Adelyn,

I feel for you, very much so. I know how difficult it is for a couple with widely different sexual backgrounds to find a balance.

I personally see a bit of myself in your description of your husband. I too am quiet and reserved, and I am NOT the lead in the relationship. My wife normally makes the decisions and I follow. But I feel it was out past relationships that brought us to where we are now. My wife was married before me to an abusive man who cared little for her needs and didn't support her. Because she had a child, after she left him she learned to be independent and work towards what she wanted. Additionally, she had many sexual partners before I ever met her.

On the other hand, my wife was my first real LTR. Before her, I had never really had any relationships, however I did have one homosexual "sexual" relation that lasted one year and two heterosexual "flings". In these experiences I was the submissive one doing what my partner wanted.

So when my wife and I got married, you can see that we had an experienced, dominant, independent woman and a submissive, inexperience, bisexual man. For the first few years, she lead completely in bed, until she grew to not want to take the lead. She expected me to.

Even today, after almost 20 years of marriage, she still expects me to initiate, to get her aroused and bring her to satisfaction. But she has so many criteria...I need to be shaved (face and genitals), showered, wearing sexy clothes, Viagra taken (for guaranteed erection), no kids, glass of wine. I work with these things, but she tells be she wants me to take control, to do things without her consent...but then she tells me what she does and doesn't want...how is that not being in control?

My point is that each of us has our past and our issues. We can either work with them or we make them a bigger issue. My wife has made it such a big issue that it means we only have sex 2-3 times a year. I personally would like to have sex daily, but I can't meet her criteria...so what happens? I masturbate to porn, and normally gay porn. I try as hard as I can, always putting her before me, to the point that during intercourse, she will orgasm multiple times, and I end up not ejaculating at all. As a minimum, I always orgasm last.

There may be a point that you have to ask yourself if sex is good enough. If it is, then you may have to live with the status quo, or end up like my wife and I, where sex happens yearly.