however our love life is crap and has been most of the marriage.
Have you talked to your H about this? Have you sought out an MC and/ or sex therapist? Sex is an integral part of M, and if it's missing then that's a huge red flag. It sounds like he's home and you're trying to work on things, but you certainly can't expect any progress until this huge issue is addressed.
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I would attribute most of this to me. I never treated H with the respect he deserved because I always felt that he never put me first
This is obviously part of the problem, the lack of sex isn't just your fault, it goes both ways. Women need to feel loved before they want to have sex while men feel loved while having sex. So men have to learn how to nurture their wives to make them want to have sex, because most women can't just flip the sex switch on like men can.
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After the weekend we continued to speak to the therapist who ran the retreat and she informed us that it would take a miracle to save this marriage and that there was nothing left because the lack of love/sex for so many years. I didn’t feel the therapist had the right to say that to us and so I stopped the sessions with her.
I agree with you. Most MC's are not pro-marriage, so what she said is not that unusual. Their training is in facilitating separation and divorce, not in rebuilding troubled marriages.
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After reading the book, I started to implement some of the things and noticed a change. When H came over he seemed excited to see me, even hugged me a couple of times which is a huge accomplishment from where we were.
Awesome! It usually doesn't work that fast, but that's great if it did.
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Last week, I was so frustrated that instead of accepting these baby steps H and I got into a huge fight because I felt that I wasn’t seeing enough improvement.
Well that's a huge backslide, but that's OK, they happen. Just lose your expectations and continue on with DB'ing. Don't expect a fast turnaround, it'll take months of hard work. Be patient! When he shows signs of improvement then celebrate internally, but externally maintain your DB'ing.
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He keeps telling me how sad he is that we are in this situation and is still willing to try, but is very very doubtful that things can change because he can’t imagine being intimate - its been so long.
You two cannot fix that on your own. You need professional help. Get it as soon as you can.
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I have read many reviews about retrovaille, but only one of them focused on saving a sexless,loveless marriage. Does anyone have any stories about how retrovaille can fix this?
I don't think it's really geared towards that, although it is geared towards improving communications and certainly a lack of communication is why your sex life is so poor. So it may help. But I still think you should locate a sex therapist too.
