We took a shower together on Sunday, the first in months.

I don't know why he agreed to it - a time-saving exercise, I suspect. He stood awkwardly a good foot away from me, awaiting his turn under the water. It's the first time in a while that we have been close and naked together, but he averted his eyes from me. I soaped my breasts, ashamed at my own desperation to arouse him and tearful that I was most likely failing. I squeezed past him, playfully sticking my soapy arse out to slide it over his crotch - "Ooh, not much space in here, I'll just have to... Ooh, sorry!" My advances towards him have evolved into a mockery of flirtation and desperation, a self-conscious chubby woman trying to pique the interests of a dispassionate and irritated man. My need for attention is pathetic and churns in my stomach. I try to turn down the chatter in my brain so I don't spoil any actual potential for intimacy by bursting into tears. I feel clunky, awkward and obvious. But there's no space left for eroticism or seduction - how can I be erotic and seductive when it's clear that he has no desire for me, and when I have no confidence in my own ability to make him want me?

The utilitarian shower continued. I reached out and washed his back. He didn't wash mine. I swiped a soapy hand across his chest, mock-naughtily refusing to let him rinse off, and began to do it myself, rubbing his skin and looking up at him. I kissed him once, and again - both times he responded with the kind of kiss I dread. I know that kiss. I loathe that kiss. To me it means "Not now". It's a smacking, chaste, childish kiss, the kind one might give to a toddler as you drop him off at nursery.

I gave in to the hopelessness, and began to cry. I leaned into him and his arms went mechanically around me as I sobbed and shook noisily against his chest. I admit, I laid it on a bit thick - who wouldn't? I know it's pointless, even cruel, it just fans his guilt and dampens his libido further, but I want him to know how much this hurts me.

Again I told him our relationship was in trouble, how rejected, ugly, hopeless and helpless I felt, how intimacy is the cornerstone of a relationship, blah blah blah - I'm so tired of repeating it. I felt like a selfish bitch for even bringing it up considering what he's been through this last month, and I told him so, with an apology. He looked down at me, silent and impassive. He got out of the shower. I thought that was it, but he eventually gave me his latest version of events. He says his libido is even worse since his recent trauma, and if it seems sex is at the bottom of his list it's cos he's working hard to build his career to support our future kids. Immediately he backtracked "I know there won't be any kids if we don't have sex." "No, actually," I retorted, "there won't be any us if we don't have sex, because unless you start making an effort to improve things we are going to split up."

He acquiesced, kind of, and said we could make a date for that night, for time to be naked together, and true to plan, it went ahead. It culminated in some of the most tender, emotional sex I've ever experienced and the first orgasm ever to make me cry. But even through this, I can't help wondering if I'm simply projecting an aura of romance and love onto the act. For all I know, for him it was a singularly detached experience. While it was easy to imagine, while he was inside of me, that it meant as much to him as it did to me, he certainly didn't seem emotionally moved in any way. But this is half of the problem - he's such a cool customer that it's impossible to know what's going on for him unless he opens his mouth and talks. And that's rare.

So that was last Sunday. It's Friday now. There's been no sex all week, and last Sunday hasn't been mentioned. No promises have been made, but it's the weekend now, the time of the week when the chance of us actually getting together raises from a flatline to the vaguest glimmer of possibility. I haven't decided if I'm going to play it cool or attempt to push through my self-disgust and pounce. It's Valentine's Day so the pressure's on. Let's see how it pans out.