WR, this one comment is so very very much fogspeak. It truly is. I haven't seen a single person yet say this who wasn't in some sort of affair, E or P. Or even just having a crush on someone else. I really think you need to double up your investigating.

Oh believe me, "I snoop, therefore I am." I'm going all that I can afford to. You don't think his draw to online porn and crush/EA and subsequent withdrawl are enough to root that in? Thankfully I know he isn't PA, just for lack of time, but ongoing crush or EA are harder to rule out. I think he's still crushing on college f___buddy, even though he has told me time and again that she isn't relationship material and is too messed up, etc.

The funniest thing... during his FIRST IC his counselor said perhaps H has a "neurotic obsession" with f___buddy leading to a "neurotic inhibition" for others (namely, ME)... I can certainly see him as obsessed, but apparently this line has been dropped (probably because H doesn't want to hear it)

I think his IC is right.

And don't forget...
They say WSs nearly always affair DOWN.

Oh yeah, this would SOOOOOO be affairing down. Many in his long-term circle of friends absolutely HATE this biatch with a fervor. Seriously, everyone who I know that has ever met her, with the exception of H, has dislike if not hate for her. Laughably, one old friend of his who really barely knew her knew OF her so well that when he heard what H was up to his eyes reportedly popped out and he exclaimed, "DISGUSTING! What's the interest? She's a walking STD!"

How long after NC does the withdrawl stick?

(I have not officially "exposed," though I have sorta exposed by refusing to keep up images to our friends.) The lovely thing, though, is that H now largely avoids many of his long-term friends because they have advised him to fight for the M... so???

Another totally random thought/question...

A female friend of mine was teasing that with H being so distant, I should probably look into a BOB (Battery Operated Boyfriend, aka vibe)

Anywho, this has never really been my thing, but it got me thinking... one thing H has always LOVED was watching me double click my mouse , etc... so she and I were chatting and thinking that even if I'm not all that into those, maybe I'd be more intriguing if I bought one of those without saying anything, left it in my bed (he's sleeping downstairs, but often in our room for the dresser, whatever) The thinking being putting him back into naughty thoughts about ME. Anyone wanna speak on this? Men folk?

Oh geez people, don't tell me that last question was just toooo much of a blusher?!? We seriously talk about SF and porn and orgasms here all.the.time!

Well, I've been following your story.

Your husband may not be an sa (pa is a form of SA), but I'm betting he's got some intimacy issues. I mean the non-sexual kind.

Your husband has been toying with fantasy for a very long time, and I'm suspecting he uses fantasy to deal with life. (Which, isn't particularly healthy). Not to put it bluntly, but I'm not quite sure your use of sex toys is going to fix his intimacy issues.

I think your husband fixing, healing himself will cause him to be fulfilled with you. I'm trying to say, likely this has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with him.

SA? The abbreviations here still confuse me.

I do believe he has some intimacy issues. Like I said, I'm not even interested in the toys independently because I frankly explored that years ago and found them pretty worthless, though if HE wanted to participate in something that would be another story, I guess I'm just trying to spur something that would make the divide between us a smaller chasm in a quicker space of time. Not only do I miss SF and Affection, but I worry about H going weeks without sex, because doesn't that kinda make him more likely to PA?

And as a side note, he soooo better have appreciated the bike ride today. I'm out.of.shape and my pelvis post kiddo is just too different for the normal bike seats. OUCH!

Still need to know that SA is... the abbreviations here sometimes kill me...

Anywho... so here's my latest report... we went out to dinner and a comedy club last night. (I was supposed to go to the gym with him, but after our morning bike ride, I was just not able, plus I had things I had to do for the sake of the family. (Like clean this hovel so we could have someone visit.)

The comedy club was alot of fun. He put his arm around me under the guise of seeing around someone in front of us. He stayed pretty glued to my side, though the few times I tried to hold hands earlier in the evening when we were mall-walking were met with an odd distance. He's truly Katy Perry Hot & Cold.

Today I had a class in the morning and he and kiddo met up with a female friend (mutual friend, 100% supporter of our M, immaculate trust in her) and I joined them a bit later. Later, he had to leave for work and she and I hung out, and she did mention that she called him out on some fallacies. (Particularly, she knew f___buddy back in the day, and recently saw f__buddys MySpace page with a blog directed RIGHT AT MY H. Friend told him how wholly inappropriate it is that f___buddy talks about H's wife being needlessly jealous because she would "never" blah blah, Friend called a spade a spade and told H point blank that he was fooling NO ONE, f__buddy has always and will always be only a source of problems.) I'm a little cheered that someone stood up and forced him to eat it, because when I tried to say the same things, he dismissed it, but he couldn't dismiss it to 20yrsFriendshipFriend. LMAO!!! ***small victory dance*** He couldn't wiggle there.

Still Plan A'ing right along as well as I can... if someone out there who is recovered can reassure me that absolute perfection isn't a must in Plan A, I'd be very happy, as I am a perfectionist and the stress level of trying a perfect Plan A is killer... no BS can do a PERFECT Plan A, right?

WR, no one can achieve perfection, can they? So no worries. You do what you do, and you learn along the way. Just like the rest of us.

If we were perfect, we would be God.

Weekend are ridiculously slow here, cos everyone is always taking care of stuff, especially on a holiday weekend.

IMO, I am all for making the spouse wonder what you are doing (aka the vibrator), BUT it is a no-no to 'trick' a spouse. That is lying. You don't like being lied to, do you?

Anyway, I believe that our spouses NEED to know that we do not offer unconditional love. They have to deserve our respect and love. So if they are being a schmuck, you don't owe them your unconditional love. They NEED to understand that.

IMO, the #1 need for all of us is honesty. I've been telling OH that you just have to determine to be honest. All the time. Only then can you both move forward - together. If he doesn't accept your honesty? Then he's the wrong guy for you.

So try setting that standard for yourself.

Honesty isn't his forte` at the moment, therefore I snoop

I am being as honest as I can be... I mean, I'm not divulging my snooping methods, or some of my deepest fears, but I'm certainly not hiding anything of consequence, and I hate hiding anything at all. I never really have, until all of this.

What trick are you talking about, Cat?

By trick I mean don't pretend you have a guy waiting in the wings just to get him jealous. Cos that is lying. You get nowhere by lying.

What I mean by honesty is that, every situation, you tell him exactly how you feel and what you think. That's all.

The reason I suggest this is that, moving forward, you stay true to what is happening to YOU, and therefore whatever he 'feels' (i.e., tries to manipulate you int going along with) is HIS to own. You have been honest with him; you have told him what it takes for him to GET to stay married to you. It is up to him to decide his own next moves.

That's what I mean by being honest. You will survive no matter what happens. You tell him what you will stand for. It is hs choice whether he listens to you.

At this point he doesn't want to "GET to stay married to me," so that's a little rough...

Then why do you want him?!

Why?

Where is the YOU in this relationship?

I don't see how my situation is all that different from others whose H's are in some kind of fog or another...

You have to understand, 4-8-12 months of work are well worth it to me. We've been together 11 years, and for all our little issues, we were happy. I'm telling you, something in him cracked. This ISN'T <MY> H. I take the "in sickness and in health" seriously. Many of our longtime friends, including people he has known for years longer than me, concur that something is just plain off. I can't just give up. I can't. I love him, the him I know is still in there somewhere under whatever the heck he's wearing outwardly now... I can't just let him screw up my life, my childs life and HIS OWN LIFE. So, while at the moment there is very little of me here in the EN sense, I'm willing to suffer through this little burp to get back to where we belong.

I know there is something really wrong here, I just can't quite put my finger on it. I can't place a target on the root here... whatever is happening here is either a chameleon condition or an insidious thing that will always direct deeper and deeper into a complicated root system. I don't know if he's still EA-fogged by f___buddy, or if this is rooted in his personal intimacy/fantasy issues coming to the surface, a run of the mill midlife crisis and/or nervous breakdown, a reaction to profound forced changes to his circadian rhythm, or if he's got a genuine porn addiction that has suddenly popped up with a side of lying? Or, perhaps my worst fear, that this is the tip of a late onset bi-polar or schizophrenic break.

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I was thinking that he just doesn't want to be married to you, that it was more to it like the addiction, but if this is only a temporary thing because of the EA, by all means work on it. I just got the sense that it was more than that.

How does one really tell the difference through the fogspeak? I mean, seriously, don't we hear it all the time that so and so wanted out but then the relationship was saved? I don't know that even HE knows what HE wants. (GRRR, Out damn alien!!!) His constant phrase is "relationship ambivalence" and "loves me in other ways but not romantically." (Which, again, 4 days before that little diddy of a news bulletin broke, he told a friend I was "the love of his life, center of his universe, best thing that ever happened to him."

SA=sex addiction
Porn addiction, if your husband has it, is housed under the umbrella of sex addiction.

Also, if your husband has tendencies to use sex/sexual fantasies to self-medicate (or numb himself from feeling), it's really best for you guys to be dealing with a counselor that deals with sex addiction. Normal, general marriage counselors aren't trained for this.

My husband has got intimacy issues, which is somewhat intertwined with his sex addiction.

At our worst, we were completely withdrawn from each other. We'd exchange maybe two sentences a day? We were having SF once ever 6-8 weeks. We also experienced a rapid decline after the birth of our child. Within two years after our child was born, our marriage fell apart completely.

I've also found that though my husband's addiction did not escalate to an EA or PA, his behavior here mimiced that of a Wayward Spouse. That's why I lurk here.

It's also why I said that the recovery of your marriage, is likely mostly in your husband's hands..

And I also wanted to mention that just because your husband isn't watching porn doesn't mean he's issue free. Unfortunately, I just found out what my husband used to store up for fantasy ..and it wasn't porn.

I'm not saying your husband is a SA or even a PA. I'm just relating my story, because *parts* of it are very similar to yours.

"store up for fantasy"? And did you ever get your H to acknowledge SA or intimacy issues...

See, the strange thing, I hesitate to call it SA, because H has had a lower libido since around say 30y/o (or at least, propositions less, though more than once every 6-8 weeks) And if SA was it, wouldn't the years of constant sex while trying to conceive have been a good thing in his eyes?

WR has this been asked already? Has he had a checkup to make sure that the cause for this isn't physical?

Also, I've never gone through infertility treatments but I've read that it can really depersonalize SF and that the effects can be long lasting.