My situation is a bit different than I think I've lead you to believe. We had "the bomb" which tore everything down, and we've been piecing back to together. Therefore, the historic anger / communication / withdrawal etc. issues have been addressed. My W claims to be very happy with me and the marriage. The remaining issue is really mine -- that she is not an engaged sex partner. That doesn't seem to be based on the fact that she's angry with me, and I am making sure to keep her love tank full. The other areas of our marriage are going very well. The last elephant in the room is that I'm unhappy with our sex life, and the fact that I'm unhappy makes my wife unhappy.
The root issue is that she's unhappy with herself / has low self-esteem and this combined with other unknown factors has given her very low sex drive and latent negative feelings about sex. The challenge is that she is not willing to work on improving this situation, and I'm not sure if I can resign myself to being "given" sex as a gift, versus participating in sex with a partner for the rest of my life. Make sense?
To be clear, she's not withholding sex, she is providing it, but in the context of gift giving versus engaging.
I get your point about "NMMNG" -- I read that book and honestly I do not see myself in it. I don't do things for my W in order to get things in return -- nor do I feel I'm "owed" good sex in return for acts of service or quality time. If I felt that way, I'd be satisfied with receiving sex as a gift and I'm not -- I'm looking for partner engagement and mutual satisfaction.
Where I'm coming from is that we've just gone through a horrible crisis in our marriage. In putting things back together, we've gotten the chance to hit the "reset button" and define a new path for ourselves. Among the dysfunctional dynamics of our now dead prior marriage was an unsatisfying sex life.
Since we're putting in all the effort to make our new marriage stronger and better, don't we owe it to ourselves to address this issue along with all the others? From all my reading, a good sex life complements and reinforces a good marriage and vice-versa. Why should we put together a great marriage and settle for a mediocre sex life? That's really how I'm looking at it. Ok, we've mutually done all of these things to improve our marriage -- I'm frustrated by the fact that she's not willing to work with me to improve our sex life, and I'm having a hard time understanding and dealing with her explanation for why not.
I am not playing games, and I am not being untrue to myself -- quite the opposite. I've observed, however, that when I'm the more expressive, affectionate partner, that my needs do not get met and my love tank does not get filled. If I dial that back, she does step up, but does so with a "panic tax" that doesn't allow us to establish an equilibrium there. It's like MWD's analogy of a teeter totter in DR, if one partner is pursuing the other is not.
Our "norm" so far has been that I pursue, I fill up her love tank, she feels good but does not reciprocate. My tank runs down, I get frustrated by not having my needs met, then she gets upset because she feels she's not living up to my expectations.
To boil it down to a simple example. THIS IS A CONTRIVED EXAMPLE, I DON'T REALLY DO THIS, NOR DO I NECESSARILY WANT THIS:
1) I tell her "to fill my love tank, send me a text once a day and tell me you love me"
2) She tells me "to make me feel loved, talk to me for 30 minutes every night"
3) I talk to her for 30 minutes every night, and I enjoy it too, we connect. I don't view it as "for her", it's for us.
4) She never sends me the texts
Eventually she'll notice I'm not happy. I reiterate that sending the texts would fill up my love tank. She gets upset that she doesn't meet my needs, tells me I'd be happier with someone else, and starts to cry.
***Instead of getting upset because you haven't sent the texts, why not just send the texts?***
That's kind of the million dollar question for me right now.
Really I don't care about texts -- that's just a silly example -- but it DOES apply to words of affirmation, physical affection, a good sex life, etc.
I have spent a lot of time talking to my IC and my DB coach about whether I'm setting sky-high expectations or being unreasonable or overly needy, but to the contrary they are telling me that my needs are modest, that I'm asking for things that would be expected from any marriage, and that if anything I'm overly understanding about my wife's unwillingness to deliver.
I understand your point about setting a goal and making a timeline. I have thought about that a lot recently. In the end, though, I really love my W for many reasons -- so I really want this to come to a happy conclusion where my W agrees to work on herself and seek some therapy. I am confident that she will enjoy her life more as a result -- I'm not being purely selfish. We all either enhance or diminish the moods of those we interact with. That applies to me and my children in the case of my W. If she's happy more often than sad or angry, then she has a net positive effect on us, and that's selfishly what I want, but altruistically, I want her to be truly happy herself.
What I've been thinking about the last couple days with the help of the Captain is that I have two paths forward -- (1) drop this and cope with what I'm giving -- take it off the table as an issue in our marriage and be happy with what I am getting or (2) drive this to a crisis to precipitate a change.
The first option scares me because I don't see a path to personal fulfillment and happiness there.
The second option has two resolutions -- W agrees to see a therapist and work with me, or she doesn't and the marriage ends.
Obviously I want the outcome where she works with me, but she's made it very clear she does NOT want to do that.
Accuray
Married 18, Together 20, Now Divorced M: 48, W: 50, D: 18, S: 16, D: 12 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 7/13/11 Start Reconcile: 8/15/11 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 5/1/2014 (Divorced) In a New Relationship: 3/2015
