I've been married for twenty years to a man whose main goal in marriage is to avoid conflict. As a result, we've been having the same problems for all of those years because the conflict is ended before the problem is solved. Our sex life has always been one sided. He gets his stuff done and leaves me hanging. Last April was the last time he bothered with me and, judging from his reaction afterward, I think it was accidental because I woke him up in the wee hours and he went an unusually long time (10 minutes) because he was groggy.<P>We've been talking about our marriage and he promised (for the millionth time) that he'd definitely work on things. The kids are both going to be gone Friday and Saturday so the other night I asked him if he'd made any definite plans about what we could do together. He said he'd been thinking about it. I said something like I'd like to know whether I should hope for any type of closeness (emotional or physical) and he replied that I was never satisfied. End of discussion. <P>I know I can't get him to change but I was wondering if anyone has any tips for how to live in a marriage that falls so far short of anything I had ever imagined. The sameness and lack of hope are driving me nuts.