Hi everyone (sorry this is so long!),

I've read everything on the website many times over the years, and I've made my husband read everything, and we're still stuck.

My husband's strongest emotional need is sex. By "strongest," I mean that it's about 1000x stronger than any of his other needs. I am certain he married me because I had a similarly high libido when we were dating. Fast forward 10 years (4 of which we lived more than 100 miles away from each other and saw each other, at most, twice a month) and 1 child, and I just don't want to. Don't get me wrong--I still love having sex. My libido isn't what it used to be, but that's not the problem. The problem is that I feel extremely pressured.

When we have sex, my husband treats me like a goddess for about 2-12 hours. After that, he becomes what he calls "frustrated." I call it, at worst, angry, and at best, passive aggressive. There's a serious Jekyll/Hyde thing going on. I've reiterated over and over again that we have sex when I feel close to him, and I feel close to him when we spend sufficient time together (working on the other emotional needs), but when he gets "frustrated" he stops being patient or loving, and has no desire to make time for our relationship. It's completely counterproductive.

For example: We were physically close last night and this morning (cuddling), and I actually was feeling up for going further when he jumped up and got ready to go to work. I shrugged, hopped into the shower, and soon heard a curt "see you tonight" through the shower curtain. I asked what was wrong, and he said, predictably, that he was "just so frustrated." I asked why he didn't say something earlier, and he said something like "I feel like talking always ends badly." (I disagree--in my experience, talking about sex like adults often leads to sex!). He insisted that he was frustrated that I wasn't interested. I insisted that I was interested. The conversation went no where, and off he went to work.

Now, we have a standing date night on Friday nights (babysitter and all), but his brother had a major health emergency recently, so tonight he said he wanted to go check on him and spend some time. He gave me veto rights to take date night back, but I said no, it's ok, go spend time with your brother. When he got home, I found out he skipped going to see his brother to go drinking with his coworkers instead. I told him this hurt me--why would he spend time out at the bar when he's so frustrated with our relationship and we could have spent the time fixing it?--and I received an "I'm sorry you feel that way" in response. When I tried to get him to talk about his frustrations, he insisted that the problem is that I don't initiate sex. Why in the world would I initiate sex with someone who is "frustrated" with me all the time, and only acts lovingly in the immediate aftermath of sex? I feel like I'm being blackmailed.

He's now going to spend most of the weekend with his daughter / my stepdaughter (nothing wrong with that, but it limits our time together), so I don't see this getting better anytime soon.

He'll sulk, I'll keep my distance, and in a few days, we'll finally find time to talk and sort things out, which will lead to sex. At that point, I will have the honor of being treated as a goddess for another 2-12 hours before the cycle starts over again.

Guys--I'm ready to pull my hair out. How do I talk him in to talking? How do I get through to him that we really do neeeeeed to spend time together?

How long have you been married? Was he married before? Why did his last marriage end? How many children do you have and what are their ages?

Have you read about undivided attention?

Almost 7 years.
Yes.
Infidelity (with someone else ~10 years before we met)
1 child, age 4; step daughter, age 14
Yes.

Was he the one that cheated in his 1st marriage?

So how much UA time do you get a week?

My suggestion would be to start using the Marriage Builders program. It really does work! Which books do you have? Start with this article: The question of the ages: How can a husband receive the sex he needs in marriage?