.....My wife and I have a very good friendship -- we went out to a great candlelight dinner with conversation earlier this week. It's just that we didn't go home and have sex afterwards, and took no rainchecks because why take a raincheck for something that will never happen, etc.
That is a very touching description of two people who enjoy each other.
In my mental desperation of my SSM, I have tried to think of ways of making my situation bearable, prior to finding certain books and support on this forum. In particular I have pondered the concept of turning lemons into lemonade. Is there anyway that your wife might be willing to turn "non-sex" into something that you can accept as sex-like?
I couldn't totally figure out anything that would likely work for both my wife and myself, but your statements sparked an idea that I thought I would share and may or may not be totally inappropriate.
What you are describing is a very King Author type of courtly love, all romance and no sex. If your wife views you as her knight, her protector, her emotional companion, but not her sexual partner, maybe she can stretch what she is capable of doing in such a way that doesn't involve intercourse and makes her feel like she is more in complete control of your sexuality.
I have seen some references on this forum to Taken In Hand marriages and looked at their website. The opposite might be a Wife Lead marriage where the husband is in chastity to his key holder wife who he treats as his queen and who provides him with some sexual tension, sexual attention, but not intercourse. While this may not be acceptable to either you or your wife, it is offered as an example of how some people turn non-sex into a sex-like activity that can provide some of the interaction that sex has in a more typical marriage.
Maybe there is some other form of role-playing that you wife could participate in, which would not involve her definition of sex and yet would provide you with a sex-like experience that would allow her to fulfill some of your emotional needs.
For me, I am hoping that couples massage will provide me with some of the deep physical touching I feel that I need from my wife in a way that she can more easily express, as long as she does not feel it is sexual. Because my wife loves to have me give her a massage, I am hoping that she can stretch such that she can give me a non-sexual massage. I see this as something that my wife could do to help meet my physical needs and yet be potentially within her boundaries. If we can have sex again (which is my primary goal), non-sexual couples massage is something she could do or offer to help mitigate the distance between her LD and my HD that would partially fulfill my physical needs.
You have convinced me that you have some aspects of a non-typical marriage that is based on love, respect and friendship and an ability or accommodation to separate sex from love and romance.
I also suspect that you may have already thought of things along this line, but your description sparked a thought.
I have become a great customer of Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, when it comes to buying self-help and relationship books. You also indicated that you have a large collection of such books as well. I have started another book that I have mixed feeling about, the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. It talks about how the vast majority of things that couples fight about are unresolvable, but how if the couple can argue in a way that doesn't destroy good feelings and works on repair attempts that de-escalate confrontation, then they can remain friends and married, especially if they provide each other with many more positive experiences than negative experiences. Your description above also reminded me of that part of the book by John Gottman I just started.
Again Good Luck
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
