It’s been over two years since my WW (43F) had her first of two As. DD was 12/23/2023. As soon as I (47M) confronted her on DD, all sex and physical contact between us stopped. Her decision.
We have been in MC and IC for over two years and she is still "not feeling like" having sex or any physical contact. I’m going crazy.
She continues to not feel in love and yet wants to work things out. She is always busy with her girl friends and work. I get left holding down the house and taking care of the kids while she plays away from the house. I’ve just about had it.
If it wasn’t for our two awesome kiddos, I’d have left a long time ago. Help! At what point do I just call it quits?
I do not sugar coat things, I want you to talk and listen to your inner self and stop running from what your soul already tells you. For both yours and your wife's good.
What will you hear is an answer you already given yourself right here.
-What is a couple?
Is the bond 2 Adults attracted to each other
- What is attraction?
Is the polarity between the 2, pulling each one into the other like gravity
- What is love?
Is the irresistible connection you both feel when you merge your both "selves". You are the reflection of 2 already whole, complete people into something greater that makes you both grow and evolve.
- What is sex?
It is the physical manifestation of the love bond that drives you both into sharing intimacy, mental, emotional, physical. Is not "intercourse" (that is reductive) it is the foundation of what makes you a bonded couple and not just friends.
This is why you feel both in cognitive dissonance and unhappy.
Your view of love is masculine, you feel committed so it is a monolithic understanding, inseparable from physical, emotional, mental, and practical, all is focused on her.
Her view is feminine, it is more articulated: she sees love as Eros (the lovers' love, the fiery passion and gravity towards each other), Philia (the bond between friends, close people), Storge (the unconditional love between parents and their children) and Agape (the idea of love like the empathy for humanity)
A woman can feel still in love with you (Philia, Agape) but "not in love" anymore (no Eros for you, that's reserved for her AP)
You feel this, and suffer it as confusion.
She may truly mean it when she says that she would like to "make things work" between you two. She might be sincere and not "using you" as you probably fear. But she is not offering you the version of love that you truly crave, that was given to the OM, that is why she was having the affair.
You are both having deep unfulfilled needs, she already crossed the line where she finds what she feels missing (Eros) in the arms of another man. She feels the guilt that she cannot give it to you and offers you Philia and Agape.
You both suffer and grow further apart.
But you know all this already, I just put it into plain words.
It's up to you now to take steps towards re establishing your boundaries of what your relationship must be for existing, because you are both trying to perform it as an echo of what used to be before things went astray, and this eats you both inside.
She already took her steps in the way her nerve system and internal issues knew how to (the affair with another man).
And she lost respect of you at some point in the process: without respect, no woman can feel attraction for her man.
Now you must decide if you will let her lead towards this way again (think it as "abandoning" a woman who can only see that way out, leaving her to decide alone following her conflicting emotions), or will you step up and take the lead.
Careful of what this means: it's not emotional, it is not a stereotype, she craves your participation in a different way, but just as much as you miss hers.
So taking the lead means not "argue" or "fight" or "resent her", it requires deep emotional maturity:
- Accept what you already know and you already see with clarity.
- Define your boundaries for yourself clearly.
- Whenever she violates one, protect it, not with reaction, but with the natural consequences that implies
- Live your own life without projecting your insecurities outwards into her: she must come back into your world, you cannot drag her by force
In a way, regain your masculine center, hold your frame. Let her feel it. She knows your door is open, but she must step back into your world (yours as an individual and your bond's world as a couple).
You can do it immediately, but you need to accept clearly what you already know.
This will, at the very least, earn back her respect. If she really longs for your relationship to "work out" this is the foundational step she needs to rekindle her attraction. She biologically cannot feel it back if that is missing.
Be honest with yourself, you need to regain the respect for you first. She is a woman, very intuitive about your frame, to a level that we hardly comprehend, it is biological, so if you only pretend or act, it will not work, she will see through it, and she will drift.
You must feel it, absorb it. Remember this:
There is nothing wrong with you, it is your pain and your fears and your wounds that made you collapse. Understand this and respect the person you see in the mirror.
It's her wounds, fears and insecurities she reflected in the affair. She needs to feel again you are her safe man to come back fully. She does not hate you, she misses you as you made her feel.
I wish you good luck to you both, I know what is expecting you: if you can do it you might both come back stronger than you ever were, or realize it is time for you both to move on.
But at least you will have again with mutual respect, not resentment
[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 9:47 AM, Sunday, January 11th]
