I need to process this in more depth but I will give it a cursory response.
All the "I's" are representative of the "good" psychological practice of owning our own stuff and feelings and such. I have purposely avoided things like "You make me feel unloved, like crap etc..." although to a certain extent it is true. However, I can see your point about how that would definitely underscore any "shame" that he carries around already.
I have given him so many unprompted bj's to get him started it is laughable. Guys always think this is the answer. The answer is that my H loves bjs. What follows bjs or hjs varies widely. Sometimes it is just crap/begrudging sex, sometimes good sex. Sometimes rubbing up on H, grabbing his stuff, initiating a romantic kiss or the like just leads to the heavy sigh "Oh God, are you still here? You haven't gotten over that crap yet?" is how it sounds to me.
Yeah, I stopped initiating but it didn't start as any kind of "test" and it wasn't to trap my H in some twisted scheme. I was an exhausted post partum Mom of four children and when I got the go ahead from the ob/gyn at my pre-partum weight and H didn't ask, bat and eye or anything I thought - well, he's a big boy, he knows the 6 week checkup thing and if he's interested he'll say something or do something. And then he didn't and then I couldn't initiate with any authenticity. I can initiate with any man that shows some interest, major interest, a little interest but none? Not authentic, not respectful of myself and I couldn't do it. Then I realized to my surprise that it was already about 4/5 months. In the past when I pointed out one or two month droughts to H he acted like they were an anomaly. What could he say about this one? So, yes, I purposely stopped initiating and I waited to see if my H held any little tiny flame for this middle aged, mother of his children who works her tail off to stay/become attractive to him............. And here we are.
I have given sexual affirmations and from what I can tell I think he sees them as false praise that I give in order to get more out of him or something. Or they are an expression of the alien that I am (an HD female). There has been nothing to affirm including kisses, but pats, flirting etc... in so long that unless I push myself on him all I can sexually affirm at the moment is his skill in putting up Christmas decorations, doing homework with the kids etc... I do affirm those things - very frequently, appropriate thanks and so on. I just don't say, "Gee H, when you mash those potatoes it makes me hot." OK - so I am kidding. I DO get it.
I take it that you feel if I take the reigns (again), praise him and such that over time his approximations to the ultimate goal (regular, on purpose sex) will get closer and closer to that goal. That assumes that he wants me and that he doesn't have some of the issues that I mentioned. I do see the difference in my pointing out when he ain't exactly playing along and calling him on it. How is that less shaming than having the talk out front?
Is there any part of what I said that makes sense to say as a kind of ice breaker for this drought?
I recognize that H isn't solely responsible for my SL but mb only takes me so far and as I pointed out my self respect has gotten to be as much an issue as anything. However, I do recognize that this (once again) will come from me or we will continue to drift apart into something sad and completely unworkable.
Karen
PS Your little fantasy riff made me laugh. I sometimes think H would like me to do the dominatrix thing.
