Chrome is back

[chromosphere]

Fearless,

Got class in 15 minutes, but talking is helping me not get into visible kick-myself mode. Anyway, this will be brief for now.

I think boundaries are different than wants. I am not sure that living in a sexless/affectionless marriage is boundary more than a desire.

I started to comment about it, but its clear I have no idea what I'm talking about with boundaries.

And since your wife does have times of being affectionate and ML to you it's hard to say that you are in a sexless marriage at all. However you are definitely in a marriage where you are not receiving the affection and sex that you desire.

True, I should amend that statement to say that I do not want to live in a M that has a too low level of intimacy/affection/sex. You are right that "too low" is my own definition and may be different than the norm.

I have been thinking a bit and I'm wondering if it is more based on a perceived lack of respect (whether or not she truly lacks respect for me I'm not sure as I have been coloring my feelings to suit my own purposes apparently). And the perceived lack of respect could also be transported over from IL interactions as well.

At this point can you separate out what you PURELY (by purely I mean that you just want to ML to her or have sex with her) want from your wife versus what you want from her to MAKE you feel good about yourself?

I don't know

What is she doing on the computer? Does she talk about it?

Yes, she reads message boards. And no, normally she doesn't want to engage in conversations about it, although at times she has.

And it's seems like IF you can change her mind, then you'll feel good about yourself. I wouldn't put that much importance on getting her to change her mind.

I think I get that.

Could you have replied to her first response "Then let's just go to bed now?" or "After I'm done with my lesson plans, I'm going to drag you to bed!" Or perhaps you could have walked over to her and kissed her neck and said "Maybe later." and walked off?

Those sound reasonable to me. I guess I was just misguided in thinking I would appear weak if I stopped pursuing (I can see you nodding your head Cobra, I did have it wrong).

I will say that I have said things similar to that in the past, and gotten nowhere later, although there could have been other differences that led to my failure on those occasions.

How are you feeling about yourself and your life goals? Have you been working on yourself? What personal interests do you want to work on more.

Not as good as I thought. Thought I was making progress. I was able to get my Euphonium back from my brother, been wanting to brush up on my brass skills. Its just hard when practicing a musical instrument in the day leads to kids wallowing all over you, and can't play at night b/c it will wake them up. Have thought about doing it at school, its just finding time during the day.

Chrome