So if anyone has any advice for me in this matter then I would appreciate that.
I come from a position a little more similar to May, and also from the side of being single now. But I can put myself back into my feelings when I was low desire, and hopefully brainstorm a bit.
I do think the fact that my perspective is female is potentially not as helpful in this instance - but still I will try.
I too love Nagoski as May does. For folks who sleep with women I think it's an important read (for anyone else reading this). I haven't read her book - it's on my download list - but I've listened to her speak and want to scream "oh my gosh YES I understand you" through the screen.
When I was more low drive and less experimental feeling with XW we had times we agreed upon to just be together. Shut the bedroom door, get naked under the covers to increase intimacy, and just drink a glass of wine or watch a tv show on the iPad or chat. Being tired is okay here - falling asleep is okay - because it's a time to shut off all the exterior pressures and intentionally *not* have sex but do it together. Sometimes we broke the rule - but the idea was to truly not expect it. I do think this helped with easing the tension in the "we are not having enough sex" dialogue. It was really just a tension release time. Very in line with what May said.
Now that I've been single nearly two years my sex drive is...in overdrive. I wonder about who that woman was that wasn't interested, because it doesn't feel like the authentic me. But also now in my solo time I have taken the time to really ponder my sexuality and wants vs needs, or likes vs dislikes. I think I've learned a lot, and think I will continue to learn when partnered again some time. And one theory is that perhaps I wasn't having enough of the type of sex I wanted. What we had was fantastic - but it was also 10 years on. I didn't have the confidence or ideas or understanding that I should be changing it. XW tried to guide me into discussion but I was drawing blanks on ideas that sounded interesting. Do you think your H wants or needs something that he can't even imagine or articulate?
Only now that I'm solo do I find more things intriguing (lots of reading). And perhaps it is because I can separate the sex act from the person since I don't have a real person next to me. There is the madonna vs whore complex where women are seen as one or the other. Perhaps I struggled to see my own W as anything but a loving person, and due to that I was missing out on parts of a sex life that are actually quite important. I wonder as one possibility if your H has any of these struggles. I found for me that once things got going they could get real good - but the idea of starting from a place of zero heat - to suggest something out of the ordinary would have felt very, very weird.
Anyway, those are my musings. I suspect your H is in a very deep sexual rut, and that's very difficult to come out of, so I'm not sure that any of this will be helpful. He has to value sex first before he can move forward, and I don't think that actually has anything to do with you at all - but more a relationship with his body and how he sees himself. That's how it was for me - I didn't know I was a sexual being. I just thought sex happened in my life somehow, and that I wasn't in charge.
