36M here, with two young kids (4 and 6), wife is 38F. Married for 12 years.

I'm relatively new to the MRP journey, and I was a career beta all my life. After reading more on MRP (completed MMSLP and NMMNG so far), I realized that my approaches were 100% wrong. The more I pressured my wife for sex, and the more we argued or negotiated about it, the more defensive and stressed she became about the ordeal and would come up with myriad excuses not to do it (tired, kids, stress, etc.). On average, we have sex around 2 times a month. She does seem to enjoy it when the stars align for us to fuck, and she orgasms each time, but isn't a willing giver sexually (something to work on).

I've been going to the gym 3 times a week, doing my best to pass shit tests, practice outcome independence, maintaining frame and building dread. I'm making slow but steady progress, but because I've been so ingrained in the beta mindset for so long, I'm sure I've made a ton of mistakes that I don't even realize.

So back to the scenario at hand. We had another big argument at the end of July where told me to stop asking her for sex and to let it come naturally instead. So in the month of August, I told her that I would take the drastic step of not initiating sex at all, just to take the pressure off the act and to rebuild attraction. I still gamed her this month, but I dialed it down significantly because I wanted to break the association between running game and asking for sex, and to also to build dread by removing attention/affection.

The result? We still fucked twice this month when she initiated. Obviously not the preferred frequency for me, but at least better than zero. We didn't argue about sex this month at all, and she felt less stressed about it. I also felt more comfortable in the alpha mindset because I knew that nothing I did this month for her would represent a covert contract for intimacy. It also made it easier for me to pass shit/compliance tests and stay in my frame because I didn't care if she got mad or not as I wasn't going to ask her for sex anyway. Which paradoxically (not really) made her better behaved towards me as well.

Here's my issue. Yesterday, I jokingly said that this experiment in August was coming to an end, and she also replied, semi (?)-jokingly, that she wish it would continue indefinitely because it was much better that I wasn't asking her for sex all the time.

Then, I messed up. I reacted like a total beta. I felt hurt that she would say that because it implied a lack of attraction for me. I blurted out that I would continue to withdraw my affection and attention from the relationship if the lack of sex continued. I mean I know that's what I was supposed to do as part of building dread, just that I wasn't supposed to say it out loud as if it was a threat. Because I said it in a joking way, we didn't end up in another argument, but I know that I should have still reacted better.

First question: what are some DARE responses that I could have made to my wife's reply above? (That she wish I would continue indefinitely to not ask her for sex).

Second question: should I begin initiating sex again in September? I know I need to do a better job of OI even if she denies it, but I don't want to ruin what little progress I've made this month by slipping back into old habits and patterns.