New M, new WAW

[mako]

I was here almost 15 years ago, M#1 ended in D. A short time later I met a new woman who became my W. Unfortunately, I am back. I guess I didn’t learn anything after all? Anyway…

W and I have been together ~12 years, married almost 10, I'm 41 she's 40. Three kids, 9S, 5S, and 4D.

The big issue with us: I'm bad with sex and affection. I like it and never reject my W, but I'm poor at initiating both sexual and non-sexual affection. It's just not how I show love, I'm more of an acts of service and quality time person, but it is what she needs. This has been a problem here and there throughout the M. She would ask for more, I improve for a while, then I backslide, she gets resentful and goes cold and distant, I feel pushed away so have even less desire to be affectionate, vicious cycle. 

Early 2018 we had a big fight. About this and other things she was unhappy about. She says during this she wants a D. She says to just leave her alone and let her do her thing. So I do, I basically do DBing for a while. Things improve. No further mention of D. But whenever I do try to meet her needs she is not very receptive and overall still feels distant.

End of 2018, she goes back to work after 7 years. This was always planned so nothing weird here, but she worked a ton. Like by Fall 2019 I am basically a single parent much of the week as she’s gone all the time. I have no reason to believe there was an OM, she said the other day there was not and she just did this to stay away from the failing M. I believe her.

Fall 2019 we have a huge fight about this stuff. I had built up a lot of resentment that she was never home anymore—like I said, acts of service and quality time--so my needs were never met. She even totally forgot middle son's bday. Her needs obviously weren’t being met either so she remained resentful herself. The fight doesn’t go well, she tells me she wants me to move out of the bedroom to a spare room. I say no, if she wants to leave she can. She does not.

At this point I went to IC for about 5 months, trying to figure things out, both with myself and what I wanted with the M. Of course part of it was do I really want to stay married to her. Ultimately I decide yes, if things can improve. 

I figure if this is to get better one of us has to change something so I decide to be nicer. We go on some dates, which we hadn't done in forever. I feel like some progress was made over the first few months of 2020. I write her a letter about how I feel about her and the things I’d like out of our MR. We have done this from time to time in the past and me expressing my feelings and needs is a big 180. She ignores it. I try to talk about it, she doesn’t want to. I drop it, but this really pushes me away.

Then the pandemic hit, IC stops, the kids are home all the time, both of us are working at home trying to manage work and school and parenting. It is busy and stressful and we go back to focusing on anything but the M, we slide easily back into the rut of being basically roommates.

At some point I re-read DB. I knew we were in trouble. Since 2021 started she became even more distant, on weekends she might stay in bed the vast majority of the day just listening to music and being on her phone. We were living separate lives in the same house. I did not feel she was in a place to work on the M so I never pushed anything. I was always kind of thinking “let’s let her find herself a better place first” and that was probably a mistake as it was just too long. In the mean time I work on myself, always try to be a good dad, improve diet and exercise, rekindle some hobbies I’d dropped. Other than the M I am pretty good with how life is at this point.

Last week she told me she wanted a D. I was not all that surprised after the past few months. She accepts that we are both to blame, but doesn’t really want to talk about it much, she already accepted the death of the M and won’t go to MC. I didn’t beg or plead or any of that kind of stuff other than asking if she would try MC, tried to be as validating as possible.
 
So where are we and why am I here? I am not sure. We have not had a real loving M in either direction for several years, no one’s needs have been met for a long time. If I'm honest with myself, the real bomb was in 2018 and the M was basically dead since then. If I'm really honest with myself: I probably wasn’t that far from being a WAH myself if not for the kids. In other words, the status quo was not working and if that’s all that’s left then D is the right thing to do.

At the same time I am hurting and am quite sad. I know that we were in love and think we could get there again, I’d love to go back to where we were a few years ago when we enjoyed each other. That was a long time ago and might be too far at this point, but I would like to try and see what happens. She said I am still her best friend but the D is the best thing for her and that’s that.

Believe me, I’m not surprised at any of this, she has spent a long time without feeling loved. I feel terrible about that part, especially since I should have known better having done this before—I hope it’s clear that I fully understand why I’m here and what I could have done differently. I was also way too passive in hoping she would get into a better place without me doing anything, but I can't do anything about that now.

FWIW, my relationship with the kids seems great. We have not told them anything yet. My heart aches for them and how they will deal with this.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Thanks for reading.