I think that *because* her mom was non-cuddly and unavailable, she repeated the pattern as an adult and chose an unavailable man for her husband. I did the same thing, really. My own mother did, too. My mother (and her mother before her) was non-cuddly and emotionally unavailable, and while cac is definitely a cuddly person, he hasn't been emotionally available. Neither of his parents were. My own father never was, either. My own emotional unavailability revolves around my issues with sex, for the most part. This is probably true for the posters' wives who want nothing to do with sex. It manifest differently in different people.
So why do we pick unavailable partners? Because it is familiar.
As children we were victims - as adults we kept repeating the behaviors we learned as children - in one extreme or the other. The people in our lives were actors we unconsciously cast in roles that would recreate our childhood wounding so that we could try to heal it - try to get it right this time. We were energetically drawn to, and attracted to us, the people who would treat us in ways that felt familiar - because on some deep level we believed that is what we deserved. If our own parents could not love us, then we must not deserve to be loved.
Also, the Fear of Intimacy book that Fran mentioned recently talks about this too.
