Just a quick note on "our partners know we are hurting."
We think they know. They think they know. How could they not know? They TELL us that yes, they understand. But if they seem unconcerned about it, although it's possible that they're just sociopaths who need remedial empathy training, it's more likely that (and this sounds impossible) they DON'T get it.
I told my wife for years that I was unhappy with our sex life, that I hated it, that I was angry at her and resentful and I hated that. She always said she understood, but she did nothing about it and truthfully neither did I. Then I got her to read the first chapter of Sex-Starved Marriage, and I told her that I had changed from my previous stand ("I'm deeply unhappy but I would never, ever leave you, so now that I've reassured you that you have no reason to change, please work very hard and make deep, gut-wrenching changes to your whole outlook on life") to a radically different position: "I still don't want to leave you, but I'm miserable, and I'm angry and resentful all the time, and I think we're heading for divorce in the next year or two if you won't help me fix our marriage."
When she really, truly, "got it" and understood what she had put me through, she wept in my arms. It was NOTHING like her previous almost-dismissive hand-waving "Yes, of course I understand and I want you to be happy" throwaways. And her attitude has been different ever since.
