Wife is irritated again. I'll be honest as I just was with her, I'm kidding myself and all of you if I said I was 100% positive nothing outside of our marriage was going on. I apologize for choosing to defend my wife's feelings over telling you all how I really feel. I have no proof. All I can say is that she shows no affection to me at all and it hurts. I told her the "burden of proof" shouldn't be on me snooping around until I find something. The feeling of uncertainty should mostly go away when I see and feel affection and love. I don't right now so I consider the possibility despite the odds that something might be going on because I have no reason telling me otherwise. With a four month old, two children, no odd behavior on her part, all of it adds up to nothing. The one thing I base this off of is the fact that she shuts me out and has shown a pretty poor track record of improving this despite my clear cut communication that this is my most important EN. I asked her tonight if she would snuggle with me on the couch and she ignored it. She sent a text and did a couple of things on her phone. She said it "went over her head" which might actually be true. To her credit she also politely asked if I could ask that only after the baby goes to bed. Something like this spoke volumes about her effort to meet this EN of mine. Something this small is enough to make me consider the possibility of an affair. I don't know if it is worse to consider a spouse might be having an affair or to be a spouse that is not having an affair and knowing their husband doesn't fully believe them. Either way it sucks for both and one thing I know for sure, is we will not progress further until she puts this thought to rest. I freely admit to you all that we are not making progress. My wife did her first post and showed me one response. She said some things were helpful but that you all blasted her quite a bit too like you did to me. To her credit she is reading HNHN right now which is great. She definitely is curious at the replies in this forum but she also at this stage in the game told me that it just causes us to fight and is harmful. Tell me it gets better please.

The good news, Hill, is that YOU have a measure of control over aversion and fighting. That's great news, in fact! She's told you why there is a problem, now dig into the why's and fix them. You are in an enviable power state right now. Ask her what would make her feel like having sex. Stop her if she starts talking about why she won't. Tell her to put it on the LBQ, because right now all you want to know is what DOES make her feel like it, and the discussion of the don't's is on the schedule. [note a time, agree on a time, you two do need to discuss that, just not all at once] NO SEX happens until you both are in enthusiastic agreement about it, remember?

SHE IS HERE. You're golden, man. I'm happy for you!!!

I asked her the question about what DOES make her feel good in an email right now. We'll see what she says. I know what DOESN'T turn her on quite clearly. Her EN email to me about a month ago described "pleasant day = pleasant feelings = sex". We've had many pleasant days so that isn't it. It obviously takes a lot more than not fighting for her to desire sex with me.

Also in these two pages was the description of "sexual aversion". I'm fairly certain my wife was telling me in her own way that she has an aversion to having sex with me. Not only does this not feel good, but it scares me on a bunch of different levels. I'm afraid my insecurity in this relationship is far from healed and if my wife can't mentally get past this aversion, it might make the path to that healing much longer.

You could be right about it just being too many LB's. I assume you are referring to AO's based on something my wife wrote on her post because I've never discussed it here in this thread? I do get frustrated and clam up for sure.

I might even be angry at times, but AO's are definitely not something I do very often unless I'm being yelled at. In fact I think my wife would describe me as a very calm individual that thinks quite a bit before speaking.

I say this next part knowing that this forum is not about trying to disprove the other spouse's argument ok? I tell you because it made me think of AO's and how they affect me in my marriage. My wife when she gets frustrated with me pointing out something that she's done or not done that is hurtful or makes me feel bad, she typically raises her voice just below a yell in frustration.

My wife to my face has described me as having a temper which is pretty much way off the mark. I've seen a temper in some friends and so has she, I don't have one at all. I think she is referring to my habit of holding things in and then letting several out at one time rather than bringing them up right when they occur? I really don't know, I'm sure we'll find out.