She lost sexual attraction...

[Benji]

Hi all, posting again after a while - did not have any big things to share in the last month or so, and was mainly reading the forums and the recommended books. I apologize for a bit lengthier message.

First of all, thanks for the comments Steve85 - exactly as you said, subtle doses of QT have brought us some very good days. I read through the whole book of NMMNG, and got to a point where I want to read it again, start making notes and taking action. I also realized throughout the book that I have previously tackled some of the traits of the NGS by myself not even knowing about it. But there is still a lot of work to be done. I am taking baby steps now. One of the things I realized was making me miserable was masturbation as a compensation for sex. So I now stopped watching porn and took a break from self-pleasure for some time. Already feel a lot better. And the sex I had with my W in the meantime also felt better. When I feel ready, I want to try out the “healthy” masturbation that Dr.Glover writes about in the book.

I’ve used the time to focus on DB’n, and on that front I really feel a lot better. I’ve shaped up, working out regularly, reached a great physical form and plan to continue strong. When I’m working out I feel stronger and wiser, and have a feeling that whatever happens will be acceptable and that I’ll be able to cope with it. I know that this is not a completely realistic scenario, but since it has a positive effect on me, I plan to keep this routine and make 2021 the year of my best health and shape. I also started excelling at work, wrapped up a few big projects and landed a nice bonus for the end of the year.

I’ve read 5LL, No more Mr. Nice Guy, SSM, She Comes First, Love and Respect: The Love She Most Desires, Love Must Be Tough, pulled out the strategies that sounded like they can be applicable to my sitch, and am continuously working on self-improvement. I’ve completely eliminated the small things my W complained about, and am working on 180’n the situations that sounded upsetting for her. And it seemed like we are making progress on one hand, as we started spending more time together, she initiated sex several times and it wasn’t bad, but we completely stopped any R talk, as that was the agreement, before we start with the therapy. So in general - things mostly looked ‘normal’, however they looked like that for years before our ‘talk’ and she was still suffering without me knowing. So, I’m not raising my hopes up, but I feel we have a lot more good days and moments than we did initially in the first few weeks after she opened up to me. But it is pretty clear that every R talk will reignite the “bad” mood and will bring a few days of depressive atmosphere to our home.

And the therapy finally started. We had just one session so far - the therapist seems good, I had the positive “vibe” about it throughout the session, even in the tough moments. And there were a few, which I’ll mention below. It was just a first get-to-know-each-other session, she did her “screening” and suggested that we’ll probably need to meet a few more times until we actually start with the practical work and make a plan. Which sounded fair and reasonable to me. She suggested that we don’t talk too much about things that we find hard to talk about at the moment while we are at home (our R, and the attraction issue), until we get to a bit more stable emotional situation. Here are a few notes from the session that I mentioned before, that were a bit tough, and that I would appreciate some thoughts on from you guys:
First of all - I now realized that I had a misunderstanding of the duration of this issue. It turns out that this feeling of less and less attraction for my W started after the first 2-3 years of our R, meaning that it has lasted for more than 6-7 years now. As she says - in the beginning it was nothing too alarming, and it had ups and downs, but in the past few years it started getting harder and harder for her. It climaxed recently, and that is probably why I noticed. For me personally, it is not a great sign - because that means she’s been suffering for a lot longer than I thought, and also some of our core R values might not be completely true any more. On the other hand - despite all those feelings, she still decided to pursue R with me, and even marry me and have a child with me. And there was never really any reluctance for any of these two events from her - she even pushed for marriage harder than I did. As she says - she loved me all the time and still does, and still thinks I am the right H for her. Do you think that the duration of the issue makes the sitch significantly harder to overcome? I am also doing my best not to question all of the great (or maybe it was great just for me?) moments that we went through - but sometimes I really feel betrayed, and manipulated. I know this is wrong, but at some moments of weakness, I just can’t help it. What do you suggest as a coping mechanism for this? And should I bring this up in the therapy and ask for assistance as well? Or I should completely avoid that in the mutual sessions and keep this just for IC?
Second - she mentioned something that was not really surprising, especially now considering the length of the “issue”, but I can tell you that it did strike me in the heart. She said that before that moment (which she never clarified when exactly it was, or was it in any way tied to a specific event), she was so madly in love with me that she never even looked at anyone else. And when those issues started for her - she then occasionally caught herself looking at other men and thinking that maybe “the grass could be greener on the other side”. But that then, whenever she would compare any of the men she would find interesting with me - they would fall short and that she never met a man she would even remotely consider being as good for her as I was. I kept my calm, stated that I’m not surprised, and that I would suspect that there was someone else, which she immediately denied, saying that I did not get it right. There was nobody else, but that just the idea of thinking about other men made her feel bad and realize not everything is great between us. And honestly - I would leave it at that until the next session or so, but after the session, she lured me to the discussion by insisting that my head is now probably full of new information and that I’ll be creating crazy scenarios. Unfortunately I fell for it, succumbed and asked here if there is another person in the mix, or anyone that I should be aware of, considering the effort and dedication this will require. I believe that I should at least know what I am standing against. And not just me - the therapist as well. She wasn’t able to give me a simple yes/no answer… We were going back and forth about it, she was refusing to talk about it and just repeated “there was nothing concrete and there is no concrete person, there are some things that might not even be relevant, but I cannot talk about that with you now”. She suggested that she might need to talk with the therapist in an individual session. Somewhere in the discussion she raised the topic of monogamy, and whether that is completely normal - and why I would for example be against a partner getting sexually satisfied on the side to keep the peace at home. I almost lost it at that point, but decided to back up and set my boundary - I told her that this is not something I would consider, because I don’t believe in such a marriage, and that is nothing I signed up for. She did not say she wanted that or anything like it, and also decided not to further discuss as she started losing it a bit, but it left one more mark on me. The scenario I believe is likely - She doesn’t have any active affair at this time, I am almost sure about that as we’ve been isolated for months, all of our devices are accessible to both of us and she literally has no way of hiding anything that significant. The worst thing is - it was highly unlikely for anything serious to happen in the past 4-5 years as our daily routines were so stacked up, that there would be literally no space for the OM to fit in. For the period before that - I really cannot say now. She was always very judgemental about infidelity, and always treated that as one of the biggest sins you can do in your life. After all these discussions and new information, it seems to me that something happened with someone at some point. No idea how far that went, who that was and when it happened, but I don’t think it was recent. But it obviously left a significant scar, as she cannot speak about it but feels it could be relevant. On the other hand - maybe I’m completely wrong, and there is still someone in some way. What I would appreciate your thought on is - should I try to push and get more information on this in the therapy sessions where she might feel a bit more confident to share? I find it a bit challenging to completely dedicate my heart and soul to the therapy if I cannot trust my W, and when I can clearly see she is hiding something. I have already experienced a lot of pain from her side in the past months, I think now is the time to endure even more if needed - better than us waiting to make some progress and then having more things pop out as a surprise. Is it too much to ask to have all cards on the table now when we both agreed we want to fight to save our marriage?

And to add one more thing I noticed - she flinches about even the mention of the Big D word. I mentioned it once or twice and she immediately reacted, saying that is not an option, and that keeping our marriage needs to be the number one priority for us now. And I agree - but I am a bit confused about the contradictions in her approach. She wants to prioritize our marriage, while at the same time keeping secrets openly.

When things eased up a bit at home, we had a pretty useful discussion on what we both expect from the therapy and somewhat talked about what sex means for both of us. We realized that there is so much more to it than what we were doing, that we know so much about each other in every other aspect of life but so little about our sexual preferences, that it almost felt funny how we managed to not notice that during all these years. We agreed not to push anything in that field further until we get to a point where we are both ready to experiment, but also agreed that we both believe our sex can be not just as good as it used to be - it can also be better.

So that is pretty much it for now - I am still riding an emotional roller-coaster. I have awesome days, I have bad days. I try to focus on DB’n, work, exercise and time with the family. I still have high hopes that this can improve, but I also feel that every day I am a bit more ready for the worst case scenario as well.