WW is onboard with trying to save the M

[JGuy]

Are you the emotional one, JGuy? My wife has always had issues expressing herself in a deep sense - while I always have been the one to want to have deep, meaningful conversations. She was always 'lets go out and get a few in us and see what happens!'.
I was the homebody who wanted to snuggle and talk about life.

Yes, exactly! I was always the one who was interested in deepening the emotional intimacy. Talking about our feelings, doing the real work of tending to the MR. I was often frustrated because I could sense there was a problem we needed to work through together, but my W would just always avoid it and sweep it under the carpet. Early on in our MR, before we were engaged, I was very frustrated by this feeling of "hitting the ball to her, but she would never hit it back". It's like she just always tried to manage everything on her own, without any real collaboration. It made for a lonely feeling, which I eventually accepted, stopped fighting against, and learned to focus on the other ways that I could connect with her and love her. I was the one who had read many self help books and who was more practiced in long term relationships in general, so in this sense I was always the stronger one.

Given this imbalance, it's ironic that she is the one who ended up cheating on me. It's significant, I think, that she never continued any affair with a single person. She just kept longing for something more and getting caught up in one fantasy after another by projecting her hopes on other guys. Many of them were just crushes that never went anywhere. Only two of them went further into mutual feelings, the PA 2 years ago and the more recent EA. She never did end up finding the real emotional intimacy she was looking for, but she did find her longing for it. I think this is good, since the longing is healthy, but she chose to respond to it in a very unhealthy and irresponsible way. What she longs for has been available right here, with me all this time, and she is only now just starting to look at how her own issues are a major reason why it is blocked. The IC is helping her see how she has deep habits of avoiding intimacy, which she is repeating with me in the same way she avoided being close with her parents.

I know I sound like I'm putting all the blame on her again, so for the record, I want to say that I'm not closed to seeing how I may have contributed in some ways to blocking the emotional intimacy as well. I was demanding and critical of her at times when I was frustrated and fed up with my own needs being ignored and I think this may have reinforced her own patterns because when I behave in demanding and critical ways, it is similar to her parents. It's confusing though, because it's very valid for me to feel frustrated when she is repeatedly unresponsive to more gentle requests to connect and talk through issues. I'm trying to think of what could be a better way of handling my frustration in that situation, instead of becoming demanding and critical. I want to do my part.

Have you started any new hobbies? Do you exercise?

Yeah, I have fulfilling hobbies. I am artistic, musical, and I enjoy working on the house. I am also a ski mountaineer and I just got out in the backcountry yesterday with some good friends. My face is sunburned today... ouch! I didn't think I'd need sunscreen in December!