I hear ya. I was kinda going with the whole "preventing-overflowing-onto-themselves" by channeling the passion in another way--because, really, they're the only ones without any voice in this matter. Also going with that sense that the verbal passion tends to take things down to the raw-est of levels. And sometimes, when the sex has been absent or stilted for awhile, taking THAT to the raw-est level can cut through BS that nothing else can.
I didn't mean it as a cure-all. yeah, it would be complicated--but this seems to be a situation that's stuck in an intimacy--distancing cycle, and changing tactics and experiencing radical vulnerability in the other can shift the dynamic when nothing else has. And once things get to the extreme of pulling Themselves into it, it's time for a radical re-do.
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012