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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

sex life problems

262 replies

notsue · 31/08/2010 12:22

Have name changed for this, will try to give as much info as i can.

DP and I have been together for about 11 years, have kids etc and our sex life is particularly non existence and has got progressively worst.

Problem is dp 'sulks' when he doesnt get sex as and when he wants it. He will go a lot, not talk to me, make snide remarks about me being frigid, stop helping out etc, etc.

We have tried discussing it, but always reach stale mate. I tell him its not acceptable to carry on like a spoilt child when he doesnt get what he wants and that i find the sulking unbearable. I refuse to be 'sulked' into having sex with him.

I ask him to stop sulking, he says "well have sex with me then"

He says he is not sulking and goes out a lot because "whats the point of staying home, if no sex is on offer"

He refuses to accept that his behaviour is unacceptable and that i am the one being unreasonable for not having sex with him.

He says i have a problem with sex and need to sort it out and that he doesnt sulk, only i view it like this because i have a problem with sex.

Have to go out in a minute, but will be back later and will show him this thread with other opinions on his behaviour or mine as the case may be.

OP posts:
SallyinSwitzerland · 31/08/2010 21:57

ja Shades, but the sexual response of men has not changed nor has the fact that most men in relationships equate sex with love. i.e if you wont have sex with me then you don't love me.

Have you ever tried explaining to a man how it is possible to love him AND fancy him but yet not want to have sex with him.

Impossible! Different creatures in that respect

Morloth · 31/08/2010 21:57

SallyinSwitzerland "Such is life."

No, that is not a life I would be willing to accept and it is not a life I would teach my sons is acceptable, I would be deeply ashamed if they ever thought they had a right to use their wife's body regardless of her feelings.

My mother always was also married for a long long time (until my father died) and she taught me that my body was my own and I didn't have to do anything with it that I didn't want to to please anyone else.

I would rather be alone than be with a man who would have sex with me knowing I didn't want to. That is just vile.

You can have your cake and eat it, if by cake you mean a successful marriage and by eating it you mean maintaining bodily integrity.

DH and I have been together for 14 years, we have had dry patches but I have never ever felt the need to have sex with him when I didn't want to. There have been times when I haven't been particularly interested and have changed my mind (same for him), but never, not once has he insisted and never not once have I felt the need to put out when I wasn't in the mood. Never.

snoozathon · 31/08/2010 22:09

Impossible to judge without OP being here, and I think it's unfair to overly speculate without an actual conversation with her.

It's one of these strange, horrible cycles that relationships get themselves into and possibly out of again but not always and it's serious either way.

You've explained how he feels really well OP, but not so much how you feel. I'd like to know how you feel - why is your libido low? He sounds indeed like he's acting like a dick, I mean is this a sign that your relationship may be heading for the rocks or have you weathered tough times before? Do you still love and respect him? Do you feel that he loves and respects you, and is just struggling to show you when he feels so pissed off about lack of sex? Is this behaviour so common now that you can't see past it and your relationship isn't sexual any more? Do you enjoy sex once you get into it, as people tend to suggest on these threads (sometimes appropriately, sometimes absolutely not), or do you feel repulsed even after having sex?

Don't show your DH, at least not just yet, I think you need to come back and have some MN therapy :)

DinahRod · 31/08/2010 22:09

I did address the Q about her dh getting sex but was perhaps a bit oblique. Not all sex has to be penetrative. He could masturbate, they could masturbate each other. Just because a man in a relationship doesn't get penetrative sex, means he's going to look elsewhere? How insulting to men.

Minxie1977 · 31/08/2010 22:13

I did miss that. No, not look elsewhere, I said that'd be wrong. It does depend how much sex means to an individual though. I know after a very long time I would look elsewhere and I'm not a man.

SallyinSwitzerland · 31/08/2010 22:14

Morloth: I agree that if I thought in terms of "body integrity" then i'd be getting myself into a right tizzy of woe and angst. As it is at the moment I think "ho hum , weekly shag" and put on a good performance. Then marital harmony is maintained. Much the same way as I go to work and don't dwell on the evil capitalist pimp of a state that is sucking the life out of me but think "ho hum do the shit get paid".

The way you think shapes your world. I shape my thoughts with an eye on the outcome I want to acheive.

That said; I concede unlike the OP's husband, my dh is not prone to sulking and threats. He does however begin to examine himself in mirrors for signs of fatness and ageing and consistantly ask me whether I love him. Which breaks my heart Sad

Yes every womens body is their own. You are an idealist. I am a realist. I choose to use mine for specific outcomes, you erm...get upset. (?)

OP's dh sounds hurt and a little emotionally immature. All depends whether everything else about her marriage is worth preserving really doesnt it?

SallyinSwitzerland · 31/08/2010 22:15

Dinah:- surely sex is easier? Wanking can bring on terrible repetative stress/carpal tunnel syndrome

Minxie1977 · 31/08/2010 22:17

Guffaw at RSI sally

SallyinSwitzerland · 31/08/2010 22:18

cest vrai!

snoozathon · 31/08/2010 22:19

I find the mixed response to female low libido on MN threads frequently superbly interesting.

SallyinSwitzerland · 31/08/2010 22:23

as do i

DinahRod · 31/08/2010 22:30

Sally, you don't have to use hands to masturbate or you could wear one of these

SallyinSwitzerland · 31/08/2010 22:31

Excellent Dinah! I am just concerned that it will catch on my rubber gloves

WidowWadman · 31/08/2010 22:40

I don't think wanting sex with your partner is automatically abusive. Or that feeling hurt by rejection is either.

I once left someone because he had a non-existant libido, and simply expected me to accept it rather than to work on a middle ground where both could feel ok with. The constant rejection made me lose a lot of self confidence and I was a mental and physical wreck by the time I finally left him.

Forcing someone to have sex is wrong. Forcing someone to not have sex isn't any better.

TheHeathenOfSuburbia · 31/08/2010 22:46

Um, you want to re-read your last line there, WidowWadman?

snoozathon · 31/08/2010 22:54

I think, but I might be wrong, that forcing someone to have sex is worse than forcing them not to have sex. Grin

OP I hope you're coming back, this convo is degenerating without you keeping it on track.

thesecondcoming · 31/08/2010 22:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ChaoticAngel · 31/08/2010 23:02

The op's dh has the right to sit her down and say he isn't happy with the lack of sex and insist that they talk about it/get counselling to try and solve the problem.

He doesn't have the right to act like a immature, sulky, petulant toddler or to try blackmail/manipulate her into sex.

"It started when i was pregnant and couldnt have sex for medical reasons, up until then we had sex regularly and his sulking was never a problem. He had no reason to sulk."

Op, by the above statement do you mean he sulked when you couldn't have sex because of medical reasons?

bumder · 31/08/2010 23:02

OP your DH sounds like an arse. By saying there's no point in staying in if you're not having sex he is saying that is all you're good for. Why does he not want to spend time with his wife doing things other than having sex?
The best outcome of his sulking would be that he would get a reluctant fuck. He obviously doesn't care whether you enjoy it or not.
He should be supporting you to try and get your libido back on track and in the meantime he has got a right hand I take it so can sort himself out.

ccpccp · 31/08/2010 23:20

Be careful not to spin this out as a temporary blip on OPs libido.

'our sex life is particularly non existence and has got progressively worst'.

Sounds like hes been begging for sex for a while.

It doesnt excuse his sulking but it does explain it.

bedlambeast · 31/08/2010 23:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Original poster
notsue · 31/08/2010 23:40

Sorry, had sil etc round for dinner. He is now in bed 'sulking' again.

Will try to answer the best i can, i have bent over backwards (pardon the pun) and done everything that he wants to sexually. At one point shortly after our dc was born, i found he had joined a sex site (he used our email address) looking for sex.

Despite being upset, went along with what he wanted sexual against my better judgment. Had a threesome, wasnt the end of world, but not what i wanted.

We had a good sex life, up until my last pregency, coudnt have sex for medical reasons and then the sulking really started and hasnt stopped since.

To start with we could sex 5 times a week, then on the 1 day we didnt, he would sulk.

Over the years it has progressed on both mine and his part, to the more i dont want sex, the more he sulks, and the more he sulks, the more i dont want sex.

What came first the chicken or the egg!

As far as i am concerned, NOW i refuse to have sex with him, all the while he sulks.

We have sex about 3 times a month, not because i want it, but because he makes it unbearable if i dont.

I want to want to have sex, not to have to have sex.

There is nothing wrong with my libido, (or perhaps there is) i just dont know anymore.

OP posts:
ChaoticAngel · 31/08/2010 23:45

"To start with we could sex 5 times a week, then on the 1 day we didnt, he would sulk."

Well, I think that answers those who have been saying he may be sulking because he didn't get any.

snoozathon · 31/08/2010 23:46

:(

Can you ask to have this thread to be moved into relationships?

I'm not going to hurl abuse at your DH although he sounds like a cunt and in my gentle opinion your marriage just may be in serious trouble. I really, really don't want you to get caught in the inevitable 'I'm a better feminist than you' bunfight that is bound to ensue on this AIBU :( :(

Be strong OP and when I'm back on here tomoz evening having had less Merlot than tonight I will listen and be here for you. I hope you're ok.