i have been giving her all types of massages (foot/back/leg), and i do it knowing that it will not lead to sex, and that it does not lead into a love bank unfortunately. it's all of these touches, all of this touching that never leads to sex, and i need and want to be touched.
Been there, done that, verbatim! Foot, back, and leg are all "safe" areas. I gave my wife 100's of massages, and not once did it lead to anything more, not even a raincheck.
I've read through your thread here and I've been through virtually all the same drama. The difficulty you have is that you are fighting a battle on her terms. It takes a lot of your energy as you initiate all kinds of things while she just passively ignores them or simply waves them by or bats them out of the way. I came to a point where I took a different approach, which may or may not work for you or be what you are willing to do.
Like you, I'm not willing to just walk out of the marriage with my kids and lots of other things about our marriage that work very well. But what I did at one point is to indicate that I had, at least in sexual terms, "given up" on the marriage, and that it was now her responsibility to do something about it, but only if she wanted. That way, she'd have a lot of time to think about it. What I told her is, would it be OK if I had a girlfriend? She said no. I replied, well, if YOU don't want to be my girlfriend, then why would you mind if I had another girlfriend, or a friend with benefits, while we still spent time together doing all the other things we still enjoy? Is it simply that you don't want me to have sex with anybody?? You are still my first choice as a lover, and you always will be, but you're completely unavailable to me.
See, now the equation changes a little bit because previously, she could thwart all your actions by just being passive. But now she can't. Because if you go out and make some other friends with benefits, she can't thwart that by just being passive.
Another benefit to this is that you will find out if your wife is the kind of person who perks up when there is competition. A lot of people are like that. It's unfortunate to have to resort to this leverage in a marriage, but if it's the last resort, why not? I have seen cases where somebody gets very sexually attentive with their mate only when real competition appears to be popping up.
And see, unlike the situation with moving out, you can do the friends with benefits thing a step at a time, and she won't actually know if you're actually doing anything or not. As long as you stay honest about the fact that the moment she says she wants you exclusively in a sexual way, you are willing to say YES at the drop of a hat. In fact, a female friend of mine even suggested that I should just go to the library and spend a couple of hours there every other night, just to make my wife wonder about what's going on, and if she cared, she might take the initiative in some way.
I just think you've got to get past all this drama with your wife by doing something else which is not directed towards her. I'm sure my situation isn't exactly like yours, so your mileage may vary.
