1. I stopped any action that could be construed by her as sexual. (which right now to her is anything other than a goodbye kiss in the morning and a goodnight kiss...provided we go to bed at the same time which is rare.
2. I have stopped any conversation about sex.
3. I have started working on a classic muscle car I have, and some computer games aka Getting a Life (GAL). I can only take the OWN so much as thats all she watches.
...It just makes me realize that she has physical, psychologial or emotional issues right now. I should be as tired and depressed as she is, but yet am not.
....Apparently wife and I are NOT on the same pages with love languages. I am acts of service....Which to wife is NOTHING, but "stuff I should be doing anyway". Still trying to figure hers out.
A couple of thoughts.
While a good 180 is probably to stop any action that can be construed as sexual, be sure that you don't stop any actions that can be seen as "affectionate."
Let me elaborate on that a bit. By taking the pressure to perform sexually off the table, she still needs to feel loved. Feeling loved by another human being is very important.
Speaking of which, you really do need to figure out her languages of love. You really need to either talk to her about it or conduct some "sociological experiments" to learn which languages of love resonate with her. It really shouldn't be that hard to figure them out. Since acts of service is your biggie and she doesn't seem to be doing that, lets rule it out for the moment as one of her primary or secondary LL. That leaves (1) presents, (2) quality time, (3) words of affirmation or praise, (4) touch. Since she hasn't been touching you, we can probably also rule out touch. That narrows things down to (1), (2) or (3). Go out and buy her a thoughful present and tell her how much she means to you and see what the result is. If that doesn't seem to do much for her, get a babysitter, and take her out to dinner and spend time talking to her and listening to her, take her home and let her relax, then in the morning spend time with her again listening, validating, and letting her rant. If that doesn't seem to get a rise out of her then in you quality time tell her how proud you are of her devotion to her family to work 60 hour weeks and how important what she is doing for your family. Do it with conviction, so she feels appreciated. See if that brightens her mood. Conduct a set of sociologocial experiments until you find out what your wife's languages of love are then start using them to make her feel loved.
When she starts feeling loved, she may start to treat you better in the way you want to be treated.
As to your GAL projects of working on a muscle car and computer gaming. My view is work on the muscle car, but drop the computer gaming, instead take up something physcial. My suggestion would be to take up running, swimming, hiking, weightlifting, a martial art, ballroom dancing, country line dancing, yoga, rock sport climbing, etc. Something that will find a challenge, would like to be able to do, improve you physically, give you new skills, is somewhat "alpha male" in your wife's mind and will cause both you and your wife to view you in a whole different light.
My perspective on GAL is that it is kind of the ultimate 180. It is you changing who you are and improving yourself in ways you didn't think possible and doing something that changes how you view yourself and how your wife views you. It gives her something she can not ignore and forces her to say "he is changing, he is capable of change." It also gives her something to be "proud" about you and your ability to acoomplish something. Finally, it gives her a role model that someone can make huge changes in their life and succeed in things not thought possible.
If weight and body self image issues are some of her issues, you might especially want to do something GAL oriented that will provide her with a role model on what she can do, without you rubbing her nose in it or pushing her.
As someone who was in an SSM and came out the end, I think I know how angry and frustrated you feel. My advice is to forgive her, give her unconditional love, make her feel loved in her languages of love, focus on getting close to your children and making them feel loved, give her space to heal, encourage positive changes she initiates/makes at every opportunity, figure out what you did that contributed to your current problems (we all have some small ownership of our problems), ask her to forgive you for what you did to hurt her (once you have figured it out).
Good luck.
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
