Married 12 years. Two kids. Mortgage. Normal life.
For 11 straight weeks there was nothing. Zero affection, zero closeness.
I kept a secret counter on my phone called “Days Since” and updated it every morning.
I cried in the bathroom more times than I want to admit.
The suitcase was half-packed under the bed.
Then I found one idea that actually worked: stop chasing, stop sulking, stop trying to numb the ache.
Hold it for exactly 7 days and ask her one calm question on the 7th night.
Seven days later she grabbed me, tears streaming down her face, and everything changed in a single night.
We now have almost 500 little red hearts on the fridge door – one for every time since.
I wrote the whole thing down – the exact day-by-day plan, the question word-for-word, what to do if she laughs or cries, and the rules that have kept the spark alive four years later.
40 pages. No fluff. No therapy-speak.
If you’re counting “days since” right now and it hurts… this is the map I wish I’d had.
Happy to share it with anyone in the same place I was.
Link in the comments (or DM me if the mods remove it again).
You’re not broken.
You’re just starving.
And starvation is fixable.
J Carter
November 2025