Well...I had a talk w/the other woman. I expressed my feelings for her and she said she felt the same about me. However, she said, she is not ready to give up on her marriage. So we settled on remaining friends.

Obviously that's not the outcome I was looking for, but she is my best friend and I wouldn't want her to do anything she wasn't perfectly comfortable with. Who knows what the future will hold, right? I'll just continue to be the best friend I can be and maybe I'll be able to win her heart some day.

Thanks again to all the fellow pixies who listened....I think just putting my thoughts out here helped me get through this better. You guys are great :-)

Now you know where you stand, and maybe with it behind you, you can focus on what you might need to do (or could do) to bring the spark back to your marriage...

You are working under an assumption that you cannot have what you want with your wife, but the question I would pose is: Have you done everything in your power to attempt to gain what you seek in your current situation?

You have children and you have a wife, so in an ideal situation, if you could have all you wanted in your current situation, it would be the best idea right?...keeping a happy marriage, not hurting your wife or kids.

One member offered the idea of a professional, and I am offering the same suggestion. Go to marriage counseling, go balls out and be honest about everything....and as therapy progresses, even tell her about this current situation. A relationship has many subtleties and nuances that are picked up on almost an unconcious level....these things can contribute to what you are talking about "the lack of passion." GEtting passion back in a marriage just takes work and usually some therapy (if your own attempts as a couple have failed).

Basically, to summarize..I would say don't ruin a potentially happy home until you and your wife have done everything in your power to make it happy. Secondly, the first two steps I would take are:

Two books I would reccomend, Hot Monogamy by Patricia Love and Jo Robinson, and Rekindling Desire by Barry and Emily McCarthy (BTW for everyone this book especially is great for low-sex or no sex marriages...try it out, could save your marriage).

Secondly, like I said, get couples counseling/therapy...do your research first to find a good therapist, there are bad ones and good ones, so if you do your research, get recommendations and such, you run the chance of getting a good one instead of a bad one which could make you think therapist is not worth it (it is, but it takes a good therapist to make us see that).

I hope that helps, and I hope other people read this. There are good reasons to leave a spouse (such as abuse, harm to children) and bad reasons to leave a spouse (not enough sex)....the bad reasons can usually be fixed with some good effort. Thanks

__________________
Caught in the Act
Anonymous
My Night Out, Part 1
My Night Out, Part 2

"The world is a mirror which is always in our vision"
- Me

Hi Everyone --

Its been a while since my last post...things have been "developing."

First I want to address a couple things calihotguy mentioned -- and thanks for that feedback cali --

Neither of us has kids, which makes things a *little* less complicated. Also, I don't believe lack of sex comes into play here. At least not for me. Its the low-level connection to our spouses that does not exist and never has existed. I'm talking about the respect, the tenderness, the intimacy. Not physical sexual attraction.

Anyway -- enough of that. The last couple of weeks have been interesting. My friend and I have had many good conversations and have discovered a lot of feelings between us. Oddly enough, both of our spouses are out of town this weekend and we decided to spend as much time together as possible. OMG! Thats all I can say. We have connected on every level. It is absolutely incredible....the attraction to eachother. We spent the night together last night and most of it was spent talking, kissing and touching one another. It was hands-down the most intimate experience I've ever had...and she agrees. Truth be told, when it came time to have sex, I couldn't....and that's never happened to me before. Fortunately after snuggling tight and sleeping for a while, everything "came alive" and we both had a really great time. Not the kind of "great time" we all read about in the story posts...the mututal love, respect and admiration part -- we made love slowly for over an hour staring into each others eyes. It was awesome!

I've rambled on enough for now...thanks to everyone who listens. Neither of us knows how this is going to go, but I think decisions will be based on true feelings and not sexual impulses.