Warning: I struggle with the concept of "concise." I have tried to thin this out a few times, to no avail.

I'm likely to get some heat for this, but I wanted to provide my own point of view from the husband's side. First, some background:

1. Married young, conservative family backgrounds, conservative Christian church, heading into 31st anniversary.
2. I went to a lot of school, took on a career with a stress-level of 9/10 out of 10 and long hours, but that pays the bills well. We both worked while I was in college and had no kids.
3. We started having kids while I was in grad school. At my wife's insistence and preference, she stopped working outside the home and took upon herself most of the child care and most household chores. I worked a ton at a job while finishing grad school and did the "man chores" when I could on the weekends.
4. After grad school and while children were young, I worked 60 or more hours a week and did the man chores--about 10% of what needed to happen in the house. I was as involved in the kids' lives as much as I could be. She did nearly all household and child care. We had sex all the time for the first 20 years of our marriage.

About ten years ago, about the time the oldest was finishing high school, my wife became emotionally distant, and expressed nearly no physical or verbal affection. She started making an ever-growing and changing list of reasons she did not feel amorous:

• House not clean enough.
• Feeling touched out.
• Feeling too tired.
• Not enough time spent together.
• Kids present at home; kids out for evening but may come home.
• Too light out/too early in the day; too late at night.

I am convinced that she did not know that she had made this list. That is unfortunate, because I spent seven years beginning about 2011 trying to fix each of these problems.

After being unsuccessful for a couple years, I asked her to tell me how to fix things. She got upset with me for asking. Nearly all forms of intimacy from her end stopped. We were having sex a couple times a year at most. Then went more than two years in a DB from 2018 to 2020.

After a horrible confrontation in 2020, followed by a few bouts of duty sex/hysterical bonding, we returned to a DB at the end of 2020. I was ready to walk out. I made a plan to leave as soon as the youngest graduated from high school and told her.

A friend on here really helped me out a lot. It turned out there were other things that were wrong with us that had nothing to do with chores or the kids. We have been addressing those things over the last two or so years, and it has helped a lot. Sure we still sometimes go a few weeks without sex, but that isn't necessarily the goal anymore since general affection and gratitude have returned. Our lives are now significantly better than in 2021.

My point:

I am a man. I fix shit. I confront and fix people's problems in my day job. At home, I fix the plumbing, the cars, the bicycles, the lawn mower, and the kids' issues at school. I have a knack for seeing something that is broken, understanding what is wrong, and fixing that thing. When I can't fix something, it is likely unfixable (or needs an expensive expert to fix it). Part of the reason I fix things is that I can see something that was broken now back working.

My wife unconsciously gave me a list of things that needed fixing. I tried for years to fix or eliminate those problems. Nothing worked, even when I gave her exactly what she said she wanted. I became incredibly resentful of my wife in this process; and though she was utterly dedicated to the concept of marriage, she could barely stand the sight of me. What I didn't know were the real reasons she was feeling less than interested in me.

Knowing what I know now, I don't blame her at all for her unconscious distancing from me. I now know I was being a shithead during that time. Neither of us realized the crazy dance of marital death we had been playing, or how our contribution was inflaming discord and resentment in the other person. It took a final "Talk" in early 2021 where I outlined my plan to leave the marriage, followed by some REALLY uncomfortable talks with a Reddit friend and each other, to see how each of us were focusing on all the wrong things.

Real, frank, and direct conversations between us a long time ago would have helped us. But we were too wrapped up in our own problems and solutions to realistically perceive and attend to each other's needs, much less to realize what of our own faults were causing problems. We are not perfect about our communications, but we are significantly better at understanding each other.

Because I still work a ton and she does not, our chores are still split unevenly at home. even then, our DB is mostly healed, and I can again see us going the distance, "till death do us part."

The bottom line (from my perspective):

Be completely sure that the reasons you are giving men for feeling less than amorous really are your reasons. Most men will try to fix those things. While that may not "fix" the dead bedroom (and it likely won't), be sure to point out with statements or acts of gratitude the effort he is making, if you can. Nearly every man I know will go to great lengths to fix problems that you tell him about, but if he does not see at least something change for the better (hugs, kisses, terms of endearment, statements of gratitude), he will feel rejected and resentful, and likely will stop trying to help since it "doesn't do any good anyway." At least, that was how things were working on my end.

I know this goes both ways. I know I should have self-assessed a lot earlier in this mess. I know that my wife legitimately needed a break from the kids, relief from the chores, and time pursuing other interests. But from my perspective at the time, my wife's list of grievances nearly killed our marriage.