Just have a few minutes as I saw your thread title.
I new you had it in you. Fantastic! I know my words probably sounded harsh and I even reeeally had to hold myself back but I felt you needed a swift kick in the a$$ to get on task and start being proactive to save your sinking R.
The email is a start. I had a feeling Mrs. Choc was another conflict avoider and this is the absolute worst dynamic between an M-F; both sitting around brewing resentment for each other and waiting, waiting, waiting for the other to make the first move and, seeing none from the other, feed feed feed that resentment and entitlement monster.
A monster that then grows so huge an affair waits right around the corner from one or both, who cannot go living life with zero validation from his/her partner.
I took an interest in you because I felt you still had a chance. I didn't want you to end up like me. I had similar things but no kids. We had the Beemer (paid off btw), huge house, all the trappings. Yet now I'm financially crippled in a hole that will take me years from which to dig myself out. I have no kids. My dreams for the next 60 years of my life have exploded into a thousand shards of pain-inflicting disappointment. The bulk of my 30s are gone. Et cetera.
But you can avoid this. You can keep your family together if that's what you want. But it won't happen overnight or even in MC sessions.
You have have have to tend to your garden every day, so to speak. I know, yes. It's usually the F who is supposed to keep the R in check -- at least we Ms think. And, yes, having Mrs. Choc being a conflict avoider takes that right out of the equation.
So that's why you have at least 5 years of weeds choking out your withering M, brought on through your waiting waiting waiting for Mrs. Choc to be struck by some kind of love-lust for Choco lightning. But the only dark clouds around were the ones over your resentful head and Mrs. Choco sure as hell didn't feel desire to ML to a man projecting that kind of negative repellent body language. No woman would.
I tend to agree with NOP and others. The need space comment is so classic it's almost cliche as an indicator of an F or M hedging his/her bet by setting up a fall-back position with a sutable OM/OW. We can't have our cake and eat it too. We have to make hard one or the other choices.
I appreciate the others' suggestions as to negotiation talks, especially that you please avoid saying anything to put Mrs. Choc on the defensive. IMO you need to downshift even further. You need to go back to basics and start with things like:
1. Do I love her? (forget "in love" BS. It's been nearly 20 years; the butterflies are small piles of dust)
2. Do I see myself growing old and retired with her, holding our grandchildren together and visiting our children on the holidays?
3. If some world authority designated me to spend the rest of my life overseeing some Earth-like colony out there somewhere and I could take only one person with me, excluding children and blood relatives, would Mrs. Choco be at least #2, if not #1?
Forgive the last one if it sounds hokey but it gets to where your feelings truly lie, as do the others, from a purely fundamental standpoint. If you feel positive about them all, great, you've got your purpose and it's time to start rolling up your sleeves.
Don't worry, Choc, you're alpha. You just dropped the rope on your R and your W is out there at full throttle spinning around aimlessly like a pilot-less boat as there is no leader for her to feel safe and secure... and loved/desired.
I can't blame her, frankly. She has tried to give you hints but an F simply cannot lay out a step by step approach to make her attracted to you. Even your children have picked up on her hints.
"You aren't fun anymore." Boom. Hint.
"You don't get jealous" )esp. with my new knockout body) Boom. Hint.
Response? Smile, man, smile. Lose the dark cloud. Be fun with her. Pay attention to her diet by realizing she won't eat Filet o Fishes.
Touch her, pinch her, tickle her, caress her attributes. Make her feel wanted, man.
Don't get crazy jealous but protect what's yours, fella. You can do it.
I'm sure now that you've woken up you feel like you've wasted the last 4 years of your life languishing in your passivity. Yee-haw, Jester's dead!
Remember. Once you overcome this R talk fear and get to business I 100% assure you, you will gain confidence from overcoming the fear.
At the very least you will know EXACTLY where you stand with Mrs. Choc; and wouldn't that be a huge weight off your life? So you can get busy livin' instead of letting an uncertain life live you?
Again, WTG sales guru. Now go and close the deal with your W.
-Stigmata-
The difference between a warrior and an ordinary man is the warrior views everything as a challenge; the ordinary man views everything as either a blessing or a curse.
-Yaqui shaman Don Juan-
...and that holds 2x true for nice guy wussies, DJ
