Anyone else feeling like a prostitute in their marriage?

No this isn’t what marriage is.

I’ve been with my DH for 30 years, married for 18 and he’s my greatest champion, biggest support and I only commented just last month how during sex he never takes his eyes off mine.

please leave this man, you’re only 50 don’t allow this to be your entire life

I would show him this thread if you think that it would shock him into doing something his attitude! As for what happened at the weekend his treatment of you was disgraceful.
He is doing it and has no idea of the affect on you, shameful behaviour.

No, but I'm really sad that you feel this way. Sex shouldn't feel transactional in a marriage, both of you should want and enjoy it. I know you say it's consensual, I get that, I just mean that it should be fun and lovely and a way to connect.

It doesn't have to be the worst marriage in the world for you to deserve happiness and leave. You're allowed to end things because you want more. He can be a good dad and a nice man but you can still want and need true affection and love and joy.

Well for starters you don't have to do the sex bit!! If there is no emotion in it, because he is not emotionally available for you, then for a female it is pointless.

So I would start by stopping having sex with him.

You then need to work on the relationship side. My DH is very similar. Nice guy, but I am SO far down his priority list it's quite lonely. I told him I'd had enough and wasn't willing to go on like this.

Things have improved. We work together much more as a team, rather than me and the kids vs him doing what he wants. I made it very clear how his behaviour made me feel and that unless he made changes there was no point. We don't have a physical relationship because we don't have that emotional connection, and still some resentment so I'm not interested, but we do hugs.

But more importantly I am being me - I have my own interests outside of him.

Being with someone who doesn't support you emotionally, at the very least when you really need it (baby, death of your dad) isn't the person for you.. and I never say that lightly.

I echo someone else's sentiment, can you imagine looking back 40 years and not regretting staying with him?

If he is not willing to come to couples therapy, or even see fractionally of what you need (and let's be honest, it's not that much) then perhaps rethink your relationship. Daily it must make you feel 'wrong footed' constantly and as if you're to blame somehow, like asking for a normal, loving relationship is you being 'needy'.

I’m not getting the loving care that other posters seem to be finding from your DH in your posts but as I said earlier the stiff upper lip is lauded by many so it could be what they see as loving.

In my experience of avoidants and to be fair there are a number of different kinds of ways avoidants show up but they avoid deep conversations, emotional discomfort of any kind, repair of relationships in any meaningful way. But as well as avoiding emotions they also avoid feedback that challenges their perception and identity so they are highly resistant to change.

How the avoidant controls others to meet their needs in this regard is where the loneliness comes from in others, minimising others experiences, denying others experiences, intellectualising others experiences and so on, all to keep the world around them just how they like it with no thought for the person/people they are surrounded by. Being an avoidant is not loving. It is a culturally enforced and endorsed way of being but it is not loving.

I do think this is quite common.
Not that it’s a good thing, it isn’t. But I know I can relate to what you wrote and I’ve read so many similar posts over the years.

I don’t think we can expect one person to give us everything we need for years on end. But, as you say he provides for the family and you probably have a nicer lifestyle being married to him than you would without. You say he’s calm and stable and makes you laugh. So I wouldn’t jump into leaving. Would your finances if single allow you to be happy.

You only get one life

‘He doenst see me as a person’ impossible to be happy when living with someone who makes you feel like that

I vote leave. I has no husband and used to have a fiance that sounds like your husband. I’m a lot happier now than you are.

Oh dear, I didn't mean for that to happen! I'm so sorry.

Maybe this is a turning point for you. I have Asian roots, I often think about how women were, and still are treated in marriage: dowries, no choice in whether or not to have children, required to do everything for everyone and put themselves down. I think they are indeed prostitutes and maids and therapists and teachers and cleaners. It's not a life. Their sole purpose on earth is to procreate and facilitate the advancement of others.

You have options. This doesn't need to be life for you. You can have more from your life, and you're only in your 40s. You don't have to loathe a man to divorce him. You can be fond of him, grateful to him, look back on your years together with gratitude and thanks. You can respect him for all his wonderful traits. And, you can accept that things have changed, people have changed, and it's time to move on. That your life is a series of chapters rather than one single thread from start to finish. It's YOUR life, you are in charge.

My heart goes out to you @Londonisthebestcityintheworld . I've stood in a remarkably similar position to you and I feel for the state you are in right now.

I had a hideous childhood - both physically and mentally abusive (they usually go together). I went on to be in relationships and ultimately marry someone abusive. It was all that I knew! You will never change your husband. You can only change yourself. No amount of techniques or clever tactics will make him a different man. You are already smarter and braver than so many people as you have managed to be with him for so many years. You will have needed superb skills of resilience to have survived this far.

However, you can leave and you can carve a different life for yourself and feel calm and safe. You need to think carefully about it all and you need to see a counsellor who specialises in treating abused women.

Keep posting on here too. Sending you so many good wishes for your future.

I am an assertive person. And I do those things you say. But it's met with eye rolls and don't be so sensitive. It's just a joke etc. or a double down on me not being able to take constructive criticism.

It seems from this that you believe you are an assertive person but you don’t act assertively. When you receive this response, that is the time to be assertive and state that laughing at someone is unkind and not the same as laughing with someone.

Your children should in no circumstances have been brought up to think that the behaviour you describe is acceptable in a loving and supportive family. They clearly have no idea about what is constructive criticism, and perhaps you haven’t either if you’ve let this continue without comment.

Your posts suggest that the family is completely at sea emotionally and each of you needs help.

Same and I've been with my husband 22 years

I can’t help noting that when you were in passionate relationships they didn’t last yet your cool marriage has lasted. You say DH shows up when you need him so maybe he shows his love through this support rather than his emotions. When you aren’t feeling emotional and upset do you share little chats and jokes, do you do things together? I find these are the things that build intimacy more than deep and meaningful talks about hopes and fears, which tbh most English men largely avoid.

This is one of the saddest posts I've read on this. No, this isn't what marriage is. What a waste of a life, for both of you.

I don't see how you can help the marriage if he doesn't help himself first. If he won't help himself (maybe he doesn't have a problem with the way he is?) then there's absolutely nothing you can do. You can't have a relationship with someone who won't relate to you.

So sorry, OP.

Marriage isn't supposed to be what you described.

Hugs to you @Londonisthebestcityintheworld. You are so brave and strong recognizing you need to recover from both your childhood and what's happened in your marriage.

I think sometimes, part of grief, is recognizing what we have that doesn't meet our needs. Your husband is not able to bring to the relationship what almost everyone needs - emotional connection, care, compassion.

The fact you feel like a prostitute is very very telling. It's huge. It means you feel subservient to his needs and that in any relationship is deeply problematic and if I'm honest, I don't think men who make women feel like that, often have capacity/desire to change. I'm not saying every relationship that needs to work on communication should end. I am saying that the way in which the transactions happen in your marriage, isn't emotionally safe for you and that means you aren't emotionally safe in the relationship.

It's hard to heal from the past if you are still living it now.

The steps of both getting help & of maybe leaving (and ensuring you have half for your future) can feel very daunting. I think you need to focus on very small steps.

1. Do not have sex if you don't want to. I think it's not about sex but I think it's having a very bad impact on you by continuing to be in that oppressive space for something so intimate.

2. Start to do something small every day for you. It could be as simple as a cup of tea & reading a book. Tell yourself you deserve to be happy. Tell yourself good things about who you are. You need this.

3. Do you have a supportive friend who could give you those hugs you need and deserve? Think about who may be able to hear what you are saying here and feel love & compassion for you. Talk to them.

4. Get a counsellor who is very well verse in trauma affirming care. You need someone skilled to help you unpack all this.

5. When you are ready, see a lawyer. No rush. Don't tell your husband but see a lawyer who will just walk you through the steps. Who will help see you as a person who has a right to build a new, safe and supportive life.

Lastly, be radically compassionate towards yourself. You need & deserve that.

Yup. I’ve had more than one of these. I too felt like not much more than a poorly functioning household appliance and blow up doll in the bedroom as a result. And if I tried to say that, I would be looked upon as being unhinged/ridiculous/hysterical.

It’s awful.

He won’t change

Emotional avoidance is lauded by swathes of people but in my experience of emotional avoidants they are generally, not always, life’s takers.

Your marriage sounds so utterly lonely and he sounds ruthlessly selfish and self serving.

You sound lovely and very emotionally and fairness wise balanced given what you’ve experienced. You deserve better.