Gained a bit more insight and information last night, I think. We retired early, and spent time cuddling. This was truly all I was expecting, but she obviously thought I expected more. I'm obviously going to have to work harder to convince her that I'm serious when I say I think what will be best is if we spend a lot of time just being together, cuddling and caressing, and taking things slowly as we build our EC and develop an ease and familiarity with each other before moving on to sexier stuff. No doubt she was somewhat confused by my talk the other night about exploring erotica, vibrators and such, but my intent there was to lay out a long-term plan, just so she could see my overall thought process, but she's still thinking that I'm expecting her to "perform" right off the bat.
At any rate, I think we had a good start last night, with the added bonus that I can refer to it as a basis for further conversation around what I'm really after. We started off just laying facing each other, and I was gently caressing her head, neck and back, and letting my lips just lightly graze her face and lips, and this was entirely pleasant from my POV. I could tell, however, that she was trying awfully hard to "get something going", evidenced by her frustrated sighs from time to time, and shortly she confessed to a headache. I spent some time gently kneading her forehead and the back of her neck, and then suggested she turn on her left side and we could cuddle, which we did. All in all, I spent a full hour just gently caressing her face, neck, belly and legs, and avoiding the "naughty bits", just trying to create a nice, slow, sensual time. Again, from my POV, this was entirely enjoyable, and not the least bit frustrating. In fact, somewhat to my surprise, I found it had a calming and soothing effect on me. If she could have relaxed and enjoyed it for what it was, perhaps it could have had the same effect on her. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure she spent the whole time being wracked with guilt that we weren't going hot 'n heavy, feeling like she was letting me down, etc. And perhaps beating herself up for "not responding". And waiting for stage directions. Waiting to be told what to do. The poor thing is just trying too hard, and overthinking it, I think. I definitely plan to draw her into a conversation about this, and hopefully I'll get a chance tonight, although we have a meeting to go to, and it'll have to wait till after that, no telling what time we'll be home. Our church has something called "Small Groups", where, as you might expect, small groups of people meet each week to discuss the readings, gospels, and who knows what else (I guess we'll find out). We've been talking about doing this for a while (her suggestion), as something that we can do together, which might help us expand our social circle, and perhaps even help us grow an EC. We'll see - I'm hopeful.
Anyway, I'm still guardedly hopeful that we can get things back on track sometime soon, although I do realize it will be a while, and I have quite a bit of work to do to convince her that I'm genuinely interested in more than "one thing". Kind of saddens me, though, that after almost 27 years and all we've been through, things are still like this between us...
Sorry... it seems like most of my posts are WAY long lately...
Waiting to be told what to do. The poor thing is just trying too hard, and overthinking it, I think. 
I definitely plan to draw her into a conversation about this, and hopefully I'll get a chance tonight, although we have a meeting to go to, and it'll have to wait till after that, no telling what time we'll be home. Our church has something called "Small Groups", where, as you might expect, small groups of people meet each week to discuss the readings, gospels, and who knows what else (I guess we'll find out). We've been talking about doing this for a while (her suggestion), as something that we can do together, which might help us expand our social circle, and perhaps even help us grow an EC. We'll see - I'm hopeful.