while we HLs are unhappy with the amount of sex, our partners are fine. This is a strict HL vs LL dichotomy, and what I'm saying is that it's too narrow and misses the point. It's not always HL vs LL.
But...it's true. The posts from people who are like "We're not having all that much sex, it's my fault, and I feel awful about that", sort of ignoring the recent influx, are few and far between. Yes, there are many roads to a DB that extend beyond just HL or LL terms. But I also believe that people generally find a way to do the things they really want to do. They may have a justified reason for not wanting sex that goes beyond LL, but if they're not bothered by the lack of sex in the relationship (or rather, the current state of it) where the other partner is, that's just a fundamental incompatibility.
an indifferent partner makes the problem (whatever the source) intractable. But that's a problem bigger than a DB; it's a dead relationship.
I disagree. Remember back to ConfuzzledWife or whatever her username was. She listed all the other things they do in the relationship, all the other ways it was working. To her sex wasn't important and she couldn't comprehend why it mattered so much to her husband. Yes, she was trying to force him to conform to what she thought was right. But honestly, that's something we do pretty often.
I've told this story a few times here, but one day my daughter cried bloody murder because I wouldn't buy her an ice cream. She'd been eating junk food all day, enough was enough. I'm sure it broke her heart - and I don't doubt that she really wanted the ice cream. But I felt I was right and I made that judgment call - you're not getting the ice cream, I know you don't like it, but I'm right and you're just going to have to deal with it. While this is a parent and toddler dynamic, I've found that some of the basics carry over into adult interactions. When we tell our partners about this problem and how much it hurts us and they fail to respond, it isn't them being callous or ignoring our feelings and needs - they've just made the judgment call that we don't really need sex. "I know you don't like it, but I'm right and you're just going to have to deal with it." To be fair we're sort of doing the same to them as well - "I know you're not really interested in sex, but I feel our relationship should have a stronger sexual aspect to it...and I feel like I'm right, so I need you to accept that."
It's not so much a matter of indifference, but rather getting your partner to change their stance on the situation. Was there a way for my daughter to convince me that she should have had that ice cream? Probably not. And that's the magnitude of the problem we're dealing with here.