Frustrated2, do you think your husband understands why you're more touchy and affectionate in public? And why it goes away when he gets you home?
I'm guessing he doesn't, simply because that was so hard for me. To me, it felt like deliberate taunting, as if my wife got pleasure out of feeling that she had power and control over me (she could whip up desire in me) but had no interest in actual loving contact (which I defined by the rule that if you aren't willing to do it when no one's watching, it's not real--just a show for the audience.) I hated the callous, hateful dishonesty and the manipulation of it. Of course, it would be more fair to say that I hated the dishonesty and manipulation of what I imagined my wife was doing, because she didn't see it that way. But every time we tried to talk about it, for years, she burst into tears and/or called me a sex-crazed pervert of some kind, and I spent the whole conversation trying to show how sensitive and caring and not like all the other guys I was.
When the time came--after years--when we finally talked about it for real, it took me a long time to believe what she was saying. I didn't take her at face value. My own understanding of her motives made sense to me, of course, and I'd been relying on it for years by then. I knew I'd been way too quick to accept excuses and tears because of my own failings, and I was afraid to accept her explanation (which was a lot like yours, almost word for word.)
Actually, coming here and reading that other women who were totally anonymous described the same feelings as my wife helped me a lot as I struggled to trust her again and take her at face value.
