abuse towards her and the girls.
My situation has allot to do with my relationship troubles from my own ignorance. I was, military, very verbally abusive towards the kids, not so much to my wife. Actually none. I just didnt live up the hype I did during courting of my wife. So, she felt not beautiful, or loved by me. And with the way I treated the girls, my step daughters ((one teen and one 5-10 years of age during the span)), I basically caused my wife to withdraw and leave me. Well, after two years of separation, we are back together. She was expecting the old mean guy, but I have changed due to me realizing I didnt like who I was. This is the good thing. The girls and my wife see the change, but are very cautious of it. Wife just doesnt have feelings for me anymore, zilch.
Many questions, many answers needed.. She and I are very civil, and are just doing things day by day.
Suggestions, comments, please. I can go on forever. I love my wife and girls, it just took me a while to realize I screwed up. I was married at the age of 36, and this was my first marriage.

Hi Steve, welcome to Marriage Builders. This program can teach you how to fall in love again but it is a very specific process. You do this by learning to effectively meet each others top emotional needs, avoiding lovebusters and most importantly, spending 20+ hours of undivided attention time meeting the top 4 intimate emotional needs of conversation, affection, recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment. That is how romantic love is created.

Start here: Basic Concepts

And pick up these books: His Needs, Her Needs, Lovebusters and the workbook, Five Steps to Romantic Love. These books have lessons in them that you should go through together. For example, at the end of each chapter there are lessons. There are exercises and worksheets in the workbook.

For your specific problem, I would start with the book Lovebusters in addition to scheduling 20+ hours per week of undivided attention time per week. There is a worksheet in the workbook you can tear out and make copies.

One important note: the program really does work to restore romantic love, but it does not work without the undivided attention time.

If you and your wife can't pull it together on your own with the books, Marriage Builders offers other options that cost money. They have an online program where you are assigned a marriage coach who takes you through the whole program. They give you all the books and you do weekly lessons. You have daily access to Dr Harley in addition to your coach. Many of us have gone through this course and have had great results. It runs about $1000 and takes about a year to complete.

Another option is phone counseling with one of Dr Harley's children. His daughter is a psychologist and his son is a trained therapist. They are both extremely good and will guide you through this program. I haven't checked recently, but I believe they charge around $200 a session.

My husband and I went through the MB course in 2007 and it made an amazing difference in our marriage.

And you can also listen to the free radio show every week day. They play a rebroadcast so you can listen to the last show for 24 hours. It is very informative. You can write Dr Harley on his radio show and get his help.

Thanks for the guidance

Also I would suggest to you that you suggest to your wife that you and she and the girls go for some family counseling so you can build their trust back.

And if you read MB, it is quite expected that your wife has no feelings for you. You have not been meeting her ENs and you have been Love Busting. You need to get back to doing the things you did when courting her and then keep doing them!
Otherwise it is like saying "I watered the flower until it bloomed and then I wonder why it died?"

Or if you think of it in a military way, do you train to learn a skill and then once you pass the tes, you do no more training? Even the military knows you have to have exercises to keep the skills you have learned. You need do that "courting hype" to keep up your wife's level of love for you.

Wife just doesnt have feelings for me anymore, zilch.

And you know that how? By her testimony? By the testimony of the person who is so gun-shy and unconvinced of the change you are committed to making to your behavior that she's likely, for her own protection, to downplay any possibility of full recovery?

Once, a loooong time ago, you met the woman who is now your wife, with no history and no affinity, and were able to court her and woo her into becoming your spouse.

Do it again.

And you have several things working for your efforts in this task that were not in existence then. 1) You have shared the upbringing of two daughters (hers, not yours) for which she must acknowledge a modicum of gratitude. 2) You have lived together for many years, and if you haven't determined what her "hot buttons" are (we actually refer to them as ENs) then you are significantly duller than your note would suggest. 3) You are living together NOW. Well, what needs to be done domestically today? (And why hadn't you attended to it yesterday?) Can you cook? Learn to be a GREAT cook! Does she enjoy reading, watching old movies, walking in the moonlight? Well, your boots are on the ground right where the need would arise, dude!

The books Mel gave you are superb! Applying what they contain is much more so. Get to work!