Originally Posted By: Ambivalent
You say you are looking for ways to ignite your wife. She is willing to do this...it IS a step.


It's a step where we were for many years, and nothing changed during that time. She didn't see the point in doing anything more. As she saw it, it fulfilled my biological need.

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Take it for what it is, a gift of love.

Was kind of hard to see it that way all those years, especially when it would only happen after a lot of reminding. And, seriously, if this is the only interaction you have, it leads to feeling unwanted. At some point, it's better not to do anything at all than to constantly reinforce and experience the limit. Unfortunately, it eventually left me with a feeling that women in general abhor sexual contact. Reading that it's otherwise on a website like this is only an intellectual recognition -- it doesn't undo the emotional learning that such a limited experience reinforces.

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It seems as though no matter WHAT she does or doesn't do, you are not satisfied.

Logically true, but absurd. The alternative is to be satisfied with virtually nothing.

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If that is the case what is the point for her to even try? You know she too can pick up on your attitude, and I'm feeling one here.

You state the obvious. If there was a logical solution, I'd have been all over it long ago!

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Do you ever think that your attitude IS a contribution to this whole situation?

Of course, my wanting sex is contributing to the problem. There is no way around that.

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It is very intimidating to have someone as needy in this department . And she may be perceiving you as needy here. Whether you have discussed this or not lately, there IS a huge amount of pressure on her. Because she knows you want this, need this, and she doesn't know what to do about it.

It's not a new problem by any means. It's been discussed to death in the past, which was part of the problem -- me always wanting to "discuss the problem". Now I don't bother her about it at all, and the relationship is otherwise much better for it, except for the complete lack of sex of course.

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What have you done to make yourself more attractive to her? What have you done to make her feel safe? How long have you done these things? How long have you stuck with your changes?

Been down that path with therapists and all. Our relationship improved a lot. I don't put any pressure on her at all -- don't even want to experience the rejection any more at this point. But we go on vacations together and do a lot of fun things together as if she were my sister. It's really quite a nice relationship that way. But I also very much want a playful, erotic, sexual partner, and it doesn't seem even remotely possible at this point that my wife wants to be in that role with me.

Just to make the point again, she calls me up for friendly chats all the time, invites me out to dinner at restaurants. And I do the same. All the stuff that the "experts" say should somehow automatically make a woman want sex. But that has not been the result. She's happy having no sex. It's just that simple. I don't know why people find that so hard to believe when it's well known that the most common problem for women in middle age is low or nonexistent libido.