How 2 fix sex issue if he won't let me?

[Young at Heart]

Boy do I understand what you are saying, I have been there. It took me a while to realize that my wife's self body image issues were so intense that my buying lingerie, candles (that implied I wanted to look at her naked body), etc. were things that she felt were insults. I don't know how much I spent on such things, aroma therapy for the bedroom, videos she would not look at, etc.

My wife has finally, started to come to terms with her body. In my GAL, I have lost a lot of weight and worked at getting fit. My wife and I just ran in a local 5-mile run and did in the middle of the pack for our age/gender group. She has also started to loose some weight and is exercising more and is planning to drop one more dress size before we go on vacation this summer. She will now let me have sex with her where there is light outside and I can look at her naked body. I like it!

I also know that both our joint sex therapist and the different sex therapist that was seeing my wife individually both gave us/her exercises to do involving body self image. One of our first major counseling fights was over sensate focus exercises that were suppose to be done in the nude. That was way too big a step for my wife.

....We still go through this cycle of me working hard to bury my resentments and speak to her in her LL's. She gets comfortable with it, thinks everything is great even though my needs aren't getting met, then when it all comes rushing back to me I crash and she's left bewildered because she thought everything was going great. I sometimes feel like Bill Murray in groundhog day. This time around though it is different, we don't seem to be breaking out of it instead there seems to be a lot of seething resentment and anger, but she still won't talk to me about it. I get the feeling she's done with us but is afraid to say or do anything about it.

It sounds like some progress and some backsliding. The biggest hurdle that my wife overcame was her anger at me that had been building for several decades. It came to a head, when a sex therapist allowed her to express it and then pointed out that that anger had caused her to emotionally/sexually withdraw from me and that had produced the exact same kind and level anger in me. She realized that she was the cause of the same intensity of pain in me that she blamed me for causing her. That was too much for her to handle. It allowed her to ultimately forgive me. Intellectually I forgave her love before, but each week I need to remind myself that forgiving her releases me from my anger and allows me to better love her. It is a really hard cycle to break. You recognize the cycle and that is the first step in dealing with it.

If it is feeling different, it might be time to try to figure out a "180" that may help change the dynamics of what is happening in your relationship.

I don't think I am really skilled at 180's so some others may have some suggestions as to specifics for you to think about.

I wish you luck in your marriage.