Sometimes it seems that most get complacent in one way or another in a relationship. Sometimes they really DON`T know what they had until it's gone. Like men who stand down after marrying, put on weight and ignore their woman for sports, some women after marrying have caught the sperm donor they needed to get their chicks and don't feel the need to "put out" as they did before. Sure, they need a "companion" but not a "lover" anymore...unless it's a one night stand just because some hunky stranger got their blood to rise (and yes, married women are much easier to pull in a bar than singles from my observer experience).
The rock and hard place issue only occurs if you feel locked into a cycle. If that's the case you need to find a way to shake things up. If you truly are so incompatible then there are solutions, both legal and religious. Counseling is used to help break cycles of "incompatibility" by trying to find new angles of few, new insights on age old problems.
I think personally it's a matter of what your own, personal boundaries are. If you think sex and intimacy is so important then you'll do what's necessary to try to influence your spouse to not only hear, but work on the issue...ON THEIR OWN. If they don't do it on their own it doesn't count for much but you can help by guiding them to the right door for them to walk through.
Try creating situations similiar to when you WERE dating. Date your wife again. Go in with the same expectations you had then. Did you expect to get laid each and every time you went out on a date? Did you expect that fresh young thing to bend her knees and blow you in a back alley? Did she do any of that then? Perhaps she also needs to spin back the clock a little.
I'm going to try that. I don't know if it will work, but it's better than trying to convince someone to "want" me. If she want's me, great, if not all I've lost out on is a few dates. In the end, if it doesn't work out, then...well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Are you "dating" your wife? Are you providing her with that romance that you had in the beginning? Not the fresh love kind, but the few months in kind? What are you doing?
