I'm ready to blast outta this marriage, once and for all! Several months ago, I purchased and read SSM. I was so excited by the book that I mentioned it to my wife (the LD spouse) and to our marriage therapist. A couple months ago, we stopped seeing the therapist, thinking we could get by on our own for awhile, but little has changed in the sex area. This was my main issue with my wife, and it has long been my main issue. This past March, we were on the verge of divorcing, it had got so bad between us. She had issues about me, and I had mine about her. The sex problem, she said, was something that she "understood" and was more than willing to correct.
It is now the back half of August, and I'm watching and waiting, seeing if our sex life will improve beyond the once/month (at BEST) that I've experienced. Here's a sample of what I'm dealing with:
She says that she can see a normal sex life for us being about twice/week, yet we're still once/month (again, at best).
She said that she would give me pointers on when it would be a good time to approach her for sex. That was four months ago. Have yet to hear anything on this.
In our last therapy session in June, she asked if there was anything I needed from her. I told her that I wanted her to finish reading SSM (she got as far as page 91), and do the exercise that envisions what her ideal sex life with me might look like; what would she want from me, what would she see herself doing for me, etc., so we could compare notes and talk about it. She assured me that she would. That was two months ago, and the book hasn't been cracked since then.
We just went to Mexico for a week, just her and I, without our two daughters. We had some sex, but it was unimpressive, and she got more pleasure from it than I did. Nevertheless, she did try. The feeling I walk away with though is this: why do I have to pay $4000 for a getaway vacation just to make love to my wife? WHY CAN'T THIS JUST HAPPEN NATURALLY, AS PART OF LIFE??
I know that Michele W.D. is anti-divorce. She makes a good case for it in the book. But, on pages 117 - 118, she details the story of a woman who finds a wonderful sex life after divorce. True, this woman had problems being intimate with H#1, for reasons she mentions, but she made the jump and seems to be grateful for it. In that last therapy session, the therapist asked my wife if there was anything she needed from me, and she said "No, he's great!". That said, I don't know what else I can do.
So, if you have any advice that can help, I'm listening. I'm willing to test this until the end of the year, and if things are the same, I'll have to say "adios". My father is sexually active into his seventies. I'm 42, so I hope to have a lot of sexually active years ahead of me. I am resigning myself to decades of frustration with this wife, if I decide to "accept" her the way she is. Sex isn't something I "want", it's something I NEED. I do not want to cheat, but I'm afraid that I will if this continues. Men and women have enough differences between them, and I think sex is the great unifier of the sexes. Without it, I feel dead. I have been increasingly suicidal of late, feeling like there's no other way out. My kids keep me from applying that fate to myself.
So, should I blast out of here, or stay on the launching pad for more servicing? Any, and all, advice will be appreciated.
