Perfect on the outside, sham on the inside…

I know this might not go down well with lots of people but maybe if you tried everything else and you don’t want to leave your wife and kids maybe an affair without her knowledge of course would help .

Believe me it’s a regular occurrence both males and females not happy in the bedroom but can find happiness elsewhere and still be a loving dad and husband at home .

OP

You might try to solve your situation from a position of strength (fighting for your rights, protecting boundaries jada, jada, jada....), which inevitably will clamp both of you even stronger and will lead to your break-up.

or

You might try to solve your situation from a position of vulnerability, which requires much more strength and courage but gives hopes for reconnection.

I won't ask you, if you love your wife and I wouldn't ask you wife this question as well atm, because I know the answer. It's no. Hurting people can't feel it. Instead I would ask, if you loved your wife and if your wife loved you because it would prove that love is possible between you both.

Counselling sucks because it makes us vulnerable. And it requires a lot of courage to see ourselves, who we really are. And to show this our side to our partner, when it's not guaranteed, it will be accepted.

If I were you I would start counselling on your own and after some time I would ask your wife to join you, to help you. But during counselling you might come to a conclusion that you want something else and your current marriage belongs to the past. But if you won't try, you will never know.

OP, I really don't see where people are getting the idea that you are at fault here. I've even seen the term "emotional abuse" bandied about, and honestly find it shocking given what you've said.

I'm a married stay-at-home mum of three children - 7, 6 and 1 years of age. My husband has always worked, sometimes two jobs, while I stayed at home. It is definitely a full-time job. I've had days where I've had to walk the kids to school while absolutely dying sick or exhausted from being up all night breastfeeding the youngest when she was a newborn. I've had days where I felt like bursting into tears in the kitchen because I didn't know how I was going to find the energy to pull together a dinner and knew I still had uniforms to do and my husband was already gone on a night-shift. Sex life took a nosedive and what was maybe 8-9 times a WEEK before kids was lucky to be twice a month after.

However, intimacy never left. We would cuddle on the couch and binge-watch TV shows in the evening, spoon in bed every night, cuddle and kiss regularly and "I love you"s would be exchanged in person, in text and in calls every day. I told my husband that I was still attracted to him and he was still my whole world but that my mind wasn't on the same page as my body a lot of the time and that made it difficult to have the energy for sex.

There's absolutely no good reason for your wife to be so cold. We wouldn't have quarter of what you describe - we haven't had a date out together as a couple with no kids in over three years. We can't afford a cleaner or babysitter. But the love has never left and I hope it never does. I hope your wife decides to engage, really I do. But if she doesn't, may you have the courage to move on and find the life you deserve. An affair won't save things. Resentment and cold indifference is no way to raise a baby. But two good parents separating to find what will make them happy make for a really decent life that many kids would only dream of. And that's coming from a child of such a separation ;)

Yeah, I tried to raise this point as well.

But for some strange reason, people seem to be completely ignoring it as a potential factor. Even though mental health problems are well known to be a major contributing factor to relationship problems.

(preferring instead to focus on useless point scoring agenda type stuff)

The OP stated that his wife had "warning signs" of mental health issues from the very beginning of the marriage, before any kids came on the scene. Then you throw in the stress of two child births, in what sounds like a very short period of time. Potential for post par-tum depression lumped into the mix etc as well.

This is why I suggested a strong intervention might be needed. If the OP is facing a spouse with very deeply rooted mental health issues, with patterns of behavior that have become completely normalized in her mind, this could be a very difficult spell to break. You would definitely need professional help to break through what could be very big walls that have developed over a long time frame.

People can be stuck in a cycle of self-destructive behaviors, that they find very difficult to break free from. Admitting there is a problem, and admitting you need help, is the first step. But is his wife capable of doing this? The OP can't put his life and happiness on hold forever, waiting for his wife to reach this point.

Also, just a side note, dumbing the OP's problems down to just a denial of sex is not helpful. The OP is talking about a lack of intimacy, which is not exactly the same thing as a lack of sex. Sex is part of intimacy, but not the whole picture. Lack of intimacy can also mean, a lack of care, a lack of genuine affection, a lack of warmth, a lack of being valued or appreciated in the relationship etc etc. It's far more than just sex, and it can leave someone feeling lonely and pushed to the fringes like they don't really matter anymore.

It's a cold place to be for any considerable length of time. As much as you can have empathy for someone who is perhaps struggling with personal issues, the OP shouldn't wait around indefinitely for a resolution. As his own mental health could suffer too, if you hang around for long enough in this type of atmosphere.

A marriage can absolutely fail with one culprit. Cheating, abandonment, abuse of a multitude of varieties, one person falling out of love... I don't know where you're going with that, but you cannot possibly be suggesting that if one person wants the marriage to end and the other doesn't, that they are both at fault?

There isn't. She has made absolutely no effort to talk to her husband. At all. Sitting silent and wallowing in your misery and refusing to speak to anyone or ask for help isn't going to - surprise surprise - get you help. Making the decision to withdraw both physically and emotionally and refusing to speak, debate or even explain is going cold. I did not once say she had no good reason to have issues, but she can't expect her husband to be an emotional punching bag while he works on his mind reading skills. I'm aware of the toll of two kids. Because I have three. I'm not sure why you're explaining the inner chemical workings to me. I have had untold issues and when things become too much, I speak to someone. If I need help, I speak to someone. If I am angry or sad, I speak to someone.

She signed up to a marriage too, you know. And has shot down the OPs suggestion of counselling, in case you missed that.

I very much agree with this.

Of course it's possible the OPs wife is unwell. But if she is she still has a responsibility to try and deal with the issues. As it stands she is proving impossible to live with and won't even try counselling. There's nothing a partner can do with that except leave or endure a life of misery.

Being a mother of young children doesn't mean that anything you do in life is acceptable. Sure, depression can happen in the early years of parenthood, but that doesn't give you carte blanche to take it out on your partner indefinitely. If this woman won't acknowledge there's a serious problem, even with her husband on the brink of leaving, the outlook is very bad.

No doubt of you needed counseling then you would have context of what depression means. But based on your response you haven't a notion.

Other posters are entirely right. It's down to the OP what to do next himself.

But the lack of compassion and empathy is throughout this thread. I can completely sympathise with his situation which is why I told him to go speak to someone professionally and not listen to people vilifying his wife who we and he may have zero idea of what is going through. He might learn something he might be able to learn to engage. He might find that it's a lost cause entirely . All appropriate outcomes. But the professional help empowers him to take the next step tooled up.

I wish him well and don't envy any of his choices.