Hey Blackie,
I haven't forgotten about you; I was out of town for a while, though.

It sounds like you are making progress. I know that it seems hard to believe that at times, but things ARE changing around your house. Just the fact that they are getting uglier has to mean something! She is being shaken out of her world, which up to this point was: Blackrook doesn't love or desire me and, therefore, I should leave.

Now that mission statement might not be true anymore but, believe me, she doesn't know what the truth really IS. She doesn't know whether to trust you or run.

I once saw a show where they described this kind of deep hurt as being a hole. And the hurt would not fully go away until the hole was filled up. For your wife, I really believe that her "hole" is feeling un-desired. And that she needs obvious shows of desire and affection to fill it. Now, that would have been a lot easier were you not to the point of separation but you know what...this is what you have to deal with and so you must move out of that gridlock stage of guilt and living in the past.

You are where you are, for a variety of reasons. Some of them hers, some of them yours. I know she wants to live in the past--I did that too with my husband. I absolutely refused to move into the present and deal with what IS; I wanted to stay firmly rooted in what WAS. It was because I needed that time to mentally work through the feelings that continuous rejection causes. I couldn't just accept that all of a sudden he DID desire me, any more than I could have accepted (in the beginning) that one little rejection meant that he was losing his desire for me. Does that make sense? It was a CUMULATIVE effect to get to the point of feeling neutered and it was a cumulative effect to get me out of it. He was consistent with his message of love and desire and I did start to melt.

One thing I want to suggest here is to lose the doormat attitude. Women do not find this attractive or appealing. It is a sort of paradox that men don't understand all that well. We want a man who does things around the house, but we do not respect you if you only do it when we bark at you like a dog, and you jump to attention.

Be strong and consistent with your messages to her, Blackie. I think that she wants to trust and love you again but she is very very scared to do so. I think that the advice that the others gave you is excellent! Be a happy and smiling and strong person and she will be attracted to that. I also think it's awesome that you went out and did things for yourself and even better that it seemed to shake her up a bit.

Let me ask you one last thing: How are you prepared to do things differently, when you get her back?
What things are going to change, in regards to how you interact with her? Give it some thought because she might need to hear that: "Honey, I know you don't believe that this change is for good, but THIS is the person that I want to be and this is how I'm going to get there..." and then proceed to spell it out for her, what your plans are for permanent change.

This is a very strange situation for you to be in, because (here comes a generalization) men are much more "face-value" type creatures. My H approached it as a broken contract type of thing and, as such, wanted to do a one-time apology that was going to repair it, and then we could move forward from there. I, as a typical woman, needed much more time to stew it over and resent and make him prove it to me, before I was willing to put my heart on the line again. To me, it wasn't a matter of an apology--there aren't words enough to make that kind of hurt go away, anyway.
What DID matter was his actions. His actions consistently backed up his words and he has never, NOT ONCE, wavered from that. Him getting back in touch with his sexuality was not something that happened so that I would get happy again, it was something that he did because he wanted it to be an active and consistent part of our everyday lives.

I know you can do this, Blackie. Keep your spirits up and be the strong and happy (and horny) man that she cannot resist!

Good luck,
Honey