Hi everyone. I haven't posted in quite a while so I just thought I'd give an update. The good thing is that the Sooners won tonight. The bad thing is that my wife and I got into a pretty heated argument last night. I got to thinking about some things as I was driving home from work yesterday, so I decided that when I got home I'd ask her to just sit and talk with me - no arguing, just talking. That worked okay in the sense that she allowed me to say what I wanted to say without interrupting me. I tried to express how much I love her and how sorry I am for anything that I've done to contribute to our problems. I also tried to explain the reasons that I want to have a mutually satisfying sexual relationship with her - something that I think she's failed to understand. I believe that I spoke very lovingly and I couldn't help but tear up as I tried to express my feelings. At the end I asked her if she could start working with me to make our problems go away and, if so, what I could do to make that easier for her.
She basically told me the same things that she's always said - that yes, she wants our relationship to be better and that she would try. But then she said she felt like she'd just been attacked. That floored me, because I couldn't understand how anything that I'd said could be taken as an attack. Nonetheless, we were not arguing at that point and we eventually went on about our business. Later that night, my wife was laying in bed awake and I asked if I could just lay down beside her and hold her. But I obviously got too close, she jumped away, and although I'm not even sure how it got started, we started into a "discussion" which elevated into a full-blown argument. What really got me upset is that she told me that she doesn't have a lack of sexual desire - that she did initially (after our first daughter was born) but for a long time (years now) the reason for our lack of intimacy has been that she can't get over the resentment that she feels for me. And the only reason that she holds that resentment for me is because of the sex argument! She said that she wants to be intimate with me, but if she tries (I'm not really sure what she means by "trying") she has an anxiety attack because she's worried about having the argument. That doesn't make much sense to me. I understand the anxiety as I have it too, simply becuase we're so seldom intimate. But I'm confident that it wouldn't take very long before the anxiety would go away. I just don't understand why she wouldn't try to get past it, knowing that if she were to only start showing me some affection there would be no longer be any reason to continue having the argument that she seems to be so afraid of. Anyway, I ended up doing what I know that I shouldn't do - I wouldn't let the argument end, making her madder and madder until it was pretty ugly. I ended up going on to bed and she fell asleep in another room.
This morning I got up early to play golf, and when I got back in the early afternoon she seemed to be okay. I was still upset and feeling like things would never get any better. I ended up asking her if we were going to be okay and she said "yes, I think we will" and she gave me a big hug. Tonight we had a bunch of people over to watch the OU-Colorado football game on TV which was a lot of fun. My 5-year old has a friend staying the night (always a big help when trying to rekindle some romance) so my wife is upstairs trying to get them, and our 2-year old, to sleep. Maybe she'll come downstairs and show me some sort of affection, and maybe she won't. I really don't know what to expect at this point.
Now, on one hand I'm glad to know that my wife doesn't have a desire problem, if that's really the case. But that raises a lot of other questions. Besides the times that the sex argument occurs, I'm pretty much a model husband. Sure, I have things that I need to improve upon, but I'm trying to do that and I really don't think she could ask for any better husband. So how can she hold so much resentment for me that I can go a month or more being a perfect (or near perfect) little angel, and yet she can't get over her resentment enough to make love to me, or for that matter even to just cuddle with me a little, especially if she truly doesn't have a desire problem. I'm just baffled by it all.
I'm hopeful that although we had a fairly bad argument, maybe we learned some things about each other that will help us to start making some progress. Time will tell I suppose.
