Should I give up?

[haggis]

This isn't about sex. It's about the fact that the two of you can't stand each other any more.

That's the weird thing of it. On the get-things-done level, we actually do quite well. We manage to communicate well regarding the kids, the house, the finances, all the stuff which makes up the bulk of a married couple's day-to-day interactions, we manage to do just fine.

But that's pretty much as far as it goes. Her friends aren't my friends, I don't really like to go out in public much with her because she gets very rude toward me. I have pointed that out to her a few times, and she just says that's what her (divorced) parents did, so that's what she learned. I understand the results of poor role modeling, I don't understand why one cannot change their behavior.

We exchange no information about our inner lives or what is going on emotionally.

So I guess that's why I'm confused, because on one level, everything works pretty well. On the other level...well, there's just nothing there, and I guess there hasn't been for years. Can something like that be jump-started to life again? If so, how? I suppose, if I have to spend a few more years at this, I might as well not leave thinking there is something else I could have done.

[Gigabitch]

I think you should go to a really good marriage counseling workshop. Steven W. Harley is awesome. Google him.

[Sonrisa]

what is it about you that she doesn't like?

[Gigabitch]

His wiener, apparently.

[haggis]

His wiener, apparently.

Exactly.

I mean, she's either getting some on the side, which she might be, who knows? Or, she's just utterly and totally disinterested in sex, with me at least. Is that common with women? I'm older but no uglier than when she married me, I kept the weight off, I'm an endurance athlete and physically very fit. Come to think of it, years ago, she did occasionally say that I wasn't exactly "her type," whatever that may have meant. I never paid much attention to it, honestly, I figured that she was just busting my chops. Maybe she wasn't.

Obviously, I've considered having an affair. I think it would probably be a bad idea, though.

[SirWagginston]

How long have you two been emotionally distant from one another?

[haggis]

How long have you two been emotionally distant from one another?

Hard to say. Looking back, it's been a gradual thing. I will say that what was left pretty much dropped off a cliff over the past couple of years. Part of it may be that there's no longer any "repair factor" in the marriage. In a relationship that functions better, the two of you can have a fight, but the wounds are eventually salved by the flip side of the coin, with shared love and intimacy. Here, there's no flip side. We have our arguments, no worse than any other couple, but the wounds never get addressed. They just scar over.