My wife [41F] feels unsafe in our marriage
We’ve [41F] [39M] been married 12 years, things were great for a long time. Two kids later, we’ve had some rocky patches but have came through the other side up until recently. The last few years I’ve felt a distance developing between us, I’ve spoken to her about it multiple times and talked about ways to reignite our marriage but nothing seems to work. More recently she was become very hostile if the subject is ever brought up which makes me just become avoidant and distant. We’ve tried counselling and all the standard “fixes” but nothing seems to work. As things got worse, our fights got worse and we’ve both raised the idea of divorce at least once. The thing is, for better or worse, I do still love her, I want to fix this but I just don’t think I can.
Through all of this, our sex life has unsurprisingly suffered. At this point we haven’t slept together in a couple months and the distance seems to only be increasing. She’s made requests that I be more “affectionate without expectation” which I have really been working on. In response to the last few moves I tried to make, she told me she felt “unsafe”, not physically but in our relationship. I’m unsure what this means and have asked her how to make her feel safe. She said I need to work on my communication and affection and maybe, sometime in the future she would feel comfortable with intimacy again.
I’m fully aware that there’s 2 sides to every story and she may see this all slightly differently but in my opinion, I feel like I’m really trying. I find myself feeling down quite often but I try to not let it bleed through although I’m sure at times it does. I feel like she’s putting the onus mostly in me to fix this marriage. It feels like a “do these tricks and I’ll give you a treat” scenario with a constantly moving target. I’m honestly looking for advice, critical or not as it’s really messing with my head. Thanks Reddit!