I'm 37m HL, she's 39f LL, and we've been married for 14 years. Sex has dropped to about once per week. This feels like a slow starvation as I need it more often. Worse yet, we now schedule it. For years, she has rejected my advances to avoid leading me on and having to then turn down sex. When we do have sex, we must never do so on consecutive days and if it happens on a different day from what we scheduled, she assumes this to be a reschedule and not an extra. We've added toys and she's loosened up on what positions she'll allow (like avoiding doggy, wtf!?!). It's fun and rewarding when it happens. When.

Anyway, this has led to her withholding affection and intimacy that I have to have. This creates distance and I start getting depressed about the lack of love in my marriage. She does the same, supposedly because I stop giving a shit about the house. She's always tired, stressed, whatever, and goes to bed early where she stays up 90 minutes reading her books or browsing Facebook. I should add she has a responsive drive and even admits she'd probably just grow old with the kids and get more cats if I died. It descends into an almost DB and always blows up into a difficult conversation where she puts on the tears, tells me what I'm not doing to help out, and I restate that I need sex and intimacy to feel loved - that I'm losing that connection and feel like it isn't fare to expect monogamy from me and not fulfill this part of it. The pressure is released and we get back to serving each other and doing well again, albeit always without quite enough sex. It ebs and flows until it has us circling the drain again.

In the world of love languages, I need words of affirmation and physical touch. She needs acts of service. It seems like periodically, both of these get into a feedback loop that spirals into a very dark place. It also seems like the time between "the conversation" is getting shorter and shorter after years of these behaviors. I don't think I'm at the divorce stage, nor is this a true DB, but it's heading that way and I think we both want to prevent that from happening. Maybe a few of you who've been there can help me make sense of this.