Wow, thanks guys. This is all very helpful. On the questions of what I have done so far:
1. Received individual therapy trying to break me out of my anxiety cycle. I know now that i tend to be neurotic about things and take out my anxieties on the people I know and love. The individual therapy was truly a bolt of blue for me - i never really knew that i was doing such things.
2. Stopping 'flooding' her. Another huge realisation was that when i want getting what i wanted, I would instictively flood her into submission - right along John Gottman's points. Wow, also a huge realisation for me. I also can trace this to my mother who has been flooding my father my entire life. He, however, is an unnaturally calm man who can diffuse any tension. My wife is not.
3. Focusing on simply being supportive without expecting anything in return. I tend to talk a lot and dominate conversation. I now will just 'stay with her' and continue to ask questions to tease more from her. Working on the friendship.
4. Bringing up the elephant in the room - the biggest issue is the simple lack of emotional safety in the relationship. She is particularly difficult to read on this point because she tends to be so conflict averse.
Still it is very tough. For example, because of her conflict aversion she waited until the last minute to bring up wanting to travel with our son to see her family in the US. Nothing unusual about that, but she was adamant in not wanting me to come along. This of course hurt me very deeply (yes - i should have detached as per the definition above, but the fact that she cornered me with the request made it particularly difficult). She also suggested that I go alone with my son to see my parents.To this I simply couldn't accept and pushed back on her. So she went to her parents alone and is now here with me and my parents. All seems fine on the surface, but I don't really know what she is feeling/thinking.
So on it goes. Yes, 9 months of really focused changes on my part is not long, but I fear that we are approaching 2 years since she was last affectionate to me. She did get away to see a friend of hers twice during this trip who was divorced, which of course causes me concern. But I can't control her actions, only my responses to hers. Question: at what point do my responses come across as being a 'doormat' rather than putting up boundaries? Clearly an A is not tolerable, but what about her wanting to distance herself from me? How do i deal with things that are acceptable and things that are not?
