Help For A Friend With Marital Issues

Why do you think that is less? It took her 15 years to open up to you and you are a good friend right? While she figures her way through this being her good trusted friend, a sounding board to listen and being there for her without judgement counts for a lot.
I read the thread and your other replies as well. Now I am thinking she may be going through her version of a mid life crisis. See, when one is 20 and idealistic and energetic it is easy to wave aside/forgive some things, even big things such as the lack of intimacy etc and say they don’t matter. She probably meant it sincerely at the time. But life is long, longer than we realize, and after 15-20 years of the same-old same-old one can be like ‘but what about me’ ‘what about what I wanted?’. It is natural to revisit decisions irrespective of the path one took and to wonder what if? I think that is what's going on with her. 40 is a little early for mid life though usually it’s more like 50’s but maybe she was suppressing her doubts from some time and now can’t anymore.

It is not a given that her h has to be gay. He may well be asexual or may have subsumed all that drive into his intellectual brilliance. It is not an uncommon thing in our generation when there was a lot of pressure on the boys to achieve and marriage/interest in opposite sex was considered acceptable only in late 20’s or early 30’s, after he was ‘well- settled’.