I know you've read many (if not all) of my posts, so you know I understand your POV re: desire and love. However, I'm wondering about your approach to the problem, and your definition of what success would look like. I do, however, see several hopeful signs in your sitch. First, you say that sex was great for the first four years, until the kids came along. From your descriptions, it seems like at that time, it was not only the quality that was great, but also the quantity and frequency. That, right there, puts you MILES ahead of my sitch. For me, once we got married, the frequency and quantity seemed to dwindle off right away. The quality was still there, however (meaning that when we DID ml, we both generally had a great time). However, I do recall that increasingly it seemed to be rather a chore for her to attain arousal. Quite often, we'd start, and she would request a back-rub, or a tummy-rub, which seemed to me very artificial, and detracted (for me) from the loving nature of the sex. That was BEFORE the kids came. BJ's were ALWAYS completely out of the question for her. I remember at least one time when she DID give me one, but she first had to wash it (with soap!), and she obviously didn't enjoy it, so I didn't "press the point" (sorry for the bad pun!).
Anyway, it sounds like your R was way better sexually in the beginning than mine was. Of course, for BOTH of us, things did eventually turn sour, and stayed that way for a VERY long time. Now, your main question or issue seems to be "When do I get my W back?" You're focussed on having things get back to "the way they were", and you're VERY clear that in your mind, if she does not initiate, and give you unasked-for BJ's, and otherwise mind-blowing sex, she doesn't love you. I hear you! You know I do. However, a great deal is different now than in the beginning. You have young kids (sorry, I can't remember how many, but your oldest must be around 12). That in itself changes quite a bit. Privacy is much more difficult to come by, and spontenaety almost impossible. There are now, by definition, a LOT of other things on her mind (and yours), such that even having an intimate and loving conversation over a dinner out is very difficult (try NOT talking about the kids for a whole hour, let alone a whole evening). So perhaps "Can things be the way they were in the beginning" is not the right question.
For me, the BIG question is: "Can things be better than they are right now?" Again, for me, there's hardly any way to go but up! I've been down so long, it LOOKS like up. Cliche, I know, but true. And I, like you, equate sex with love, but maybe in a different way. I do agree that if the ONLY sex we ever had came across as "pity sex", and she just could NOT get aroused, and I could NOT satisfy her, then I would NOT see much point in continuing the M. I would conclude she just didn't love me. However, if we are able to reach a point where she can ACCEPT my advances more often than not, and reach arousal with me, and I'm able to satisfy her, then it wouldn't really matter to me WHO initiates most often. I would not equate her lack of initiation as a sign of lack of desire, nor would it indicate to me a lack of love, as long as I was able to initiate successfully fairly often. "Fairly often" in my definition at this point would be > 1/week on average. Note that for a VERY long time, for us it's been < 8/YEAR on average. So maybe I'm just coming from the standpoint of the starving man in the desert, for whom ANY improvement is a gift. I don't know.
Another thing... has she read SSM? Sorry, I can't remember. I assume she has for the moment... what was her reaction to that? She sounds like a perfect "just do it" candidate, like her arousal cycle is more <initiation><doing><arousal> instead of <thinking><arousal><initiation><doing>. Our cycles are more like the second. She may need the ACT now to BECOME aroused. IMHO, that does NOT signal a lack of love, just a different approach required. I know in my case, I have definitely often though that W would be happy never to ML again. She never came right out and SAID it, and maybe that's the difference, but she didn't have to - the evidence has been VERY clear on that point. HOWEVER, it may be just that she doesn't THINK about it. Certainly W has not been willing to be OPEN to the possibility for a long time, and has not been responsive to my advances, and this has been (and, I expect, will continue to be) a BIG problem for us, but I'm hopeful we can get past that if we're both motivated to work on it. She now knows that the alternative is to lose me. For me, I think it will be enough if she can be open to accept my advances and respond to me when I try to initiate, as well as adopting a more open-minded attitude to different kinds of sex. Could I still be kidding myself? Possibly. But I do think it sounds to me like YOU have a lot more to work with in this department than I do. However, I do know that if I defined success as reaching a point where W would be HOT for me (i.e. experience arousal prior to initiation) then my M would probably be doomed, because she may never become like that. Am I making any sense here? Or am I just confused? Dunno...
