7 months since BD and not sure where to go next

[Accuray]

I'm not an expert, and I'm hesitant to experiment with your life, so please critically evaluate this suggestion and do what you want with it.

When you are constantly rejected, you feel out of control. It's very, very painful to expect to have sex and then not get it, and even worse to wonder if you will ever get it again, it's like a form of torture. When your husband abstains with you, he regains some form of control over his life. He's no longer giving you the power to fail to meet his expectations, and as odd as that sounds, that power can feel good! Once you're there, going back to having sex can be a very tall wall to get over because of all it implies in terms of loss of control. It takes an incredible act of will to get where he is, and it's threatening to have to get there again. It's like an addict who has been sober for 360 days -- sure it would be fun to go on a bender, but then you are back to your compulsion and have to start over again with the twelve step program meetings, and the sponsor, and start the count all over again, so taking a pass doesn't mean you wouldn't like to go out partying, it just means that everything that goes with it makes it a non-starter for you, or that the return of desire is more than you think you can handle.

I can't comment on if he's having an affair or not, other than to say that volunteering to come on a family vacation with you would be very odd behavior for someone engaged in an affair. I think my explanation above is equally likely.

I also don't know how your "fighting about the past" tends to go. I was listening to a radio therapist the other night and the caller was a woman who had a Facebook relationship with a man while her husband was deployed in the military. She never told him she loved him, and in her view never did anything that was even inappropriate, but it bothered the hell out of her H when he found out, and he moved out as a result.

The therapist said that when your spouse is angry about something you did, you can do one of two things: (1) you can justify it, or (2) you can own it and make amends.

If you go the justify it route "I did that because you did Z", that tends to leave you stuck.

If you go the "own it and make amends" route, you have to do it from the perspective of not expecting anything back. i.e. if you own your part, you don't then expect him to own his part. It has to be a 100% selfless act on your part, full stop.

Therefore, when you talk about the past, you would say something like, "I recognize that withholding sex and intimacy from you was wrong. Regardless of how I was feeling, that was a cruel thing to do and I'm very very sorry that I did it, and for how it made you feel. I understand how wrong it was now, and I want you to know that I apologize for what I've done."

If you haven't "owned it" and made amends, I recommend doing it the next time you get into a discussion about the past, because it will probably end the argument, and stop his complaining when he believes that you truly do own it. You've got to mean it though, and that can be hard if you're angry about several things yourself. You have to separate them, own your part, and leave his injustices to him to deal with.

I do think it would be of huge benefit to you to start having sex again, but you would have to do it devoid of conditions or expectations. Which is to say that you can't go into it with a "because I'm giving you sex, you now owe me X, or I will now expect Y", because I'm sure he's very worried about whatever that ask will be.

Here's what I recommend, "Hey H, I would love it if you would have sex with me with no strings attached. We can keep it light and playful, I think it will be good for both of us. I understand you're worried that it won't feel right, but we really won't know unless we try. Let's leave the baggage at the door, go to a hotel for a night and just focus on having a good time with nothing move involved. The offer I'll make is that after that, we can do it any time you want to, assuming the kids are provided for -- I will not reject you ever. Rather than answer me now, I'd like you to think about it for 24 hours, and let me know if you're interested."

Then, if he takes you up on it, you have to go into it with the best possible attitude and low expectations.

I believe that if you were in a position to flirt with him and seduce him, you could eventually get him to take you up on that offer, and if you start having sex again, it would help both of you on all other fronts.

As MWD suggests in her SSM book, the best path out of a SSM is to tell the HD partner they can have sex whenever they want, take the possibility of rejection completely off the table. You may fear that you'll be having sex 24x7 but it doesn't work that way. You'll probably get an initial period of high frequency but then it will taper off into something manageable. I can tell you, however, that if you re-introduce rejection it will cause a ton of problems, so you have to be sure you're fully on board with being that giving.

Acc