Unfixable?

You know, I have been feeling happier since my spiritual issues are being addressed. It's not just the recent, more mystical experiences. It's the whole picture.

But there is one problem that just never goes away. Yes, it's our sex life. Nothing has happened since November last year.

I know there are good reasons for this. My Big Dude's health has been terrible lately. It always is over December-January (sometimes into February) and the disruption and hard work of moving house hasn't helped. In fact, the Big Dude did make one effort. A few days before our move (mid-January), we scheduled some alone time and I know he intended something physical to happen. But shortly after we started, he was overcome with dizziness and faintness, which does happen sometimes, and we had to stop. So it became a naked cuddling session, which was nice, but also frankly very bloody frustrating. The whole cuddle session thing really only works if you know it's going to be like that from the beginning. As a substitute for what you were expecting (hoping for), it sucks.

But it all being very understandable and even there being plenty of good intentions only takes us so far. I am still a healthy adult woman who hardly ever has any sexual interraction with her partner. And it's very difficult.

I can go for days and sometimes even weeks just cruising along, a little sad about this eternal problem but mostly preoccupied with other things. Sexual impulses come and go and I mostly just sort of sit with them for a while and let them pass. I don't suppress them. I just kind of accept that nothing is going to happen - at least, nothing that involves another person.

But periodically, the problem just becomes almost unbearable. It becomes more and more difficult to go without. I try to help my Big Dude with any issues or tasks that are affecting his energy levels. I show him lots of affection. I try to prompt him without putting too much pressure on him. I hold his hand and kiss him and tell him how much I love him and how handsome he is (which is true). Nothing happens.

I have one of those days. My skin starts to tingle and then, with no touch, to ache. My thoughts, usually filled with stuff that needs to be done, my pleasure in my Little Dude, work issues or personal reflection, become increasingly preoccupied with sex. I look at men on the bus or at work and can't help thinking about how easy it would be to pick one of them up. I wonder why I don't just take a lover. It seems like most people in my situation ultimately do, and I don't think I'm morally superior to them, so why keep holding out against such an obvious solution? Sometimes I think I am just delaying the inevitable.

Actually, the more tempted I feel, the nicer I usually am to my Big Dude. There is nothing like guilt for motivating you to be a model partner at home. No wonder women whose husbands are having affairs usually don't suspect. He seems so romantic, he seems so affectionate, only last night he brought me flowers... Ha!

But then I get angry. I get angry with my Big Dude for being so... oblivious. I start feeling alone, isolated, neglected. Either I start snapping at him or I start feeling very down, almost like the joy is being sucked out of my life. And not just the joy - the energy, the life force. I feel like my spirit is fading away. I have been feeling happier, lately, but last night I started thinking about it all again and just cried with frustration.

I don't know what to do. I really don't. We've tried addressing as many of his health problems as can be addressed. He's been in counselling. I'm currently in counselling. We've talked about it probably hundreds of times over the last decade. We've scheduled sex dates, some of which go ahead and most of which don't. We've tried the tofu option, with mixed success. Sometimes it was pretty good. Sometimes it was pretty pathetic. We've explored sexual options that don't cause too many physical problems for him. But even that is starting to seem like a long time ago, now.

Some months ago, during one of those depressing "talks", I said I was inclined to think that, if the tofu option didn't work out, the only other option I could think of was sex therapy. Or counselling with a specific focus on sex. Recently, my counsellor said that maybe he should come in, too, for couples counselling. Personally, I think it would be a good idea, but the Big Dude greeted this prospect with all the enthusiasm he would give to the prospect of facing a firing squad. It wasn't even clear if he would agree to go - unless I threatened to leave him. And I really don't like ultimatums. Plus, I'm not sure if I would follow through on a threat to leave him. There is just too much at stake.

This issue seems to be unfixable, at least by me.

I can't make him want to have a sex life. I don't want to leave him. At the same time, the prospect of this being my sex life forever, well, it's possible that I can survive it, but I'm not sure I can survive it without periodic depression. And who needs that?

Okay, this is a call for suggestions. What would you do?