It sounds like you have two major obstacles before you,
mattj .
Both awful in their own rotten way.
1) Medical issue. No one's fault. Angry at the universe stuff. Maybe better with time?
But....
2) No, not better with time. Even as your wife's physical health may allow her to find sex a good idea, you have a therapist slamming on the brake pedal. Your wife wants to work her way around to greater frequency, but she has an outside party telling her to not perform this marital bonding activity.
The first one, you can unite in common cause against.
The second one, they unite against you.
Just a few posts ago, Jan 17, 2023 at 6:46am, I sent a link to a psychiatrist's blog.
www.drpsychmom.com/2022/01/28/sex-needs-to-be-worked-on-at-the-same-time-as-emotion-for-couples-counseling-to-work/It says almost the opposite of what this marriage counselor is saying.
I'd be curious if this sexual hiatus has made your wife feel closer to you, or more distant.
Prioritizing pleasing a "therapist" more than your spouse is an interesting choice of priorities. Not always wrong, but not a decision to take lightly.
Does this living wedge have good reviews online? Recommendations? Or she accepted your insurance, and she was accepting new patients. (needs fresh marriages to kill)
A marital counselor encouraging less sex between husband and wife. What could
possibly go wrong?
On other posts, ILIASM members point out that not "having and holding" your spouse is a break of marital vows. It is forsaking you.
Congregations are often told "What God has put together let no man put asunder". Is this therapy approach strengthening the bond, or tearing it asunder?
Maybe you married at a courthouse, so those words weren't spoken. It's still not supposed to be done.
It may be necessary for a specific duration and reason, but the therapist trying to fix childhood issues with boundaries by potentially crushing a key support structure of hers strikes me as reckless and plausibly unnecessary.
Telling you "no" some of the time should be evidence of her power over her own body and mind, to tell her to say "no" when she doesn't want to is coercion by your therapist, not strengthening boundaries. She's making a boundary that wasn't there. Being unable to say "No" was her concern, the therapist has manufactured a psychiatric "problem" out of saying "Yes", even when she means it.
Asking you to relieve your tension with solitaire, for an unknown duration, maybe forever, is not hostile. Just misguided.
Can she climax? How much of the quality of sex rides on seeing her achieve bliss. (If she doesn't/can't, that may be a ripe field for exploration once this lovely "hiatus" is over, if it ever is.) If her bliss is strongly valued, she needs to know that. Her pleasure is yours as well. Her pleasure is never a part of that minimal experience you have by yourself. It is in second place and you need binoculars to see it, it's so far behind. (Or is it? I'm just going by the vibe I get from fellas here at ILIASM)
Without anger, you may need to know if this project that she's executing to demonstrate respect and friendship towards the therapist (being a good patient, maybe to be "liked"?) can be a permanent thing? What are the signs she's looking for in this ill-defined "trust" level. (Unless it is defined by observable metrics, in which case, please share! That'll be intriguing!)
If you become celibate, like roommates, or brother and sister, is this outcome desired but cannot be admitted out loud? Is it the goal and the therapist was the vehicle to get there, even unconsciously?
This can be a sympathetic thing; sexual abuse causing this desire not to have sex, but pressed into it by expectations of marriage that was, itself, expected of her.
Exclusive sex is what defines marriage beyond a close heterosexual friendship. Before that, you're dating.
It is possible it was a mistake for her to marry
anyone. If that's the case, it's important to know and smart actions can be executed, be it opening the marriage or releasing her to a more appropriate destiny and celibate life plan. (networks of friends, family, and other linchpin people in her life [doctors, therapists, other trained professionals that fill needs you provide, but with inconvenient needs along with it]).
The therapist has reprehensibly included you in your wife's exercise of self-examination. Her boundary building, even to those things she thinks she wants (does she really?) impose hardship (accidental punishment) on you through no fault of your own. (Unless there
is some fault. I can't know).
The collateral damage is severe and potentially not worth the price. Has the cost even been recognized?
Is this therapist someone you see together? If not, maybe you need to attend too and the therapist can hash out whether she's doing more harm than good, or if she's indifferent to your experience.
There's so much to unpack here. Medical AND sexual trauma. You are coming into the marriage hospital shot through with shrapnel and a seeping gut wound.
It's great you're here and we're sorry you are.
Welcome. Sending you a big 'ol digital "bro hug" here.