Hi to all of you who remember me and my husband ceberon and our success story in 2003. And hi to all the new people who have come over the years.
I can go over all the history another time but in 2003 I successfully used DB techniques to win back the H after he had left the M and through both his and my infidelity. We continued for what I thought were another 7 successful years. How wrong was I?
I mentioned over the years that I wish we had more passion - and I mean that in the sex and desire category. He agreed but neither of us knew what to do. For me, this was important yet not worth destroying the M over so we continued with it for some time. We finally decided to go to counseling over it about a year to a year and a half ago. We went through perhaps 4 to 5 sessions total (2 of those were individual) which is when he started talking about perhaps ending the marriage because of it. I thought we were in counseling to make a good marriage better, not decide whether we should be together at all - and so I was frightened when we started talking about D again. He agreed that it was getting past what we intended and we stopped counseling with a renewed sense of the M. (btw this is currently point of contention between us as to what actually happened) We never even tried anything the counselor wanted us to do.
After that he decided we should have kids. Further proof to me thinking that everything was just fine. I did get pregnant but miscarried within the first trimester. We started trying again after everything healed properly.
So we're going along a normal Saturday. He went with me to my personal trainer and liked it, so signed up for more sessions - I moved my training schedule to times he could make it after work so we could do personal training together. We went through a good day, going out to eat and spending time together etc. We go to bed, I'm almost asleep when he asks, 'Are you awake?'. Boy do I wish I'd not answered now. And then he drops the bomb that he wants a D. He says he's been thinking about the missing passion for months.. for years now.. and it's an important enough part of the relationship that if it's missing, our relationship isn't working. He's not happy, etc etc etc. He wants to do this amicably, he wants to get it over fast and all the usual commentary.
It's only been 3 days but he finds every excuse to be out of the house. He can't stand to be here because it's painful, awkward and stressful. He says he sees my pain and it makes it worse. Yes so far I've been talking to him and pressing things because I'm just so blindsided at the moment and reeling, trying to understand what happened. I got him to agree to a counseling session with the counselor we saw a year ago and he did but he's dead-set against the process, fully convinced it will do no good even though he admits we did not really try.
I know I should go dark, I know I should stop pressing it. I know forcing counseling isn't going to work. I know all of these things from last time. I know how to do this and how hard I have to work to save this M again. The problem I have is ... do I want to DB all over again? How many times do I have to be the one to DB this M? When is it time to just give up?
I'll explain some background on the passion issue. Most couples get together and have a spark or some chemistry that fades over time as the trials of life and whatnot occur. My H and I never had that. We were best of friends from the beginning and we grew to love each other. We had pretty minimal attraction on both sides but we are so very good together in every other way. We were that 'old married couple' from the beginning. I've never seen a couple get so many compliments on their R over the years... about how good they are together. We constantly get people saying that to us. But in the bedroom we lack chemistry, desire for each other, etc. It's hard to rekindle something when you never had it to begin with. Unfortunately we both assumed it was impossible when we never even tried anything the counselor suggested. We have both read The Sex Starved Marriage in the past, I'll probably re-read that today. As we both recalled, the predominant theory behind it was 'just do it' and well, we tried without a lot of success. I'd also like to point out that it's not just sex but that entire realm of emotions that goes with it - the desire, the need to be wanted that way by another human, wanting someone that way along with the sex itself.
Anyways, thanks for the read. I know it was a long one. Look forward to your responses.
