DH and I have been together 19 years, married for 15. We are early forties and have two DC. DC2 has quite significant SEND and is awaiting an assessment for an autism diagnosis (although we are already pretty sure).
For the last few years, our sex-life has been minimal. Partly because of DC2’s needs, I continued to breastfeed him longer than DC1 and because looking after him has been so stressful at times I have leant on food and alcohol as crutches and gained a lot of weight. My libido disappeared. DH has always been the one to initiate sex or intimacy and I have to admit that I would regularly reject him. He never hassled me and always respected my boundaries.
This year we have both made changes to improve our health. I weaned DC2 and we are both losing weight, me with Mounjaro jabs which have also completely removed any desire to drink alcohol. I finally felt like I was starting to get some control, firstly over food and drink, and I thought / hoped that the next thing to address would be the lack of intimacy in our marriage. In the meantime, however, DH became distant. It is like something has snapped in him and he no longer has any interest in rebuilding our sex life. He says that he feels he deserves sexual fulfilment (which of course I agree with) but that after three years of rejection from me he no longer feels he can find it with me. He tells there isn’t anyone else and I believe him.
I’m absolutely devastated. It’s like a physical pain. He has agreed that he will speak to a marriage counsellor but it seems he feels he needs to do this out of a sense of duty rather than any genuine desire to rebuild. He was made redundant last year and although he is now employed again in a job he loves I don’t think he has fully processed that experience and I can’t help wondering if it is relevant to how he feels about our marriage.
Is there any way back from this? Could a good enough therapist help us to rebuild, and if so where would we find them?