I'm at my wits end after my wife developed a phobia around sex. I'm genuinely seeking advice because previous efforts at improving the situation, well, haven't. I'll try to be brief.

Sex has always been a major part of my wife (F49) and my (M 54) relationship. We were monogamous (but adventurous) for the first 8 years of our relationship and have been ethically non-monogamous (mostly team swinging) since shortly before we got married in 2014. In 2018, we went to a sex party in Chicago and one of the people my wife played with fingered her...over-enthusiastically? Maybe aggressively? According to my wife, "it was very hot at the time," but she developed a painful infection shortly thereafter. We were traveling separately while she had the infection, and she had to go the ER to get it treated.

Ever since then, she's not allowed me (or anyone) to touch her genitals with their hands. Since COVID, we've been effectively monogamous, and I didn't find out till maybe 2022 why she would swat my hand away if I ever moved to either rub her pussy or insert a finger, two things she really used to like before this happened. Naturally, before we talked about it, I had no idea where this was coming from so I just tried to pick up what she was putting down. I suspect that this was where the real damage happened, because if you are starting to develop a phobia, the only thing you can do is not indulge it. Unknowingly, I helped her indulge it for like 4 years.

Since finding out that this was going on, I've become increasingly frustrated by her lack of proactivity and unwillingness to address it. We had a conversation about a year ago where I told her that this has a profound effect on our sex lives, because the runaway of activities we can engage in has got very narrow. We both are big into sexual novelty, but not being able to use my hands cuts a ton of variety out of our shared experience. She doesn't believe it is a phobia and suggested that I per formatively wash my hands before sex. And what I mean is telling her I'm washing my hands and inviting her to watch me do so. Weird, okay, but I have wanted to meet her where she is. This has had no effect whatsoever because then she said I have to announce that I'm going to use my hands so she's not surprised (she has continued to swat my hands away). This feels like moving the goalposts in service of an honest-to-god phobia.

There's a ton of research on phobias (which she knows because she has two degree in psychology) and desensitization/exposure therapy is the only effective way to work through a phobia once it's taken hold. Similarly, every time you indulge a phobia (like choosing to avoid it), the phobia actually gets worse. But she seems to be unwilling to call it a phobia because I think then she will have to address it. So as I try to address this, it seems that I have a limited set of choices:

1. I could just accept this as something that is not going to be part of our shared sex life and accept that it will have a negative effect on same b/c the same 2 or 3 activities that are left to us will (have) got boring to two very sexual novelty-seeking people.
   1. Perhaps advocate for a more active return to non-monogamy so to provide some of that novelty for both of us
2. Continue to try to jump through the various hoops/obstacles she says she needs to feel comfortable, knowing/suspecting if this is a bona fide phobia, these both won't be successful and will, in fact, continue to cement the phobia in place.
3. Try to convince her to accept the fact she's got a phobia and see if she is willing to either see a therapist or try to do some exposure on our own.
4. What, if anything, am I missing? This is really the advice I'm looking for.

Generally, we have an outstanding sex life for people who are on the downslope of middle-age. We have sex, ceteris paribus, 1-2 times/week, but I feel like things are getting stale and repetitive, I can tell she shares this perception, but I don't know that she sees the connection between this lack of novelty and the fact that we're pretty limited by her phobia. Thanks in advance to anyone who might be able to engage with this constructively and empathically.