B,

I love the food analogy and I often compare sex to food as both are basic needs.

When I was 13, I lost my appetite for food and was rarely hungry. This upset my mother quite a bit because I didn’t fit the mold of the typical teenage boy — always hungry and eating. I simply wasn’t hungry. I simply had no appetite for food.

To this day, I don’t know why, but I do know this. I loved my mother’s cooking. To me, she was the best cook on the planet, and my lack of appetite had nothing to do with how I felt about the food she prepared.

There are many reasons why a person may have low sexual appetite. Unfortunately, I believe you have focused on only one possible reason — lack of love and attraction — to the exclusion of any other possible explanation. I have learned that my wife’s low desire has nothing to do with how she feels about me. She loves me and finds me attractive even though she has little interest in touching me or being touched by me. Like you, I feel that I have to learn to accept her low desire, but unlike you, I won’t accept it as an indication of a lack of love or attraction. It’s just that her love and attraction are expressed in other ways.

Not sure I get the Leah/Rachel statement…

But some other helpful tips. Thanks!