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I think, after what you've been through, it should be about HIM helping YOU, not the other way round. All this 'no sexual feelings' stuff doesn't bear too much analysis when he's so recently been seeing OW. It's just a way of justifying himself. Don't let him off the hook too easily... remember to stand a chance of R with you, he should be the one doing all the work for now.

IMO, it is not so much about him being attracted to you as it is about his ability to feel empathy towards you and to be able to set aside his resentment (get to a place of acceptance), which is really what you HAVE to do to move on from his A right, so it is not like he has to do MORE than you do, but for some reason it sounds like he is not willing to "let go" of his resentment towards you in this, he is getting some sort of pay off for it (perhaps this resentment is stemming from a wound in his past that he has not dealt with and until he does it will make dealing with this current issue all the more difficult, or perhaps he needs this resentment to "justify" his actions to himself, even if he does not speak it out loud, so he can feel a certain way about himself, to keep himself from getting to the root of his issues).

If he can get to empathy and acceptance then he will see you for real, not this villanized version he has in his head, and then he can have REAL feeling for you, whether or not attraction is there time will tell imo.

Grace

Ladies_first-

On September 3 our 16yo daughter attempted suicide...which, as you can imagine, added a whole other dimension to the situation.

Thanks everyone for the input. It gives me stuff to think about. Last night we were talking about how last week we didn't get to start MC because the therapist had strep throat. My husband said - I'm waiting for them to call onto day and say he's having an asthma attack!

I do believe he has unresolved issues that are left over from before me, even.

We are both in IC, so am really anxious to be together in MC and start talking about some of this *together*.

I don't know your story, so this might be way off base, but do you think there's any chance that this is an attempt to even up the balance of power, when he doesn't really have a leg to stand on?

It seems to me that he's effectively managed to get you worried that he's not attracted to you, when, in fact, the focus really should be on are *you* willing to R with him.

I think I'm sort of with Bobbi Sue -- I would probably say something along the lines of that's really a shame, but the one thing I know is that I can't be married to someone who's not attracted to me, so let's start wrapping the legalities up now. But I can be a real bitch. I'm guessing you would see some serious backtracking on his part.

And I totally agree about the dishwasher grope. That was something that we discussed a lot in the early days of R - grabbing my ass while I'm doing something else is *not* foreplay.

I'm happy to report he made an appt with his doctor to get his STD testing done.

:)

This makes me happy for two reasons:

1. I asked him, he said he would, and he did

2. I don't think he would do it if the A was still on going.