And by to it I mean her

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38539016)

And by "it" I mean "shit"

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38539829)

im not a therapist but I would suggest you exhaust all the above first

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38539828)

Any scholarship on whether serially threatening divorce qualifies as emotional abuse?

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38539994)

She was also better at hiding her mental illness before kids and we had way more fun when we had more time to just hang out and be lazy together. So it's really only since kids that her brain fully broke, and I would say 60% of it is that she really wanted a girl but had difficult pregnancies and enjoys parenting toddlers/pre-schoolers much less than she thought she would, so we've decided to stop after two kids. We had this conversation 5 months ago where she basically admitted that she felt like a worthless failure and wanted a career now, but doubts her own ability to make it happen. I have tried to be supportive, but she also basically refuses to accept that she is depressed and needs to seek treatment for it, so it's just a disaster end-to-end at this point.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38545106)

Happiness is a choice, man. She can choose to be happy about having a hard working husband, two-healthy beautiful children, a nice house, etc., or she can choose to mope about lost opportunities, a wasted life, lack of career, etc. It's really that simple; it's just a shift in perspective.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38545152)

She would also claim that I should have done more to foster a physical relationship. She generally claims that the root cause of our physical relationship problems is that I made her feel like all I wanted was sex and our physical relationship lacked intimacy, and when she told me this I didn't change so she became closed off. I would retort that I did a lot to try to make her feel comfortable, and she was constantly rejecting me for like a decade. I would also say that the root cause issue is that her immigrant parents would physically beat her and scream at her when a boy called her house in high school and she's fucked up and needs to deal with her shit, and I would be happy to do whatever I can to help if she would take this seriously. At various points in the past she's admitted that this is an issue, and we've even done "sex therapist" exercises e.g. where she has to basically let me lightly touch her and try to enjoy it, but it's not something that a "touch" exercise can solve because it's resulted in a her being depressed generally and just not able to "self-actualize" or whatever in any phase of her life. Both her sisters are the exact same way. Her older sister just got divorced and my wife watching her go through that is the main reason why she backs off these divorce threats eventually.

So I basically stopped trying regularly to initiate anything even in the few years before kids and after kids it's just completely off the radar for both of us. When I'm horny I just wait for her to go to bed so I can watch porn. So we've had sex like maybe 15-20 times since 2010. And of course she's found porn on various devices and an escort ad once or twice and assumes I'm fucking whores on the reg.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38545879)

Wtf does this even mean. How does a focus on sex negate intimacy in a physical relationship?

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38546915)

but there is also a nearly indescribable element here that is very clearly missing from your relationship (based on the way you describe your issues) and you may have the ability to open yourself to it. but it is a mental/emotional switch with an action potential requiring enough oomf to get to the other side and click into place. this is what your wife is craving and does not have the tools available to describe exactly how to get there, resulting in the present miscommunication and bitterness

even worse, there is a feedback loop making it more difficult to cross this barrier (requiring more effort) and easier to get into the routines and troubles of inefficiently transmitted emotional energies

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38547129)

pushing too strongly in one direction will get you further away from the goal. what I attempted to describe previously involves a certain amount of passivity

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38547191)

imagine a car with a small mechanical problem that isn't repaired properly and just gets worse and worse overtime until there are major issues

you didn't do anything "wrong" here and seem to be putting in quite a bit of effort. it's a simple communication issue because often men and women don't even speak the same language

the bottom line is she needs something she does not know how to ask for

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38547371)

but the resentment which has built up is obviously a barrier to improvement all around in this situation

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38548626)

Sounds like you're a workaholic and can't fuck her good or provide any emotional satisfaction.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4303838&forum_id=2#38547093)