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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]10 - 15 times per year. Early 40s, together about 20 years, two kids in their early teens. [/quote]

Same, but our kids are upper elementary. I seem more unhappy about this than DH, but I think it is also my fault that we are in this situation because for many years I was uncomfortable/repressed sexually and didn't really enjoy it that much. I finally decided I really needed to get over my hangups and started to figure out what would make me excited about sex and read some things about what my rebuffing was probably doing to him. I have tried to reverse the damage by apologizing, reassuring that I am up for it, will enthusiastically say YES when he initiates, but I think the damage has been done. So now I have to be the one to initiate whenever I want sex. He always responds positively, but the fact that he never (and I'm not exaggerating here...it's NEVER!) initiates makes me feel very undesired. I guess it's payback in a way. But it's miserable to think that this is how it's going to go until the end of time. I love my husband, but I wish I had known the damage I was doing to his confidence and feelings of desirability early on in our marriage. If I had realized the full extent of it, instead of being caught up in my own insecurities and stunted by my own sexual repression, I think it could have saved our sex life. Now, who knows...[/quote]

I'm the PP you're responding to. I'm the DH & I almost never initiate -- and that is due to my DW's rejections. I obviously can't speak for your DH, but my recommendation would be to keep talking to him about the change in your thinking, that you recognize you weren't receptive to his advances in the earlier years, but that you believe you would be receptive now & really want him to initiate. I don't know how often you've already had these conversations, but I expect it would probably take several.

In my case, I guess there has been some damage to my confidence, but the main thing is that I don't want charity sex. My wife only seems to enjoy sex when she initiates -- because she has to get in the right head space before she wants sex. I'm sure she'd like me to initiate (forcefully would be my guess) once she's gotten herself in the right frame of mind, but the odds of me guessing correctly at that 20 minute window during any given month are pretty small. So, she has to initiate. That said, if she told me she wanted me to initiate, I'd love to initiate and get an enthusiastic response. [/quote]

Thanks for responding back. I'm no hero in this for sure. And it's good advice to have probably as many conversations about my mindset and how different it is now as the number of times I rebuffed him...but that would be like 8 years worth of convos. And sometimes I get angry about it...even though technically I have no right to. I think in some way I feel like he should be able to get past this hurt/anger/fear of rejection and feeling of not being desired by me since I am telling him outright that that I am now aware that this is what that felt like to him and that I did it unknowingly (or at least unintentionally). I mean I knew I was saying "no" but it was my own hangup causing that, NOT the way I felt about him as a man or that I wasn't attracted to him physically. He is a very attractive man, and I have told him I'm a "sure thing" now whenever he wants to initiate. We have laughed about it, cried about it (he did admit that this was a HUGE thing for him and was grateful that I was confessing this to him because it definitely made a difference in how he views the whole ordeal) but still no change on his part after several conversations. The reason I get mad about it is that I feel like I didn't know all those years how it was hurting him (b/c I was stupid and he didn't tell me outright) but I am telling him outright how undesired his lack of initiating even after I'm telling him PLEASE do is making me feel but he still won't. And I think that's hostile. It's like, I know I "deserve" the payback (even if it's unconsciously done), but I also know this is not the way to salvage our sex life and bring us closer in intimacy.
I definitely get what you are saying about not wanting charity sex. You want to feel desired, wanted, sexy...and like she WANTS you. I want to give him that because all these things are true! So I am trying my best to make up for lost time by initiating a lot. But in the midst of that, I'm also trying to be vulnerable to him and tell him "you know...it works like that for me too though. Just like you want to feel wanted, I want to feel desired too, not just...passively accepted when I approach you." 
Not sure what the answer is. But we are still in love with each other, good friends, confidantes, etc. I'm just trying to get the passion to go both ways so that we both get what we need out of the physical and mental/emotional part of intimacy.[/quote]

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