Another newbie with a problem - long story

[Stormchaser]

Storm,

I think this is a great opportunity for you and I am excited for you. However, I would temper it with one thought and that is, if your wife is like my wife, and by the sounds of it there are some freaky-close similarities, then she will try to go to "quick-fix" mode. This will allow her to assuage her guilt or other realizations that she has probably had lately that you may be right and she may at least partially at fault. When we have had these discussions, they have usually ended with her buying in and making agreements about what the future will look like, a few days or weeks or change and she then gets into a "my work here is done" mode.

Happy New Year!!

An update: I quoted PF because almost a month later, and he was right. There was an initial surge of lovemaking - the week of this posting was 3x, the next week was 2x. Things were going nice and smooth. But, I began to notice the pattern re-emerging, so I attributed that to the stress of the upcoming holidays. We were both off that holiday week, so I figured once xmas passed, we could have some down time and time to ourselves. The weekend before xmas, she went out with some girlfriends and actually initiated some wild, incredible mind blowing sex - after a few glasses of wine, though.

The week we were off together, I started picking up little subtle things that she's always done in the past. If I were to initiate lovemaking, the excuses would start - her stomach hurt, her head was sore, her back was stiff. What she started doing now was mentioning all these things prior to coming to bed, so if I would initiate, she would say, "I told you earlier my stomach/back/head/malady of the day was sore"...back to frustration city.

We had plans for the New Years to go out with another couple thats about 10 years younger than us, single, no responsibilities. We've gone out with them in the past and they are genuinely a fun couple to be around, except they love staying out late, we're talking 2-3AM. I'm getting a bit too old for such late nights, even on the weekends...I'm just too tired at that time and I love getting up early, even if I don't have plans the next day. Its rare to get a sitter to spend the night, but NYE we managed to find someone to sleep over.

So before we're going out, she's in the bedroom getting ready and I'm sitting there in bed reading SSM. I'm a little pissed already, because I don't trust the sitter the wife got, and I'm thinking another night of W wanting a few drinks to get loose with me again. I have mentioned that I don't mind the few drinks, as long as it mixed with some sober times. But the sober times were starting to dry up again. W sees me reading the book and says how bothered she is by me reading this before going out.

I tell her I'm a little bothered too, because it seems we're falling into the same pattern as before, and I'm trying to figure out how to stop it. She then goes ballistic, saying that we're not sex starved, how her father divorced his 2nd wife because they hadn't had sex in 2 years, and is the book telling me that there's some kind of calendar or imaginary number in my head that we should adhere to. And why am I counting, and why of all nights, am I expecting her not to have a glass of wine or two?

This starts the yellfest, back and forth, she calls our friends and cancels our night out. After an hour, things calm down and we try to talk rationally - we decide to just go out, try to make something out of the night anyway. We actually are civilized and manage to enjoy the NYE festivities. We call home and the baby sitter is not answering, either her cell or the home line. We tried for a good 15 minutes and now I'm getting a bit worried. The W is telling me to not worry about it, just have a good time, they're probably asleep. I finally manage to get ahold of her, she WAS sound asleep (both of them were), but I was angry that she took so long to answer a phone. Anyway, I manage to calm down and its 12:45 and the young couple we're with decide to bar hop. We hit the next club and by now I'm starting to fall asleep. Its 1AM and I'm yawning like crazy, I'm leaning against the wall, showing zero interest in whats going on. My W says, "get the car, we're leaving". I pick her up and she goes on to say how sad she is, how bored I looked at the club and why can't I enjoy the night with her? Why couldn't I not worry about the sitter, why didn't I prep my hair the way she liked, why did I have to look so bored at this other club...when I tried to tell her I don't enjoy staying out past 1AM and that I was worried, she interrupted me and said, "ALL I HEAR IS I, I, I...ITS ALL ABOUT YOU TONIGHT, YOUR LACK OF SEX, YOUR UNWILLINGNESS TO STAY OUT WITH FRIENDS..."

Back and forth, all the way home. Today we woke up and just talked in bed for about an hour. She wants us to go to counseling immediately, which I'm in favor of...I've pressed for that in the past and nothing happened, so now its pretty obvious we need some kind of mediation. We talked about what was important to her last night: How I looked and acted. She said its very important to her for her husband to look nice, take the effort to dress nice, not just throw on jeans and sneakers. I talked about what was important to me, the closeness of a sexual intimate relationship. We both saw that those things that are important to US aren't important to the other. I really don't care too much about how I look, since others we go out with wear tshirts and torn jeans, and she really doesn't think that having regular sex with me makes any difference to the marriage and my feelings.

So thats where it stands now - we're civil, but the black cloud is there.

Any advice? Pointers? Smacks on the head for me reading the book before going out?