Once again, Corri, you have nailed it. I felt very much as though I was being made totally responsible for my H's happiness. Given the fact that my X was married to his job more than to me, did not enjoy hanging around the family home, and that every vacation and leisure-time activity we did was in accord with his wishes, hearing that I was sexually inadequate was cause for resentment.
Someone said, on one of these threads, that if the HD partner reacts to "routine" sex with frustration, anger, resentment, then the LD partner is going to be even less inclined to put out. I could not agree more. It was very demoralizing to hear that what I thought were my loving efforts to give him something he wanted (e.g. sex 2.5 times per week) was boring, passionless, unfulfilling, and that on top of it I did not love him.
Nothing could have been further from the truth! I loved my X deeply.
NOW he sees what "not loving him" is. I cannot stand to be physically near him. He has hurt me so deeply with his deceit that I will never trust him again.
And I'd like to make it clear that I didn't suffer in the slightest because of my lack of desire. It has been my pattern for my entire life to feel that passion in the beginning of a relationship and then to have it die. In fact, if what I read is correct, that is the norm. We are built physiologically to feel passion for 6 months to three years -- the length of time it takes to conceive a child, bear it and raise it to toddlerhood.
Passion CAN be prolonged by uncertainty and by obstacles placed in the path to its fulfillment. And of course the HD experiences uncertainty and obstacles every day in their married life, which fuels the flames.
As I journey on, I accept more and more that we were simply a bad match. But at such a heavy cost.
