Another Lonely Evening in a House Full of People

A couple of months ago, I had a small revelation.  As much as my wife's frigidity -- her lack of sexual desire, or desire for any physical contact with me -- is a problem, and a big one, I think it is the tip of the iceberg of a larger one.  It's not just that she doesn't want to touch me; she doesn't want to even be around me.  On a typical night in my house, once the kids are in bed the missus promptly heads for our bedroom.  She gets in her pajamas, climbs into bed, wraps herself up in covers, props the computer in her lap, and starts flipping channels.  She will immediately surf on the computer directly to Facebook; the TV will get set to whatever silly reality show or rerun strikes her fancy.  There is almost no deviation from this.  She will not:

• ask if I want to join her
• offer to share the blanket
• if I am in the room, ask what I want to watch
• if I am in the room, actually acknowledge my presence in any way

Every night, I am left to stew by myself after the kids go to sleep.  I can watch TV in the other room...by myself, play video games...by myself, read..by myself, or do any number of things all by my lonesome.  How exactly is this different from how I lived as a bachelor?  Not much.  I am just as lonely now at night as I was then, except that I could, if I so chose, go out and find some company.
Her response when I tell her that we need to spend time together is usually something to the effect of "I don't have any problem with you sitting there." Of course, that is a pretty ridiculous response; this is my house, too, so I'm glad you don't mind that I sit where I please in it. More importantly, sitting in the same room together while the TV blares isn't really a joint activity. This is especially true if one person has no say in what is on, and the other person doesn't talk to him.
 To be frank, watching stupid TV and playing on Facebook are all she really does at home if she isn't cooking, eating, or sleeping.  After she gets up and gets dressed, she opens the computer and...spends the next thirty minutes on Facebook.  If she has a day off, she catches up on the twenty hours or so of stuff she records in one week on the DVR (yes, that is actually accurate).  Even if she is doing something else, like the laundry, one or both of these activities is also in progress.  These activites are not bad in and of themselves, but they have killed our family life.  The addiction to these things is so bad I have come to hate Facebook more than anything else on the planet.  People ask me why I don't get on it.  My wife is on there enough for both of us.
Lest you, gentle reader, think that these addictions are the only source of the problem, my wife will occasionally do something outside the house...but not with me or the kids.  She will tell me at night that she "is exhausted," and "just wants to relax," and then the next day get up at 5:00 on her day off to go running with the neighbor.  She will refuse to talk to me after 9:30, but will stay out with her friends at some restaurant (or maybe a bar) until 11:30 or midnight on a night she has to get up at 5:30 for work.  No, her schedule is quite full, full of things that she actually wants to do.

What is the alternative?

I realized I haven't posted anything in some time, and for those of you that are following this, I apologize.  I will put the changes in the last few months into several posts.  Lately, my mind has been drawn to what the alternatives are if things do not work out:  continue the way things are, divorce, cheating?  Is there something else?
I have reached the point where the way things are just make me miserable.  Things have to change.  However, my wife has made it clear she is just going to half-ass this; at this point, she is not going to change without a different tack.
Divorce has gone into my mind.  For those of you who simply say "dump her," that is just naive.  I take the promises I make very seriously, and this one is no different.  Even if that wasn't enough, we have kids, and they would definitely lose out more than us if we split up.  My own parents got divorced, and the end result was that no one was happier.  She'd get half my money, and believe me, it's all come from me.  What's more, I will have to go into a court, and make a public and permanent statement that I was leaving my wife because she won't have sex with me.  There's more to it, I think, but that is what I will have to tell the judge.  That would be humiliating in a very public way.  I'd have to make similar statements -- or make up some lie -- to my friends and family.  If I go through with that, there will be large consequences.
I have made up my mind that having an affair just isn't the way to handle this.  One, as I said, I keep my promises, and that would be a violation of one of the big ones.  Two, that's really a cowardly way out of this.  It would be sidestepping the basic issue that my spouse doesn't want to touch me while violating the rules.  So, if I can't work this out, divorce is a much manlier and honest option.
Are there other options?  I don't know.  I have thought about going to a certified sex counselor, but that option has its own pitfalls.  My wife, first, has to agree to go, though I could make enough threats and raise enough hell to change her mind.  More importantly, I am more worried about whether the conselor would actually help.  My parents' incompetent counselor actually made things worse.  Then there's the ugly fear that the counselor will take advantage of me or my wife.  (I would absolutely insist that we go to a woman, which, let's face it, would reduce the likelihood of this).  Working a job like this would be a dream come true for a pervert, just like daycares attract child abusers.