Confessions from a former cheater...

[MrBond]

Hey DQ,

I've followed your sitch from the beginning and I totally admire your honesty and advice.

So now I have a question.

My W dropped the bomb on me a little over a year ago saying that she had developed feelings for her boss (27 years her senior and married). I begged, pleaded, etc. all the non-DB things and convinced her to go to C. She agreed to an appt. about 2 months after. I was the model H to her during that whole time. During that time, I asked if she had talked to her boss about her feelings and she kept saying no. So, lo and behold, one day I find a note in her car professing her love for her boss and that he is the love of her life, etc.

I asked her once more if she ever talked to him, and that all I wanted was the truth. She again denied it until I showed her the note. She admitted she talked to him and that he told her he had feelings for her. I promptly kicked her out of the house at that point. She begged to come back, so I let her back with the agreement that we were to work on the R. So while we're living together with our 2 kids, she gets angry at me all the time and refuses to talk to me about the R, saying that we can discuss it at C. We finally go to C and he asks her if there is any chance for a reconciliation, she tells him no and there's nothing that can change her mind. So we never get a chance to discuss anything. The door to her was shut and my W is a stubborn woman. Up to that point I still had no idea what was wrong with our R.

So she moves out in June and we share the kids 50/50 between both homes. My youngest has very bad eczema which flared up at the place my W was staying at. In Dec. I tell my W that I am perfectly capable of taking care of our daughters and that I'm worried about their health. So in mid-Dec. she agrees to move back home with them so we can take care of them together.

From then until now, I've DB'd my head off and are actually much closer as friends than we had been for awhile. Unfortunately she still works with the guy she had an EA with, but I do believe her this time when she says there's nothing going on. She comes home early, doesn't sneak around anymore like she did at the height of her EA. She still gets extremely defensive if the EA ever gets brought up (I think out of embarrasment and shame) and has never apologized to me for it since it wasn't physical.

She did tell me that the reason she wanted a D was due to alot of little resentments that built up over time. She's extremely introverted with no outside friends but talks to her mom and sister alot. Her dad walked out on the family when she was 6 and as long as we've been dating/married, she's always had a fear of me cheating on her even though I had never done anything like that at all. She would always ask for re-assurances. Which is why I was surprised at her EA. She's always had this notion that you can only love one person and I think when she became attracted to her boss, she felt she had to make a decision between he or I.

So right now we're great friends and I initiate all physical hugs, kisses on the cheek, etc. When I move towards her, she looks down and turns away. She has said that we are still separated even though we sleep together in the same bed. We haven't been intimate since all this started over a year ago, although she doesn't flinch anymore when I give her a hug. Sometimes if I hug her, I feel like a molester because of the way she acts. She covers her breasts and turns away. Then in the next minute she'll be laughing with me.

So my question is, what should I do to increase the intimacy level? I don't want to scare her off, but then again I feel that if we could ML just once, we'll be back together again and I think she knows that. I had asked her before how many times over the course of the year that she has felt "in the mood". She said 3 times over the whole year.

I don't know if she still has any residual feelings for her boss as she still won't talk to me about personal things. So how do I get the psychological sex switch turned back on after the WAW has turned it off?