I see. I don't know. I would have said that outside of sex, we were very emotionally intimate. We do talk, we do laugh, we do tell each other "I love you."
After reading the book, I realize a LD spouse can really believe that they have pretty good sexual intimacy, even while their HD spouse is thinking and actually telling them over and over that they're in a sex-starved marriage. So it's hard to trust my perception of emotional intimacy. I'll be sure and emphasize that section; maybe we can read it together. I don't have a lot of faith that it will mean anything to her. I've said that to her so many times . . . . so many ways . . . . orally, in writing, it doesn't seem to matter. She doesn't believe me.
I do know I'm irritable and easily angered nowadays. I've been working on it, but it still shows sometimes. Maybe my wife would say it's worse than that. One more thing to try to fix.
Another thing I want to journal about a little here: Friends and family. Specifically, I don't share these problems with my friends or family. I'm embarassed, and being rejected all the time is humiliating enough without having my friends or my family know about it. My wife does discuss things with one of her best friends, and like so much of this, with completely counter-intuitive results. Her friend works with her at the school and is a little younger than my parents--old enough to be my wife's mother, certainly. But they get along great, and I like her and her husband, though I don't see him much. My wife told her friend about our problems. Her friend's advice was to try to find a way to enjoy sex, because as she gets older, her sex drive will increase and mine will fade away. Hope that's not the case! It turns out that she's dealing with a SSM herself, only she's the HD one and her husband is LD. Since that time, she's always advised my wife to do something about this problem, but whether she's overwhelmed, apathetic, or depressed, she doesn't seem interested in solving anything. (PS--Remember the flowers from the roadside? Same friends.)
