Hi Hairdog. I don't know if I can help or not but I thought I'd tell you some things that *might* have worked with me before a drastic move of him leaving. The reason I say might is that I was already starting to change inside on my own and that may be necessary for anything to happen. Some things that really made a difference was H telling me how rejected he felt, how he would curl up in a ball in bed and cry silently. He only told me that after he left. Yes he had told me before that it upset him but I never understood to what degree. Another thing that might have helped was going to a sex therapy weekend workshop, something like that might have helped open the "inner door" for me. I think having books for her to read is a good idea like you are doing. Also, the biggest thing was finding out that by losing the sexual intimacy, over time, you can lose the passion and love. That's what happened to H. He felt rejected for years, started shutting down his own passions and his feelings for me started to change. I WISH he had told me this early enough for me to realize it was change or die, but he said he didn't really know it until too late. Another big problem was I was very sexual inside of me but had denied it for years, how could I just suddenly start being a sexual person. It would have been too hard to deal with the questions from him or even face myself. There was too much of a juxtaposition. So, I think if you are to get her to open up, it needs to be with lots of loving acceptance and time. So, I don't know if any of this helps
This is an email from H last night when he found out the truth. This has been an ongoing discovery for him over the last few weeks and there is sorrow on both our parts that I didn't "wake up" earlier.
Quote: I guess all in all this is very confusing for me. You say you were really one way, when you actually said very clearly that you were the opposite. In fact, you were very expressive in the fact that you did NOT like being vocal, and you HATED sex scenes in movies, and you HATED sexual passages in books, and you always became very, very agitated if anything overtly sexual was on tv, or in a movie, or in music.
There would have been no way possible for me to ever believe otherwise. Never in a million years would I have ever believed any of this...you could have told me the sun was made of cheese and I would have had an easier time accepting that.
I don't know if there are any similarities with your wife or not. Good luck.
