I am sure DanceQueen (where are you DQ?) would say that this "time" excuse is not a conscious form of manipulation i.e. to get the husband to do more stuff round the house or even to support her financially, and I would agree.
Like the "headaches" DQ has descibed on her blog, I think it boils down to the creation of other pressures in order to avoid dealing with the "why" of why the wife doesn't want physical intimacy at that moment (or generally).
The problem is that nice guys such as I used to be, buy in to the "time" excuse, run themselves ragged and wind up resentful and with a wife that doesn't respect them (though even she may not actually know "why" she doesn't - perhaps the frenetic nice guy behaviour reinforces her own "issues" around sex).
In my own marriage I am working on replacing my previous approach with a healthier, more playful, response. I am starting to understand from female posters such as DQ and Alimari that a woman essentially wants:
(1) Her emotional needs met (this is not necessarily about "time" per se, but masculine presence and attention when she talks).
(2) To be seduced.
(3) To be kissed with great passion and at length.
(4) To open up emotionally as a prelude to physically.
That is a process that takes care and attention, not just more and more "time". It is a long way from how I used to think about these things.
I am still learning.
S&A
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated" - from The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.
Which I take to mean that every man has within him a spirit of relentlessness and optimism. Its already there; he just has to cultivate it.
