Ask Lemmy

In a fight for my relationship. We stumbled into a relationship after a mishap that got her pregnant. I only noticed when she got a belly showing at 5 months as she had not told me and assumed I would leave her the second I knew. She had already decided to have it with or without me.

Proceeded to have another two kids while she slowly but surely withdrew from any partnership activity. Learned after ten years of wondering what's holding her back that she is the anxious avoidant relationship type and due to her forcing herself to have very infrequent sex with me anyways, she picked up a sexual aversion up along the way.

Apologized for my role in that, I obviously noticed her lack of enthusiasm but didn't think much of it as she offered infrequent but of her own volition. I asked her to go to therapy either alone or as a couple but she refuses. We live together while being officially separated.

I love her and am not interested in anybody else while she claims I should just find somebody else while getting very aggressive when the opportunity presents itself. (I obviously don't partake)

Shit gets dark and lonely regularly, she can't even hold me in her arms. The kids love obviously helps but it's not the same.

As people of that relationship type do, she drifts from flirty and nice to being angry and hurting me with the intention of keeping me at a distance within weeks, sometimes days.

I bought a book that opened my eyes, which pretty much reads like our diary. Put it in the living room and told her about it. She won't even touch it nor acknowledge that she has a problem. Obviously its a problem for me not for her that she decided to never have a relationship or sex ever in her life again.

I mourn the years I lose while waiting for her to find back to the woman I though I had met. I regret that my children have a steady home but no good example how a healthy relationship looks and I fear that this might last until my kids are all moved out and I'm about 60 and decide to give love up myself for good.

For various reasons leaving is not an option I'm willing to choose. Mainly because I have a responsibility to my children and my wife not to abandon them even if she has psychological trauma she needs to process. (Both parents not being available emotionally at all and growing up with an alcoholic step father and lots of violence in her home.) There is also a small chance that my wife might hurt the kids if I'm not there to intervene, has happened before in small ways which she denies obviously.

As long as I fight for this home daily and keep everything stable everybody is happy but me. Its hard and has already taken a toll on my health, but I keep fighting the good fight and hope one day life will be bright again.