I'd like to thank NorthStarMom for the well timed quote.
"...Of course when we first met and were in our early/mid 20's things were good,"
That kind of shoots down the idea that previous lovers were better than you, kpslick.
Then again, maybe I'm misunderstanding what a "good" sex life means in this case? Good, not great? Room for improvement? Mildly concerning?)
You also said you've always been like this.
So, "things were good" even though (because of?) you've "always been like this".
You then ask what was different with her other lovers who you delude yourself into thinking more desirable than you, your own words undermining that dubious claim.
You said you were in your twenties.
She was in her twenties when she was lusty for both them,
and you. (She was, wasn't she? How can we know how lusty she was, other than your speculative claims?)
She's older now. Despite the hype of women having late sexual primes, that's an average and may have more to do with their knowing their own bodies, not cooperative hormone mixes.
Further, if she had other lovers as you suggest, that seems as though there were two or more. If she was in her twenties, and barring some precocious pubescent blossoming, her relationships were likely not long-lived.
Dr. PsychMom explains repeatedly that
monogamy commonly dulls lust. Sexual desire becomes diminished almost universally and becomes responsive, not spontaneous.
Your wife wasn't in those couplings long enough to lose her lusty nature. She would have. Or at least might have.
Why wasn't she in those relationships longer? Why did she marry you? You were an overall better choice, DE or not. Irresponsible men, perhaps exciting due to good looks or reckless embrace of wild life lit her fire, but she quickly came to understand there was no future. She recognized quality in you, but got ambushed by the ebbing of lust brought on by stable, wholesome marriage. She may have thought something was wrong with her, then shifted blame to you. There had to be someone to blame, right? This couldn't be nobody's fault.
OK, unproductive why chasing concluded.
When you play solitaire, do you still suffer delayed ejaculation? Does it take you 45 minutes? Or is your fixation on "performance" only with her?
When you "hurry up" and are occasionally successful, what works to "succeed"?
Let us take a moment to note that insistence that a guy "finish" is not particularly healthy and, as you note, can badly sabotage the outcome so obsessively sought.
Is she under the impression the orgasm is the prize? Again, Dr. PsychMom says that's common as hell and these (stupid) women reduce themselves to the function of a love doll. Most men can get orgasms without help, thank you. They miss the point completely, and if orgasm isn't the point, then why is she there? They often don't ask themselves that question much, sometimes because they're delusional that if a guy climaxes, it was good. No. No it isn't. Okay, maybe a little but it will never be great.
New partners typically have terrific sex for two reasons.
1) The drunken hormonal cocktail we swim in, at first.
2) We are under the impression our lovers care for us and, for that reason, want to give us pleasure.
3) We revel in our capacity to bring pleasure to them.
This switches in some spouses' heads to "he wants me to want to give him pleasure" which is true, but they seem to totally forget the mirror motive, "he wants to give me pleasure".
As Apocrypha speaks of, frequently enough, they may even be aware of the refuser's desire to deliver pleasure, but find such a desire/drive/want to be undesirable due to something outside the bedroom stewing in their mind. It may be a common complaint that goes (justifiably, stubbornly, or needlessly) unaddressed, or an
empathic rupture they have not reconciled.
Other times, hang-ups about sex (religious upbringing/trauma) get overridden by the hormone bath temporarily and, later, their spouse's desire to deliver pleasure uncomfortably (unconsciously?) mimics unpleasant past events or behaviors frowned upon when unmarried and the spouse has not fully embraced their new paradigm of holy matrimony that theoretically, miraculously reverses the forbidden nature of intercourse.
Well, shit. That was more "why-chasing."
Sex, marriage, and love don't cubbyhole well.
Oh, and I second NYartGal. You said "I’m trying to be fair. It’s not all her fault."
Good God, man, I'm struggling to see where you're sharing blame at all! You're wallowing in self-loathing! A common outcome to sexless marriage.
Don't hate yourself, don't hate Mrs. Kpslick, hate the problem. Climb out of your heart and crawl up to your brain. We need some objectivity and resolve. You've done a great job suffering (outstanding!), but it's time to end this. The urging to drop the why chasing serves this end. Why she denies you, while important, if it could be determined, isn't guaranteed to be
useful.
If you could finger the exact reason, the decision to stay, divorce, or outsource is the same. If you
must continue this excruciating game of romantic gumshoe, carry on, I suppose, but
simultaneously, spend some energy working on what you would do if you found out what the problem is and could not solve it; because you won't solve the 'why', if you never find the reason, which is so common-common-common that the whole discouragement to "why chase" here at ILIASM is such prevalent wisdom.
What
actions you take from here could (should?) include the individual therapy NyartGal suggests, it can give you an objective third party to give you the perspective to find your drive/needs/utmost wants worthy of acknowledgement and respect.
Finally, for the third time, is Mrs. Kpslick on antidepressants? (I'll accept "NOYB, dude." as an answer.)