WAH with one foot out the door and one in.

[gan]

Have to confess that I have only quickly scanned your above posts but I jumped over to this thread after reading some stuff on JellyB's thread. This was was a big issue in our R too and I hope we may all learn something through talking about it.

A few of disclaimers:
1. I'm a woman with what I suspect is a normal sex drive (probably above normal based on what I read), but I was the "low desire spouse" in our relationship
2. I have a PhD (totally unrelated to the subject matter...but I get the pressures there and experienced my own little MLC just after finishing)
3. I'm far from saving my M...but I have learned a lot though this debacle

So....the thing I have come to understand through all of this is that men and women are different and no one benefits by making the other person feel like there is something wrong with them when they don't want sex.

Zues I hear you - my H evidently felt the same. We had some painful conversations where he told me he felt that way. At the time all I could do (like you BW) was say you shouldn't feel that way - I love you, I'm attracted to you, I'm not deliberately withholding from you, it's just that my body doesn't work like yours and I don't feel like it right now. I didn't validate his feelings and I acknowledge that now and feel very sad about it. But I was honest about my feelings and he didn't validate those either. In fact, H labelled me as the low desire spouse so much so that he couldn't see that - like him - I actually genuinely wanted more sex. We were totally stuck in this dynamic. His watching porn did not help (not that I was particularly against it, but that he evidently turned to it instead of me).

Here's what I want to convey - there is something not quite motivating enough about the message that women should "just do it" (tomorrow at lunch say). I just don't think it works that way. If it did, all I would be doing is letting you use my body. That doesn't make me feel so great. Would it make you feel great as the man knowing that was what I was doing? Or would you rather I actually be really into you when we ML? A lot of the sex books seem to push the "just do it" message. Like we should "just do it" and if we can't then there is something medically wrong with us. Well that idea doesn't make my juices flow either...

BW05 - if this is an area you want to work on then I recommend you check out the books by David Schnarch. He presents a different message - that there is a "high desire spouse" and "low desire spouse" on every issue in a relationship. The low desire spouse controls the outcome - be that having sex, having kids, etc. Like even now - the WAS is the low desire spouse - they are controlling the outcome, yes? The low desire partner has a choice - dig in their heals and commit to their way of things or they accept their partners way of things and learn not to feel resentment. Somehow by seeing this as the natural balance of things I feel more able to take on the sex issue as a matter of my own integrity. It doesn't evoke the usual "there is something wrong with me" mentality (cos that doesn't make me feel particularly sexy), rather "I can grow and deal with this" mentality. I only wish I had discovered these books before BD.

Zues - same for you. Check out Schnarch. Maybe there are other areas where you were the low-desire spouse and failed to move yourself forward in a way that made it easier for your wife to connect with you? Maybe that's why she couldn't have sex more frequently with you?