Yes, I remember your situation and there are similarities. It's a beautiful thing you have managed to do for yourself, your husband, and family. It sounds like it has and will make a tremendous difference in the quality of your lives together.
I'm afraid my wife is stuck right now NOT wanting to do everything -- sort of has a chip on her shoulder about some of those things, thinking I or society "expect" her to do them. Yet, I like to think I'm pretty non-traditional about the roles we should play...in thought, and significantly in action. However, the fact is we are both starved for time and energy, and, when it comes to house work, I'm willing to let things slide much more easily than her -- and then she begins to think "he must expect ME to do everything around here....", when it is not that at all.
But, ML is different. I do "expect" her to be there in a loving giving way more than 4 times/year. I need her to. It hurts incredibly that she doesn't want to. In terms of time and energy, it seems small in comparison to the things she wants me to do around the house (probably not a good comparison). If I spend too much time and effort trying to prove to her that her assumptions about my expectations of her are wrong, or trying to make life easier and less cluttered around here -- well, it feels like I'm just doing it to get sex. If I walk on eggshells, hoping to get sex, and then it doesn't happen (which almost always it turns out that way), then the situation just gets worse. At this point, I try very hard to resist even hinting or asking for it, until three months or so have gone by.
Right now, I don't see her finding motivation to be more loving and more of a partner and less resentful -- without there being some dramatic wake-up call (like a D-bomb). But, I'm not likely to do that sort of thing unless I really truly mean it.
Is there anything I could do short of a D-bomb or an affair to make her see the urgency of our need to connect physically and emotionally? (Well, part of the problem is I think any sort of physical connection pushes her emotionally FARTHER from me.) Sometimes I wonder if our antidepressants dull our sensitivity to our own deteriorating situation.
