Keep Wearing Wedding Band?

[ForGump]

ForGump -- how are you doing?

Most mornings are hard, as my mind is still stuck in my home life, afternoons tend to be better, as my mind shifts away. I like my evenings because I spend it with my kids. I look forward to falling asleep, as an escape from my troubles. But I'm usually awakened in the early morning hours, and my mind is filled with the pain of losing my W, and I can't sleep any more after that. So I'm usually tired.

Your wife, if she's like mine, stored up grievances, perhaps for years, and it gradually caused her to lose sight of what moved her toward you initially. Do you have any visibility as to what those things are/were? Those are I think where you want your 180s to start if possible.

We had a lot of conflict from early on. So, not surprisingly, intimacy suffered from early on too. In the last few years I thought we had figured out how to live with each other, so actually before the BD, I felt quite content about our R, although I recognized that our sex life was poor. It wasn't the intensity -- when we got it on, I thought it was hot -- but it was infrequent, because she just wasn't responding to my initiating.

I think much of her grievances have to do w/ me being emotionally unintelligent, not being in tune with her feelings, and instead over-doing the practical things. So it's hard for me to do a 180 simultaneously while detaching.

I'm also wondering if you are GALing.

I thought I was doing it OK but this is a good reminder. I like doing things outdoors, and early on in our marriage she resented that I would go away for 1/2 day to do those things. Later she became much more supportive of those outings. But since BD, I really have not been motivated to do those things, instead choosing to do things w/ my kids.

I hope you'll post more about your sitch in addition to continuing to be such a help to others here.

My S8 finally asked me this morning why I'm sleeping on the couch. My IC said I should just tell him the truth (in a simple way). But I couldn't. I just said I'm more comfortable there, and he didn't question it.

I have to admit that much of my motivation in reading and occasionally commenting is that it simply helps me pass the time at work. I have trouble concentrating nowadays.

This forum feels cruel in a way, because all this DB talk gives you hope, like something could happen, yet everyone admits most DB fails... A lucky few save their marriages.