Sexless mariage

So I got a lot of things going on, but my main issue at the moment is my sexless relationship.

For context, I am a French woman in my 30s, my husband is Japanese in his early 40s. We’ve been together for about 12 years, married 8 and with a child for almost 7 years.

Sex has never been amazing, but I thought it was something that could be worked on with good communication, and we’ve talked about it from the beginning… After having our kid, I realized that I was the one starting most of our sensual interaction (if not all…).

We had tons and tons of conversations about this.

I tried to be the most careful possible, not to hurt his feeling (something that annoys me too… I know I’m the only one caring about that…) but his pride was still damaged when he “discovered” that I wasn’t getting pleasure most of the times with penetration… I tried telling him about wanting more foreplay, that sex doesn’t necessarily means penetration, even that I would like more gestures of affection in everyday life… Nothing. He doesn’t understand. Or he says he does and will try more but absolutely nothing changes…

This has been going on for years.

I’ve come to the point of thinking of getting pleasure with someone else but of course it’s not an option for him…

I’ve thought about massages, but that feels like cheating too. I recently popped the idea that he could maybe learn how to do sensual massages but he wasn’t warmed up by the idea either…

I get the feeling that he is some kind of asexual, which is ok, but he is totally closed minded about talking about it and finding a solution for us… There is never a good moment to talk about difficult things too, he gets annoyed if I “spoil” a moment that he was feeling happy in (spoiler alert : he’s the only one happy in those moments…)

He thinks mostly about his work and helping other people (usually somehow work related), but often doesn’t notice anything going on with me.. I feel so unloved and unnoticed that I recently asked him if he ever just *think* about me, in a romantic way, during the day, but it doesn’t seem to be the case… He told me he understands better now and will try to think more about me….

But that feel too little way too late, I’m past the stage of being patient...

I can’t even slightly flirt with anyone because most people around us are either staffs or customers at his cafe, which is basically where we spend most of our days and is the bread winning of the whole family… I feel completely stuck and prisoner of this situation…

A side note, he is a great person otherwise, and an amazing dad!