it may well be another layer of defensive behaviour. on the other hand it may well be that part of your attraction to your husband was that he wasn't so very demanding / needy of emotional intimacy and so that suited you both at the time. as such, it might be that your concerns of how he would deal with your newfound desire for emotional intimacy may well be well placed.

i tend to think that when one person is unhappy in a relationship... then the other person is also likely to be unhappy in a relationship. i figure that we typically do notice that our partner is feeling unhappy and that it is hard to feel happy in the face of our partners unhappiness!

as we get older people do have increased desire for emotional intimacy. as people get older they are less interested in meeting new people and more interested in consolidating friendships with people they already know. the people we know become important to us and we tend to want to work on increased intimacy with them rather than flitting around meeting new people on a fairly superficial level.

i guess... how do you think that your husband would respond to you if you told him something of how you are feeling? if you said that you would like to work on having a more fulfilling marriage and that you have been feeling fairly distant from him and you would like to work on becoming closer and rediscovering some of the things that you like about each other. how do you think he would respond to that?

it might be... that he surprises you. it might be... that he is sympathetic to the idea.

alternatively... i guess you could try and work on increasing intimacy without the formal conversation. i was reading this article on intimacy the other day and it was talking about some very general differences in how females and males conceive of intimacy. guys tend to feel connected when they engage in enjoyable activities with people. playing football or watching football together or going fishing or whatever. not so much talking about feelings but more just hanging out being at ease in the other persons company. are there any activities like that that you enjoy doing together? it might be that maximising the moments of mutual smiling connection or feelings of peace and contentment is one way of feeling emotionally closer.

what are some of the things that you liked about him when you fell in love with him? are there things you can do so you can feel more of those?

can you arrange to have some special time together to do things? or ask him if you can plan some romantic stuff to do like having a nice dinner together or going on a holiday or stuff like that?