Sorry, I tried to condense a 20+ page post in the Feb timeframe to provide a bit of recap and new detail.
We have been married 16 years through college and into our working lives. I have had a few indiscretions in the past (10+ years ago) which she has overcome. Also, in the past 5 years, I was a slave to the monthly grind trying to make bills, save money, improve our credit, etc. We never went to bed at the same time, did not share any intimacy and for lack of a better term, died on the vine as it got to the point where neither of us were trying to be anything more than friends.
When she shared the idea in January with me, I lost it as the realization that everything in my life - relationship with Son, relationship with wife, 2 jobs I work, etc - were all in a sad state, even though I was "working" my butt off.
At the start of February, she was willing to break it off and work on our relationship. Quickly though, my emotional insecurity caused me to keep lashing out at her, "how could you do this", "I thought we were better than this". The more I couldn't handle the emotional weight, "the more I pushed her toward becoming selfish".
As of March, we were both working on ourselves but she had no desire to work on us. It was time for her to be selfish and do things for herself. She had shared with me that I was very controlling and had caused her to become a person she did not like.
I have been getting better with the role of being the patient husband - if she says this is sex, then get comfortable with her following through on it and establish boundaries when we begin working on the R.
I may come across as being un-manly for doing this. I am fine with that as my wife has been emotionally abused and neglected for a long time.
Does it make the EA right - no!
Am I doing what I need to in order to save my marriage - I think so.
I guess step 1 for me is establishing those boundaries when we slowly begin to work on it.
