H said our M is "platonic"

[Baltoman]

I'm also aware that you are not looking for a pep talk but you described yourself as "cute, in shape, intelligent, nice, and a good catch".

A positive thing that came out of my separation was being able to accept and embrace the fact that I feel pretty good about myself as a person. My self-esteem is intact. No matter what happens with my H and I, I will not let it destroy my sense of self-worth. The flip side of course is that I really think I deserve better in the long run. I deserve to be happy. I deserve a man who wants to F*ck me like crazy and ALSO can follow it up with telling me how madly in love he is with me. That guy is out there. I am 98% confident I could find it eventually.

It is great that you have your self esteem. I struggle daily with the question of whether I'm staying simply because I don't know as a 44 y/o with a few extra pounds and a sometimes overly analytical and strong personality if I am just afraid I would never find anyone. Intellectually I figure I could, feeling it is a daily struggle.

What (if anything) besides the lack of desire on his part caused him to be unattractive to you?

Great question. I'd say he is very passive-aggressive, doesn't show me his real feelings, a little too stuck in his ways, doesn't stand up to his mother, history of depression, shows no sense of hurt/jealousy/any real emotion over what happened during our separation. I think that's plenty.

Take out the mother part (my MIL is great) and you are describing my wife. On the other hand if he doesn't show his feelings how can you be sure he isn't hurt from the S?

I've thought a lot about cultures that have arranged marriages. Is it that they marry without being in love or is it that the ceremonies and rituals during the brief meeting and courtship stage are conducive with falling in love? We humans have a tremendous capacity to fall in love. At Retrouvaille, my W and I did not go over anything in our R that we had not gone over a hundred times before, but the atmosphere and the intimacy of being in the group caused us to finally hear each other and it really did seem that we fell in love again. It didn't last, but it was real.

Sorry the love didn't last in your own M. And I agree, the environment/culture can have a huge impact on whether you fall in love or not. I was never one to believe in "there is one person, one true love out there for me." I think you can find all sorts of people to be that person depending on the circumstances. Is it just a matter of changing the environment with our own spouses to get that love back? Maybe. But like you said, it can be short lived. I felt like H and I were back on track for a while after our reconcilation but it wasn't a long-term solution.

That part of my post was supposed to be prefixed and ended with (NEW AGE BS MODE ON) and (NEW AGE BS MODE OFF) tags but the editor stripped it out. Yes, my experience was short lived but it was still useful. Maybe we need to put ourselves in a position to fall in love with our spouses several times a year. Hard to do with today's busy schedules and lifestyles, but maybe it is needed in order to defeat the non-long-term monogamy programming built into us humans. I was I had less questions and more answers but if I did, I probably never would have come here.