It has been almost a year since I posted. I like the forum, have visited a few times since and thought to post again.
Over the past year, my relationship has been OK with my wife. Many things have happened in our life. I am now the manager of my department. My wife started school for nursing, it is online and doesn't take her away from the house -- if you read my story, she was considering schools where she would have to move away. My three girls are doing fine, growing into nice young ladies. I have hobbies and things I do, my wife has her things, and there are things we do together.
My wife and I traveled alone to Turkey in June, and with some friends to Mexico in October.
We have only rarely have had relationship discussions in the past year. One was about 3 months ago, and was instigated by me spying on her phone. I saw a message between her and her girlfriend, who lives on the other side of the country, and it was about the guy my W had a crush on. He has a GF and he texted something to my W. Her friend asked if he was "jealous of me", and my W answered, "why would anyone be jealous of my H". It really pissed me off. I confronted her, and her attitude was that it was as if she was talking to her girlfriend and it is not what she really feels. She compared to to guys talking in a bar and complaining about their wives.
She told me she just doesn't feel "in love" that much with me, and maybe it will come back.
On the other hand, she has been wearing her wedding ring because I asked her to. As I mentioned earlier, we have traveled alone together. In February of 2015, she would hug me in the morning and showed love much more. It decreased, and recently it increased slightly again. She will kiss me goodbye when she leaves. She invites me to join her in social activities. She does defer to my wish if I press it. A couple of weeks ago, the guy she had a crush on, invited her to join him to fly some other friends up to Napa Valley -- he has a pilot's license. She texted me about noontime about the invite, saying she wanted to go, but added a smiley face meant to convey anxiety about what I would think. I replied to the text, "I'd rather you not go". She replied, "OK". and she didn't go. When I got home, she was walking past the door, stopped, greeted me with a kiss, we spoke briefly, but because there were other people around that was it. We never spoke about it. I'm glad she didn't go, I do wish she would have turned it down, without asking me about it.
I mentioned this before, and I see it strongly. My wife's MLC has lead to permanent changes in her. She is more physically active, she is much more social, and she is much more assertive. Socially, it is as if she cannot say no to an invitation to go out.
In September I had scheduled for us to go to Retrovaille. She was going to go, but reluctantly. She didn't think it would make any difference, but would go to make me happy. We had to cancel and never went. Not sure if I should try again? She argues we don't have communication problems.
On the outer surface of our relationship, everything is good. However, I know internally because she has told me that she doesn't love me like she did. As I said, she'll kiss me goodbye, we have a regular sex life, and do things together, as a family, and individually. Really healthy. I think if none of the recent history of the past 3-5 years of our relationship existed, I would not even think twice about our relationship. Because of the history, knowing what she thinks, it bothers me from time to time.
We were in the hot tub last night, and we had a conversation that touched on age. My wife said how women after 40 lose their "value" much faster than guys. She also told me she is going to see her GYN in a couple weeks and will ask about hormone therapy. She said sex feels "muted" and she has a few other symptoms, albeit slight, of menopause. I wonder how much such therapy would change our relationship?
