I'm back from a week's vacation, and I see that things are not going as well as before with you. After a week with the newlyweds and anniversary types on a cruise, I have come to the conclusion that for a marriage to work there really should be a happy sex life. This may be my personal bias, or it may be observation of many others. But I see a lot of the friends/partners types and I don't see a lot of marital happiness there.
So, my take on your sitch is that unless the sex is happening, the closeness won't materialize. I don't think talking or confessionals will bring you there. I think you need to figure out why you have a SSM, and then why there are waves of ML, and then back to SSM.
I hope that going to an IC will be helpful to her. I'm afraid you will need to be patient to give that a chance to work.
