My wife and I still sleep in seperate bedrooms because she sleeps with her daughters, how do I deal with this after 5 years?

Have you asked her to consider counseling to help improve your relationship? Have you explained how important it is to you that you share a bedroom? Counseling might help and is probably the best option. It sounds like she has some intimacy issues and is using sleeping with her daughter as a way to avoid that intimacy with you.

I know a few couples that are very much in love and have great sex lives, but sleep in separate rooms. It can work in some situations.

However, if you are truly upset (and it seems like you are), you really should explain how you feel, using the words that you’ve used here. Counselling may help, as @Seaofclouds said. Because she’s been in two failed relationships and is now dealing with her parents’ separation, it seems to me that she may just be afraid of getting close to you. I wish you the best.

This sounds like a real bummer. It’s not fair to you and it’s kind of a weird signal that she’s sending to the kids.

You could try having a talk with her about starting out slowly to change the sleeping arrangements. See if she’s amenable to changing and suggest that starting tonight, she will sleep with you in your bed, see how it goes and then ease up into spending everynight with you.

If she seems kind of freaked out by the idea, then you have a more serious problem on your hands. Let her know how much you love her, but she needs to realize that you are in a marriage together and part of that means sleeping and having sex together and being on the same page about it. It sounds like you need some couples counseling. If she rejects that idea, let her know that you are planning to see a counselor on your own (then set up that appointment, you can get a referral from your primary care physician) and then go. Hopefully she will change her mind and decide to join you in the counseling. If she doesn’t, it is unlikely that this relationship will survive. I feel so badly for you. But you need to give it a try, or else things will just stay the same and probably get worse.

@muhlgrad03, what a difficult situation for you all. Something your wife may not realise, is that her own behaviour now, is actually undermining the reasons for the separation between you. I think it is often true, that we attract the very thing we fear; so her distance from you draws in more isolation! Her own fears and doubts are understandable, I agree with @Seaofclouds and @Seelix, approaching her simply and honestly, as you have the collective may be the best way.

Explain how you feel, reassure her that you understand her needs. I don’t fully agree with @Kardamom about making a separate counselling appointment – it looks too much like a test, or challenge. But we are all saying similar things. Your patience is admirable, but you are clearly wanting some change. Take it gently, do a bit of wooing maybe…? Perhsps a short break away from home together might help too, get a bit of romance, or spice back to get things moving? Whatever you decide, remember your love, maintain that respect you have, I am sure things can move on for you – good luck!

One thing that I didn’t think of right away – How old are the kids? How will they react to sleeping without Mom? Depending on the kids, it might be a more gradual transition than you had hoped.

The girls are 10 and 6. I would expect some sort of gradual transition. I just repainted and redecorated the 10 year old’s room for her. First I did it for her, but I was hoping a side effect would be that she would be more drawn to the room. I work very hard to be a good step father, and it is not easy. This is such a delicate situation, so I definately understand all sides. And sometimes I think my wife knows and understands but truely does not know what to do either. She doesn’t want to create the illusion to the girls that she is abandoning them as well.

Hopefully the girls will be able to understand that as “big girls”, they’re going to have to learn to sleep alone. (Or even with one another, if that works.) Best of luck.

Do the four of you actually live/sleep in the same house? I found your question a little hard to parse. Are we talking a literal Motel 8 or metaphor?

She doesn’t trust that you’ll be there, so she keeps you at a distance? Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever heard one. It seems like your wife has trust issues, or maybe she’s just very protective of her kids and is covering for the fact that they don’t like you, or don’t like the idea of you and their mom together. Kids will thrive in a loving and stable household, so frankly I don’t give two quid what their opinions on the situation are. They’ll be fine if the two of you are.

Or maybe they’re just whiny kids who have gotten used to sleeping with mommy and mommy has become used to obliging them, and daddy is too nice of a guy to say “Dammit! I need physical intimacy! I can only stand this soul-sucking misery for so long before even my undying love won’t be enough anymore.”

Have you ever put it so plainly to her? That the emotional and physical distance she’s put between you two is, every single day, ending the marriage? Either this will be her wake-up call, by which she refocuses and recommits her energy to the marriage, or she will choose whatever is binding her into the life she leads, effectively choosing that life over your marriage. If she really has deep, unresolvable emotional problems, but a desire to overcome them, then I would definitely look into many forms of professional help.

If you don’t mind the situation as it is, but simply need fulfillment of certain human desires, talking to your wife about extra-marital sex or sexual friendships might be to your advantage. It’s not for everyone, but you never know. I’ve definitely seen marriages saved by affairs (not cheating. Your wife must be aware of the situation.)

All ‘round I wouldn’t wish the situation on anyone, but we’re pulling for you. Good luck!

Your wife is not being fair to you or her girls. She will pass on her fears to her children. She needs to see a counselor.

At times I do feel the same way that she is being unfair to the girls, because she is not showing them how a loving marriage actually functions, moreso demonstrating disfunctionality.

She wants you around for the stability it provides.
She does not really want you in the way you want, and she does not deserve you.

If I was in your position, I’d be starting up the plans it takes to leave her. Morally, she doesn’t even deserve any alimony, but legally she probably does.

What would I do in your situation? I’d ask her to agree to spend one night a week in bed with me. And see where things go from there. You might have to bribe the kids, but what else is new?