beefenhauzer@comcast.net

First off let me appologize because I know this willl be a LONG post.

A little about me: I grew up being a party animal, always going out drinking, camping(with a bottle or two of jack with my friends),going out ect. I never lived on my own unfortunatly. I was the youngest of 3 and admittedly i was spoiled. I had previous relationships but I never really slept with many people, 3 to be exact. Sex was something i reserved for someone special (except for a dunk thing that i regret.)

A little about her: She grew up being the oldest of 5 and she was practically the mother for her siblings due to a bad divorce between her Dad and mom. She had a child while she was in high school and the father skipped town as soon as he knew she was pregnant. She lived as a single mother for a while and then was with someone who had several kids of his own and from what I understand she was the one raising them for the most part. they split up (never married) and she was once again a single mom.

How we met: My father owned a small convienence store which i was running for a while and she needed to work a second job to support her and her son. We hit it off and began to date and i fell deeply in love with her. I began to fall in love with her son and started to think of him as my own. About 8 or 9 months after we began dateing she changed drasticly and became a major ***** over about a month period. we fought alot and i left the relationship. about a week after i left she called and told me that she understood why she changed and became a *****. She was pregnant. That changed everything for me. I understood that it was just mood swings because of the pregnancy. I of course came back but asked her to do her best not to attack me over the little things and everything was back to being wonderful.

About a year and a half after our son was born (he's gonna be 5 in about 3 weeks)we got married and everything was going wonderful. about a year later She took a turn for the worse and was snapping on me for the stupidest things and we were fighting for a week straight and I told her "before we fight about anything else get a pregnancy test and sure enough she was pregnant again. Everything through the pregnancy was fine(although a little rough with the mood swings but i understood it and stayed by her side.) I love her with all my heart.

Shortly after the birth of our second son I lost my job and I went in a depression for about a 3 to 4 month period and I know i was difficult to live with at that time. We had several fights. I got back on my feet and got a new job and everything was back to being great for about 6 months or more.

Then spring of last year we began going through hard times in our relationship. Our sex life dropped off a bit after the birth of our youngest but I passed it off to us being busy with 3 boys. I presumed it would pick up again once the kids got older.

My wife was going out more often and I was perfectly fine with staying home with the kids because I knew she never really experienced that because she had responsibilities that she had to tend to and she did a wonderful job.

In July of last year she told me that she felt as if we were just "roomates and friends and that she wanted us to seperate and work things out. I felt that seperating will only make things worse and i stayed and we worked things out. During this time i thought she was cheating on me and I was actually told by her sister that she was making out with someone at the bar. We worked things out and I forgave her. After a couple of months of things being rough everything went back to being great.

Ok sorry to bore you with our past but i figured a description of our past would help you provide the best advice.

About a month ago i came to her and said that we are living like we are roomates again, Our sex life still hasn't picked up and she doesn't seem interested when we do have sex. I told her that she really does not show any signs of affection any more(random kisses hugs, holding hands ect.) I told her i know she loves me but asked if she was still In love with me. She said she was. I asked her what we could do to solve those problems. She really didnt have an answer. I tried doing date nights since last july but that never really happened or when it did her friends would join us.

We had a couple that we are friends with come over and we talked. Our friend had us write down on a piece of paper what we wanted to change about our realtionship and what we wanted to change about ourselves.

Some things that I know i needed to improove on:
Help around the house more, I've asked my wife for guidance several times since we've been married because she has always been so used to doing things herself she does it and most of the time i do not know what her next task is. And when i did justjump in and do somehting i got " thats not right, you should have done this instead or whatever. For example. I heard the dryer stop and i started to fold the clothes that were in there and she got upset with me because i folded the towell wrong. I'm a guy and I need some guidance. lol

Another thing that i knew I had to improove on was being childish ( I have always been a jokester/smartass) I have been trying my hardest to improove on these things and as far as i can tell i have improoved a lot.

The things she was to improove was showing more affection and to reduce the number of times she snaps on me for no valid reason. She did improove on both but has seemed very distant the past day or two and she really was not talking about it. I kept asking her tonight to talk about it and keep the lines of communication open. She told me that she had been thinking a lot about the question "I know you love me but are you IN love withme?" and she told me she was begining to doubt it and she began to have feelings for another man she was trying to hook her friend up with.

I asked her if she felt our marriage was worth saving and asked what we could do. she didn't know. I told her to figure out what she wanted. I then told her that I am getting a babysitter for this coming weekend and we are going to go out of town for an evening. ( I am going to take her to the city for a day and stay the night. Make it the ultimate date.)

I love her with all my heart and am scared to death of loosing her. I still have the dream of growing old and decrepit with her. LOL My question to all of you is what else can i do, or what else can we do to save this marriage.

Please be honest, If you see that i am in the wrong in anything please tell me. Remember, I am a guy and i need some guidance.

Chopblock

You know what you want, but does she really know what she wants? What you need is HER answer to the question "do you want to save this"?

She could be going through a rough patch. Everyone does, you've had them before. The problem is, that if you are the only one working to save things, you will get frustrated and you will be wasting your time..

I think your date idea is good and hopefully it rekindles something. Other things to consider are what it was that got you together in the first place, and interests you share. Ask her what she wants out of life, what are her dreams. Build some goals together.

Maybe she feels things just aren't "going" anywhere and need more direction.

Best of luck.

draconis

Affection is a two way street. When you have your date night try to take her hand as you walk, touch is very important and the more you do the more you want.

Date nights work wonders but they should be for the two of you to grow together. Ask for just a single night a week that it is just the two of you, both of you or she can be with her friends several times a week.

More things could be tried later but that is for later. Find things you can do around the house like picking up the toys and such that she can't find fault with. Often I wash and dry the clothes and my wife will put them away because she doesn't like the way I do it.

I normally wash the dishes, dry them and put them away before the wife even sees them.

draconis

__________________
www.myspace.com/draconis1973

Chopblock

I want to revisit these "lists" you mentioned in your original post. It sounds like you both received very clear bullet points of actions your partners want you to take.

You said you need to help with dishes, housework, listening, so on, so on, but have you actually IMPROVED in these areas? You mention the things she needs to improve on, but has she improved on anyone?

I may be taking this too logically because of my line of work, but when a client presents a list of evaluation criteria, I keep it in my hands at all times. This is no different than "giving the teacher what he/she wants". If you know your paper is going to be graded based on your knowledge of a, b, and c, then it is in your best interests to present substantial knowledge of a, b, and c.

beefenhauzer@comcast.net

I have a question for you all. Is it wrong to look at her emails???

After the tings i have seen I have no desire to go on this date weekend.

pigpen

Yes it is absolutely wrong to read her emails. I dont know what you read. But people deserve to have personal space. Your are her husband, not another part of her. If you dont respect her as an individual you cant have a marriage.

On the subject of emails - the problem is that you dont know what the contents really mean. You know what you think they mean, what you are afraid they mean. Basically you know squat.

Let me tell you a story. When I was very young we got our first computer. I "met" a guy in a chat room who was friendly. I was going through a rough time with my husband and was desperately lonely. I did not really think there was any real relationship with this guy. But I spent some time playing around with the idea and emailed a friend - what is love, is this love, does he love me. I was not even having an emotional affair, I was having a huge dose of self pity and looking for answers in anyway I could. The questions I posed, however, were of the same seriousness as "if I won the lottery".

My husband, however, read my emails and decided I was having a flesh and blood affair. He kicked me out of the house and did not talk to me for 6 months. He never asked me about what he read. He never called and pretty much washed his hands of me. I should have left right then. But being young and of low self esteem I went back to him as soon as he let me.

I will always regret that stupid email. He never regretted reading it. But he did a lot of damage by not talking to me about it and, in his mind, I still lie about my intentions.

DONT ever read emails. Especially if you think you will get the whole picture. You might. But you might also cause yourself needless damage and irreversibly hurt your wife.