you are absolutely right about the W needing to put some effort in. Even in just the past few months, it seems like the few topics we have talked about, we have gone over and over and over with no real progress.
BTDT. H and I would go down cheeseless tunnels all day and night. Wanted to bang my head against a wall.
I've got to get her to start reading some of these books or something. She did get on ivillage for awhile and was reading about "clashing libidos" but I think that lasted for all of two days. The W and I were doing Dr. Phil's Relationship Rescue workbook for awhile there, but she said that she hated it because it was too sad.
My H did the same thing! I bought SSM and he made it through a few chapters and said it was too depressing and made him feel bad. No sh*t sherlock Talk about only wanting to deal with happy/good/painless feelings. He drove me batty.
A few months after we were first seperated, we were in MC and I remember an incident beginning of December, H and I were on the couch and I was trying to give him a kiss (at this point the C encouraged us to have some physical/sexual contact), well, my H made this tight lipped face and needless to say, the kissing was a bust.
I didn't realize it at the time, but that was a turning point for me. I was SO HURT but all of a sudden, I no longer felt desperate to make it work. I looked at him and thought, this is about you and not me. I have been busting my butt the last 3-4 months and you are going to insult me by not even giving me a little kiss. Ugh. I was looking great, working out, dressing sexy, being sexy, being confident, holding stimulating conversations, etc etc.
NONE OF IT WAS GOING TO WORK UNTIL I TOTALLY DETACHED AND GOT MY OWN LIFE. Until then, he thought all of this was "for him" and not sincere. Well, I showed him differently and went on with my life, had an amazing R with OM, brought out parts of me I wasn't even sure were in there, made me feel incredible about myself, just like your OW did. H needed to here about this R otherwise he was not going to understand how/why I had changed. You need to share these feelings with your W too. She will not change until she UNDERSTANDS where you are coming from. I think she assumes you are just going to go back to being "normal" Globule and life goes on, "we'll just forget about the A", FAT CHANCE. Like I said, it changes you as a person, and in our cases, I think it is for the BETTER. I feel so much stronger and more confident about myself, don't you?
I need to go pick up D from school now but I'll write more later. Hope you can relate to most of this. I feel better just writing it to you