For starters I'm a 36 year old HLM and my wife of 7 years (together almost 10) is a 31LLF (formerly HLF). We have two kids, 6 year old and a 3 year old.

When we were first dating and married we were like rabbits, anywhere, anytime we had a chance we were doing it. After we had our son, things tool a turn (as is to be expected with a young baby) but things had gotten better when he was around 3 when we had our daughter after an oops. It was a rough pregnancy for my wife and as terrified of losing her during this time and we barely had any pregnancy sex whereas with the first pregnancy we did it all the time. I chalked it up to how hard the pregnancy had been and prepared myself for long slow recovery.

However as time went on we had some setbacks financially during covid that wound up with us living with her family for about 8 months while we got back on our feet. About a year a d a half ago we found a great house to rent and I got a killer job working from home, while she went to work as a teaching assistant and started going for her teaching degree. .

We were busy and had little time for sex then we did, it was still just as incredible as it had always been, but over the past year a d a half things have gotten awful, frequency has nose-dived and she complained of feeling tired so I took on almost all the domestic duties to give her some free time, some rest, etc. The few times we did have sex i worked even harder to prioritize her pleasure than I normally did (not to be crass, but I've ve always been able to make her orgasm many times amd was always adept at sensual foreplay and giving and doing anything she wanted or needed), however she has begun to do less and less to show me I am wanted or turn me on during sex to the point where she would at most give me a few half-hearted tugs, it got to where I was starting to develop some performance anxiety/ED and began having trouble finishing at times because it felt like she wasn't into it/me.

It culminated Saturday night when we had sex and and the whole time she kinda seemed checked out and I couldn't finish, I asked for her to try a little teasing or grinding on me to see if we could rectify it but it was late and she asked for a raincheck. As we cuddled she apologized for not relynbeing into it as she didn't really want to to have sex that night which made feel gross, but told me that we could try again the next day (Sunday)

I wrote her a letter Sunday afternoon after we took a nap (that felt like an avoidance of the suggested/promised intimacy) as i didn't feel like i could get my thoughts and feelings together otherwise and wanted to be as non-confrontational as possible so as not to make her feel bad. In this letter I brought up needing more physical touch between us as well as a need to be wanted during sex and how it felt like her pleasure was prioritized while mine had merely become an afterthought and that I didn't want her to have sex she wasn't enthusiastic about.

After I put the kids to bed we laid in bed a it all came spilling out-of her, that she no longer feels like she has a libido but has sex because she knows its important to me and that it always makes her feel good because I'm so attentive to her needs and desires during it, but that it's just not a need for her right now so it's hard for her to try and please me in return beyond basically me using her body to get off. (which makes me feel awful about a bunch of our previous encounters on top of already feeling bad)

She indicated she grew up with a lot of shame regarding sex and didn't really get any sexual education growing up.She went on to indicate that there has been some sexual abuse in her past that's she's never dealt with(nor ever told me about) and to her sex is more about lust than love and she is satisfied with our snuggling and cuddles and late night deep spiritual and philosophical talks and that sex is just not a need for her right now. And that she basically just counts the days before initiating or accepting my initiations to keep me mollified. She wrongly assumed that I masturbate most of the time, which I don't because as a former drug addict I'm terrified of dealing with a porn addiction, not to mention the fact that I feel like looking at porn is akin to betraying her and that looking at the few photos/videos I have of her from when we were first dating and married and constantly active usually makes it too hard to finish as I get sad and emotional and miss what we once had. She mentioned how much she is struggling with mentally right now, Anxiety and ADHD (which I also have) and just always feeling tired (,which I also am from chronic insomnia) and a lot of feelings of failure, chronic people pleasing, etc the severity of which surprised me as I thought she was having her anxiety/depression and ADHD treated and was responding well so that came as a surprise and a bit of a slap in the face as I felt shut out of that part of her life.

As I don't want to have sex with her if she doesn't want it (she says she does enjoy it when we do, but just can't be as enthusiastic or focus much on my pleasure like she used to at this point in life) and as beautiful as I find her and turned on as she makes me, I need a present and engaged partner to enjoy myself especially as I've gotten older. She asked if we could take sex off the table to remove the pressure and I said ok I guess. I spent most of the rest of the night angry and extremely hurt and sad that I feel like I'm being punished for the actions of others and mourning the death of sex with my wife at such a young age.

I was going to get my hormones checked because I was afraid it was why I was having trouble getting as hard or staying hard or even finishing sometimes as well as some other things like issues putting on muscle, moodiness and a few other things that correlate with low/lower T , but now I'm scared to do so because if I am low and I supplement, I'm afraid my libido will skyrocket and I'll just want what I can't have even more and I'll start to resent her.

Usually I watch her change in the morning, but looked away this morning as it hurt to see her in just her underwear as she is do stunningly beautiful, this hurt her because she felt I was treating her different or pitying her because of the abuse she told me about (which is evidently a reason she had never told me) so I made myself watch her fully change and just explained that to me it was like being starving and looking at and smelling a steak dinner I can't eat.

I'm scared, my self esteem has already taken a beating and this hit hurts the worst, knowing it's not necessarily something wrong with me that I can fix or even knowing if it's fixable at all and if it is when progress might be made. It hurts even worse because we are so in love and so committed and have always been an incredible team and she understands me like nobody else ever has, she's the only person I feel 100% comfortable being myself around and the only person I trust 100%. We have so much fun together, have wonderfully deep spiritual and philosophical and academic conversations together and she's such a great match to my intellect, she and her attributes are completely complementary to my own, my weaknesses/deficiencies tend to be her strengths and her weaknesses/deficiencies tend to be my strengths. We've been together through so much, and she saved me from my seriously self-destructive tendencies I had and showed me I was worth loving and that I had the capacity to love not only myself but others, and together we built something worth me living for and worth fighting for.

I'm just lost and hurting and I feel so helpless to do anything to fix this as from the way she spoke and explained none of it is my fault as I've always respected her and her boundaries and always made her feel safe in a world that didn't, she made a point to tell me that I'm nothing but an amazing husband and father and she feels broken in this regard. I meant every word of my vows and would do anything to help her and help us get back what we had, and as a child of divorce the last thing I want to do is to destroy my children's happy home, not that we could afford two households at this point anyway.

Does anyone have any advice on what I can do or what she could do to get help or what we can do together to fix this? I'm terrified of losing her or growing to resent her over time and losing our bond, as I don't think I could ever find another woman like her who'd be willing to put up with the real me and love the real me like she has.

I got information from HR regarding what my insurance will cover through EAP (3 sessions) and what my medical insurance covers (looks like a $25 co-pay) they offer in-person and online therapy/counseling and i'm open to either. If cost becomes an issue I'd take on a 2nd job if it meant saving our marriage, I truly mean it when I say I'm willing to do/try anything to fix this. I'm guessing at a minimum we both need individual counseling/therapy and likely couples therapy perhaps even sex therapy (i've gathered that is something different than couples therapy itself).

I'm just wanting to know if anyone else who has made progress or recovered has any other things they did that helped, or any helpful advice, or some kind of encouragement. Or perhaps there is someone here who I can speak with candidly and privately so I feel I have someone to talk to in the meantime, as this isn't something I'm comfortable speaking about with any current friends or family, but I know I can't keep it all inside.