Looks like the response I started to write last night - and then abandoned based on how tired I was - was posted anyway. I blame my iPhone app :
Anyway, here are quick responses to your 4 points:
1. I rarely act based on periods on heightened emotion these days. Typically, I remove myself from the situation and only attempt to revisit it much later (I give myself a day or two - sometimes maybe even a week).
Likewise, I try very hard to avoid decision making during periods of particularly high conflict or intense emotion. That is, i do my best to be a rational decision maker. In fact, that is part of my problem ... I have been thinking about this and mulling it over - literally - for years. I have, for the most part, felt these same things through many a season with my wife (even before she became my wife). In large part, our relational difficulties exist when we are "doing well" though maybe more muted in tone during those times.
2. As far as difficulty with emotional intimacy is concerned, i would not say I have major issues here (though one could argue that I have become more reserved in forming attachments with the passing of each failed relationship). Also, I should clarify on the BDSM. It seems that you assume that it and emotional intimacy are exclusive of one another ... This is not the case at all. In fact, if done properly, BDSM can take the intimacy in a relationship to a whole new level of depth.
What really is going on here, however, is that while my wife and I can independently form intimate connections - we have always had a hard time forming and maintaining one between ourselves.
3. On the notion of PD, I did a quick look up on this and can only conclude that my depression falls in this general category - but there isn't a whole lot additional going on that also falls under PD. in fact, I have been consistently in IC and medicated for the better part of 17 years now - with some small breaks along the way. So I'd like to believe that my counselors have it right in the way they've been administering my treatment.
4. You are quite perceptive about this past point - that without thinking about it, I often don't use the word love to describe my relationship with or my feelings for my wife. My brother and father have similarly called me out on this one as well. In fact, talking with my brother today, it became clear that he is convinced that I don't love her. He can't figure out why I am so adamant about working on this relationship - since he thinks it isn't love.
My position is that there is a basic core of love that I feel for her - but it is almost completely obfuscated by the broader context (as well as the specifics) of our interpersonal difficulties.
In many ways, we just "clash" as people ... Though, despite this, we both remain drawn to one another.
This may all be moot now. Apparently, this morning, she told the boys that I was going to have to move out because we are having problems ... Though she hasn't drawn any lines or demanded me to actually leave
She says that at this point, she just wants a resolution one way or the other - and she wants it now.
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