Two Harpoons and a Guinness

[MJontheMend]

mentioned yesterday that I need some help coming up with ways that I can distance myself emotionally from my wife without coming across as cold and angry.

You are looking at your relationship and what I said about emotionally distancing yourself through the wrong end of the microscope. What I was trying to indicate is that it from reading your post I got the impression that you have successfully emotionally distanced yourself. You don't sound cold or angry or miserable. What I am suggesting is that the reason you have been able to get along fairly well for the last couple years in your relationship is that you have to some extent, perhaps unconsciously, accepted the ways in which you are low drive for sex. What I mean when I say you have accepted the ways in which you are low drive for sex is that you have acknowledged that your drive for sex is lower than your drive to be a father who lives full-time with his children and your drive for sex is too low for you to want to try to have sex with someone who has indicated that they really don't want to have sex with you. I don't think there is nothing wrong with this. In fact, I feel pretty much the same way.

If you start making a plan to work on your relationship by doing things like not saying "I love you." on the phone with the hypothesis that this behavior on your part will lead to increased sexual behavior on the part of your wife, you are telling yourself that your sex drive is high enough to make you behave as someone who is willing to try to have sex with someone who has indicated that they are not interested and your sex drive is high enough to warrant engaging in behavior that may lead to a situation in which you will not live full-time with your children. There is nothing wrong with this either.

So, what it comes down to is that you have to figure out how high drive you really are in order to proceed with integrity. For instance, on your anniversary do you give your wife a card that says "You are the love of my life. You have filled my world with passion. I hope to spend eternity by your side.". If you do, I bet you feel kind of cr*ppy about it because you're a big fat liar. It's the HD partner's equivalent of faking an orgasm. Be nice, but be honest or at least be honest with yourself about your dishonesty. Be honest and give your wife a card that says "Thank you for being such a good mother to our children and a pleasant companion." or choose to give her a card that says "You're the greatest wife in the world" but at least acknowledge to yourself that you are making things worse in your relationship with your wife by being dishonest because the relationship with your daughters is more important to you and you are unwilling to risk it by honestly expressing your feelings.