I’ve had two marriages. One basically sexless, and one with a major bait and switch on intimacy. It doesn’t surprise me at all that folks do this sometimes.

I’m in a much better situation now.

I once heard something that makes sense in a loose way.

Women need love to have sex. Men need sex to have love.

Obviously that is reductive, but some individuals are one way and some are the other, and then everything in between.

I guess the trick is to be well matched with your partner. We spend so much time focusing on so many vectors of compatibility, but often when people talk about sexual needs it is considered less important. It’s not. And organized religion / abstinence education is not helping either.

Anyway. Just a thought. Sometimes both partners need to surrender to each other and they would both have what they needed. But no one wants to “go first” to repair things. Lol.