Working on me and letting it play out

[Accuray]

cbtdad, I completely understand your frustration. Being in a relationship with no sex or physical affection is torture and breeds resentment. That resentment can seep into your life in ways you didn't anticipate.

MWD sent out a marketing e-mail today that included the following:

"You've been fighting to make your marriage work. Be proud of yourself for your commitment to restoring the love in your relationship.

In the end, you can only do what you can do. Eventually, your spouse needs to get on board with your marriage-saving plan. You just have to make sure you've left no stone unturned."

While LBS's are always impatient, and there is a great tendency to want to be rewarded for our positive changes as soon as we make them, there is a reciprocal danger of being too patient and accepting too much.

It is not reasonable to expect you to stay in a sexless marriage. You may want to discuss with your IC how long you will tolerate that in your relationship. Have a timeline. When that timeline elapses you can always decide to extend it. If everything else is going well between you, perhaps its a subject to bring up in MC. It's never fun to rock the boat, or to invite difficulty when so much difficulty has found you all on its own.

My ex was low-desire in our marriage. She really had a non-existent sex drive of her own. If your drive is mismatched it creates all kinds of bad dynamics between you.

At some point I think you'll need to establish that a sexless marriage is not acceptable, and that your marriage needs to be a higher priority than "no priority" on her landscape.

Acc