Experts: Help me save my marriage

Well Austinn, I think you’ve been given a ton of great advice. Really very little I disagree with, which is unusual for me. :smiley: Nevertheless, I’ll add my own take.

First of all, I’d say limit your focus. If your focus is first on getting your wife to have sex with you or rekindle loving feelings toward you, you will fail. Focus on being worthy of your wife’s trust and respect. When she respects you and trusts you, then she will want to have sex with you again. But she will never respect you if you are weak, needy, or otherwise trying to placate her or “get sex from” her.

This not only doesn’t surprise me, it is what I would expect. You are not communicating the love of a strong protector and provider who wants to take care of his woman, you are communicating the neediness of a boy who wants attention from his mother.

You definitely need to regain your own self-confidence, ambition, and feeling of being sexually attractive and seductive, i.e. your sexual power. I agree that you should start acting a bit more like a bachelor, though I wouldn’t go so far as to actually start dating any women. Still, imagine what you’d do to rebuild your life if your wife and kids left you and start doing some of that. You need to get yourself to a place where you don’t fear losing your wife.

I suggest watching “American Beauty.” I also hesitantly suggest reading “The Way of the Superior Man.” Hesitantly, because I think it includes some dangerously warped ideas of what to expect and tolerate in women, but suggest because it is a remarkably accurate description of the archetypal female’s ideal male, with actionable advice to men on how to become more like that.

I’m a big fan of reinvention. I feel I was messed up big time in my upbringing and have reinvented myself at least 4 times. I’ve been somewhat absent from the forum here for the last year or so as I’ve been digging into the latest round of reinvention. Usually the reinvention is with the idea of becoming more like my best self, more who I was meant to be. On the other hand, the previous time, starting in 2001, it was to become sort of a caricature of who I imagined I wanted to be, so I could fully explore that desire and blow away any resentment that I wasn’t living that life. Also, by adopting a sort of alternate persona, I got to see what about it felt phoney and what “truth” of my “core” pulled me back to what I used to call “me” and feel the difference between that and the other things I thought were me but in fact didn’t pull me back at all.

This is why I suggest you watch “American Beauty”. It’s largely about Lester reinventing himself and becoming much happier with himself at the end of the movie than he was at the beginning. I don’t suggest you quit your job and take up smoking pot, but I do suggest getting back in touch with your balls. I offer my own tale of reinventions to inspire yours.

Personally, I found getting in shape to be supremely helpful. I’ve been sporadically going back and forth from not working out at all to exercising 3 days a week since I was 30, but this past year I bumped it up to 4 days a week and then 5 and found it’s made a huge difference. I started going to a gym that has an olympic weightlifting class (at the suggestion of a trainer at another gym) and found it was the kind of exercise and sport that is a great match for my body (which is why the trainer suggested it). Not only do I look better and have the strength to roughhouse with my two 80 pound nieces (who I could barely lift before), but I have better posture and generally a more confident and ambitious attitude toward life. I highly recommend you try some different kinds of exercise and see what works best for you.

As for pheromones, I haven’t tried A1, but I find A314 worn on my neck (where I can smell it) helps me feel calmer, more confident, and more “manly” than I do without it, and I highly recommend it. The fact that your wife bitches about it is actually a good thing. It means that it makes her feel like you are more powerful, and she wants to resist that. You are demonstrating balls and she is trying to cut them off. This is a fight that she secretly wants to lose, but it’s likely even secret from her own consciousness, so don’t talk about it. Of course, it would be stupid to disagree with Tisha, though, so go ahead and buffer the A314 with IG and IS.

I do suggest that you stick with this one formula for several weeks while you rebuild trust and respect. If your wife complains about the A314 smelling too strong, don’t try to convince her she’s wrong, just say something like “I really like it. It reminds me of college.” (Feel free to substitute some other fond memory for college. Something from your courtship that your wife still finds romantic would be best.) The point is you are wearing it because you like how it smells, and the smell is associated with something you both think fondly of. You need to calmly assert your right to wear it because it is something you like without allowing her to interpret it as something you are wearing to irritate her. If it’s too strong, then let her move away from you.

One side note, all these potions do smell too strong for the first 15 minutes, so give her that. Don’t put them on and then immediately get into bed to watch TV. Put them on at least 15 minutes before you’ll be in the same room together. I’d wear A314 all the time, one drop after my morning shower, one drop when leaving work. Don’t load up on anything once you’re home from work. (This is if you’re living the “shower in the morning, work 9-5, home for the evening” kind of lifestyle. If you have another schedule, let us know.)

The important thing with building trust and respect is consistency. You can’t be all over the place with your pheromones, you need to wear the same thing all the time to build up the trust and a solid sense of the new you. Be patient.

After a few weeks or maybe even months, I’d suggest trying IH. Be warned, however, that the stuff really works. I’ve had people really unload their pent up anger and found myself venting my own unintentionally while wearing it. You might want to find a spot in the house (not in the bedroom) where you and your wife visit but don’t spend a lot of time and try spraying IH there instead of wearing it on your body.

One of the most helpful mantras I’ve ever tried is “this too shall pass.” It’s in our nature to find a good thing and want to hold on to it. You just cannot hold on to a person, relationship, or situation. It’s always fluid, changing. Instead, you need to learn to ride the wave, work with the flow. You’re not going to get back your old relationship with your wife and you don’t want to keep your current one. Focus on charting a course for a new relationship with your wife, one you both will love and enjoy.

It sounds like your sex life has never been very good, and that your wife married you at 23, so probably she’s never had great sex in her life. I recommend you find some adult sex ed materials and start learning. I do not suggest you ask your wife to join you, neither do I suggest you exclude her. I recommend you get a book like Intimate Wisdom which has a lot of practices you can do on your own that help you develop and direct your sexual energy and start working on that. If she asks about it, tell her and if she doesn’t, don’t. If she’s curious or interested, allow her to read the book and if she talks to you in a respectful way about it, engage in that conversation. If she disapproves of it, say it is something you are doing for yourself and you don’t need her approval.

You have to walk a fine line between being independent and totally withdrawing from her. I suggest adopting the frame of mind that you welcome her in your life, but you don’t need her. If she wants to leave, you’d be disappointed, but you acknowledge that it’s her life and her decision. If she wants things to be different, you’re open to change, eager for change as you’d like things to be different, too, but it’s a two way street and she needs to put in the same level of effort as you are. (For the most part, though, if it feels like you’re doing 70% and she’s doing 30%, that’s still close enough to even because it always feels like you’re doing more than the other person.)

That said, married since 23, she probably feels this is her last chance to be an independent sexy woman. If you prevent her from having that experience, she’ll resent you forever. If you allow her to have that experience, she’s bound to find it immensely exhilarating compared to being a mother of 2 in a sexless marriage. Ideally you’d find a way to let her have her freedom while staying attached to you.

If she wants a break do not be the one to move out! If she wants to leave, send the kids to summer camp and let her go on her way. You stay put. This is the “if you love someone set them free” part of your relationship. But it’s “set them free” not “let them drive you away.” Stand your ground and be ready to accept her back regardless of what she does while she’s away.

Most of all be patient and be consistent. Find your own strength and set your own course without depending on her. Be the cause of your own life.