You would think they had asked us to rob a bank or something
I just don't understand how someone can think the idea of marriage means living with a roommate. It just seems to me that we people who want the physical aspect of the marriage have to constantly get after the other spouse. I am not sure I want to have to fight that hard for the rest of my life. Maybe I am being really mean, or heartless, but I was not the one who changed.
I used to fly into a rage when I heard these type of things, but I am trying to hold onto myself and keep my cool, as much as it hurts.
The issue of what is normal in Japan has caused me some grief. There have been some people who say that it is normal in some Japanese households for at least mothers to sleep with their children for quite some time. There isn't, however, a Japanese SSM BB or book that I know of, so there is no way to verify how common it is.
I get a lot of grief when I suggest things like dinner out or a romantic weekend. I am told that this isn't part of her culture. Right, like women working as flight attendants attendants or moving abroad was common while she was growing up there. I made a big move to get the kids individual beds recently. We even went to a bed store. My son (4) is ready for it, but D6 got all weepy and W was more than happy to egg her on.
She will occasionally LET me kiss and hug her, but she never reciprocates.
In the court of public opinion wrt this board, I have an open and shut case. Now if only I could convince her that she is under its jurisdiction.
Paul, I don't think it's so odd that she WANTS to sleep with the kids. Mothers love their kids; crave them, even.
I think it's odd that she DOESN'T want to sleep with you. That she wants the relationship to only go mother-to-child with no room in there for the husband-and-wife R.
After all, what will her excuse be when the kids are too old to want to co-sleep? Whom will she sleep with then?
Quote: We had tenth anniversary last month and there were no fireworks here either.
I mention the real estate transactions to emphasize that I think my W considers me as a business partner first. I for one have had it with that.
At least you know what she thinks of you. I think my H thinks of me as his mother, who does his laundry and cleans his house. Who would want to have sex with their mother? At least *sometimes* business partners get together!
Okay...all joking aside...I am really sorry for your sitch and I hope I didn't inflame anything with my above rant. I understand things are different in other cultures, but I also think sometimes people use that as a crutch. My H is pure American but he also has his crutches. It is all just a way of avoiding intimacy.
BTW, I had a Japanese exchange student roommate in college and she was a sex fiend. Every few weeks it was a different guy. Then again, maybe now that she's married and has kids things are different. Who knows!
I had a Japanese roommate in college also, but she was exactly the opposite. Thought all of us American girls were whorish and could not understand why we were attracted to brash American boys. LOL
She was very sweet and we always sortof felt bad that we "let her down" by being wild hellions. She so wanted us to be better than that.
Quote: And yet when I asked her to sleep with me, she said, "We just slept together the other day."
"I know we did, sweetie, and my goal is that we sleep together every night. I'm sorry that we've drifted apart in some ways over the years, but you're the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. Because I love you and want to be close to you and that includes snuggling up together under the covers. I'll work with you over the next 30 days to help the kids get accustomed to sleeping on their own."
What do the kids do when she's gone overseas?
I know how stilted things get when your relationship has become bent or broken. All the little sensitive prickly feelers are out just waiting to be bruised by our spouse.
But pushing past that and on to what it is you want is a good thing. (insert imprisoned Martha Stewart TM here).
"All you think about is sex!" The response is not "No, I don't!". The true response is "It's true that I think about it a great deal of the time. Specifically, I think a lot about sex with you, my wife/husband. Sex is a part of an adult, loving, marital relationship and I want to recapture (or establish) that part of our relationship."
At some point, you (rhetorical you) have to stop *denying or downplaying* what you want.
Quote: I think I would have blasted her if she were my spouse.
Quote: We tiptoe, we walk on eggshells, we come up with elaborate plans to get them to desire us...
Hello again Paul. I'm not sure if you're getting the best advice or maybe people who know your sitch better are venting their spleen. Making your W the bad guy won't get you any closer to a workable solution, it only makes things worse. You've read all the DB books, right? Because you say you used to fly in a rage but now you are doing your best to keep your cool. If you get positive results it will be from keeping your cool not from being frustrated and raging at W.
I think W is simply using the kids as a fence between you and intimacy and using her culture as an excuse. But I don't know much about the Japanese culture either, just how women can use any excuse to avoid sex when for some unknown reason they just don't want to go to the trouble.
Sorry 
