Dealing With Ambivalence

[Vigilant1]

Hello Again -

I would like to talk about what seems to my biggest current problem in my relationship struggles - my wife's apparent ambivalence.

This is a very difficult thing for me, and the source of a lot of shame. The basic situation is that although our marriage is in better shape now and things have progressed some for us, my wife is still not having a lot of warm feelings for me. Due to a difficult childhood, I have a hard time dealing with ambivalence and rejection but I am working on this in and out of therapy.

I would like some ideas on how to deal with my bedroom situation, which currently seems like a really evil Catch-22. W does not like it when I back off to "respect" her ambivalence. She takes that as my withdrawing, and it seems to make her feel bad. On the other hand, if I am affectionate at bed time (even in a non-sexual way) she often seems to feel crowded or smothered. It honestly seems like I can't win.

At first it seemed like the most obvious, reasonable conclusion to make was that my W just doesn't want me anymore. I have explored this in and out of therapy. She says she REALLY DOES want to be in this relationship/marriage and that she still "loves" me. She has said that she just "doesn't have a lot of warm feelings for me right now", and that she thinks those will "come naturally with a little more time". Given that we've already been deadlocked for over 5 years in our SSM, the "I just need more time" meme is a little hard to believe.

I am particularly worried about this because she seemed to withdraw into ambivalence almost right when we were married, maybe even a little before. So this ambivalence is a real cornerstone of our marriage. I withdrew too, of course. I started putting myself emotionally back into this R in January, and have really tried to keep myself there. Now I feel a lot of heartache over this, and wish there were some way to make things a little bit better.

I basically am stumped on what to DO in this situation - in terms of behavior. Should I just be affectionate when I want to, graciously accepting rejection when I approach and she doesn't want me to? Should I not always approach, and wait for her to initiate things half the time or so, even if she probably won't? Should I just back off completely for a while and wait some more for her "feelings to return?"

Somehow, I have a hard time accepting that my W is still interested in me given that she shows so little interest. I am having a very hard time believing that some "magic pony" is going to appear real soon now, dispelling the ambivalence.

Is this situation common in SSM? If you have any ideas or comments on how to deal with (or preferably - reduce) ambivalence I'd appreciate hearing them!