I am pretty certain that when you first started dating your wife, you didn't think she "owed" you affection, sex, or anything else. When she touched you or had sex with you, you assumed that she was doing so because she wanted to – because she enjoyed it. And I am pretty certain you believed that’s how it should be: you wanted her to touch you and have sex with you only because she wanted to – because it gave her enjoyment -- not because she felt she “owed” it to you.
Marriage does not seem to have changed things for your wife. It seems she still touches you and has sex with you exactly as much as she wants to, i.e. exactly as much as she feels will be enjoyable for her. The problem is that she doesn’t desire you as much as she used to. She doesn’t want to have sex with you because she’s not enjoying it. I know that is a hurtful and wounding thing to think about it, but it’s critical to accept it AND NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY if you want to improve things.
Why doesn’t your wife enjoy having sex with you more? In the email exchange you posted, she gave three reasons: (1) life has gotten busier and more complicated; (2) the sex has gotten boring; and (3) you complain about sex so much that it’s begun to feel like a job for her, like something she has to do for you rather than for her own enjoyment.
Try to put aside for a moment all your thoughts about whether her reasons are sensible, accurate, fair, etc. Those are her reasons. That is what she is thinking and feeling. If you ignore her reasons, reject them, disparage them, argue about them, try to talk her out of them, etc., you will not improve you sex life one iota. You cannot convince your wife that her reasons for not enjoying sex with you are wrong or incorrect. If she says, “You always complain about how often we have sex,” which is something she says over and over again in her emails, it’s not like you can make her enjoy sex with you again by somenow proving to her that you don’t actually complain about how often you have sex. That’s obvious, isn’t it? So don’t bother trying to refute her reasons for how she feels.
The truth is, although marriage does not seem to have changed things for your wife, it does seem to have changed things for you. You now believe that she does “owe” you affection and sex. You think it’s “unfair” that she doesn’t “give” you more of these things. But marriage doesn’t change sex from something people do for their own enjoyment into something they “owe” each other.
A wise person on another board once wrote, “The universe of things your wife owes you can be divided into those things a court would order her to give you if you got divorced, and those things that she doesn’t actually owe you. The question isn’t whether your wife owes you more affection and sex. The question is whether you owe it yourself to be with someone who is more affectionate and sexual with you.”
Your wife is who she is, she feels how she feels, and she has her own reasons for being and feeling that way. She’s entitled to her feelings and her reasons. But she’s not entitled to have you in her life no matter how she behaves towards you. You need to stop trying to get your wife to be who you want her to be and to do what you want her to do. Entirely. Leave her alone. Your job is to be the person who want to be. I assume part of who you want to be is a sexually attractive man. Make sure you are being who you want to be. If that isn’t a person who your wife enjoys having sex with, then you have to choose whether to stay or leave.
