The Bumpy Road to Recovery #2

[Bagheera]

My return home this weekend landed us squarely in the ditch beside my so-called 'bumpy road,' and currently stuck deep in the mud.

While the past year and a half of concerted marriage recovery efforts have yielded positive results in several areas, it has failed to improve the one key area for me: my wife's desire for physical touch and physical intimacy (i.e. sex) with me. During an honest conversation on Saturday, she revealed that her basic sexual desire is still pretty much what it has been during the most strained periods of our marriage --> about twice a month, give or take a week or two. Sex for her remains completely optional, and is something that she could live without happily. Her desire for other forms of physical touch also remains about the same --> a quick hug & kiss in the morning, a quick hug & kiss in the evening when we meet up again after work, and about 5 minutes of spooning before going to sleep. She derives no real pleasure for herself out of touching me, beyond knowing that -I- enjoy it. She does not like to kiss passionately or 'make out' EVER. She will not flirt or try to be sexually provocative (either publicly or privately) EVER. She rarely displays affection openly (particularly in public) and generally stays in -business- mode or -mommy- mode at all times --> I would fall over in shock if I ever got an affectionate note, text-message, or phone call from her during the day, for example.

During the last year and a half, she has worked very hard to awaken her sexuality (by herself and with me), and make herself sexually available to me --> even if her initial reaction might be negative. Sometimes this has worked: given the opportunity to ignite a spark, I can sometimes do so. Other times the encounter has fallen flat on its face. And often her response is lukewarm, and primarily for my benefit rather than her own. However, pretty much all of it has been a very FORCED effort on her part to be someone who she just naturally is not.

Is it really fair of me to ask her to change her basic nature like this?

I don't think that it is anymore. She's given it an honest try, and nothing's changing.

The bad news is that the lack of an active, affectionate, physical relationship is a deal breaker for me. I tried to be happy with her level of affection and physicality for 23 years, and I was miserable. Then she tried to meet my needs for the past 1.5 years and while perhaps not miserable, she's certainly felt stressed. In all of that time we managed to find a tiny sliver of overlapping 'grey area,' where we both could exist and be satisfied with the compromise, for about 2 months (last January & February). Then she started working full-time again for the first time in 17 years (thank you, economy), and we lost our 'compromise zone' and we are now back to the see-saw struggle again.

I'm honestly beginning to doubt whether or not it's worth the continuing struggle. Part of me is saying that I'm not being fair in asking her to change herself, and that I should either accept her as she is, or move on. The other part of me that loves this woman dearly wants to continue to find --> some way <-- of making it work: I have never been a quitter. IF I ask anyone to change, it ought to be myself, which would mean learning to live with a low-desire (LD) wife and be happy with the other positive aspects of our relationship. However, the intense, passionate part of my personality rebels *strongly* at just the thought. Barring an accident in which I lose both testicles, I can't see that happening. Which brings me back around the circle to:

So, if you aren't willing to change YOUR basic nature, how can you ask her to change hers?

So yeah....we're stuck.

Bagheera