if I was so invisible in the relationship--how could I possibly feel desirable or find him desirable? I mean, I did it for years, and then I just couldn't make my body do it any more. I tried to be the one to break the cycle, to give more--but ultimately I was unable to do it.
I think some of this might apply to my sitch; clearly WAW felt invisible in the emotional sense -- when her mother died I wasn't there, I was still in the war. Not saying that excuses it, but that's what it was.
On the other hand, she was EXTREMELY visible to me as a woman and as a sexual person -- the day didn't go by, until right there at the end, where I didn't express my attraction to her in some way or another.
That, in fact, is one of my greatest humiliations in this sitch. When I was on Business Trip and Skype'd home to video chat with Themselves, before the kids came in the room WAW, who was looking at herself on the video screen, kept saying "How do I get rid of this image of myself, I look terrible," to which I said some kind of affectionate/horny thing -- and she said, "Oh. Thanks."
Of course what I knew later, but didn't know when I was expressing my desire, was that she'd already decided to divorce me.
I don't know why, exactly, but I find that memory to be among the worst of the lot -- just downright humiliating.
So while I get that there's a linkage between intimacy and sexuality, and with the one lacking the other would wane as well, it wasn't for lack of trying. At least from my POV.
