Having just erased my original answer, it occurs to me that this is in fact rather a sinister question. The men around here, like you, are the LBS; presumably, if we knew the "trick" for getting your H to come back, we'd know the trick for getting our WAWs to do the same.
As to the notion that there's a generic set of things that "men/women" always "want" -- women want a Man, preferably with hairy ears and back, a club, and clothes made from a wildcat's hide (and, if possible, who is named "Alley Oop") -- I find myself in the minority here. In the original version of Woody Allen's play, "Play It Again, Sam," the Woody Allen character has a discussion with his girlfriend over the then-widely accepted idea (c.1970) that all women secretly wanted to be raped. Okay, that looks pretty horrifying from 2009 -- so this currently trendy idea that one should Man Up to win fair lady's favors may go as stinky as last week's gallon of milk before too long.
All that being said, I think the suggestions you've received so far pretty much cover what you can do -- you can only do what you can do about you. Among other things (you may have noticed) men have pretty easily bruised feelings and can be pretty stubborn. You absolutely should apologize as The Wifey points out, simply because it's the right thing to do.
Don't leave him books, because he's not going to read them, because as the WAS he doesn't have a problem -- you obviously have the problem (in the WAS worldview) otherwise he wouldn't have walked-away!
Don't look for justice or a fair accounting of past injuries done. My WAW, for example, never fails to point out that I wasn't "there" for her when her mother died, and never fails to put it in "all I wanted was and he failed" terms -- yet she somehow ALWAYS manages to neglect to mention the fact that I'd only been back from a 15-month tour in Iraq for 6 weeks. So maybe, you know, theoretically, that could have had something to do with my emotional detachment. But I can't expect WAW to tell the story "fairly," because her job isn't making me look good -- it's making HER look good.
And don't be surprised that "his" people and gf listen sympathetically and nod their heads and agree with him -- we generally don't tell our stories to people who won't validate them, and validating is really, at the end of the day, a kind of bullsh*t. We want approval, not analysis.
This, incidentally, is the best thing about the DB online community -- you get legitimate validation (your feelings are okay) AND legitimate criticism.
So listen to the Coach and The Wifey and turn your focus inwards. At the end of the day, you is all you can do.
I love that part about "manning up" being a trend.
We're all programmed to believe something or another. I remember growing up as a kid and hearing that men need to be more sensitive, more emotional, more in tune with their feelings, need to help more at home and with the kids. The previous version of the masculine man was no longer fashionable. So if men become more like women and they're married to heterosexual women, those women want men and if they're not getting whatever that definition of men represents in their eyes, they're looking for it elsewhere and alot of women are getting it elsewhere.
Don't knock the idea that men being masculine attracts women.
It's nature. Human beings can hide behind clothes, cellphones, cars, etc. but in the end we're just animals and those animal instincts exist in us all for the purpose of survival.
SP you said it yourself bluntly in your thread, your wife got a lot hornier. I'm betting she also became alot more aggressive & assertive than she was previously even if these traits existed in abundance before. What does that tell you? You're a smart guy, a very smart guy, do the research on the topic. You're a man, her husband in fact, she could have all the sex she wanted with you if she really wanted before & even now and yet she is still pursuing this divorce and preparing for a single life which includes intimate encounters with other men. She seeking out something she isn't getting from you. Her being "hornier" is definitely a big clue and I'm sure she didn't just want any sex either. With all this extra testosterone pumping in her system, she doesn't just want slow passionate beautiful love making, I'll put good money on the table that she wants to be man handled in bed and receive some very physical sex for long periods of time. Men enter their 30s & 40s and not only is the testosterone production nowhere near it's peak, it's on a downward spiral. On top of that, estrogen production increases in men during this time. No one is pulled aside in school and told this, we're not educated or told what will happen and what we should be expecting. So she has more testosterone and starts to become more masculine, and you with your testosterone production waning & estrogen on the rise are becoming more feminine. Your maternal instincts start to surface, you take care of the home more than she does, you take care of the kids more than she does, she does less of both and on top of that is slowly losing attraction for her husband who is helping more around the house and with the kids. She doesn't want a wife at home, she wants a masculine man, someone to satisfy the new sexual appetite that is growing stronger because of this extra testosterone in her system: it literally is signaling her & urging her to seek out other males to potentially mate with.
Can we suppress these urges? Yes I'm sure we can. Is it easy? Depends on the person I guess, what's easy for some may be difficult for others.
So when you call this "manning up" thing a trend, it isn't a trend, not some popular thing to try out & check out. Sexual polarity isn't a trend, it exists and when it's thrown out of whack, relationships will suffer because of it - it's pretty much a guarantee.
