"I Have So Much Resentment Towards My Spouse Because Of Our Dead Bedroom"

Wordsmith says, I've got— Wordsmith from YouTube rather says, I've got so much resentment in my sexless marriage that I'm just ignoring her, barely talking, staying busy and absent. And she seems to be getting more clingy, but still no sex. I'm planning to exit. So you've just described— again, I'm inferring a lot here, I'm assuming a lot here. But you're describing a very typical scenario, which is one is the pursuer, Mr. Anxious, hanging on, grabbing, and it's not really getting much of anywhere because the other side is Miss or Mr. Avoidant. Get away from me. That part of me is done now that the honeymoon stage has ended. Now that we have kids, I'm really, really done. So just back away, back away, please. And then the other one finally, probably after a period of years and so many, you know, litter of kids later and everything, finally says, yeah, I think I get the picture here. I think I'm not really wanted. Never mind, I'll just back off. And that's when the pursued, the avoidant one, sometimes goes, what happened to my source of validation here? What happened to my person that's pursuing me? Even though I didn't really want anything to do with them, it was nice to be at least wanted. They gave me some semblance of something here. So, hey dude, what happened? And that pressure off of their shoulders, you know, the anxious person is a lot of weight on the shoulders. That anxiety, that anxious person chasing after you and wanting you and begging you, it's, oof, it's smothering. And so when that blanket is released, suddenly they're more open, feminine, bubbly. Sometimes, sometimes when you let them go, they just go. They, they're out of there and they disappear forever. But it sounds like, Wordsmith, you're getting a little bit of reaction in a positive way. Still no sex though. Um, that's key. This is something that a lot of men, especially when not with a lot of relationship experience, have a difficult time with. And that is, we snuggle, we hug, we kiss, we're deep conversations. We— everyone on the internet tells me emotional connection, emotional connection. I think we got that in spades. But still nothing happening in the bedroom. Um, one point I want to get across is there's a big difference between the world of the comfortable love, I guess we can call it. You have comfortable love with your, your kiddos, snuggle with your kiddos on the couch watching movies, with your dog, with your sibling, but you don't have an erotic sexual connection, do you? It's two different worlds. That erotic, filthy, dirty, sexy, kinky, yada yada, that men for some reason try to connect those two, and those are two different worlds. Marrying the two together is awesome if you can pull that off. That's what we call the happy marriage. That's what we call a great relationship. That's what we call fulfilling, healthy relationship. That's really tough for a lot of us. And I think what you're exhibiting, Wordsmith, here is I'm really addressing this side over here. Still haven't addressed this side over here. And, uh, one shortcut method to getting this need met is to basically leave that relationship and find somebody new, because there's nothing more erotic and more of a turn-on and all that stuff than the old new girlfriend. It's not very healthy for the marriage though, is it? Um, because hopefully you leave said marriage before pursuing girlfriend, unless you are in some kind of open relationship or quasi-open relationship or whatever. There's— I've learned over the years there's whole flavors of relationships that I was completely ignorant of until I started doing this. And some people claim to be able to string decades of a happy relationship together while doing that open thing. Whatever, whatever floats your boat. Hey, who am I to judge, right? But, um, I don't think that's something you want to go for, is it, Wordsmith? You probably are more along the lines of, I just wish my wife would get, um, really turned on and suddenly want sex with me. That'd be cool. Don't hold your breath. I remember your story from your previous comments. This is a multi-year thing you're dealing with here. This is a multi-children thing you're dealing with here. If I remember right from your story, you also have, um, you also became Mr. Stay-at-Home Dad while she went home and made— or went to work and made the bacon. You got a lot of shit working against you, dude. And if there's hope for you too, it's only if she raises her hand and says, yeah, I got issues, and you raise your hand and you say, yeah, I got issues too, and you both go, maybe we should work on said issues. Yeah, I think we should. All right, high five, let's get to work. And are you, Mr. Pat— gonna be patient enough to deal with more years, months and years of work of lack of passion? Because it's You can't just turn on like that, not within this relationship or relationships like it. Doesn't happen. Like I say, you want— if you want that, go get your girlfriend. I'm not condoning infidelity or anything like that. I'm just— biologically, that's the key for you and her, by the way. She'll come alive again with somebody new. That's just how it works. You would too. So it takes a special kind of work to make a relationship long-term remain sexy, fun, all that other stuff. But just a healthy relationship, it takes a lot of work. You have a lot of unhealthy shit, you know, the giant wall between the two of you, you and your wife. You're trying to tear down that wall and then work on the healthy, sexy. Best of luck, dude. That's gonna be tough. And I'm not trying to paint a cynical, negative picture. I'm trying to be realistic.