Putting it back together, but SSM issues linger

[Accuray]

Labug,

My post above was confusing, here are the boundaries that I enforce under threat of leaving the relationship:

1) No contact with either OM

2) If you are upset or your needs are not being met, you need to be willing to talk about it. No keeping it in with silent resentment.

3) If you set my expectations by telling me that you will do something, then either do it as agreed, or let me know you will not be doing it. Don't just silently let it go.

4) Maintain sex as part of marriage, with best effort to maintain a once weekly frequency

5) Be faithful -- we have a specific "contract" with regard to what is over the line. If we feel we are tempted, we agree to discuss the temptation before we act on it.

I also have minor boundaries -- "no dogs allowed", when the cat throws up on the furniture or carpet every day, I expect it to be cleaned up as soon as it's noticed, versus being allowed to sit for a couple days.

The "big five" are my line where I'm ready to walk. I readily enforce these. She tried to re-write #2 while we were on vacation, and again tried to last night. I did not back down. She also violated #3 a couple weeks ago -- we have individual bank accounts. She was short and needed to write a big check, so she wrote it on mine and agreed to make a deposit to cover it before it would be cashed. She didn't and I got a $75 overdraft fee. We discussed that in the context of a boundary as well.

The three items I cited above:

1). Address her depression and unhappiness issues

2). Find a way to enjoy having sex so she can be a partner and not someone who just gives.

3). Make some effort to try the things I enjoy so that we can enjoy them together, as I embrace the things she enjoys

Are really more "strong desires" than boundaries at this point. They haven't *yet* crossed the line where they are walkaway factors, but having all three out there certainly stand to set the marriage on a negative trajectory from which it may not recover.

As you can see, none of those are things that I can control, they all require action on her part. As I hope you've seen in my posts, I'm wrestling with how much of this (or all of it) I can just accept and be the best "me" I can be. If I decide I just can't accept it, then it becomes "mission critical" and at some point becomes worthy of a boundary or ultimatum. I'm not there yet, but the pain threshold is definitely hard to deal with right now.

I lived with these three factors for a long time -- but my coping mechanism was to withdraw and to find happiness in other GAL-type activities. In order to DB, I had to seriously re-invest in the marriage emotionally. It's that reinvestment that makes accepting these things difficult now. My W has set a boundary that if I withdraw again, she's done. Therefore, my challenge is to keep my head in the game and muscle through these issues, either learning to accept them, or figuring out how to motivate her to address them, which I realize I may never be able to do.

Hopefully that's a better explanation of where I stand WRT boundaries.

Accuray