Tell Me About It: Wife tired of doing without sex for years

Adapted from a recent online discussion.

Question: When you had a question regarding women with higher sex drives than their husbands (http://wapo.st/Rkjv6t), it really hit home. I am lucky if my husband and I have sex six times a year. I have tried to initiate it and have been told many times that if I stop asking for it, I will get it more often.

Well, I have tried that and it just is not working. This is ruining my self-esteem and I just don't know what to do.

Answer: First you recognize that this is not about you or your attractiveness. His is just one person's opinion. It's an important person, but that doesn't make it the last word on anything.

Next call (road apples) on the "If you stop asking" deflection. He was essentially buying time, both pushing you off and postponing tough conversations and consequences. You can add 2 + 2, and you certainly don't need to be sexually neglected and treated like a dope.

Next, say you want to talk about this honestly, then start by saying out loud that you grasp that he doesn't want to touch you as often as you want to be touched.

Then ask him to take part in an equally honest conversation about what each of you would like to do about it. Maybe he just wants to stay in his nice married rut and leave you to deal with your unhappiness; maybe he actually wishes he were more interested, but the idea of getting help is too daunting to him. Figuring out what he actually wants and needs is necessary to distinguishing viable options from baseless hopes.

There are no pretty solutions to this problem - which you obviously have figured out, since you've lived for years with the truth that he's not going to give you what you want. But the next best thing is to put the truth out in the open so you can evaluate which of them at least makes sense.

That at least makes your path, instead of something you got stuck with against your will, a conscious choice - which tends to be a happier one, no matter where it leads.

Chat with Carolyn Hax online at noon Fridays at www.washingtonpost.com.