re: Marriage over or salvageable?

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Maybe this is me being a p***y, but I've always thought marriage counseling is for those who can't just talk it out on their own and/or for marriages that are already toast.

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I used to think that as well but we ended up going to A few sessions. Think of it as having a referee. And with a referee, they’ll point out stuff not only that you need to work on but stuff your wife should work on as well - same things that you may have mentioned to your wife but she wasn’t as willing to listen bc it was coming from you, but coming from a therapist she may hear it differently.

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Maybe this is me being a p***y, but I've always thought marriage counseling is for those who can't just talk it out on their own and/or for marriages that are already toast.

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Dude, you need a neutral party between you two. The therapist is there to stop both of you from engaging in behavior that is not conducive to fixing the problem. And, if you have a good one, they'll tell you if you're not making progress and if it's time to start considering whether you both want to be in the relationship at all.

You leading with sex, combined with the above quoted comment make me suspect that you need intimacy from her. Dudes often don't know how to do this except through sex, but wife is just going to hear, "I want MOAR SEX!" The therapist can translate what you may not realize you need (even if it's not intimacy) into something she understands. If the therapist is sitting in the room with you two, and says something like, "what he's saying is that he'd like to feel more emotionally connected to you, instead of just being a paycheck, but he doesn't know how to express it," that will resonate strongly with most women.

Talking it out on your own doesn't seem to be working, so you have choices: Have a heart attack and die early by continuing on as is, get a divorce, therapist.

And to the commenter about people with multiple kids not having time for each other is dead, dead wrong. First, who signed your daughter up for six dance classes a week, in two different areas of town? Who signed your son up for two different Lacrosse leagues in the same season? Who agreed on travel softball?

The parents did.

We all make time to cut the lawn, watch sports, she plays tennis and goes to boozy brunches, etc. Lack of time is a cop out unless one of you engages in extensive travel.