In need of support and opinions

[NotATLDave]

hh,

Nonetheless I have tried to be more mysterious, independent, attractive, less needy, more friendly, less pressuring for answers etc for about 2 months. I have seen some progress, but there is no intimacy, and I am wondering now if there ever really was any.

You can ride a unicycle around the house and balance chairs on your head and she's not going to respond. You won't be able to seduce her either. I don't have time to explain it right now but the real solution ends up seeming "easy" in comparison to other's advice and can affect change quickly. The best part of this process is that you will heal your own personal issues as a side affect of working through the SSM issue. I have found the increase in my sex life to be almost insignificant compared to the changes I've made in myself. Just hang in there and don't do anything nutty yet.

BTW. The travel thing is a real bummer. My W would rather go to movies rather than dinner dates. But I think both of these things are indicative of something in the situation.

Listen man, I've been there and done all that with the same pathetic results. It only fueled my anxiety (or insanity) about the situation. Be very careful when it comes to doing 180s and "diet book" solutions. By "diet book", I mean that a lot of self help authors throw out "do x,y,z and you'll be fine" and what usually happens when you start a diet? Don't spend any time worrying about love languages, 180s, being mysterious, playing games (like making her think you have some 'action' on the side), etc. This is a waste of time at this stage of the game and will only make her think "geez, I guess I really didn't know him to begin with". What you should try to do is be the *you* that she married. You may feel like the same person today, but you've made some concessions in the interest of "peace" and "compromise". In this process, you've sold yourself out to some degree. This happens in all relationships and the LD spouse is like "marital carbon monoxide detector" even if they didn't want to be. One of the best things to understand is that your W is wired in a completely different way than you.

I'll give you 3 pieces of advice to get started (This was the only thing I got out of 5 counseling sessions...grrrr)
1. Read PM (Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch)
2. Work on on your anxiety by any means necessary. It seems scary and unsolvable now but have faith that you can have results.
3. Don't worry about what she is thinking, or feeling...just focus on your own feelings about her behavior. ie. don't take responsibility for her moods, actions or feelings. Just focus on what YOU want and how you want to be treated. In a month or so, you will start taking a series of "stands" which will break the gridlock. Why so long? It will take a while to rewire your brain so that your thinking is "instinctive". This "rewire" is the real 180.