I will also need to learn more about farming. I just know that plants need water, CO², some nitrogen and a few minerals. I know enough about the process scientifically but I will need to visit a few farms and worse of all - interact with people. But I guess I need to get outdoors a little and get some Vitamin D.
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This is ace!!! Brilliant 
@Fargesia_murielae Following up on the communication:
Why is communication so hard, O wise stranger?
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I don’t know how I would do this. It sounds easy enough, but even thinking about it seems absurd, scary and ridiculous right now.
Or maybe I am just scared. What if the love is over, as I suspect it is? What would she say? What if she says something I am not prepared to hear.
Again another potential hole with spikes in the bottom.
Another facet of the problem is that the lack of love is mutual. I want to hold on to it because that is the only reality I know. 23 years. Long time. For me there is nothing else, that I know of.
For her, I fear the same is true. We live together, because it is convenient for both of us. We stopped sleeping in the same bad, a couple of months ago.
I am confused because I can’t decide whether I want to continue or not. Right now, when I say that I want to continue it is just because of habit. My life has revolved around our marriage and our kids. The kids are growing up fast. Soon they will go away. The elder one is in college and is already gone.
Do I want to live out the rest of my life with her? Really?
I guess I am still confused about myself. My feelings. Perhaps it might be best to sit beside the river and wait (figuratively). The answer will come to me when the time is right.
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Bro, your understanding of farms is less than elementary! They are like giant organic software systems whose components intermingle and coordinate with each other. It’s all about perspective here. If you can find beauty in AI and elegant solutions to problems in software systems, then you absolutely have the capacity to appreciate the natural beauty of a large farming operation.
On thing that trips up a lot of men is wanting to solve their woman’s problems. It sounds to me like you feel disconnected from her expertise, and therefore feel unable to solve her issues. This leads to you not even trying to initiate for fear of not being able to help her, or like I heard you say, being afraid of what her response might be.
Let me lay down some hidden knowledge on you here. When it comes to intimacy women want 2 things: She wants to feel like you’re genuinely interested in her and she wants to feel like you’re being real and vulnerable. That’s it. She doesn’t want you to solve all her problems.
Men talk problems and solutions with each other. It’s how we get things done in the world. Women are different. If you find yourself listening to what she has to say and you start to formulate solutions to it in your head, you have to mentally stop that. Just listen, and when you think she’s done, validate her on her perspective. She doesn’t want your solution. If you want to offer it, go ahead and offer to give it to her, but make sure she is on board with hearing it first. When you can nail this down, her level of comfort with you will increase, and your level of pressure that you’re placing on yourself with the relationship to solve all her problems will decrease as well.
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Thanks for the tips on women @CrabDog . I have always been socially inept so these will definitely be helpful. Humans are complex creatures and I don’t understand them very well.
As for the AI system, it isn’t really very complex. I have implemented a few more complex projects for corporates, although I never worked in rural areas or farms or farmers. Most of the tech they call AI in farming, is just automation software. The real fun starts when the network starts to think and decide for itself. I have a plan. The tech is already out there, most of it is free, and its actually quite simple. Wish me luck 
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I have no great advice to offer you, really. Except to say that I sympathize and empathize. I am literally going through the same thing at the moment. You just have to stay committed to your sobriety and your future. Work on yourself. Don’t turn yourself inside out for someone who is not willing to meet you half way.
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As a woman, I personally will agree with this summary. I like it. I do like problem solving too but most of the time I just want to get things off my chest/out of my head.
Seen & heard, not dismissed & placated.
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talk therapy. lots of it. hugs 
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Exactly !
No one wants to be dismissed and placated,
@Yoda-Stevie hopefully chimes in, he’s not a woman, but man., he is so full of wisdom.
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Hey Manish nice to meet you
First off congratulations on sobriety and 23 years of Marriage that’s awesome from my experience and what I’m going through myself a marriage of 11 years WORK WORK WORK on your marriage 23 years you have to fight I’m all about marriages relationships surviving try not to mix up marriage with Sobriety as In Sobriety is you coming first and making sure your ok always comes first in my opinion communication is key let her know how you feel vice versa hear her out see what can be done needs to be done in order for you guys to survive this wishing you the very best best of luck and keep fighting !!
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I’ve been married to my bride for almost a quarter century. When we met, she was 22 and had just started her career, moving from intern to full-time. I was 32, a year and some out of the Marines, just starting to find my stride in my new civilian career. We were very different people.
A year later we were married.
Over these 24 years we both progressed in our careers. Hers, was a steady march upward. Mine a series of peaks and valleys. It is the nature of our fields. She works in the criminal justice system. I work in corporate sales. Right now, I am between jobs. She is the head of her division. Prosecutors handle the criminals. My wife handles the victims and witnesses. She meets people at the absolute worst times of their lives, and shepherds them through the process. Those for whom danger still exists, she works to ensure they are as safe as circumstances allow.
We are still very different people, and that’s OK. She knows how proud I am of who she is, and what she does. I couldn’t do what she does, for it takes and emotional strength that I just don’t have. I tell her this often, because it is true.
Our interests are very different. I am a huge reader. I watch a lot of documentaries. I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. I grow fruits and vegetables. I cook. I train in martial arts and combatives. None of these things interest her, and that’s OK. She values that I can do things she can’t do.
It’s because together we are more than we could ever be alone. It’s synergy and complimentary.
Tell her your proud of her. Tell her she amazes you. Tell her that you could never do the things she does. You just might hear something like that back.
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I think everyone wants that man or woman. We make it harder than what it should be.
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Right now I don’t even know how I feel. I feel confused, hurt, alone but I am not sure about these feelings too. I know that a large part of all this is my fault. She knows that too. She is a little vindictive about it. Her anger has not yet subsided. Dealing with my alcoholism and lack of stability has taken a huge toll on her. She is still super pissed about it. How do you move forward in a situation like that? The common answer is get is “give it time”. So here I sit beside the river of my thoughts (figuratively) and wait for the next thing to happen.
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I am going to write this down and work on it. It won’t be quick. I will probably need to think what I would say and do some mental rehearsals.
Thank you for sharing your story @Yoda-Stevie - so much is different in our lives, yours and mine, and yet so much is similar. Perhaps we will meet over videochat in a Zoom meeting someday 
I am not good with people. Never have been. My wife is the people person. I am trying to learn how it is to be human. To be normal. I am learning how to behave, to communicate.
I am trying to be aware of the world around me. My present reality. The past is gone. I am begining again. Right from the very beginning. I am confused. I need to learn how to be patient. Perhaps the answers will come to me in time.
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Maybe start here…maybe tell her what you told us.
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Hello first off I would like to say congratulations on figthing the hardest battled ever and that’s addiction. My husband had a addiction that will soon take over my life too. We now had 1 thing in common the addiction, but my husband feel deeper into with lies, stealing, hiding things and even physical arguments all because he needed the addiction more then me. After 2 years of hell I was tried of fighting this nightmare called addiction and a husband who let me down on everything that our marriage was based on , plus heartache soon turned into hate. By the grace of God we had a come to Jesus moment and sat down to learn we will spill everything out to each other. As a women we sometimes wonder if our husband’s have a heart as they never show emotions with tears, like men have to be tough and they don’t cry. But us women need to see emotions from men to believe they have a heart . When my husband broke down and spilled everything to me the lies, what he has stolen, and everything else with emotions I knew right there I could try and work though our problems to find our love again. Today we are 18 and 15 days sober our love is stronger then its ever been even stronger then the day we got married. I’m sitting here telling you it is possible to be sober and work together on your relationship just got to go at it 100% with emotions it’s ok to let the tears fall and all the built up emotions. I wish you the best on this new wonderful life called sobriety.
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Yes in a way it’s avoidance 
but thats the best I’ve got right now. I have lived an eventful and interesting life, and the best strategy I’ve known is that when there are no answers, to sit on my butt and wait. The answers will come.
This turned my views of a matching partner right upside down and topsy turvy 
Systems recalibrating…
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