da one

Have you held someone and had them look at you...lovingly? My wife basicially never looks in my eyes when I "try" to hug her. When I come home from work and try and give her a hug she is normally inclined to push me away because she is "busy", but when she does let me hug her it is breifly and with her not looking at me or even sort of engaging in the exchange. Have I spoken with her? Of course. Many times. But she only says and always says that tomorrow or then next day she will sleep in my bed. Once or twice in the last several years she did actually lay down in the same bed for an hour or so...curled up facing away from me. As far as talking to other people, her mother, her family, blah blah blah. Honestly my "talking" has been making comments about how I have "slept alone" for years. I don't think anyone wants to engage in a conversation about it. Rather it is a "pink elephant" in the living room sort of thing. Everyone knows it isn't right but no one wants to bring it up. Have you had someone kiss you and look at you? Touched someone and had them "react" as though they enjoyed your touch and made an effort to return that touch? Or someone that reached out to touch you and gave you a loving look because they enjoyed and wanted to experience your touch? Well I don't get that. I didn't think I needed it....I really thought that would be the price of not breaking up the family. But what family. Me the dad, my wife that acts and spends, and runs around like my 18yr old daughter although she is 39, and my 3 children. My wife takes no responsibility for her actions, when I ask her to sleep with me and say I am lonely she says..."what about me?" Well there is only one master bedroom but she won't sleep there. I really think that while we care about each other I think she is "in love" with being taken care of and not at all in love with the caretaker....me. I am a pretty fit guy that works out 4-6 times a week and always have....I am not regarded as unattractive although after a few years of being alone it is easy to start to "feel" that way. I don't see a "cure" for this. My wife has no goals for herself. Nothing but perhaps another cosmetic surgery. No school, no personal growth aspirations, just nothing but maybe another shopping trip. Of course she would say she has no time for anything always saying she is a mother of 3. Regardless of the fact that two of the three kids are in school for half a day at least 4 days a week and we have a housekeeper 4 days a week. I don't get it? I really appreciate the comments that many of you have shared. Thank you for your time and sentiments.

So, married for 8 yrs. 47yr male. 3kds 3,4,6. Wife has not slept in the same bed with me for at least 4 yrs. Don't ask how we have a 3 yr old..it's obvious something happened... So when that did happen it was the same as most every other encounter. sort of cold and sterile. Just a physiological sort of need being met. I had actually already had a vasectomy and ended up having another..of all things to have to do twice. So my situation is that I did the morally wrong thing and had and am having an affair. Isn't it classic? I have never messed around and not even b4 i was married was I unfaithful in a comitted relatonship. (at least since my 20's) So now I am with this lady that looks at me, holds me, looks forward to seeing me, enjoys sex with me, is someone I have things in common with. But it is an affair. I realize that the intimacy I have in this affair is what my wife seemingly has no desire for, or perhaps the ability for. I have asked for years that she share my bed but I get...."you snore" "the kids need me" and/or whatever. I hadn't been held or touched for years. I had forgotten what it felt like and resigned myself to that being just part of my life. I thought it would be the price of being an "at home" father. Now...I wonder if that is all that great an idea. Do I sacrafice intimacy and the loving touch and embrace of a woman? Is that such a great environment for kids to grow up in? My wife and I had been in counseling for years. She was diagnosed as a "Borderline Personality". Of course I read about it and basically it seems in her case just an inability to have empethetic capacity for others. Certainly for me. I have said I am moving out and getting the d. I care about her and of course love my children. I can stay and live in my own room and be pretty emotionally empty for I guess the rest of my life...or...D. After all the requests (some loving and patient and some not so) I had really just given up. Then the unexpected and the unplanned happened and I ended up in someone else's arms. OMG, I had so forgotted what being touched by someone that finds me attractive felt like. I don't believe that counseling ever did anything for us. I don't think it will in the future. Call me closed minded but after 4yrs of counseling I have legitamate doubts. I am of the mind that I should move out, get the d, and move on with my kids, and whatever happens with my personal life happens but at least there would be "room" for someone that wanted to be intimate with me. What am I missing