Old dog seeks new trick

[MrBond]

Okay, now what I'm going to say may be a bit harsh, but it's what I see so far.

First of all, I don't think you want to save your M. Here's why....

As long as you've been together, it seems as if you've dismissed all of your W's needs or didn't think them important to you. Basically, you've been doing it for 2 reasons:

1) You refuse to take responsibility for your actions.
You blame it on your father, or your upbringing or codependency, etc. But you spend more time coming up with excuses than you actually spend time on actually changing your behaviors. It could have been just as easy as writing down a list or putting it in your 'To Do' list to "say I love you to my W". But instead you tried to find fault in your W rather than looking at yourself. And you're still doing it.

2) You mindread alot and still depend on your W to take charge.
When you went to counseling, and even before, she explicitly said what was wrong with the M. But you say that "both" of you didn't think it worked when what really happened was that you didn't want to change and expected your W to change her attitude.

3) To this day she gives you talks, examples, websites (and yes I did read Gerald Rogers before I read your sitch) and make it sound like it's news to you. That you're not the "romantic type". She doesn't expect you to lavish her with attention 24/7, but what she does want is SOME effort on your part. You probably would do something for a week or two after she brings something up and then went right back to ignoring her. I mean you don't even know what branch of therapy she was learning. Really? She really didn't matter to you so much that you couldn't just ask?

So my suggestion would be to file for divorce, look for someone who is more like a mother to you. Who will take care of you and plan things unconditionally and who doesn't care if you do anything romantic for them. Is that what you want?