As above I M42 have been married to F43 for just over 20 years with 3 children, and across the board we are a very happy family that is well grounded and enjoy our lives.
As an individual I love learning and development and am really interested in the brain and why people choose to do the things they do. I'm constantly interested in improving myself and will spend a lot of my time researching and finding out new things.
Fortunately/unfortunately I carry this trait through into my sexual thoughts, and I am keen to learn and want to try new things in the bedroom, if we don't like it then we won't do it again.
I love sex and my main driver is to provide pleasure to my wife. There is nothing more I like to do than go down on her and explore her beauty visually whilst I pleasure her before I even think about my ending. This leads to problem No1, she is not body confident at all and detests many parts of her body mainly the lower half, to the point where love making (when it does happen) is a lights off activity. She believes that just bc she doesn't like how she looks therefore I won't either, I've never given her any reason to think that.
I have hinted several times around CBT to aid in building confidence in herself, I think she's coming round to it, but she's got to want to do it for herself and not bc I encourage it, otherwise I would have booked her in a while ago.
I know and accept that I have a higher libido and think about sex way more than she does, so I undertand that I am maybe not going to get some form of gratification everynight with her, bc we also lead busy lifes (differing work schedules, kids clubs etc) and having read into love languages I know our languages are different and I do my best to ensure that I metaphorically speak her language by making sure that jobs around the house are done, kids are organised and where they need to be, everyone is fed and watered etc so that I reduce the potential of other stressors upsetting the environment, however I still regularly find myself on the end of rejection if I make a suggestion or initiate an advancement, and it's beginning to wear me down because I prioritise our sex life and that aspect of our relationship more than she does, unfortunately I find myself vieing against her phone usage for her time and attention certainly in the evening when the kids have settled for the night as that often seems to be the only time we can get with each other as adults.
I am reminded that we have sex "probably more than most couples" maybe once or twice every couple of weeks on average, however I am not interested in comparisons, I want to lead our own lives and do it bc we want to and bc we enjoy it. If I get a knock back I generally carry this negative emotion into the next day and sulk a little bit (my issue I know and I am working on not doing that), or I will use reddit to find content to satisfy myself, interestingly I will search out content that replicates my wife in body shape, breast similarity, vaginal similarity and the like bc I love the f&@k out of her.
I am 42 and spiritually I am accepting of end of life, but I certainly don't want to get there without increasing my variety of sexual activity. In my mind I believe I have made enough compromise to warrant a bit more priority and would like to see a little more from her side (without that sounding obnocious or nasty).
I know that communication is the backbone of a healthy relationship and that this is a conversation that needs to happen (again), how would the people of this community broach the subject?