Title: I [35M] don't know what to do anymore. I feel like my wife [38F] has completely lost interest in me and I don't know how to fix our marriage

I'm 35M, my wife is 38F, and we've been married and have a 3-year-old son. I love my wife with everything I have, and I genuinely want our marriage to work. But I'm at the point where I don't know what to do anymore.

Our intimacy problems actually started a few months before she became pregnant. They continued throughout the pregnancy, although I didn't think too much of it at the time because I expected intimacy to change during pregnancy. But even after our son was born, things never really improved. If anything, it feels like whatever physical attraction she had toward me has slowly disappeared.

I'm a very sexual person, and physical touch and intimacy are a big part of how I feel loved. My wife knows this. Her love languages are acts of service and gifts. I'm a stay-at-home father, so I take care of our son and handle the chores around the house. I try to make sure I'm giving her the things that make her feel loved, but being a stay-at-home parent makes the gift part difficult because I don't have any personal income.

Our sex life is currently around 1-2 times a month, with 3 times being a particularly good month. I have to initiate every single time. Probably 9 out of 10 times when I try to initiate, I'm turned down for one reason or another. Sometimes I'm basically told before I can even try that she's not feeling well or isn't feeling good. When we do have sex, it also feels like she puts very little effort into it.

It's not that she completely avoids physical affection. She'll hug me or give me a small kiss once or twice a day, but she rarely initiates anything beyond that. When I've asked her about our lack of intimacy, her explanation is that she simply doesn't think about it.

Another thing that has been difficult for me is how little time I feel like we spend together as a family. On her days off, she'll take pretty much any opportunity to leave me with our son while she goes to sleep rather than spending time with us.

I'm also the stay-at-home parent, and she handles all of the finances. She pays the bills and buys whatever she wants, while I have no personal income and have to ask her for things I want, which are often rejected. She also refuses to have shared finances.

Because of our financial situation, we're currently living with her parents. When we made the decision to move in with them, we both agreed it was the smart thing to do so we could save money. The problem is that I don't feel like she's making any effort to actually save money.

But the biggest issue is what I've recently discovered.

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach and checked her phone. I found out that she had been heavily flirting with other men she'd met online and had been sending them dirty pictures. She was also hiding conversations through Snapchat and WhatsApp.

This is the **second time** I've caught her doing this.

The first time, when I confronted her, she didn't really seem to care that I had found out. She told me, *"I hid those messages so it wouldn't hurt you."* She knows that I consider this cheating.

The second time, it was again different men she had met online, and she still didn't seem particularly bothered that I'd found out. Her explanation was simply that she did it because she was bored.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that.

We've also tried to start couples therapy before. We had one couples session, and then we each had supposed to have our own individual sessions. I went to mine. When it was her turn to schedule hers, she kept putting it off and ultimately refused to go. So we couldn't even get past the initial 1-on-1 appointments.

I'm honestly lost. I don't want to divorce my wife. We have a son, and I still love her. I want our marriage to work and I want us to be happy together.

But at this point I feel unwanted, ignored, and like I'm the only one trying to fix things. I'm taking care of our son, handling the house, trying to meet her needs, and trying to maintain our relationship, while she seems increasingly uninterested in me and has twice gone outside of our marriage for sexual attention.

I don't know if I'm looking at this the wrong way or if there's something I'm missing.

**If you were in my position, what would you do? How would you even begin trying to fix something like this when it feels like the other person doesn't seem interested in fixing it?**

Tl;dr: Wife seems uninterested in her husband and is cheating.