Quote: Sounds like you and your H have a strong bond, a great intellectual connection, even a little romance, definitely friendship. There is lots to work with there but the history of sexual abuse and "damage" as you stated are ultimately HIS issues. He needs to want to work on fixing them. You cannot fix the M without his help. How about some individual and/or marriage counseling?
Yes. Yes. Yes. You really seem to get the situation. This sums up exactly what I think/feel.
However, I thought the mantra was that you can change only yourself, that is, try to work on your own issues, improve yourself and act in new ways towards your partner, on the theory that the other person will change in reaction to your changes. Or did you mean individual counseling for me?
Basically, the problem is that H is pretty content with the way things are, so long as I don't rock the boat by raising any of my "issues" about affection/sex. His attitude, put bluntly, is "if you're unhappy, leave." And if I left, I would really have to leave and cut off contact with H. During my single days, my close bond and frequent communication with H, was (understandably) one of the biggest problems in any other relationship I formed.
I think H would be willing to go into counseling for himself (not joint counseling), but I'm not at all sure that he sees his dislike for affection/sex as something that he needs help with. In his mind, if I would just stop bothering him about it (which I've basically given up doing), everything would be fine.
