not to have sex with DH?

[lotswife]

My libido's been a bit crap since DC3 was born. I used to be up for it loads, but it got harder and harder to get turned on/in the mood - needed more effort on DH's part which he just didn't put in.

We had some talks about it as he was feeling rejected and unloved and I was feeling hassled and like he was only interested in sex.

He said he'd try to make more of an effort to make me feel desired (rather than like a blow up doll - his idea of foreplay was just to grab my tits or my bits and then expect me to be ready and waiting).

Then there were two incidents which really shook me. About 6 months ago I was asleep in DC2's bed (she'd been crying and I'd gone to soothe her and fallen asleep). DC2 had woken up and climbed over me to go and play with the other DCs. DH came to find me - and I woke up with him pulling up my nightie and parting my buttocks. I said 'what are you doing?' - but quietly as I thought DC1 was asleep in the other bed (v disoriented). He said "you're very wet, so I thought I'd take advantage" and put his cock in me! I shoved him away and we had a huge row.

I thought it was totally inappropriate (even though the DCs weren't in the room), and he kept saying that I was wet so he thought I wanted it (wanted what?! I was asleep). I felt really dirty and disgusting and like DH didn't respect me at all as a person.

We barely had sex after that. I just had no desire towards him at all. Then last week he was hassling me again - I was just about to drop off to sleep and he was a bit tipsy after a work night out - and I said I wasn't in the mood and he said I was never in the mood and it wasn't a marriage without sex.

I said that it was hard to fancy someone who'd just stick their cock in their sleeping wife. He said I was making excuses.

We've barely talked since. AIBU?

I am always amazed that so many men would rather have their marriages go west, than put up with a bit of jargon.

Money? Do you not have access to any funds without asking for them? Surely you have someone who can mind DC3 for a couple of hours in the day when he's at work?

I would go without telling him, but even if you need/want to tell him, you don't have to encourage him to come - not yet anyway.

Things are really tight, to pay for counselling (it's expensive where I am), would be a significant chunk out of our budget. I am at college in the daytimes, we don't really have anyone around for babysitting anyway - I could pay a childminder but that's back to cash.

I'd rather be upfront, at least at first.

OK. Given his attitude I don't think you owe him that, but if you are happy with that then great.... what do you think about a couple of sessions on your own first.

TBH how much is his marriage worth to him?

The provision of counselling/therapy/couples work is a postcode lottery, if you can't afford private, you'll need to speak to your GP to find out what's available in your area.

I'm not sure you really need individual counselling though, you seem pretty aware that you feel unloved and angry with your DH because he has not been pulling his weight and he hasn't noticed how much work you are putting in with the DCs. This event from him was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Seems you know just what you want to say to him - make more of an effort for me, never take my body for granted again, do not call me irrational for your ridiculous, misheld belief that wet while asleep = aroused.

There's quite a few books out there, by Relate and others, that explain basics to a man, such as that one of the sexiest things a woman looking after young children can experience is probably to come home to a clean house, DC in bed, a DH who will be affectionate and not push for sex. Many men truly cannot fathom this and it has to be spelt out to them. I'd try having a look through a few books and plant one under his nose if he refuse couples counselling. Starting with email Relate counselling might help if he fears that he is going to be blamed or embarrassed.

Lotswife, I'm sorry too, to hear what you've been going through.
I think you should think seriously about splitting up - and whether you might be happier on your own or with someone else.
I feel as women we work so hard to try to make things work. We put so much in to our relationships.
Also when we give advice we are reluctant to say "split up", we have a tendency to want to solve things and make them better.
But sometimes some situations have gone beyond breaking point.
You could ask yourself whether his behaviour and attitude is simply unacceptable to you.
I feel my DH as said things to me which are unacceptable. I have decided to stay with him, but it was still helpful to me to be clear that some things he's said have been unacceptable.
We only live once, and you owe it to yourself to think what will make you happiest.
With all good wishes for the future, Jo

thesecondcoming you are just making excuses for a rapist.

I actually agree that if you have a relationship where there is a level of trust where you agree that you don't mind being penetrated while you're asleep, then that's fine - it's entirely up to individual couples how they want to organise their sex lives.

But that is not the case here - for ages, their sex life has been crap and they haven't got that agreement any more, if they ever had it. You can't hark back to "oh well, five years ago, we used to do xyz" and ignore the last 5 weeks or 5 months.

To do so, is simply to justify rape. I think we need to be very clear about that.

It is NOT for you to tell a woman who has been raped, that she hasn't been.,

I've been raped too. And yes, the situation the OP describes is rape.

Just because you wouldn't seek divorce about the same situation, doesn't mean it's not rape.

Have you read the legal definition of rape? The incident the OP describes, fits that definition exactly.

So much denial.

Also actually we do know that she didn't subconsciously react favourably -she tells us so, in her first post.

thesecondcoming thank fuck for some semblance of sanity. I've been reading the last page or two of this thread with my mouth open, and the mouth of my DP is hanging open too - this is the first MN thread I've ever shown him, and he's aghast. Oh and for the record, he would never dream of touching me while I was asleep, but he still thinks that accusing the OP's DH of rape, based on the OP's posts, is fucking ridiculous, and in his words "utterly trivialises rape".

And I'll add,again, that I still think the PO's DH's behaviour is totally unacceptable, and that he needs to be made to realise that if the OP is to move forward in her relationship with him.

So your DH is another rape apologist then?

In what way does it trivialise rape? The OP has described being raped. THE LAW of this country regards what has happened to her as rape.

Is the law trivial as well?

OP's, obviously, not PO's

I think you are so rabidly ridiculous, HerBeatitude, that I won't even engage in a dialogue with you.

How will he realise it, when he's surrounded by a culture which tells him that it's OK for him to fuck his wife with or without her permission and it's not rape if he does it without her permission?

I think the phrase 'I thought I'd take advantage' is very apt here... that's exactly what he thought he'd do. I think the fact that she didn't respond positively immediately should have been reason enough for him to believe that she was not fully consenting, and so to then enter her was rape. Technically. If this happened to me, I don't think I would class it as such (as in, I don't think I would find it traumatic) but that's the letter of the law as far as I can see.

Suit yourself Peering.

Most people who don't have a feminist perspective on rape, are horrified when they are confronted by people calling it what it is. 1 in 4 women are raped or sexually assaulted in this country and between 60-85% don't bother to even report it, because of attitudes like that of you and your DH.

Your attitude rests on the assumption that men have the right to fuck women they live with, whom they normally fuck, without being subject to the criminal law. In other words, that women don't really have the right to have control over when and where they are penetrated by their lovers/ partners/ husbands.

I don't agree with your assumption, because I am a feminist, but most people do. You're in a majority. Which is why 1 in 4 of us get raped or sexually assaulted, most of us don't report it, and of those who do, only 6% get justice.