SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've said it all before. Things are going as well as possible/capable of reconciliation. I dream of being intimate sexually and of non-sexual intimacy touch with WH, and I WANT to WANT to be. It's not translating to actual desire, just staying on the level of dreaming, wanting to want(hope this makes sense). I feel sad the desire is limited to romanticizing and not translating. Yes, we are dating, exploring, holding hands, hugging, and massage. I never desire more physically when we are doing these things. I'm usually relieved when the hug is over that there is no pressure to go further as an example.

I know every situation is different.
I know there is no standard time frame.
I realize one year post DDay is "early days".
I'm looking for responses of personal experiences.

When did the wanting to want become true desire?
Did it ever?
Are you still waiting?
Did you always have some level of desire?

Is this place I'm at expected? Is this a green flag to just be patient? Red Flag?

I have been having sex with my WH frim straight after D-Day. I think they call it ‘trauma bonding’ or something like that. There has been quite a few times in the middle of the act I’ve freaked out and told him to stop.

So for me now though I know when we have sex, it’s just that. I no longer make love to my husband. I have always been a sexual person and have always been able to turn off emotion and just ‘fuck’ someone for my own pleasure. And that’s what I do now.

However my intimacy with my hubby comes from snuggling on the couch, foot rubs and him holding me in bed which has slowly over the months become more enjoyable.

II separate the two things because I know he just had sex with her and there wasn’t any couch cuddling and dates etc. Well that’s what I think is happening anyways 🤷🏼‍♀️

I hope one day I can make love to him again but like all of this only time will tell.

You've read my mind and I await someone's answer that might give some hope to this strange feeling...

I'm a guy, and EA only, so probably not the most useful data point.

Went pretty fast to hysterical bonding. That eventually died off. Went back to a more normal situation after 6 months though closer to "just fucking" to making love. Then transitioned back to normal at about 2 years.

I guess maybe we’re more the exception. Before the cheating 8 years ago we would—as best as I can remember—just have sex. It was good but infrequent because I was very distracted by 3 kids and intense work schedule and a lot of worries over not being my fittest. After the cheating (I didn’t know it had been physical and thought we had « dodged a bullet ») we definitely had hysterical bonding and our sex life has been so much better really ever since. My WH is well past the stage of thinking it would be appropriate to blame our sex life. So we don’t really say it this way…but I do say to myself, in the privacy of my own mind, that I truly didn’t appreciate him and our sex life at all. Knowing that I came that close to losing someone I care for so much has transformed our sex life in a positive way. I would never have imagined it could be this great, this close, this exciting, this loving, et cetera et cetera. I am very grateful for this change and I think he is too. There were times two years ago (when I found out it had been physical) that I had trouble with the kissing part for a while. Only just recently has that completely gone away. There were a lot of intrusive thoughts of them kissing for a period of time (how did he do it, what was he thinking, that kind of thing). From the books I read there was a recommendation that if that occurred we should stop and discuss it. We did that. It was weird but felt like a better response than just having the thoughts in my head alone and going through the motions. That process seemed to kind of nip the intrusive thoughts in the bud and now I no longer get them.

We never stopped having sex after the A.
I will say we did a lot of hysterical bonding and we took turns on that, sometimes 4 times a day.

I think at the beginning it was like me
Hiking my leg on him to reclaim my territory? Best way to put it , weird I know.

Fast forward almost 10 months and for the first time we are making love in ten years. My H is a recovering porn addict and it’s like he’s experiencing what sex was meant to be for the first time in his life. We both get butterflies and our hearts race, he’s 7 months clean.
I think that helps make sex easier now because he didn’t have that with her. Yeah he effed her but he was addicted to porn and screwed her like he was in porn and visualized porn with every sexual partner he’s had except me. That wedge in the bedroom between us is gone it’s just him and me and it’s the best feeling.

As far as holding hands, letting him hold me, being emotionally vulnerable , that scares me and it’s hard for me. I don’t get it. It’s so weird. Opening up and conversating and letting him in? Wall is still up but with each step he’s taking towards being a better person and H a brick is coming down but there’s lots of bricks.

I don’t see anything you’re saying as a red flag, we all heal at a different pace , we are all wired differently, and we all have our limits. I asked my H tonight what if I never stop feeling sad? Because I feel like I won’t ever be truly blissfully blindly happy again. I think some things are here to stay for a long time and some feelings come and go for quite a few years. You set the pace, he needs to follow and be ok with that and if the pace speeds up? He should be thankful and when it slows down, he should be extra thankful because that means you’re trying extra hard to find yourself and the love in the shitty mess. I ask my H to love me harder on my bad days , we were cooking dinner and I bent over and he grabbed my butt and said a comment and I immediately snapped up and asked him to not touch me or joke with me because I wasn’t doing mentally ok with it. He apologized and went to go fix something in the house I asked for. I immediately cried and said I was sorry and he told me not to be sorry and he understood and I had no reason to feel bad. One minute I’m hot and the next I’m cold , intimacy included, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Healing isn’t linear and one week we will have a great few days then a solid 7 days of hell then 2 good days. It’s all part of the process and nothing he does will speed it up but it is hell , I never know what kind of day it will be when my feet hit the floor and some days I wish I could stay in bed and not find out.