Feel like my husband (36M) is not really attracted to me (28F) and no longer in love. It hurts me every day.

I've been "happily" married to my husband for 5 years, we have a 3 year-old child. He is a great and engaged father, a good man, not sexist, not abusive, works a lot and earns well, helps in the household, etc. Some might say the perfect husband.
I am also a pretty good wife. I also work part time, but am the one mostly taking care or our child from 2pm-8/9pm every day when we put her to sleep. Our kid is totally adorable, loving and well balanced - you can really see that she is a happy child living in a positive environment. We get compliments all the time.

We're both healthy and attractive people, with good jobs, but very time consuming and stressful schedules.
Everyone thinks we're the perfect family; my friends look up to me and to our relationship and tell me all the time that I hit the jackpot.

I just don't feel this way about our relationship, and it makes me feel terribly guilty and inappropriate.

I hate it that even though we spend our evenings together, nothing happens. We have sex maybe 2 or 3 times a month - nowhere near enough for me. I have stopped masturbating so that I can actually achieve orgasm with my husband, because I find our sex bland to say the least, and only by greatly depriving myself do I manage to even enjoy it.
He practically never shows any sign of attraction towards me. It hurts me. I compliment his looks and body practically every day, and I feel *really* attracted to him maybe 4-5 times a week. He laughs my compliments off and never returns them. I put a lot of effort into looking the way I do, I lost all my PP weight after having my daughter, I am usually well dressed and try to look attractive. I get a lot of compliments and looks from strangers or male friends - just not from my husband.
When I start physical contact it always stays friendly (or even "brotherly"), never goes beyond a deep hug or a light kiss. Because I am the one mostly making the compliments or demonstrating attraction, I don't want to be the one also making the touch more sexual. This is mostly what turns me off our sex - the fact that it doesn't feel like he is really super horny for me, just doing it out of a physical necessity.
These interactions and our sex life make me feel insecure, unattractive and really lower my self-esteem. When I try to think about it like "well, maybe he just has a very low sex-drive and it's not related to you", it just makes me sad and frustrated. What the hell am I supposed to do with that? I want and need to feel desired.
The worst part (for me) is that I've talked to him about it a million times, told him how I feel a million times, have been kind about it, angry about it, have tried to change the things he used to blame for it being this way ("too little time together", "your pyjamas turn me off", "you're always so tired from work and taking care of our child, it just doesn't feel sexy") to make a better environment for us to have sex... but none of it meant squat. It's still the same.

I have asked him about his kinks because I felt like maybe he was just bored and needed to incorporate something more into our sex lives, but he says "I don't really have any...". So there's not much to do there.

I have explicitly told him how much this lack of interest hurts me, that I need him to be more vocal about how he feels about me, to make me feel loved and desired. I have told him I feel terrible and frustrated and that we need to see couple's therapy, almost 2 years ago. We still haven't because he doesn't want to invest the time or money in it. We go out on date more frequently than any other parents I know. Still, it's like friends, or business-partners. We talk a lot about his work and money, because it's one of the few things that gets him engaged and actually interested in the conversation... But I don't want a husband that is just a friend. I believe in being in love and being sexy forever. And I feel it's just a matter of putting effort into it, which he is not.

I just don't know what else I'm supposed to do. Suggestions?

tl;dr: Young attractive wife has the hots for her awesome attractive husband, but he is romantically "cold" and doesn't reciprocate. Tried many things, talked to him, nothing changed. Feel frustrated, alone, bored and unloved. Don't feel like it's fair because I put a lot of effort. Need suggestions.

Submitted October 30, 2018 at 06:30AM by ParadoxicallySweet https://ift.tt/2Q7BJqE