New and confused, advice welcome

[Greek]

You are doing the right thing by not moving out of the home....and don't let her talk you into leaving. Don't leave your marital bed. If she has a problem, then she'll have to find another place to sleep, but you stay in your bed.

No matter what she says, stay put. This is an important position that will have long term effects for you. Do not leave the house and do not leave the master bedroom.

The next thing I would suggest is that you focus on yourself and how you can change things about yourself....and for your sake....not just in order to please your W. The more your focus is on her, the more desparate you will act and you will not be the man she fell in love with and M 20 years ago. That is the one of the goals you need to make for yourself. Try to become the man you once were. It is hard, but we have many men here on the board who discovered that in busting a D, they found themselves after many years. We are here to encourage you and support you not only in getting through this tough time, but to help you become the best man you can be.

Think in terms of the man you should have been growing into all these years but have not b/c of work, stress, boredom, fear...whatever. Your W is more or less telling you that the polish has rubbed off of you and time with you. And that's to be expected in a 20 yr. R. However, look what it's gotten for you - a "runaway W". What hobbies have you put aside? What interests have you stopped pursuing? Which friends have you lost touch with? Pick it all up NOW b/c it's good for TD! Not to win your W back, although it will get her attention - but to improve TD's life.

It is rare to find a WAW here on the board b/c most people are the LBS. There are a few of us, however, and I think we all do whatever we can to help the LBH's understand what his W is going through or how she thinks.....as best we can.

We do our best

The first thing you need to do is to back away from your W where the MR is concerned. Everything will feel like pressure to her and the more pressure she feels....the more she will want to run. She is feeling all types of confusion right now and at times it can be very scarey, so it will be best to not discuss the R at all. If she tries to bring it up....stop her and say, "Let's not discuss it right now. We'll talk after the holidays." Something that will postpone that talk.....or else tell her you don't wish to talk about it right now. Later, after a lot of time has passed....if she brings the R up, then you will feel stronger and be able to handle things better, but now, you want to stay away from any discussion of the R, whatsoever.

TD - this is very important. Read and reread the above paragraph. And believe it. It may not make sense to you b/c you probably have the male 'fix it' gene...but I'm telling you, the more you try to get in there and figure it out and talk it through, the faster she will run. Put it down. Leave it alone for now. Talking, sorting out...that comes later. Not now. Step away.

The next thing I would suggest is that your W go to see a specialist in hormone replacement therapy. As we females get older, our bodies stop producing those natural things that causes us to be interested in sex b/c we don't feel "desire". This happens to young women a lot, too, so it doesn't just happen later in life. The thing is, she won't know for sure unless she goes to a doctor that will do that kind of testing to see what her body is doing. I went for years that I had not desire whatsoever, and I felt like I was about to have a nervous breakdown. When I finally had a doctor to test me, he said my sex hormones were zero and I was a trainwreck. Don't mention that she may be facing menopause or anything like that, b/c some women don't react too kindly to that, but if you chose your timing well and suggest that she have a complete hormone check to see, then at least she would know if it was "physical" or not. If she is sincere about worrying why she does not feel "attraction" for you, then she should agree to do this. If she doesn't cooperate, then I would think she is emotionally involved with another man.

This is good advice - Sandi really does have good experience. I will tell you that my experience in this arena was different, though, so in the interest of giving you an array of perspectives, when Coach made this suggestion to me while we were in hell, I resented it very much. I saw it as him wanting to fix me - that something was wrong with me and that's why we were having problems. I did go to my physician and I was balanced, not perimenopausal - just stressed with a broken R. No pill for that. And I was not involved with another man so it is possible that the lack of attraction is not about that either. Just food for thought.

Pull back from making contacts throughout the day with your W. No phone call, TM, VM, emails, etc. Unless is is strickly business or necessary.....don't contact her. That relieve pressure from her and it makes you appear....unavailable. She feels that you are smothering her, so you want to be unavailable. Don't follow her around the house, or ask a lot of questions about her day. Wait for her to tell you. Wait for her to contact you, and then you be sure you break the conversation first and say good-bye. It's almost like being single and playing "hard to get". But it works.

Act as if you have had an awakening in life and now you love doing everying. You act "as if" you are having a good time.....even if you really aren't. In other words, you show a positive attitude regardless of how you feel. You put that smile on your face and have fun. Know why? B/c people enjoy being around those who have fun. They enjoy being around positive, life-loving people. Just don't "over-kill" on whatever you do b/c she will see through it and call you a "fake". Stay balanced.

Don't try to do romantic things right now. Don't send flowers or have intimate dinner dates b/c the timing is not right. The thing that will cause her to want to draw closer to you.....is for you to pull back. Crazy, huh? But, it is human nature. It has been proven to work time after time. I believe the only times that we did not see a sucess story result from detaching, was b/c the S had waited too late before applying DB principles. So, I hope you will trust us and don't be afrraid to do what is suggested.

Piggy backing on what Sandi wrote ~~~
Greek