Honeypot, it's kind of both. I'd be worried that I would sound crude or ridiculous or both by trying to be too straightforward, and also that, if I did manage to force the words out of my mouth, upon hearing that, my wife would find it so as well.
Greeneyedlass...you probably have figured this out by now, but I'm afraid. There, I said it. If that makes me look weak and cowardly, so be it. I don't want her to get offended, and I also don't want to hurt her. She could easily start getting into the mode of "I've been a bad wife" and withdraw into a shell, and I'd never be able to break her out of it. At one point in the past, after we'd actually done it, I told her I loved her, and she responded, "Why? Because I put out?" Of course, I said, "No, no, no! It's not just that!", but I know she may still have that in mind at some level. Trying to talk to her about this could dredge all that up over again...and I think that would make me feel worse than if I inadvertently offended her.
Your idea of a letter that you mentioned earlier in the thread may be the least-threatening option. But I can tell that pretty much every other paragraph in that letter is going to have to say something like, "I love you, I don't want you to go away and I don't want to get rid of you, I want to make our relationship stronger. And it's not just the sex I love you for, it never has been just the sex. But that's a portion of our relationship that has fallen by the wayside, and I miss having a complete relationship with you, and I want to find that again." And I'm going to have to repeat that over and over, and pray she believes it.
Sometimes feelings are a tough thing for me to make sense of. I don't even know if I'm making any sense right now.
- "A"
"Everything that happens, happens. Everything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Everything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again."
