DH won't perform to order

Oh, and one important thing to bear in mind - YOU ARE NOT TOO OLD! So please don't panic. If you believe the media portrayal of fertility, it would be a miracle if anyone over 35 ever got pregnant. It doesn't work like that. You still have a lot of time so please don't let that stress you out

Would it be possible to book a holiday at a time that is likely to coincide with your fertile window if your cycles are regular. You may both have a better chance of being in the mood and not as tired that way.

I am too tired to DTD sometimes. Even, shock horror, during FW.

It doesn't mean I can't cope with a newborn FFS.

OP I totally get your frustration too, but I don't agree with the poster who said he is a selfish twat. We missed my ovulation day this month as DH was exhausted.

I have squared it with myself that it's OK not to DTD when my DH is too tired/not in the mood, as I don't want to have conceived a baby during a half-hearted shag!

Really I'd carry on until it was chafing down there (!) but I know DH isn't like that. He has to be in the mood and he is currently under a lot of short-term pressure from work and maybe isn't as conscious of my fertile window as I am.

Agree with Imps. :)

My husband is a police officer and works all kind of wacky hours. The only days we can have sex are either rest days or on an early shift. Some months there are only a couple of fertile window days that coincide. I got quite worked up about it at first...but strangely enough it was the pregnancy that led to my mmc which made me change my approach. The month I got pregnant we had sex just the once in that whole month. It just happened to be very well timed! Now we try to dtd every other day when he's got the energy. Trying to force it doesn't work as he can't perform and then it all ends in upset on both sides. Sometimes with a demanding job you are just too tired. But I agree that it's worth having a talk to discuss things - sometimes it's very easy to fall into a rut and before you know it months have gone by. I went through this last year and I had to have an honest but sensitive talk with my oh about it... Best of luck x

It is rubbish trying to dtd on demand, and so stressful when you know you're likely to be ovulating but one of you isn't in the mood. I also didn't tell my DH exactly when I thought I was ovulating - unpredictable cycles also complicated things. The month we conceived DC2 (after 8 months of trying), we agreed in advance we would dtd every 2-3 days over a 10 day period. Not exactly romantic, but then we both knew what/when things would be happening in advance.

There are other ways to get pg of course - a wank takes a lot less physical and mental energy than sex. But I'd be worried that a man who is simply too tired for sex is not going to be able to cope with life with a newborn baby. I think you need to have a serious (loving, non-accusatory) talk.

It's not selfish to not want sex when you don't feel like it, for goodness sake. You can't expect him to "perform" like some circus animal.

I could not agree more.

If a Woman came on here saying her partner was pressurising her into having sex it would be a different response altogether.

no means no regardless of the reason.

Whilst it absolutely isnt selfish to not want to have sex when you're not in the mood for it, on the other hand there's really only one way to get pregnant. So you're going to have to have a frank conversation. For us we had a good few months of me being very sensitive to DHs moods and performance anxiety but in the end we did sit down and say "right this is shit but it needs to get done". Was having sex every other day and every day in my fertile window nice? No, not even a bit. Did it work? Yes, first month doing that I got pregnant both times we tried.

Talk to him about it. It might be there is a solution.

It's not selfish to not want sex when you don't feel like it, for goodness sake. You can't expect him to "perform" like some circus animal.

Completely agree

I could have written your post OP. I think people unfairly underestimate the pressure that men can be under when TTC. My OH struggle to perform during the fertile window. He is not selfish or a twat or disinterested in having children - he is the opposite of all of these things and the pressure got to him. It certainly didn't help to get upset or tell him we had to have sex in order to get pregnant (he's realised this - he's not a child!). In the end, the only thing that worked is for me to make out that it was no big deal whether or not we got pregnant that month, even though that was the opposite of what I was feeling. The more nonchalant I was about it, the less pressure he felt and the more sex we had.

It's tough for you - really tough. But I'm guessing it's really tough for him too. Hope you can work through it together.

I also don't tell DH when my fertile window is, as he can get quite anxious and the pressure often makes it harder to perform and the whole thing less sexy. We try and do it every few days across the month.

I don't think he is being selfish (only 1 poster has said this) unless he is turning you down repeatedly and refusing to talk about it. But then I think you have a different issue.

You have a fertile window of about a week. Are you not having sex during that time at all?

And he is not unreasonable for saying no to sex if he doesn't feel like it.

Fwiw, me and GF are TTC ATM.
I have no issue having a TTC session but we still have to be in the mood, I'd never dream of trying coercion if she wasnt in the mood because it just adds pressure to something that should be enjoyable, once it's not enjoyable it becomes a chore, once it becomes a chore it becomes an effort and once that happens you may as well forget it.

He's too tired for more kids. Not sex.

My DP has a low sex drive too and combined with working/travelling long hours I know where you are coming from. I didn't tell him when my fertile week was but I tried sending him some naughty texts during the day so by the time he got home from work he was in the mood. Didn't quite manage every other day but i got my bfp on saturday so we obviously timed it right. Maybe worth a try?

If some bloke came on here and said,
"My missus doesn't want sex every other day"

Noone would dream of calling that woman a selfish twat.

Why is it that its okay to call OPs OH a selfish twat then? It isn't is it really?
Whatever the reasons he doesn't want sex, it doesn't change the fact that he doesn't want sex, unless you advocate coercion?

Op die need to talk to him though, explain that if he does want a child that there are certain actions that have to be performed. It my be that he's not s keen on the idea as OP, but if that's the case then OP will either have to accept that or move on to someone else.

You haven't made him sound like a twat.

If he isn't in the mood, he isn't in the mood. Fwiw I had sex CD11 and ovulated CD16, bfp CD28.

I don't think it's that he doesn't want kids, just he doesn't want sex. And you can definitely be too tired for sex, regardless of how quickly it can be.

If he was fully on board with the baby making he'd make an effort - but you feel rejected, and not just from a conception pov

I guess you need the window to fall in a weekend or holiday when he is less tired from his job. Had he been working yesterday? If he'd been off work for the weekend and still not up for it then that's tricky

It's not selfish to not want sex when you don't feel like it, for goodness sake. You can't expect him to "perform" like some circus animal.

He isn't too tired for sex. It could be over in as little as five mins if it needed to be.

You need a frank chat with your dh. Sound like he isn't as keen as you.

How is it selfish to not want sex when you don't feel like it?