I screwed up with The Talk....am I screwed?

Shynjdude,

I hope that what has happened is a complete change in your wife and your relationship. But I don't think it is.

Based on my own experience with my ex and based on how you've described your marriage, what you are experiencing as heavenly is probably what people in good sexual relationships would describe as dreadful. I remember that the last time I had sex with my h, it was silent, in the dark in the middle of the night, and it consisted of only a few in and out strokes, then he turned over and went to sleep without cuddling. The next morning, he was his usual, polite self but there was no extra affection, talk about lovemaking, sexy jokes, etc. But I was grateful to have had sex with him!

You wrote this: "The most astonishing thing happened on Sunday. She was holding my member, something that hardly ever happened in the past 30 years, and I said how great it felt. She asked why, and I just said that it makes me feel like someone is interested in me sexually."

You have in the past gotten nothing. You now are getting mere crumbs. And you're so grateful for those crumbs!

I jt don't believe that a woman who couldn't bring herself to touch your dick for years has turned into a lover that most mature, experienced men would appreciate. They'd probably consider her a dead fish.

It's very likely that due to the dearth of sex in your marriage, you're seeing hope in actions that wouldn't register on people in a normal romantic relationship.

By contrast, I routinely hold onto my lover's member before going to sleep. We both sleep nude. After I give him that special good night hold, a turn over and we spoon to sleep with his cock nestling next to my but crack. Nightly, I tell him how I love his cock. Several times a week, I happily take it into my mouth, rub it on my face and breasts, enjoy inhaling its scent. I've literally come while sucking him. He doesn't have to beg me or remind me to touch him. I love to touch and hold him.

I did not know how fun, creative, loving and sensual sex could be until I had sex with my post SM lover. Then I found that everything I'd thought I was silly for wanting really could happen.

I bet the same is true of what you're experiencing as intimate conversations with your wife. They probably are discussions that would seem superficial or incomplete to others in really intimate relationships.

I think you're being suckered, and are settling for next to nothing because you've had nothing for so long. I encourage you to to proceed with the divorce paperwork. It's going to take 9 months anyway so she'll still get what you promised her: You'll still be married to her when she has her surgery.

Shyntjdude said: "I don't need a virtuoso. I need intimacy. So far, I'm getting it. Technique can be learned. I'm being honest in telling her what I'd like her to do, and she's happy to oblige. Not an ounce of reluctance yet. And based on our conversations, she's willing to learn more together with me.
Getting closer to jumping off the cliff..

You are missing my point. I'm not talking about technique. I'm talking about enjoying sex and enjoying pleasing one's partner. One learns what pleases one's partner by paying attention to their moans, movements, etc. during sex. For your wife to appear to be surprised at how much having your dick touched by her meant to you indicates she has been very out of touch with you and with sex. She had to be virtually deliberately ignoring your words, movements and other signals for it to be new to her that being touched sexually made you feel desired and loved. She seems to attend to what's important to you only when she has something big to lose. Even now, however, you have to spell things out to her very directlyl. Her ways of responding to you don't bode well for your relationship after her surgery or even just before the surgery. It would be easy for her to manipulate things so as to appear that you're abandoning her when she is in great need of you.

You ask about people having been rebooted on this board. Given the hospice nature of ILIASM, I'm pretty sure that's a no.

But as I have pointed out in posts in the past, I do know of marriages that have had that very reboot. And as baza noted in a thread from about 1 year and a half ago, the ones that I do know of occur in those marriages that are strongly religious.

I read where, in your list of wants for a relationship, you include "shared Jewish values." Knowing that Jewish teaching has emphasis on a sexual component in marriage (provisions of the Ketubah, the rabbis and sages using the term mored and moredet for refusers, etc.), and reading that your wife sees divorce as a shaming in her community, is it possible that there is a religious motive to this recent turn-around?

I am in the evangelical wing/branch of Christianity, and so we tend to take our prescriptions and proscriptions pretty seriously. Would you say that your branch of Judaism tends to the fundamental or progressive side of your faith, and might that be playing a role in recent events.

What you can say with some certainty is that a spouse deploying the re-set strategy will bring as little to the event as they think they can get away with.
Enough to pull the wool over your eyes.

What's "enough to pull the wool over your eyes ?"
That will be as variable as the "re-setee" involved.

A quick handjob may - for someone who hasn't had sex for 5 years - be regarded as a stupendous sexual experience and be regarded as a certain sign that things are turning around.
To another, it might require a tit-fuck to bring off the illusion.
A desultory headjob may be enough to do the trick for someone else.
To someone else it might take P.I.V. engagement to bring about the desired result.

Back it in, however, that it is going to be the minimum the re-setter thinks they can get away with.

In regard to the sustainability of the re-set strategy, again, as short a period as the re-setter thinks they can get away with. It is rare for it to last any more than a month, 2 maximum. Usually it peters out in a week or so.

Here’s my two cents @shynjdude :

I think this is more than a reset; I think she is legitimately trying to change. With you declaring your intention to divorce she finally realized what she could lose (YOU especially but likely also everything you provide her), and it’s thrown her for a loop. I don’t think this is an act or an intentional manipulation. I think she is truly trying and that she does love you. But I also think she’s a little messed up in the head right now. (E.g.: The almost manic displays of sexual desire and actions such as impulsively painting rooms)

HOWEVER, just like one who diets, has success, and then eventually gains the weight back, I think this “new wife” of yours has a shelf life. Maybe it’s a matter of 9 months, maybe it’s a few years, maybe it’s even more! But i do think she will “gain the weight back” as most do — she’ll eventually go back to her old ways (uninterested in sex, critical of you, unappreciative, self-absorbed, sometimes downright mean, and uninterested in living her life according to Jewish values) not because “old habits die hard” but because this is who she IS! The older you get, the harder it is to change core parts of yourself. It doesn’t mean it can’t be done or that people never change but the odds don’t seem to be favorable.

My fear for you is that your W will change just enough and just long enough for you to fully abandon your plan of leaving. She will eventually get comfortable again and then everything will go back to how it was over the past decades. I personally don’t think it will be malicious on her part but I am not convinced she will truly change for the long haul. And my fear is that when that happens, you will find yourself 3?, 5?, 7? years down the road in the exact same place you were a few months ago, wanting to leave, but now been so close to retirement that you are STUCK financially, and kicking yourself for not leaving when you could have because she finally started offering you sex and attention.

Think of those blissful days in NYC with your AP. Would they ever be like that with your W? Could she ever make you as happy as your AP did? Find that previous post you wrote at your 1 year mark and reread the feelings you expressed about love between you two. Do you truly think that kind of love possible with your W? And if not, could you be okay with whatever love you DO think is possible with her or would you always feel you cheated yourself out of a chance to ever have that again?

Not arguing with what you say here Brother csl  as regards marriage between two people of faith having a better than average chance of a re-boot. That could well be so.
 
But there's at least one situation in here ( Sister workingonit ) where her husband is a rabbi of some sort (and presumably a pious and holy man and follower of his faith) who is also a full blown refuser.
Quite possibly an outlier.
Or perhaps a tad selective about which particular tenets of his religion he follows.

Wife has had problems with following the religion (she would follow it publicly but not at home), and part of this "new her" is to start taking it seriously. She has been studying on her own, asking me lots of questions, and wanting to get rid of her bad habits and wanting me to help her. 

I used to be very judgmental about her hypocrisy over the religion, but since I outsourced myself, I am much more accepting. She is very appreciative of it because that used to be a very sore point with her.