Don't know what to do pregnant and my husband says unhappy with sex life

[amyLF24]

Hey everyone.

I recently found out I was pregnant, I'm only 6 weeks. For further info I am 32F and my husband and I have been trying for two years, I finally fell pregnant it was a shock. I was anxious at first but I've been starting to feel really happy about it.

The issue is my husband mentioned a few days after I found out I was pregnant and now this week that he is unhappy with our sex life. He thinks it is too vanilla and he wants excitement. I asked him what it was that he was looking for. He then started going on about having sex with other people, swinging, having threesomes. I said I'm sorry but I wouldn't be happy with that, but if there are things that the two of us could do to make it more exciting that I would consider them.

He then said I know you just have a different mindset from me and I don't want to upset you. He then said obviously I need to think about whether that's an issue not being able to have sex with others and what we could do just us two to mitigate that.

I'm sitting there thinking I'm 6 weeks pregnant and now I am feeling very anxious about our relationship. I have no idea what to do. I want him to be able to talk to me about it but equally I said to him it's not just about upsetting me it's about my life too, like I'm sitting here 6 weeks pregnant and now feeling very anxious when I was happy about being pregnant. Telling all my family.

What would you do if you were in my situation?

Sorry I think you have a really unhealthy attitude to relationships. And where in any of Op’s posts is she detailing any way he is looking after her?

Also there must be a reason this man you were giving bjs to is now your ex.

Whether you keep the baby is entirely your call but if you’re happy to be pregnant after a long time of trying I would continue with the pregnancy alone.

With respect to your husband, he should have raised his sexual preferences before getting married. If you were happy with ethical non- monogamy you would have entered into the marriage with your eyes wide open.

As it is he has waited until he thinks you feel trapped to spring this on you, which isn’t fair. I would be saying unequivocally that you don’t want to do this and you never will.

On a side note, a woman is very very unlikely to want to start swinging whilst pregnant. It’s not a phase of life where fucking strangers is a priority- more the priority is carrying and giving birth to a healthy child…

amyLF24
I don't think I could the reality is I don't earn enough to bring up a baby by myself but my worry is I'm 32 this may be the only opportunity I have. I had fertility tests due to not being able to conceive and they said I had a below average egg count but that wasn't the cause for being unable to conceive but it does have me worried that I may not have as much time. I just cannot believe this to be honest

But you wouldn’t be bringing this baby up on your salary alone.

Remember he will have to pay Child Maintenance Then there is the marital assets. (Property, pensions, savings, investments and assets) Whilst it will be considered a short marriage their is also a child involved. It is 50/50 as a starting point and then the percentages are adjusted.

Why not not have a look on Entitledto to see what benefits you could get as well.

I would bin this marriage off and tell him he can shag whoever he wants but you aren’t going to be his audience.

Look after yourself. Do some calming breathing exercises when you feel stressed. Go and have a talk with a good divorce solicitor (first appointment should be free) to see what you can expect.

It might be a shock to your system but please remain as calm as possible.

I have a lot of single parent friends who will tell you it is hard work being a single parent because you are responsible for every decision. But it is also fantastic being a single parent because you are responsible for every single decision .

The 'Solution' is that he stops behaving like a teenager. He's not a pornstar, this is real life - a real marriage, a real baby, real feelings and a real future OR NOT.

He has been watching too much porn and is now panicking because you are pregnant that he will get less sex and attention. I don't think you should have to sit and worry in limbo. Take the lead here OP - there is too much at stake.

I would tell him that you have been thinking about the conversation and that actually, you need to be really clear on your position and then ask him to decide whether he wants to be a grown up husband or father or whether your future is going to be marred by him either cheating or pressuring you to do things you don't want. If he honestly can't see himself for the selfish, childish prick he is, you are better to leave now. I know that's easy to say, but imagine a future of this....

The decision about your pregnancy is one only you can make, but at this stage I would say, fuck his feelings. He is bullying you sexually when you've finally fallen pregnant - he is not being decent, so he does not deserve the usual considerations. If you think you can raise your much wanted baby without him, do it!

I think the timing is just nasty and makes me want to vomit. Asking you, his 6 weeks pregnant young wife to have sex with someone else is bad if this was his first child. It is his 3rd and he should know better.

I think instead of looking at this person as the love of your life you should look at him as someone who gives you the ick 🤮 and emotionally detach from him.

That's your comment to someone who is pregnant and heartbroken about her marriage situation? A weird sniping jibe like that? With all due respect: fuck off.

Honestly, I’d get rid and start again.
I had Ivf when I was 34 and my husband burst into tears and asked me to get an abortion because he didn’t want the baby and I look back and I really wish I had to be honest. it would not have been too late to find somebody nice and give the child the father it deserves.

Name changed for obvious reasons.

I am married with two children under the age of 3. A week or so before I got pregnant with our eldest, my husband and I had a threesome with another woman. It was something we had talked about previously and were both curious about trying. It was fun, but not actually better than normal sex, and we had a laugh about it afterwards. Shortly afterwards I got pregnant with our first child and we didn't have much sex at all while I was pregnant. Our sex life picked up a little once I was through the immediate postpartum stage, but then when our first child was a year old I got pregnant again, and we are still currently going through a fairly dry spell. We have sex every now and then but it's not really a priority and frankly we are both too tired at the moment.

The point of all of this is to say that you can have a threesome as part of a long term, healthy, loving relationship based on mutual respect and love. But you have to both be on the same page. If one person doesn't want to try it, it doesn't happen. If you do it once and then one person doesn't want to do it again (I'm not sure whether I want to do it again but I certainly wouldn't want it to be a regular thing), it doesn't happen again.

It is very normal for a woman to have other things on her mind than spicing up her sex life when she is pregnant. It is also very normal for a woman to lose interest in sex altogether when she is pregnant (or for her to have a heightened interest in sex, everything is normal), and her partner should be respectful and supportive.

It is completely unacceptable for your husband to choose this moment (or any moment really, but especially this moment) to suddenly announce that he wants a certain kind of sex life which you are unable or unwilling to provide, and to hint that he might be forced to look elsewhere. You are pregnant with his baby. A baby you very much wanted and he agreed to have. A baby you were planning to raise as part of a stable family, not as a single mother.

Being pregnant makes you vulnerable. It makes you feel you need your husband more, both emotionally and financially. Last month, when you weren't pregnant, you could have walked away from your marriage with very few consequences. You could have walked away and started again on your own and never had to see your husband again if you didn't want to. Now you can't do that, unless you have a termination which I'm guessing you don't want to. (It's fine if you do want to, by the way. If this changes things for you fundamentally and you don't want to be tied to this man for the next 19 years then that is a choice you are free to make.)

Your husband knows that being pregnant makes you feel more vulnerable, more dependent on him, less able to walk away, less able to say no. This is why he has chosen this moment to announce that he wants his sex life to include sleeping with other women. This says a lot about him as a person, none of it good.

No. No respect is due to someone like that.

Isn't that when abuse often starts when women become pregnant....?

This from an earlier post is EXACTLY right.
Why would he want to risk your unborn child’s health! They test all pregnant women for sexually transmitted diseases for good reason. Chlamydia and syphilis in particular can harm the fetus and HIV can be transmitted in utero or childbirth if a mother’s infection is not being controlled with antivirals.

I think you would be mad to stay if this is the way he wants things to go forward, talk to him tell him the dangers to your baby, inform him NO, then start to prepare to leave, you will manage, there are lots on here that do especially as you say possibly your only chance to have a much yearned for child, which you both should be enjoying, preparing going to classes reading up ect
Good luck to you and your babys future.

He thinks that now your pregnant and gotten what you want, and now that your good and trapped, this is a good time for him to ask for what he wants! A whole new sex life, that also includes others!!! FUCK THAT!!!

He is a selfish bastard!

He has had 5 years to discuss this with you, 4 years before you were married, the last 2 years of TTC…and he chose to finally bring it up only now that you are pregnant! This is absolutely vile behaviour and I would be telling him to do one!

Also since he has had 2 children previously I don’t buy the pregnancy/impending baby freak out. He knows exactly what is involved in having a baby, he knew all of this and yet agreed to TTC anyway, which makes him asking you this now of all times so so much worse.

In your shoes OP I couldn’t forgive him for this, nor would I want to continue a relationship with him. He’s basically told you that you are not enough, that he wants more and told you at the most vulnerable time of your life!! How utterly awful he is! I’m so sorry 💐

I can’t believe there are people telling you to terminate the pregnancy.
I really don’t think you should do that. I am childless and it has destroyed my life. Men come and go, but the pain of not being able to conceive is unimaginably bad.

I’m sorry you are in such a vulnerable horrible situation. It’s really common for men to cheat when their partners are pregnant. I think his comments might be a reaction to your pregnancy. Perhaps he feels as though real life is closing in on him. Maybe he’s been watching that ridiculous Open House programme on Channel 4.

Whatever the reason, he’s behaving disgracefully. Some marriages happily accommodate swinging and threesomes, but now is really not the moment for him to suggest those options. And you absolutely should not agree to anything like that unless you 100% want to.

I think you need to tell him that any discussions about that need to be put on hold until after your baby is born, and that you will not tolerate him endangering your health or your baby’s health by sleeping with other people.

Congratulations on your pregnancy.

Do you know his ex?
How old are his children,?
How old were they when they split up?
Can you ask her what caused the break up?
Was it anything ... like this?
If you don't know her well I'd recommend getting in touch and reaching out.

He is banking on you being scared shitless and vulnerable so he can manipulate you. If you wont agree to a threesome, then maybe something 'lesser' to keep him will be put forward. He is working you into a corner for his own benefit, and make no mistake about it, he is choosing to do this now precisely because you are vulnerable.

What would you think if your friend or your sister confided in you about this? If you could then think of her partner with anything other that complete disgust your a bigger person than me.

As hard as it is i think you need to accept that this is the type of man he is, that he is willing to put your and your baby's health at risk for his own satisfaction, to cause you such emotional upset at this time which could cause you to loose the baby.. all of this pales in to insignificance to the importance of getting his dick wet.

You are setting yourself up for a misrable existence. Never feeling safe and secure in your relationship, always trying to work around his needs, even if that comes before yours and your Childs.

Yes it is hard being a single parent, it is hard financially, hard work, but a million times better than living life with this prick.
Get information, get online, look at benefit calculators, help available, what you are entitled to so that you can take away that fear of the unknown.

Know your worth.
Know what your entitled to
Know what help is available

But above all know that no matter what you do, what concession or demand you give into, it will never be enough. you and your child will never come before his dick.

No sexual act should be undertaken to get a partner to shut up and get off your back and to prevent them sulking.

He did not have sex with you to make you pregnant. He had unprotected sex for the feel of it and because you were supposedly not exactly fertile. Methink blowjob will not suffice, just saying. Keeping the dragon happy does not work. Slay and stuff him.

I can’t believe there are people telling you to terminate the pregnancy.

The OP said in her opening post - tell me what would you do. So we've been answering her question as to what we would do, not telling her what to do.

Don't stay with this turd. He is worthless OP. So, going it alone or terminate is what I would do.

@amyLF24

It is difficult because you feel unable to talk to family or friends because you don't want to taint how they see your partner it also feels very personal that you don't want to disclose your partners personal wants.

This for me is a serious red flag. You shouldn’t need to pretend everything’s fine and dandy to your closest friends or family and the fact that you want them to only see him in a good light, shows that underneath you know he’s behaving very badly towards you.

Sadly, you also need to accept that this relationship isn’t what you thought it was. You can’t put that genie back into the bottle and pretend it never escaped. He’s showing you who he is and you’re going to have to face some difficult truths.

At some point very soon, you need to decide whether you are prepared to go ahead with this pregnancy alone. You’ve already got pregnant once so don’t assume it can’t happen again with someone better. I left my ex after he cheated when I was 36 and I met my DH a couple of years later and had a family in my forties. I worried a lot that being on my own at 36 meant I’d never have kids (as hadn’t managed to get pregnant at that point) but my career blossomed and so did I and my DH met the best version of me.

Best of luck with whatever you decide to do but put yourself first.

I am sorry but I think your husband has shown himself to be a selfish, thoughtless pig of a man and I would want him gone. My next thought would be do I want to go on with the pregnancy. This is entirely up to you.

Hahah! I think I am going to write a self help manual titled “Just Give Him a Blowjob” which will cover all life’s problems (especially those caused by men). It’s going to be a bestseller.

THIS

With bells on.

Don't let him play you.

This.

I can’t believe there are people telling you to terminate the pregnancy.

OP specifically asked everyone what they would do. Nobody has told her to terminate the pregnancy. They have said that's what they would do if they were in these circumstances. Others have pointed out reasons why OP might want to consider terminating.