Oldtimer,

I read the link -- good stuff. The problem that I'm having applying it in my situation was exemplified by your comment of "for every step they take toward you, only take 1/2 a step back toward them."

I get that.

I can do that.

I just need my wife to take 1/2 a step. Something. Not to be where I am, and not to be all wordy about it (she wouldn't be), but some simple gesture of caring, if not about me than at least about the future of our marriage.

Unless I'm missing something, I just haven't seen it since our lunch together. She only called me back today because she wanted to relieve her guilty conscience for hanging up on me so abruptly, who knows, maybe to take (or make) call from OM (although I can't figure out how to do it on her phone, there MUST be a way to delete "Recent Calls", because even my call to her today is not on there anymore).

I am making sure that my wife sees me social, funny, charming, "looking good and smelling good" around others, esp. our kids these days. That I will continue to do. But my one-on-one happiness and signs of caring toward her, my acting "as if," I simply can't do it anymore. Not without SOMETHING, however small, from her.