We are on a downward spiral

[Bagheera]

That is a great line, she wants to be sexy without the sex, at least with me! She parades around without any clothes in our room or bathroom, but gets upset when I ogle her. "Don't look at me that way!"

NTE;

I keep coming back to your situation, and I'm with NOPkins on this one: I suspect that you're being toyed with. From what you've described, she can't be ignorant of the effect this has on you.

I've advised plenty of "carrot" approaches to you so far, but at the moment, she's in the driver's seat of both your relationship and your sexuality, and is flaunting it rather contemptuously (based on all of your posts, not just these 'you can look but you can't touch' incidents). And, unfortunately, you aren't going to win over someone who shows contempt for you by offering them only carrots -- you're going to have to get tough at some point.

I think S&A is right in that you need to embark on a major GAL campaign and reclaim your masculinity and sexuality for yourself, gently booting her out of the driver's seat of your car and sending her back to her own. In your first post, you mentioned the possibility of moving down into the basement, and were I in your shoes, that's what I would do --> no discussion, no argument, just do it. She's taking advantage of the fact that you want to keep up the pretense of a normal marriage in front of the kids, including sleeping in the same, sexless bed with her. Stop pretending, and stop letting her toy with you. If you really just want to live as house-mates or brother-sister with her at this point, then establish your own area of the house and live as such.

Note that I'm not advising you to stop all of the other "carrot" things that have been suggested and that you've been trying --> your ultimate goal is, I still assume, to repair your marriage. However, before you can even be friends with her again, much less lovers, you're going to have to regain her respect, and get her to knock off this contempt and playing-games business. And the first step to doing that is to establish yourself as your own man again, in all aspects of your life.

Hang in there,

Bagheera