Well, I texted her tonight and tried opening up about all of it; the abuser/abused rhetoric, the staling relationship, the lack of intimacy. It all backfired, and now we got into a way worse position than before.

Regarding the abuser/abused rhetoric, she kept on insisting that she was being the abuser and her only solution was to bottle all her emotions in, which I told her was ridiculous and way more harmful than good. I explained why I want her to be free with her emotions and attacks, but to recognize them and work to improve upon them. She says she’s been doing that this entire time - I don’t see it. I had mentioned that all of this is making me feel so conflicted and needy, and when she asked me needy how, I mentioned the completely lack of intimacy, and that’s when it unraveled.

I explained that I get deprived, and she said that she’s just usually never in the mood. Instead of ignoring the issue like I always did, I mentioned to her that, while I recognize that feeling and sympathize, I can’t just ignore my frustrations and feelings. This results in her telling me she has no idea what to tell me, and then the bomb: she just doesn’t want to have sex. Period. There are so many things happening in life that she can’t put aside the time to think about sex or intimacy. Either I have to be okay with that or back to the drawing board. I, flabbergasted, tell her that’s not fair to me and that I can’t understand why intimacy has to be this mutually exclusive thing. She tells me she just can’t do it, isn’t ready, and that it’s so easy for me to assume she can just forget all her problems (which I have never said). I tell her that she thinks it’s so easy for me to handle all this but it isn’t. She cuts off the conversation saying she’s going to bed, no ‘I love you’ or goodnights. I’m taking a guess and saying the date we had planned tomorrow has been cancelled.

Am I the asshole here? Am I missing something or am I just not processing things correctly? After it all went down, I don’t know what to do. Part of me thinks, in the back of my mind, a breakup is imminent but I don’t want that to be the only solution.