This is an old thread, and I am new to this forum. I was simply browsing and found the original post to be so close to my own experience that I feel compelled to reply.
I am myself 37, and my wife is very much like notalk. Other details, such as the number of children and their ages are very similar as well. And like notalk, we have serious intimacy problems.
One thing I want to say to notalk is that problems are rarely one sided. Unless your problems have suddenly appeared (for example, dramatic loss of interest in sex after the birth of a child, or sudden depression), your husband has probably known about them for a while, perhaps since you started your relationship. In that case, obviously he was OK with the situation. The question then is why is it not OK anymore? I believe that for any system to work, it must have a sustainable balance. If your husband could cope with the lack of intimacy, it's probably because he was somehow benefiting from it as well. Now, situations change, and so do people. So the previous balance that was working for you both may not work anymore. If one partner changes, the other must change as well to maintain the balance, or the system crashes.
If I am writing you that, it is because this is exactly the process my wife and I are going through. We have a great family, and I love my children and my wife enormously. From the outside, we are probably seen as an almost perfect family: young, good looking, healthy people, great kids, successful careers. We have it all. On the inside however, our intimate life is sorely lacking. The thing is, I don't blame my wife for it, and neither can she blame me. We are both responsible for the situation. I knew that my wife did not like sex when I married her. She tries to avoid sex as much as possible. Still today, in her mid thirties, she has never experienced an orgasm. I on the other hand have a healthy sex drive, but sex makes me extremely nervous, and I suffer from performance anxiety. Sex is never easy for me, and rarely good. When we got married and had our children, the lack of sex was in a way a relief for me, because it made me avoid the dreaded anxiety. I could put up with it because there were easy excuses (kids, fatigue, work, etc.) while hope remained that things would get better one day.
But now I am approaching 40, and the mid-life crisis is looming. There is just this realization that I no longer have all the time to do the things that I want to do in my life. Suddenly, the anxiety NOT to do something is greater than the anxiety to DO something (and take risks). A few months ago, I started to take Viagra, and it helped tremendously. My wife on the other hand was still stuck with her problems (no magic pills for her). I started to put pressure on her, and the balance I was talking about earlier shifted. At first, she coped with it, but it proved too hard, and she recently balked.
For me, the well being of my family is paramount. I want to solve our problems with my wife, not despite her or at her expense. I want to do it for me, for her, for us and for our kids. I read two excellent books: "Passionate Marriage" (renamed "Passionate Couples" I think) and "Resurrecting Sex", by Dr David Schnarch. I wholeheartedly recommend these 2 books to anyone going through relationship problems. While I want to be patient and understanding, I do have expectations from my wife. First I want her to acknowledge her problems (which she does), and second I want her to work with me at resolving them (just starting there). I know it is very difficult for her. It is in fact while researching for answers to her problems that I found Dr Grossman's Web site and a link to this forum. I understand now the negative and damaging influence that her parents have had on her, and why she has built such a protective shield around her. In fact, I knew it all along (every discussion about our problems invariably end up talking about her parents), but I was never able to frame it as precisely as Dr Grossman did in his essays. (A big thank you for that Dr.)
We have now started to take small but steady steps. Sex is on the back burner. As I told her, it will happen when we are both ready for it, and it will then be much better than whatever we have experienced before. We both need to completely relearn the language of intimacy. The result, I hope, will later be a much deeper and meaningful relationship. If, in a few months, there are no significant progresses, we will consider therapy, but not before that (we tried before and it did us no good).
The positive message that I want to leave anyone who is (still) reading is that the journey to intimacy is just as interesting as the destination. Adventure and excitement can still be found even in dysfunctional relationships, as long we let the best in us direct the show, and are willing to take risks and "shake things up". To that end, monogamous, long-term relationships are best because they allow us to invest more and reap more benefits.
