Well, don't cry too hard for me. My life is pretty good, really. I think it's hard to understand each other. For her, I (SillyOldBear) and sex with me are separate things. She rejects the one but not the other.
For me, they're more or less one thing. I look at the language I've been using--offering <i>myself</i>, risking <i>myself</i>, <i>I'm</i> a chore, etc. She wouldn't use that language to describe what's happening. For her it's more like someone you like is going out to do something you don't like much, and he asks you to go along. If you don't want to go, you are not rejecting him, only declining to go to his underwater basket-weaving seminar with him.
For me, to offer sex is, in some way, to tell her I love her and ask whether she loves me. "No, thank you" is not the right answer.
