Thank you so much for your response. I'm copying the last paragraph of it below because it was originally posted in another thread and I want to make sure that I can find it later. Here it is:
Quoting MPT: Now for the conversation I've been developing for you! When you're in a situation with your wife where things are pretty good, maybe you could ask her if she misses feeling close to you. Maybe say something like, "I've been thinking about how you say you don't feel 'that way' (or insert whatever word or phrase she's been using) about me. I was wondering if you miss feeling that way about me?" You're looking for the words that convey your concern for any sense of loss she may be experiencing. If she's like me, she is experiencing a sense of loss. If you can find a way to let her express this safely, I think you could be on your way to making the lack of sex (good sex, not just duty sex) a shared problem. You and she against the problem rather than "you are the problem." If she says something like "Is this about the sex thing?" Tell her, "No. This has nothing to do with sex. I don't want to talk about sex. I've been concerned about you." (Okay, so maybe it does ultimately have something to do with sex, but this is just a little bending of the truth that might make her feel safer about the discussion. I bent the truth a little when I told my H in our conversation that I appreciated him not getting angry or making me feel blamed. 'Cause he actually did occasionally do that.) She may not be willing to talk about it right then, but you'll have cracked the door a little and issued an invitation to talk about something which may actually be bothering her quite a bit. Even if she hasn't thought about this in terms of a loss, you will have planted the seed that she too is experiencing a sense of loss. The whole idea is to turn this into something that you two are exploring together. You're experiencing one of the normal swings of marriage. This time it is your wife who is experiencing less than optimal sexual desire. Think of this as setting the stage now for how things might get handled should the shoe be on the other foot in the future. (Now be careful of that little thought of "Yeah, then she'll see what it's like to have someone you love not want to have sex!" That's not a "we're in this together" kind of thought.)
I think this is good advice, but I have a couple of questions. First, I'm afraid that if I ask her if she misses feeling close to me, she'll immediately assume I'm getting into the sex discussion. How can I get past that first hurdle? If she says "Is this about the sex thing?" and I tell her it's not and that I'm concerned about her, she'll still think it's about the sex thing (I'm pretty certain anyway). Based on what I've learned from your previous responses, I am actually concerned about her lack of desire and how that may be affecting her. But I'm afraid that if I tell her that, she'll say "yeah, you're concerned about my lack of desire because of how it affects you". I just don't know how to communicate genuine concern for her without her being able to turn it around and think that I'm just being selfish. It's probably obvious that we have a real communication problem. I'm wondering (again) if it might be better to write her a letter so that I can say what I want to say without her jumping to conclusions. Let me know what you think.
