Thanks for the advice and you shouldn't feel bad about giving it. Often we are great at giving advice when we can't seem to follow the same advice ourselves. It doesn't mean it's bad advice. Anyway, yea, I will talk to her. I think that is a forgone conclusion but it's WHEN I do it that is still in doubt. As for knowing what they will say to most things, I think that's where we make a BIG mistake. I THINK I know what she will say to most things, but often I am wrong, or if she does respond in a certain way, it's often because I ask the question a certain way, NOT because she really feels that way.
As for the intimacy issue, yea, I know, tenativness is not sexy, but then again, neither is a woman who recoils at the slightest attempt at physical affection. Until we get to the root of that, I have NO chance to take a risk. Even if she didn't do that, it would be big for me to initiate things.
Here's the thing, I was NOT always like this. I WAS affectionate and DID go out of my way to be romantic and "initiate" things but when you are with someone who NEVER, and I really do mean NEVER initiates those kinds of things, you start to feel less like doing them yourself. Things start to feel one-sided. Sure, we talked about that and she always said it was because she just felt like it was the man's job to do that. Ok...
So, I've been over all that here before, but it really is to the point now where EVERYTHING else in our life is "normal" or better. We are getting along GREAT, having more fun and light-hearted convos, parenting better, doing more things as a family, watching movies together (not done much of that in awhile) and, well, just living together better than ever. Add to that my new look, LOTS of comments from women in my life, including my W's best friend about how great I look and that I'm "hot", and you get total confusion about why my W would still be resistant to me. To me it's either that she needs more time to believe in my changes or the OM is still alive and well, preventing her from doing certain things with me. Hell, it could be guilt, I don't know, but the message is VERY clear to me, and it's not my old insecurity at work here, this is different. It's beyond a vibe.
Anyway, like I keep saying, I am willing to give that time. It may be sorted out by a conversation, maybe not. What you can count on is that I will NOT be tenative when she is ANY less resistant. I fully realize that I have been guilty of being passive at the best and a total turn off at the worst. I can't claim to know just how to turn that around, but I know what NOT to do and I will start by keeping that in mind. Whatever I think is the best thing to do, I will do the opposite...lol.
This is a real problem for me/us, and I feel maybe the biggest one of our marriage. I am not going to approach it lightly, but I am also not going to put it off indefinetly.
