I'll give you the Cliff Notes version first wife had an affair with my best friend off and on for two years. She is remorseful and we're attempting recovery but I'm having trouble feeling attracted to my wife. We are having sex and it's great physically but I don't feel an emotional connection to her and was hoping to find out if that will hurt our recovery and if it's healthy. I spoke to my wife about it and it Really upsets her to hear me say that. I tell her that it is not that I don't find her attractive it's just every time we have sex I think of her and the OM And it's like it sucks all the joy out of Our lovemaking. So I thought I'd start This new thread to see if anyone else had this problem and how they've gotten past it I could really use some help as I think it will hurt our recovery.

Mitt,

You are normal bro. What you need to do is spend time working on a ROMANTIC relationship. What are your top 5 en's? Is she meeting them the way you like them to be met and enough?

CV

These thoughts will not go away before you have had sex with your wife, aproximately 100 times - then they will probably wear of. This doesn't mean that they will not be creeping up sometimes. The best thing is to prepare and immediately think of something else.

Or maybe treat the two of you to a spa day, you can take baths together there too, as to cleanse yourselves?

Just do it often, it will be the first steps of many and you will probably feel good and bad at the same time, but some day you will notice in hindsight, that you don't think of it quite so often as you used to.

Happyheart

my top EN's are

1.Openness and honesty
2 sexual fulfillment
3 Conversation
4 Recreational Companionship
5 Affection

And my wife's are

1 Admiration
2 sexual fulfillment
3 affection
4 Family commitment
5 Conversation

I followed your advice and took my wife out for the day to a spa just out of town. She really enjoyed yourself and kept going on about how sweet I was and how much you love me and how great I treated her. When we got back home we had SF and still the same problem is this something I should be concerned about or just follow the policy of fake it till you make.

Sounds like you hit a home run in filling her romantic love bank. She felt emotional attachment as a result of this.... However, did this hit a home run in YOUR OWN romantic love bank? I'm guessing not.

You need to find the things that also meet your own RC, that allow her to hit home runs for you too... KWIM?

KWIM? what does that mean

Know What I Mean?

thank you

Take this with a grain of salt - my DH and I haven't dealt with infedilty - one of our favorite RC activities that is almost sure to end in SF is going to the gym together. DH lifts weights, I usually will lift when he's home, then we do our cardio together, sometimes grab dinner, and come home. I believe it's a combo of watching him lift weights and for him after I wander off to the treadmill while he's racking his weights there's always a man or two that comments on how lucky he is that his wife is involved and spending time with him (or that's what he says they say!). It's by far one of our most productive RC. He's gotten me up to bench pressing 65lbs.

We also (did) some pretty tough hiking for a while, and that was really good for us.

I'm an outdoors person, though, not sure how your wife would feel about these things. And, I lift weights so I can ride my (somewhat) crazy horses effectively and compete next year.

my wife and I do love to run together we haven't done it since before D-Day I think it's something we should get back into thanks for the tip.

Comic #1: How do you get a man interested in sex?
Comic #2: Show up naked. Bring Beer.

Mitt: Hiking, jogging, working out, golfing (our favorite), ANYTHING that interests you both, and provides a pleasant sojourn is exactly what is needed. I once read a quote (either from some radical feminist, or Benjamin Franklin) to the effect that the best way to interest most females in SF is engaging in twenty-four hours of foreplay - in other words, the quality of the couple's interaction for an extended period of time before the possibility of SF is introduced.

Please remember that it is only a few weeks ago that your whole world came caving in and everything you knew changed. That's a lot to come to terms with. You would be a very cold and uncaring person if you would be able to just forget it and act as though nothing happened. That you have trouble placing this and giving it a place in your mind, shows that you have a good caracter and are very human.

That is not something to worry about! You will certainly learn to give those bad memories a place and things will get better as long as the two of you pull this wagon out of the mud. But you will get dirty in the process. Don't expect things to be joyous all of the time too soon. If your mother died, you would not be surprised that you would have tears in your eyes, at work, christmas and so on, everything that reminds you.

In this case you experienced something you never expected, was stabbed in the back so to say by your own troops. It takes time and new actions and history between the two of you, so that you will get back the connection you almost lost and build a stronger union than before.

You are admirable.
Good things will be coming your way.

Happyheart