How to shake up spouse without having an affair?

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Virginia:

We had Valentine's Day last weekend...went to the beach and watched it snow about 6 inches. I would not call it a "celebration." Although, the card she gave me with her hand written note conveyed a sense of how much she has appreciated all that I've done for her in the last six weeks as she recovers, there was nothing close and exciting about any of it.

That is what I miss and wonder if it was really ever there at all (and if what was there little more than an act). I realized, as I stood in the shower a couple of mornings ago, that there is nothing about this mattiage that excites me any longer, that has me be in a way that I can't wait to be home and be with my wife (or be with her anywhere). It's nothing like not wanting to go home or not being able to stand going home and being with her. It is like going to the bathroom, it is just something I do.

And that is the problem, isn't it? The question asked as the title of this thread. Clearly, I don't have an answer. While she might have some self-assurance that I will stick to my word and "duty" associated with not only what I've said in the past (including marriage vows), it iither does not occur for her (or she does not "care" because it is not a serious enough threat) just how terribly unhappy I am about he lack of intimacy.

I have never been one that has engaged in sex simply for the thrill of the physical orgasm. In the periods of my life where I have had no attachments/committed relationships, I have never had an offer of sex simply for the sake of sexual gratification...no strings attached. Moreover, I have never pursued that, either. When sexual intimacy was offered, there were either strings attached (usually some level of commitment beyond the immediate moment that I would not choose to have) or I was involved with someone else at a level of commitment that I thought would be damaged, that represented a betrayal of my word.

It has never been about sex for sex sake with me. Not that I was looking for the next great love of my life, but that I had to feel at least something for the woman other than simply using her as a sperm recepticle.

What I have said and pursued throughout my life is sexual intimacy that both generates closeness and is generated by emotionsl closeness. It is symbiotic. It is a duality. I am aware of the general characterization that men need sex in order to fell close to their partner and that for women it can be the other way around. As a self-aware, self-generating person (or as my wife puts it, a very advanced soul) knowing or acting upon this provides some capacity to "put up" with things that others would not.

I hold to the view that sexual intimacy is something I wish to have that is a natural expression of the closeness of the relationship, not an obligation or "responsibility" that must done to satisfy some checklist of appearances. My wife knows and has always known this about me. So, in one sense, I have given her permission to drop the pretense of being sexually interested in me when she really is not. Clearly she is not and has not been interested in me sexually,for a very long time. And mostly, I'd say she's not intereeted in me beyond the point wher my absence or failure to pay for the house and the utilities would inconvenience her.

But the cost has been 4703 days without any sexual intimacy in a relationship where maintaining a high level of intimacy, sexual and otherwise, was a clearly stated goal and marker in the relationship and the marriage. If I wanted a non-sexual relationship I could have and would have done something else after my first marriage. This is not the life I would have chosen. It is, however, the life I have (or maybe more accurately it has me).

(As an interesting aside and maybe not coincidentally, it was also about this same time,nearly 13 years ago, my ex-wife had apologized to me and told a group of people that I was working with how proud she was of the father I had become AND that I had become the man she first fell in love with and saw so many years before. I have wondered, from time to time, if there was something more to it than just the apology and the "completion" of all that...though I have always held that I would never do to my current wife, what my ex-wife did to me; I would never do my ex-wife's husband what he did to me.)

And while we are on the subject of my ex-wife, snow days bring up just how much of a contrast exists between my first marriage (prior to childbirth) and this one. My ex-wife and I loved snowy days. We would spend entire days curled up with each other, reading, talking, listening to music and making love, maybe 3,4, or 5 times in a day, literally hours making love with and to each other. Sometimes, we'd get dressed after the storm and in the fresh fallen snow, tromp through the woods, cameras and hot thermos' in tow.

Sometimes we could not wait to get back home to curl up in bed together to warm each other with a cup of hot chocolate, marshmallows, and whipped cream (ah, the things you can do with whipped cream. I remember that, too). And by not waiting, I mean sometimes the two of us stripping naked in the woods, using our coats and clothes as ground cover and making love in the freshly fallen snow. The crispness of the cold air, thr bright clear sunshine...there was nothing quite like the heat generated by making love in the snow. The combination of the cold air, the snow melting on my back and watching the steam waft off out bodies spotlighted by the brilliant sunshine against the deep blue sky.

Whether she was on top of or underneath me, it brought a whole new definition to "snow angel."

Nothing like that has happened in this marriage. Snow days are not special at all. In the distant past when we did have a sex-life, it would have been "too cold." Now, the cold would have other adverse effects. So, making love outdoors in the snow has pretty much been out of the question since day one. As for indoor activites, even when the kids were not around, it never had that level of intimacy.

So, as I see it, I made this choice years ago and the life I have is the consequence/responsibility of that choice. It's not that I can't go on to a different life. I can. It's just that the cost of doing that still seems greater (with no sure payoff) than the cost of staying where I am, at 56, and the way this relationship is.

What challenge could I put forward that I haven't tried already?

BTW, today is the first anniversary of my mom's death and I'm feeling reflective while missing her. She would be proud that I hadn't cheated on my wife under the circumstances, but she would not be "happy" for the profound lack of intimacy that I ended up with in my marriage.