if a thread will be big enough, but I've been thinking their should be a place on the forum devoted to coping strategies since that is pretty much what we are all doing. I know many of us would rather be coaching than coping, but I feel more realistic every day. So! How do you get by? How do you shrug off the frustration? How do you let go? Exercise? Meditate? Open up secret bank accounts and put a way cash for the day you can't take it anymore? We could put together a great top ten list, but coping and even thriving in this situation has to be a priority. I've pretty much accepted the premise that there is very little I can do or say to get my wife moving in a healthy direction. I can encourage and support when she wants to do something, but I can't make her want to do anything so like so many of us I'm just hanging in there, trying not to let what is unhappy about my marriage take down the rest of my life. There are other things going on.
How do we do it? Here's my top five.

1 Exercise.

What you can accomplish with your body can give you the confidence you need to accomplish other things.

2. Stay Busy.

be a joiner, join the Y, join a book club, stay connected pick at least 1 night a week to go out and do things with other people.

3. Read

Not just on the internet, sit down with a book. Focus on it. I read books and magazines out loud for the blind. Great way to learn something and take your mind off other things.

4. Play

If you got kids, pack them up and go to the park, the beach, get the balls out head for the back yard.


5. Get a Hobby!

start a collection, knit, garden, learn to play an instrument, paint. Distraction isn't the only coping strategy I know, but it is a good one!


Well, what else? What do you guys do? Talk to friends? Cook? I think we could all use an idea or two here. Thanks in advance!

Thats a great start their Tuesday. Positive thinking can never be a bad thing.

Now that summer's here, I spend my evenings on our wonderful patio while he watches TV in the house. I've got a nice variety of birds that come to my feeders I enjoy watching, and I read alot out there.
I enjoy surfing the web after he goes to sleep in his own bedroom, and unfortunately, I love to shop online!
I have my cats and the dog is a good buddy, I talk to Mom or a girlfriend or two, and I work quite a bit of overtime. I stay busy, and try to find enjoyment in life. It's just kind of a shell of what marriage could be. We're in limbo. He's earnestly promised again to lose weight, and I'm trying to buy into the promise again. I admit I'm kinda lonely for some romance, as he snores away in his room...

Maybe this time, he'll lose...

QUOTE:
It's just kind of a shell of what marriage could be. We're in limbo.

Thanks so much for your reply Bexter. I get the feeling that these are lists of things we do while we or spouses are involved in horizontal activities like napping, watching television, etc. It's like we're saying here's what I'm going to do while I wait for you to get up off the couch and move yourself toward something like a healthy life style. Here is what I'm going to do while I wait for you to get better. Here's what I'm going to do with my life without you... I think both of us would rather be doing something with the people we married so we would always have somebody to do something with, but in the meantime, I guess I'll just keep busy.

Good thred: Here are my additions.

Compartmentalize: try to separate the weight from the other parts of the realtionship which may be positive.

Avoid common meals so you don't have to watch them eat.

Visualize instead of looking during sex.

But, Rick, I want to look at my partner during sex! He's for darn sure looking at me! I know you're trying to make helpful suggestions, but once again, I ask: Is this fair? I shouldn't have to keep the bedroom dark, so I don't have to see what I'm getting.Why shouldn't I admire my partner's body, as he approaches me, and feel turned on?

I hate to say, but there are nice looking, fit men at work who show interest in me. Why? Because I stay slender, work out and have a fairly attractive figure. Why do I have to grin and bear it and try to pretend I'm in bed with one of them, when I could really be? Darn it, I don't really mean that, but just in a figure of speech. My husband could choose to be an attractive, fit man who shows interest in me. Why must we agonize over this?

Infidelity to our marriage vows, or giving up our sex lives when we're too young to want to?

Bexter, I am a woman too and I sympathize. In this day and age no woman should have to enter long winters of cold chastity in the prime of her life because her spouse does not care enough to rescue her from it. God knows our youth and beauty are transient possessions - take advantage of them while you've still got them!

I would be brutally honest with your husband and let him know that you will have to look for satisfaction elsewhere if he does not shape up.

I do all of the above suggestions to cope, exercise, read, stay busy and may I suggest one more: do volunteer work. It not only gets me out of the house, but around other people and actually doing some good. It also stops me from feeling too sorry for myself. Non Profit organizations are dying for committed volunteers.

Another way I cope is rather sick, but I daydream....of the day the heart attack will take him away. I really do not wish him dead, I am just so damn lonely, I get carried away in my brain sometimes. When these thoughts start to enter my head, I try to get busy...I must have the cleanest house in the neighborhood! LOL

Please do not ask me to talk with him, have done so till I am blue in the face. His answer is always the same: "I will probably die earlier, but I will die happy." I never, ever nag him, I know it will do zero to help. I do say things like "If you want to lose weight, I will do whatever you need, cook special things, etc." He just replies that he is happy.

He is happy with NO SEX?

Bexter,

I would like to lood and think,"Wow, your hot" but that is not the case. Certainly looking is better. Like most men I am very visual. This thred however, was about coping skills. Taking too close a look brings about some ED, so in order to cope, I at times need visualize. It is not my first choice but the alternative would deny up both and cause my wife further rejection. Who knows, maybe that is what she needs: A lack of performance that results in her asking, "what's wrong" and I say, "your just too fat". I have never been that blunt. It goes against my nature. Just trying to cope day to day while hanging onto patience and slivers of hope.