...I don't know if anyone else has this experience, but I am so angry when I wake up in the morning.
...I end up going to work mad, slamming the door on the way out, in hopes my H will wake up before noon. I have even stopped giving him goodbye kisses, because I don't think he appreciates them.
...I'm having trouble with the "lovingly distant" part of GAL. It usually feels like I'm being spitefully distant. I feel like he doesn't even deserve to see me walk through the room, most definitely doesn't deserve to see me smile.
...I learned within a few weeks all I get is about one hug and one "grandma" kiss on the lips per day.
...just sits on the couch all day. He is boring me.
...I am in a relationship with a brick wall and I'm falling out of love.
I can understand what you are feeling, as the comments by the Montana wife in the story indicate, she was also angry at times, but decided not to show her husband how badly his words had hurt her.
During my five months without my wife touching me, without any sex, I felt extremely frustrated. One of the most frustrating things was that each day I "worked hard" at doing things that would make my wife feel loved in her primary languages of love, and yet she was the equivalent of a brick wall or worse.
Sometimes, when she started to feel affections toward me she would try to pick a fight with me, insult me, or do something to create emotional distance. It was extemely hard to not get pulled into such things and continue to exhibit calm steady love toward her, to not be defensive, but to show her my unconditional love for her.
Ultimately, after testing me and knowing that I had told her I was going to divorce her in a year unless I experienced certain things (and why those things were important to me), she began to resolve her anger toward me. She said that it was mostly because of how I had made her feel and how I had changed that allowed her to open up to me emotionally, verbally, and sexually.
My suggestion is that you carefully examine your anger toward your husband and see if you can forgive him and yourself and move forward as others have suggested. If you can't then you can't.
If you look at your post you clearly are exhibiting anger and you used the words like "spiteful distance," "doesn't deserve" "stopped initiating affection." My experience and that of the Montana wife was to exhibit love toward our spouse and affection, but not force it upon them, but to have it there if and when they wanted to accept it at their choosing.
Your husband probably knows you well enough to read your body language, the slammed doors etc. At times it drove my wife nuts when she would try to pick a fight with me to create distance and I would not take the bait.
You are certainly free to remain angry with your husband or you can try to address that anger. You may want to work to find out more about your anger and why you feel so strongly about it. The reason that I say that is that whether you and your husband remain together or you move on to another relationship, there is a good chance that you will need to deal with the root causes of that anger before you can have a truly meaningful relationship with another human being.
Let me try another line of argument with you. Read up on 180's. Giving unconditional love to your husband (like the Montana wife) not allowing yourself to be emotionally manipulated (like the Montana wife kept from lashing back at her husbands hurtful statements) are examples of a 180. The purpose of a 180 is to realize that what you are doing now is now working and to change course and do something else to see if that will start to produce positive interpersonal relationship results. You need to give 180's sufficient time so that the results are observable.
I wish you luck in whatever course of action you choose.
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
