Thanks friends. It is nice to see you again here Yail!
I have just ordered Come As You Are. So that's a good start. And yes, it is good that H and I have managed to have conversations about this - not many, and not often - but when it has happened I feel that there's not so much of the excuses and evasiveness and blame as there is a joint effort to understand what the tangle is. I feel sure it is linked to his depression, and is also a confidence issue - he is not a selfish man in bed, but so much of what he does is about self-reassurance that I either get bored, or feel unnecessary to the proceedings or am concentrating so much on trying to hide or let go of anger and resentment that not a lot is happening for me. I have asked him if there is anything specific he would like me to do or try, and when he gives me suggestions I will do them, but they seem to have very little effect on his enjoyment. I don't feel confident that there's anything I do that he likes or desires. And when I ask him for things, he will do them, but in such a mechanical and wooden way, with no connection or tenderness, that it feels like I've asked him to do the ironing and he's agreed to do it because he knows I usually do it and has run out of respectable excuses for refusing to take his share of the work. I've tried to find a way to tell him that is how it feels, and he says he was doing what I asked, I'm never happy, etc etc. I guess for me I have isolated the fact that it isn't really about the specific act or technique - it isn't really a problem in that area - but about him finding a way to communicate some love and desire and tenderness and enthusiasm in a way that I can feel. I don't know if it is that he doesn't feel those things or can't communicate them. We aren't quite at the point where he will take any request I make as criticism and break off proceedings to angrily defend himself - that was such a massive turn off it literally took me a YEAR to have any kind of desire for him after that - but I am afraid of being at that point.
And I think my part in things is in the anger and resentment. He knows I am frustrated, feel unloved in this way, feel angry about it, feel frustrated at his lack of effort, and disappointed when he does make an effort because it so clearly is... an effort. He knows I feel trapped in a pretty sexless relationship and resentful that choosing him means choosing near celibacy, and there's a bit of me furious about that. I have said to him that if he isn't interested in or capable of a normal sex life, then it is his responsibility to find other ways to show me love and desire - if he doesn't have sex-drive then he could have spending-time-together drive or words-of-affirmation drive but I am sure me being angry and resentful is also a massive turn off for him. And I am not sure how not to be, or how to suppress that and fake being happy when he does make a half-hearted, mechanical move on me. When he does, to be honest I feel like rolling my eyes and screaming at him. I don't act that way, I really don't, but just as I can 'see' him doing his duty in a cold-hearted way, I am sure he can see me gritting my teeth and going along with stuff that makes me feel abandoned and furious.
