my wife /my room mate

[saffie]

Never had you down as a Bonnie Tyler sort of guy husband.

Just stop a minute and take a deep breath and then reread what you have written.......

You are all over the place. You say you are detatching and yet you are very much involved. You wonder if your W is planning a rendezvous but then talk about her being comfortable to leave her purse with you overnight which she wouldn't do before. THINK THINK THINK.....

Maybe she wanted you to look in her purse to see that there is nothing there that they shouldn't be.

If your W was wanting to reinitiate things how could she feel comfortable about it?

Just to give you something to think about - and I know I am not your W, but... When I and my H were having problems our intimate R had gone fairly dead. Things happened maybe once every other couple of months. We would lie there night after night wanting to be close with each other but not knowing how - how stupid is that? We are grown adults who had been married for 19/20 years and yet we couldn't talk to each other about it. I sooooooooooo much wanted a hug but I couldn't reach out - I still don't know why not. I do know that for me things have to happen on a regular basis - I don't know why - but I know that this is not unusual among women. If you haven't done anything for a while then you can just lose the urge unless something EXTRA ordinary happens to lift you out of that feeling. I only share what are quite private feelings with you so that maybe you can see how your wife may find it difficult to reinitiate things when she may really want to. She may be very frightened.

Coming on to the detatching too much. Well it could be that you have and now you are going to carry on in this manner and protect yourself emotionally. Others on these boards seem to have done the same. HOWEVER, you are sore physically from your weekends exertions, you have taken some meds, (which I personally think is absolutely OK if you are in pain and need them), and combined with that you are back from a weekend that was ok but you didn't get a response maybe as strong as you were looking for from your W to all your efforts AND you have just read another self help book, (which from what I can gather talks about dating etc!!) See where I am going with this?

The balance of power in a relationship changes all the time. Whilst you want to be with your W and she doesn't want to be with you then she had the upper hand. Once she recommits to you then in a way you have the upper hand - and she is open to rejection my man! - that will be hard for her. Whats more if I had been what you have been ,I would want to give her a taste of what that felt like. However that would only be detructive for both of you and your son. I have had to fight hard not to go completely cold or even walk away from my H. I have questioned over and over again if I should be with my H. I know I will do again. But deep down inside I KNOW he is the one I want to be with. There are guys out there who are more sensitive, kinder, physically more attractive......I could go on and on.....but he IS the one I want to be with. And lets face it, if I jump ship the next one could be worse.

Husband, you are on a post weekend dip. Hang in there. Make yourself a list of things to be gained by staying in the R and things to be lost, then make a similar list for if you and your W part.

I have to go and finish packing now - my H getting twitchy about me spending so much time on the PC. I will check back in again in a while. Hang in there Manuel

Saffie

Yesterday my clinical psychologist, who I hadn't seen since last October, told me to look at what I had achieved over the last few months. He was amazed; actually I think he was just pleased I was off the ante depressants and not cutting myself!! but there we go. He also said that there does come a point when it is time to STOP reading all the books and to live. Every new book just keeps you fixating on what went wrong. I have mixed views about this but can see that he has a point. Husband your W seems to be warming - do you have a way for her to come back to you planned?

As for if you