Final update. Hubby is still adamant that he won't look into medical help for the low-T, and is now also insisting that having more sex is the best way to increase testosterone. I know it's a factor, but I'm not sure it's the main factor. Anyway, I'm not making any headway on the low-T angle, so the only alternative I see right now is to get him to work on improving attraction directly.

It also seems that the exercise is working, and his energy is up lately. He tried to initiate out of the blue again, but I declined, which triggered another long conversation in which we talked a lot about attraction and causes of having or losing it. So. much. talking. But he was trying really hard to connect with me physically too, so on the whole it was good.

I've finally really gotten his attention, I think. He said that back in the spring (when I was DTF and getting very little response from him), it was a really stressful time for him at work, and also it was kind of too little too late after so many years of sex being something that mostly just hurt me. It took too long for him to decide I was really different, I guess, and that just killed any attraction right there when he didn't act on my availability. Of course now I sort of wonder if completely refusing him is sabotaging my SR (even if it's justified)?

More importantly, I got him to agree to watch one of the videos with me. I know the major consensus was not to give him the Primer, although there's not much chance he'd read it even if I did. But I figured showing him a few of the videos would help get him started on building attraction properly, if that's the only way forward right now. So we started with episode 2, to get right down to attraction. While it wasn't earth-shattering for him, it was helpful to have it all laid out clearly. Athol definitely explained it a lot better than I was doing.

Now I need to actually buy the videos, but Vimeo is refusing to use my paypal balance or add my credit card (even though I just bought the NCMC series two days ago using paypal without any trouble) and I only have a day left! Argh.

At least I have more hope today than I did a couple days ago that eventually things will be better. He's dressing better at home, exercising, paying more attention to me, and getting back into his geeky hobbies, so the current trend is up. We'll see where 2017 takes us.

Might as well update again, since stuff happened today and I want to write it down before I forget. I'm going to have to start keeping an offline journal, I suspect.

Today our toddler was being really difficult, disrespectful and uncooperative. Together hubby and I imposed plenty of consequences and eventually he settled down. As long as hubby was taking an active hand in things, I stepped back and let him handle it, but I couldn't help noticing that he talked too much rather than acting. Whenever I reinforced what he was saying, the boy obeyed better, because he knows I won't tolerate as much from him. But eventually hubby got ticked off and the consequences started mounting. The damage was already done, though. Hubby complains that toddler is disrespectful, but I think even toddler subconsciously knows that hubby isn't maintaining frame and boundaries. I'm not great at it myself either, but I've gotten a lot better over months of weekdays corralling the boy by myself.

At one point, hubby made a weak innuendo about taking off his pants, but I didn't respond, so then he complained that I'm not acting at all interested anymore. I shrugged and didn't say much, at which point he said, "Spouses should always act interested in each other." Probably spouses that are attracted to each other are usually going to act interested, but I'm not going to fake interest I don't feel. (I said some of that but not so clearly in the moment.) The boy was with us and I didn't want to get into a big discussion about attraction, but I had to wonder if he'd forgotten the discussion we had the other day about how I'm not attracted to him right now. Plus I don't feel like a sudden innuendo out of nowhere shows interest in me.

Anyway, one of the consequences for toddler was that we didn't go out to dinner like we'd been planning, so then the ever-present "what's for dinner?" debate was reopened at the last minute. After tossing around takeout ideas, somehow hubby and I ended up in another discussion about how his definition of a meal is narrower than mine and we have to plan some more staple meals that I can make that are lower carb.

I said I'd asked him to help brainstorm ideas recently, but it seemed to never be a good time because he was always tired. He said he wasn't tired then, so I promptly got out a sheet of paper and asked him if we could start right then. But he said we first had to figure out the immediate issue of dinner that night, at which point I said I thought we'd decided on takeout so we'd have good leftovers for the next day.

Apparently I hadn't been clear earlier. I'd been talking about how I could eat for a week on what we had in the house even though we don't have all the pieces for more than a couple of the regular meals I make for all of us, because my definition of a meal is broader than his. But somehow he thought that meant I was planning on making dinner that night from what we have even though he'd already refused the regular meals since we'd had similar meals too recently.

At that point he just totally shut down. He sat silent and withdrawn for several minutes, then just got up and left to pick up dinner. So again, the planning didn't happen.

He was mostly silent through dinner, quiet through the boy's bedtime routine, and then completely withdrawn again when I returned from putting the boy to bed. I calmly got the paper again and cheerfully asked if he was ready to do food planning yet, but he said no, he wasn't in a planning mood. He said after the boy had been so disrespectful, and then when I got on his case about the food planning, he just couldn't take it. I didn't say much, just gave him a hug and then went and did my own thing. He literally just sat thinking, doing nothing, for over an hour tonight.

He was being even less interactive than usual, which is saying something when his usual routine is to read silently on his phone or computer if we're not doing anything together. This is extremely odd behavior for him. I've only seen it a few other times before, and mostly when something's really bothering him. I've been pretty quiet myself from time to time when things aren't looking so good, but while he's often low energy, he's rarely actually in a bad mood. We'll see what happens in the morning.

Lots of good ideas here. Thanks, everyone.

@Angeline The instant pot sounds amazing. Hubby's on board with it. I think we're going to order one from Amazon shortly. I've already been using our crockpots fairly regularly, but it does require rather significant planning ahead to put the meal together early enough to let it cook all day or overnight, and I tend to make huge batches rather than a single dinner. What's this about it peeling eggs, though? If it makes better hardboiled eggs, that'd be a definite bonus. Both of us struggle with peeling the eggs I boil, even if I chill them right away after cooking.
Yes, he's been doing that, and I think even if he takes his own lunch, it will need to be fairly meaty. The trick is that if he doesn't want most carbs, and I don't eat most meats, then what's left if we're eating the same dish for dinner? Salads? I'm going to have to make more dinners out of separate items just so we can avoid our respective things. It's just an extra complication on something that was already complicated.

@HowlAtTheMoon and @Gracey I think it's more than just not liking the taste of beans and lentils. He can and does eat quite a few variations, like Indian lentil curry, and bean enchiladas, and lentil soup, and bean chili, but he often says that he gets issues like heartburn or indigestion if he eats too much of those. I love making a big pot of bean chili or soup, but he'll eat it once or twice and then refuse to eat any more of that batch because he's just done with beans for awhile. Which usually leaves me with four or five portions to eat by myself for the next week of lunches...

@MrsJon He doesn't really have sandwich fillings either, so sandwiches are pretty much just a lost cause. Good idea, though. I could ask him if he'd like a tuna salad lettuce wrap. Anything else, and he'd probably just make it a salad.

@42andatowel and @Tennee I liked the egg muffin idea so much that I went ahead and made a half batch of them tonight so he can try them for the next couple of days. If he really hates the idea for whatever reason, I'll eat them myself, but I think he'll at least try them. Thanks.

This will probably be my last substantial update here. I've come a long way since I got here, a little over a year ago, but there's a long way to go yet. Thanks again to everyone who's encouraged me and helped push me out of my comfort zone. I will definitely miss this place. Writing out my thoughts has been a huge help, but a journal just for me wouldn't be the same at all.

Hubby just received a significant raise at work, better than any of his colleagues. He also seems to have gotten serious about diet and exercise. His own weight gain has gotten his attention finally. Since this weekend, when he set up the new machine, he's been working out every morning.

Last night he even said he was too energetic to just sit, for once, so I followed him downstairs to chat for a bit while he fiddled around with the machine some more, trying new moves. He was also using some kind of handheld gizmo to work his wrists and forearms. But I'm concerned he's going to overtrain or burn himself out if he keeps up this pace. I've said that to him, too. I asked him to make time for letting his muscles rest. But he's got the bit in his teeth and isn't listening to me, not that that surprises me. Given past experience, he's likely to exercise hard for a few weeks and then lose steam, especially when he has to go on a business trip in January.

Of course, this has destabilized things in other ways too. Those of you following my thread saw the saga about meal planning a while ago. In the past couple of years, we'd gotten to a point where I had enough dishes in rotation that making a meal plan was annoying, but not too complicated most of the time. It wasn't great, and we still ordered takeout some of the time, but it was better than before we had our little one.

Well, now he wants to minimize carbs and add lean meat, so he doesn't want at least half of the dishes I've been routinely making. Plus he wants me to cook lunches for him so he doesn't go out to eat so much, but he won't do sandwiches (bread). He suggested something like Indian butter chicken instead, made ahead and portioned out. I do think taking lunch is better than going out for multiple reasons, so I want to support him in this. But he doesn't want to take oatmeal for breakfast any more either, so he's asking me for new ideas for that too, since fruit and hardboiled eggs aren't enough. This feels like it will be like cooking three meals for two picky children when one of them isn't even here half the time. I'm not sure where to draw the line since I do want to encourage him to eat better and not go out so much.

Realistically he probably does need more meat than I do (I'm still only eating tuna and salmon), especially if he's trying to gain muscle, since he doesn't like lentils and beans as much as I do. Plus since he's overweight, he'll do better on fewer carbs than I will. I get that. It's just going to be even more tricky to try to juggle everyone's needs for meals than it already was if I have to make a meat dish for him in addition to the rest of the meal. Not to mention cooking extra meals for lunches (which then can't be used in the dinner rotation, of course). I think he'd do a lot better on a good paleo-ish diet, but it's hard to make that happen when my body type is different and I don't eat paleo myself.

I'd probably feel better about all this if I had attraction for him. I finally decided that the way I've been staying up later than him is not just a natural effect of him going to bed so early, but also my subconscious (body agenda?) telling me that I really don't want to go to bed with him. This is true even though the current agreement is no sex.

This weekend he was upset that I took too long to finish getting ready for church when he'd already packed the little one into the car. He said, "You don't have to get all dolled up, you know." I'd done a tiny bit extra with makeup that day, that's all. Three extra minutes. But then later a (female) friend complimented me on the way I looked, so I was glad I'd done it. But nearly every time I do that sort of thing, hubby implies I shouldn't bother. Not that I'm going to stop, but it's getting really annoying. Then when I'm just dressed normally at home, he'll suddenly slap my butt or use some innuendo, and it's just totally weird. Based on his actions, he finds me more attractive when I'm dressed for comfort with no makeup than when I'm dressed up with makeup. I don't get it.

Today we had a cookie exchange at the MOPS group. Nearly all of the cookies I made disappeared, plus I acquired an assortment of interesting cookies from the other mothers. Not the sort of thing hubby wants around right now, of course. Oh well. I'll probably share some with the neighbor mom. I don't plan to eat more than a few myself, either. My own cookies are reasonably healthy while not sacrificing taste, at least (but definitely not low-carb, lol).

Other than that, I've just been struggling to deal with the cooking changes and keep up with exercise and occupy the boy when we can't go outside to play every day. That's three things, right? Onwards and upwards. Time to work on a revised MAP for 2017. I'll see some of you on the other side, wherever that turns out to be.

@Crashaxe said it best:
It's the end of an era.

Sadly, my marriage is at a tipping point, probably the most unstable time so far. So it's an unfortunate time for the forum to close, for me personally. But it's also a mixed blessing. At some point I would have asked for my threads to be deleted anyway. And I need to spend less time reading and more time doing.

Thanks to @Serenity and @Angeline for pointing me to the right path, and @amblrgirl and @TwelveRubies for walking it with me. Now I have to just keep moving forward. Many others here have shared their own lives and wisdom and I will always be grateful for the year I had here.

@Athol_Kay Thank you for this amazing community, and I look forward to your future projects.