Thank you very much Triss and White Ink for your very thoughtful and honest posts.
I think you hit the nail on the head, Triss, regarding the fact that she might be afraid to be totally honest with me. And I have probably done the subtle punishment thing, too, but for me it is more of a cold shoulder approach.
I am going to try to make it very clear that I want her just to be honest about her feelings with me and tell me whatever it is she is feeling without trying to justify it with the facts. Because I think when she tries to “speak my language” and argue the facts that is where we run into major trouble. Since her primary focus is not the facts, the facts get jumbled to suit her feelings and then we get into a fight over the facts and she feels totally unsatisfied. It’s like if I was debating a Frenchman, and I was trying to speak French to make it easier on him, and then he started criticizing my grammar and vocabulary. (and I realize not ALL women focus on emotions over facts, but my wife is definitely one that does)
And White Ink, I agree there might have been more going on beneath the surface than I realized. She might have been feeling tentative about sex even before she got into bed, when we were “hinting around” it all night.
Some of our interactions sure seemed pretty mutual to me, though! I didn’t include everything because in my OP I was focusing on the things that I said in order to make it clear that there was no way I could have meant anything other than sex. In fact, right after my “practice making babies” comment, we enjoyed a nice long body hug and then I said something like, “So, do you want to go upstairs for some cuddle time right now?” And she replied, “Mmmmmmmm (mmm like yummy)… that sounds really good. I really want to… but, I feel like I have so much to do. Tell you what, you go workout for 40 minutes or so, then when you come back, I’ll be ready for you.”
When I got back, we talked for a while, then I took a shower, then out came the curtains. So I really had no way of knowing that she was feeling uneasy about the sex thing all night, if that was even the case.