NTE - I also empahtize with what you are describing.
I don't know what to say, other than - ouch. And yeah, I can see why you'd rather go on strike than make love under those conditions.
Sigh...Can you brace yourself for some tough love here for a moment??
Um, your wife would probably describe a similar, blah, no-connection experience if she were to tell someone about having sex with you.
Now I understand that from your point of view, you would touch her and love her and please her all you could IF SHE WOULD ONLY LET YOU. So in your mind, it is ALL HER FAULT that your sex together is so unfulfilling for both of you, because you are willing and she simply won't let you be a good lover to her.
So in order for you to make any progress at all - you should try to step outside your own sitch and see what it looks like.
To her, it is probably all YOUR fault. To you, it is all HER fault. To an outside observer, it is simply two people who are not able to connect now after years of going about it the wrong way. Neither is wrong or right. You both feel you have "already tried" when it comes to fixing the problems, and you are too tired and exhausted and depressed to try again, because you both expect failure on the part of the other spouse.
Your wife and you are both failing YOURSELVES.
That is what I learned after my divorce. My husband wasn't failing me, I was failing myself.
I was your wife (well, not quite, I wasn't quite a cold fish) but I definitely was fussy in bed and wouldn't let him touch me all that much, and refused to let him pleasure me other than in my own prescribed ways, nor would I truly pleasure him. He secretly hated me because I had taken his manhood away over time, because I would reject him and I was bitchy a lot. I secretly hated him because he was too lazy to ever man up and do something about our relationship problems. How were we ever supposed to have a good sex experience under those conditions?
But instead of ever realizing that I was half or more of the problem at that time, I would still just simmer and stew about how he wouldn't man up. Instead of ever realizing that he needed to man up a LOT, he just simmered about how I held the keys to our sex life and (he felt) I dangled them in front of his face, laughing.
If only I could have stepped out of myself, forgiven him for the past, and truly TRULY from my heart - tried to put it together again with NO BITTERNESS.
Well...I couldn't do that. We are divorced. It was horrible, way worse than I thought it would be.
Please - I'm telling you straight up - no matter how much you think you've already tried everything you can, the one thing you haven't tried yet is just forgiving her and starting over from a place of love only.
You two need a really good counselor.
Now ... I wanted to address what you said about you had a fight last night about each other's tone...
In my current relationship, my man sometimes uses a tone with me that makes me get INSANE angry at him, and I have spent the past 4 years with him slowly training him that he simply cannot use this tone with me. The tone can be described as "talking to me like I am stupid", or "answering a question as if he is annoyed that I asked". These are tones he uses in the rest of his life, and he sometimes does talk down to people and doesn't realize it. Well, that chit just don't fly with me. No one is going to talk to me like that...barring something like they just had a really crappy day or some once in a blue moon thing. I can forgive that. But if I ask him a question in a sweet tone, and am truly waiting for his answer so I can do something for him or help him (ie: "Honey, corn or broccoli with dinner tonight?") and he answers me with "I already SAID what I wanted when we talked last night" in a tone that implies I am stupid...and maybe I simply forgot he said that last night, and therefore, why do I deserve the "stupid" tone? I am not trying to annoy him, I am trying to feed him. Yes maybe he already told me, but we also talked about 200 other things between last night and now and I worked and did all the shopping, my mind is busy too, etc etc. Well I'm telling you - that tone does NOT fly with me if I didn't deserve it. I immediately put a stop to him doing this.
But that then usually ensues into a fight. He cannot seem to understand that I will never accept being talked down to. Not once has he ever gotten away with using that tone with me, without me telling him to back the hell up and do that over again. And yet, his first reaction when I tell him to back up is ALWAYS to be defensive about it.
OK...why am I rambling on about this?....I am just telling you, in case it is relevant to your sitch last night with the fight about tones - - that I am in the camp that you *must* temper your tone ALWAYS with your loved ones at home, and you never snap into an unloving tone for no reason. I am guessing that both you and your wife are to blame for this?
Yes, it sounded like her unforgiving attitude about it in the morning was not the best way to handle it...but my guess is that maybe your tone issues are more on your side than hers???
NTE - we're here for ya, man. Keep venting. Don't feel defensive if any of us implies you have work to do too...but most of all, yes your sitch sounds uncomfortable and I feel for ya! I hope you can find happy from here. We're rooting for you.
