Basics

Love is a powerful driving force. Twenty years of marriage and I'm still in love. There have been times when the love was still there but the "in love" wasn't, and the "in love" is the romance that goes with love, and naturally the sex gets thin, but passion is the factor that gives it all a second breath, allows the faith and hope that goes with a relationship to clean the slate and try again.
When you love someone you take the bad with the good. So many people just cash out like the people they claimed love for are disposable, which they aren't.
I wish my wife would back up and realize just how much I love her. She pisses me off a lot, mostly over two things. First is Alex. She's too soft and empowers him in the wrong ways sometimes. She says he acts like me when he gets upset, but what she allows and says empowers him to act out. I set hard limits because he needs them, then she'll question me when I discipline him. The other thing is what I need in romance, tenderness, and sexuality. She gets upset about me wanting as much as I do, but I've always been like that and she knows it. If she knew that going in she should give me at least a taste of what I want every once in a while.
The best gifts she can give me is to hold the line on Alex when she needs to and to bring something worthwhile to our bed every so often and to not make me go too long without. It isn't fair to me.
If I'm made happy like that, she'd find that I'd be happier and my being happy drives me to do more, which means I'd do more for and be better for and with her.

If you really love someone you try to give them what they want, despite what you want or like. I do that for Judy more than she knows. A life of fidelity is my doing just that, especially when fidelity means celibacy. That steals from me in more ways than she will ever care to understand.
How I can deny what I want or feel or who I am and then say I'm happy?
As for Alex, he needs rules and to have them applied strictly, getting what he wants only after he complies, but she doesn't want to fight him so sets rules them allows him to slide. If I can cure her of that I can get him in line. Alex needs to comply with our wishes, but she contests me on near about everything, and I don't think she sees it. Whenever I try to explain things, she says I'm making justifications and excuses, but I know what I'm talking about. I'm always the bad guy, and any fault, no matter how small, she points out in front of him, anything to contest authority.
So that is where those things are in basics. I have a heavy job keeping everything together.