The first thing a starving man wants to do after he is rescued is eat. If all of a sudden you seem to be open to sexual advance, of course your husband is going to take advantage of it becuase in his mind he damn well better take advantage of it while its there because it'll be over again soon and he'll be right back where he was.
You said that you told your husband if he did more of the gift giving and acts of service you would feel like ML more and his response was "if I did everything you still wouldn't want to ML". Now this sounds harsh, but what would your response have been if you were in his shoes? I mean, sit there and think about it for a minute and really really try to see this from his point of view. Did the lack of intimacy in the marriage start because he wasn't doing enough to show you how much he loves you or did it start because you began to turn him down and the more you did it the easier it got for you? At the point that it all started were you getting all of your needs met? How bout what he needed? I think these are fair questions for you to ask yourself. If you come back with the answer that it started with your actions, then you have to take the responsibility for that and recognize that he does in fact have a reason to say such a thing. From his point of view, he tried what he could and it didn't get him anything in terms of what he needed, so why should he keep doing it?
Please take that as I meant it. Not as an attack on you or placing blame, but rather acceptance of responsibility. This started with one persons actions or inaction and it much end with one persons action. Inaction is not an option for fixing it.
Now your other question really equates to "Does this fix have to be all or nothing." And no it doesn't is the answer that I would give. At first it may seem that way though. Like I said, a starving man wants to eat before he does anything else. Its going to tak him a while to get over it, but once you make it plain that this is not a temporary phase that you've gotten into, it'll even out. You don't even have to say yes all the time. Like I told the other poster, its not the occasional rejection, its the CONSTANT rejection that kills us. "Not tonight, but definitely tomorrow morning" is much better than "No."
I think that once you get going on this, you're going to find that your husband will become far more helpful around the house. You're going to eventually start getting those gifts and acts of service that you crave. He probably won't even be doing it intentionally, but he will eventually start doing it because he's in love again. And if he doesn't and you've held up your end of this bargain, then it'll be time for HIM to accept responsibility for HIS actions and start doing something about it.
