1st, let me just congratulate you on the OW getting herself fired. VERY cool. With any luck, maybe she won't be able to find another job and will end up broke and homeless (am I bitter about other men and other women? Oh yeah). Maybe that will at least relieve some of your daily anxiety, every time your H goes to work.
Your story about looking for the hat reminded me of the one thing my W and I briefly argued about this weekend. She was looking for a shirt that she was "sure" she knew where in the closet she had put it. She basically accused me of snooping through her stuff and moving everything around. While it's not entirely false (I have looked through her stuff, but not lately), I'm always careful to put everything back in place. Of course, she found the shirt 30 seconds later, at which I sort of kiddingly said, "are you going to apologize now or later?" She said "later", cooled off a little, and then did say that she was sorry.
Kim, I think for much of my M, my W would have had many of the same complaints that you now have about your H: that I was too grouchy too often, not affectionate or romantic enough, too wrapped up in work or in my various sports, and never wanted to really talk. She says that much of that was what drove her to have the A (grrr, I hate hearing that from her; she didn't need to have an A to get me to make some changes). In the last 4 months, I have done a lot of changing, and I think that many of the changes can become a way of life, a new way of being and interacting with her.
Some of the changes (180s, I guess) feel very natural. For example, being affectionate and showing her that I love her by holding her hand or coming over to kiss her for no particular reason is easy and natural for me to do. It's hard for me to explain (even to myself) why I had lost that over the years. I think it had a lot to do with how my W and I have interacted in the past, getting caught up in a semi-continuous cycle of reacting to some wrong that the other person had done, holding grudges, and withholding love. That cycle became a way of life, and something that I didn't recognize until recently.
Other changes I've made like not being grouchy after a long work day and fighting traffic during my long commute are harder to make, but now that I recognize better the effect my mood has on my W and family, it's been a little easier to make the effort.
Obviously, you don't want to get to the point where you are so unhappy that you end up doing something drastic yourself. Maybe now is not yet the right time to tell your H all the things you need and want from him (or maybe it is, I don't know). But you'll need to get to the point where you can tell him what you need from him, and find a way to do it so that he really listens, does not get defensive, and is motivated to make some changes. My W is being really sweet right now. Even so, I would really like to have a talk with her in which I explain what changes I would like from her. But now is not the time for that. While I think that she appreciates how I've changed and has been reacting very well to that, I think she is still of the opinion that the only change needed from her is to stop the A. But for our R to truly improve for the long term, I think that I need to find a way to tell her and motivate her to make a few changes. Wouldn't it be great if you could just hand 'em your top 10 spouse improvement list and be done with it?
I hope you can find a way to get your H's attention and get him to really talk to you. When my W told me that she didn't think she loved me anymore, that was when it happened for me. Then again, I don't think she had tried to get my attention for years before that.
One resentment that I have comes from the fact that my W only said a few times during the 1st week after the bomb that she was sorry, and hasn't expressed it since. I guess she thinks what she said is enough. I don't want her to just be sorry that she hurt me, I want her to feel it in her bones. I want her to be I'd-give-my-right-arm-for-it-not-to-have-happened sorry. After the 1st week or so, I have pretty much suppressed the pain I've felt, at least around her, and have tried to spare her and have not tried to make her feel guilty, in order to win her back. But the truth is, I want her to feel guilty. I would love it if she would come to me sobbing in pain to apologize for everything. What a great dramatic scene that would be. I could wrap my arms around her and magnanimously announce that I forgive her. But it's very unlikely to ever happen. Instead of that, I think I'm going to have to reach the point where I forgive her anyway, even though she may never feel sorry the way I want her to.
I'm glad that sex is good for you and your H. It seems to me that sex can help maintain closeness for those times when you might otherwise not feel close. Sex is usually when I feel most connected with my W; I wonder if that's how it is for your H. Sex also motivates me; if my W told me that doing x, y and z would make her more interested in having wild sex all the time, I would be sure to do x, y, and z.
We had a good weekend. There was again a lot of affectionate touching and sweetness. No R talk, and for now, that's probably how we both want it to be. At some point, the cellphone issue (and many, many others) will need to be addressed.
I must confess that I did try to find my W's cellphone, to snoop into if and how often she had talked to the OG. I couldn't find it in her car. I guess the "good" news is that I think that things between us are going so well that I wasn't motivated to really search for the phone in other places in the house (it pretty much has to be either in the garage or in our walk-in closet). I hope I'm not deluding myself.
I did do the massage thing Saturday night after she got home from work. I was ready with pre-warmed massage oil, candles, and soft music. It was a lot of fun, although my hands and forearms got sore after about a half hour. She very much enjoyed it and, uh, showed her appreciation. Life can be good.
