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[MJontheMend]

The HD wife is in a little different position in that, yes, I see he is trying and loves me, but I also see the NON-physical reaction of his body and the reality of: There will be no sex unless that is rectified; as well as the temporarily devastating effects his lack of desire has on my esteem and my feelings of being a woman--including everything that that means, fundamentally, to a female.

I feel like maybe I'm on just a slightly different page than you, HP. My H's lack of desire really doesn't affect my own sense of sexual self-esteem anymore. It "depresses" me rather than "crushing" me. I think I described it once as making me feel like a rubber doll rather than a woman. Feeling sexual desire makes me feel "alive" and then confronting his lack of desire makes me feel not exactly "dead" but sort of "less than living". One morning a couple weeks ago, my H even made a point of telling me that he knew that I looked very sexy in some objective sense but it wasn't turning him on. He also said that it made him feel bad to be confronted with my sexuality and not feel any response to it. This was depressing to me because it makes me feel guilty for expressing my sexuality and making him feel inadequate. The real problem for the HDW might be that it is impossible for a LDH to truly acknowledge his low drive and maintain his self-esteem. My H will only go so far as to refer to himself as "a person who has to be in a certain state of mind in order to be sexual".

If I try to "pretend" that his initial lack of response doesn't bother me and move on to more "direct" methods, I can get a bit frantic because I've then taken on responsibility for his "performance". I just don't have that much mojo much of the time.