Not in the mood?

Problem of the month: my sex life. Or actually, the lack of one.
Hubby is a sort of a prude and doesn’t really have that strong of a sex drive. That’s fine, we’ve been more into the love-making, which I assume is expected from a husband and wife. Naturally, we had more sex in the first year or so, but now it's a rarity. Problem is, I’m used to the passionate foreigners that wants it 'right here, right now' (actual place and time is irrelevant to them). Also, as a European woman, I’m very sexually open, forward and won’t deny my cravings. Fine, as a married woman, I can’t expect my husband to want to have dirty sex in the bushes of the country club or a quickie whilst stuck in a traffic jam, but I kind of miss the passion. When your man needs you, can’t wait to get in the door, can’t take either his eyes or hands off you. Is it not reasonable to wish for just a little of that from your husband, too? Lust doesn't die once you've tied the knot, does it?

Before I learnt, one month after our wedding, I put on a fur coat and heels and went to surprise him in the office. I closed the door behind me, dropped the fur and approached him.
“Keep the blinds open”, I told him.
He put on his glasses, straightened his tie and said with a stern face “honey, I don’t have time for this right now”. My heart sank.
“If you really want it that bad, maybe you could buy a vibrator”.
As if I didn’t have two already (but I’d never say that aloud)! Need I say I hopped on the party train that night? I didn’t come home until I knew he had left for the office the next morning. I had never before had a man dismiss me when I come charging in wearing only red lipstick, heels and his favorite perfume.

He has called me a ‘nympho’ on more than one occasion when I’ve been the sole initiator of sexual activities.
“Sometimes canoodling is just as nice”, he said. “You don’t always have to have S-E-X”.
No, really, he did spell it out!
“I agree, not always”, I pouted, “but OCCASIONALLY wouldn’t hurt either”!

We didn’t talk, nor were we intimate, for over a week after that conversation. I learnt it’s better to keep my mouth shut and play the role of the obediant satisfied wife. I’ve never complained again about either the quality or quantity of sex in our marriage. Many, many times I’ve contemplated picking up on the offers of casual encounters with potential lovers, but I kept hoping the problem would solve itself eventually (without me having to turn to another penis). I begun spending even more time on keeping in shape, looking pretty and being all he’d ever want. And? Nothing’s changed.

The worries are now constantly present. Why isn’t he attracted to me? If he chose me as his wife, how come he doesn’t want to make love to me? Our weekly sex seems like a mandatory must for him, a chore on the to-do list. While he dozes off right after, I’ve cried myself to sleep.
I can only see that I was the one to blame. He’s still young and healthy, shouldn’t he be peaking sexually right about now? It has to be my fault. Is he sleeping with someone else? After seeing ‘Brokeback Mountain’ my fears mounted; is hubby secretly gay? Do I smell bad, moan too much/little, am too fat or too skinny? Do I need any sort of surgery?
Sex isn’t really the issue either, it’s the affirmation. No matter if he says ‘love you’ every day on the phone, you also need to feel that your husband loves you. And currently, I don’t.