Most women need to feel a strong, loving, emotional connection before they feel the desire for a physical connection (i.e. an emotional connection is the pathway to sex). Take away that emotional connection for some reason, and the desire for physical intimacy is the first thing to go. She may even continue to masturbate when you aren't around to satisfy herself, but without that emotional connection, and especially if your relationship is strained, your touch may even repulse her.
SSM taught me well. I realized that we were caught in that blame cycle as soon as I read about it. I resolved to be the one to break it and I am truly working my butt off in the "meet her needs" stage. After carefully going through 5LL, I am pretty sure W's LL is quality time. If I could do one of those cool flashback TV shows, I would see my W complaining about how we don't spend enough time together. I do the other four well, but they don't seem to "count" and I used to get hurt when my gifts, words, touch, and hard work around the house did little to nothing to appease her in the love dept.
On a side note, it's funny you mention masturbation because I was thinking that same thing just recently. If she was doing it over the years, she certainly wouldn't tell me about it, since she knows I would react negatively to her saying she isn't interested in and then meeting her own needs later. Now I know better, but back then I wouldn't have understood and would have blamed her more.
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The analogy that I used with my wife
I will keep the tide pool/pond analogy in mind. I think her pond is best filled with quality time together as I mentioned. She responded very well to our first "date night" and got excited about the prospect of doing more of them.
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Now, I'm speaking pretty generically here, and to my own case in particular, but I've witnessed that a woman's desire for sex can undergo a dramatic upswing IF the other aspects of the marriage relationship begin to get fixed.
I am already seeing the beginnings of this. I feel optimistic because she has already changed her attitude to sex so much, I am sure if I continue to work on myself she will continue to respond. I am willing to give it the time it needs to see if the changes I am making will result in her naturally wanting to meet my needs and getting something out of it also.
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The second topic I'd like to go into, and which also strongly affected my own SSM and had to be addressed in order to repair it, is in regard to being The Man in the relationship: being masculine and as such, being sexually attractive to your wife, and at the same time, perimitting her to be feminine and sexually attractive to you. You've already latched on to the NMMNG book (and others like it), so for now I'll leave off on this long post and encourage you to continue applying the principles therein. I'll write more later, if you like.
I truly get this for the first time in my life. Not just from reading NMMNG etc, although it was certainly the first time I saw a book address the issue. My eyes have truly been opened to this, and man what a huge revelation it was for me.
I am interested in hearing what you have to say on the subject, since I am still quite deep in the process of "exploring my masculinity", for lack of a better way to put it. For me, NMMNG (and each of the other books I mentioned) is just one perspective, I continue to seek many others.
Thx again, SF
Spellfire aka Mike
"Women do not like controlling men. They respect and are attracted to men who control themselves. They ultimately are repelled by men who allow themselves to be controlled." -S&A
