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?

Bluegrass Exactly!!

What would you do or think if your child came to you and described exactly the same senario to you and told you that they felt, dirty, and disgusting and not respected by their partner?
Im pretty sure then you wouldn't be mellowed out and telling them, oh it was just a misunderstanding.
Well i hope not anyway.

Bluegrass I think everyone is aware that if a case like this came to court, it would be thrown out.

Not because it's not rape, but because juries bend over backwards to acquite rapists.

6% of reported rape ends in conviction. That's not because 94% of women are lying about it. It's because of the attitudes shown on this thread - that rape isn't really rape, unless it's by a stranger accompanied by vicious physical assault.

ok...what I have to say is...its not as cut and dry as some posters believe when it comes to sexual assault/rape (not saying this cannot be the case in these circs)...but perhaps in the past OP's DH has parted her buttocks and entered her while she was asleep or half asleep and she was receptive can this happen?..does this happen?...if so then, is this rape? or a misunderstanding? can all of you here who are full of indignation and disgust really say you have not experienced something similar (perhaps not the same) did you feel violated? or just tell your OH to fuck off or not respond...did you leave him..would you leave him?..did you report him or feel like you should?

my DH has touched me sexually while I was dozing..does that automatically make him an abuser and me his victim?... I have also touched him while he half-cut,dozing.. does that make me an abuser?

Peeringintothevoid, rape is NOT necessarily about violence at all - not in any of the legal definitions and not in reality. Most victims are so terrified and confused that they do not fight or even make a sound, so the attacker does not have to use any aggression whatsoever. Many rapists do things to sexually arouse the victims against their will - rapists will perform oral sex on a victim, for example. Whether this is so they can lie to the authorities that it was consensual or whether it's part of their sick delusion that she's enjoying it, who knows. Many women are horribly sexually assaulted by husbands and partners who keep quiet, even as they bleed and start to lose consciousness from pain, fear and injury, because they do not want to wake their children next door. Many women will be totally acquiescent during rape when someone breaks in if they think it will not wake or alert their children. If a woman is unconscious, drugged or very drunk, no violence will be needed then. I know of a case where a male careworker repeatedly raped a teenage girl with Down's Syndrome in her sleep and used the fact that he was so gentle that he never woke her in his defence - was that not rape?

And finally, there is a surprisingly (or perhaps not) low rate of violence used in child sexual abuse - is is not abuse if there's no violence or aggression used against them?

Using violence as the main factor in deciding what constitutes sexual assault is so narrow-minded in the face of reality that it's almost amusing. If you don't understand what the law says about rape and enough about the reality of it, then you have no place trying to argue what rape is and isn't.

BTW I haven't read the whole thread so this opinion may have already been shot to pieces...

Peering- "For me, as I've said before, rape is an act that is based on violence, whether actual, threatened, or implied"

On this page of the rape crisis website (about the legal definition of rape) here it has in huge letters "Myth... it cannot be rape unless there has been violence."

ClaireDeLoon "With regard to recent posts, I have to say peering that you telling us what your DP/H thinks is of little consequence and comes over quite badly in terms of what the OP has described. The very point is that if rape in marriage were defined by men (I'm talking of men as a whole group here, not saying every man believes rape in marriage is acceptable) then rape within marriage wouldn't exist. Just as the OP's husband seems to think is the case. It's women being allowed to actually think for themselves, have opinions and respect that pushed through the change in the law."

I take your point that my DP's opinion is of little consequence on this thread. I've never shown him a MN thread before, and did so because I wanted (for myself) a male perspective. The reason that I wanted his perspective is that he is the least macho, stereotypical "male" man that I know, and therefore I particularly valued his opinion - he wouldn't dream, in a million years, of behaving like the OP describes her DH. But that's all stuff that I know, and nobody on MN knows or cares, and therefore it was inappropriate for me to involve his opinion. I apologise.

Oh and HerBeatitude why do you assume I'm married? I'm not.

Absolute lunacy this thread.

Weirdest thing I;ve read on Mumsnet.

OP, you said there were 2 incidents?

I can't see it or feel it myself...i did not feel like my DH was abusing me I just said no mann..or didn't even respond...same for him he said stop man I'm too tired not in the mood...but we have already touched each other sexually without consent are we abusing each other?

Mumcentreplus, I cannot believe you are seriously trying to suggest that being touched up by your partner in your sleep is normal! I have never had someone do that to me and, as I stated in an earlier post, when I read the OP to my DP, he was shocked and disgusted and said such a thing had never occurred to him. I know one person who this has happened to and yes, she dumped him and reported it to the police. He got a caution, which the police officer in charge said he didn't think was enough.

And can you not understand any subtleties?! Just because someone has agreed to something before does not constitute automatic consent in the future. This is not just common sense to anyone with half a brain cell or a shred of decency but it is also the law. And the OP has NOT accepted this or had it happen in the past, so your argument makes even less sense. Touching a partner sexually whilst they are half-asleep, in a loving, sensual way is a million miles away from lifting up her nightie to shove your cock in her vagina whilst she is fast asleep on her son's bed!

mumcentre I think you're getting at the second limb, i.e. that then man knew that the woman did not consent (limb one) or that he was reckless as to whether or not the woman consented (limb two). If previously the couple man had acted as the OP described and each time she had responded positively, it would be difficult to say that he was being reckless. If this is the first time he had done it, obviously it is easier to argue that he is being reckless as to whether she consented. The OP's account does suggest she very much does think he was reckless, and has been so in the past, and she has made this clear to him in the past as well.

However, given we are neither acting as police or lawyers in this situation, but (i hope) as supportive other women, then OP - no YANBU. No one has to have sex with anyone, ever. That's that, as far as I'm concerned.

Oh my god, so if you don't mind your DH touching you sexually whilst you sleep then everyone else should be fine with it? Well, I'm glad that's made everything crystal clear! You must contact the high court tomorrow to get them to change the law

but thats not what I'm saying Dittany..I have touched my DH sexually without his consent am i abusing him?

Scorpette that's why I said violence could be actual, threatened or implied. If there is not some implied threat of violence (and that can be physical or mental/emotional) then there is no coercion, surely? To me, to force someone to do something against their will, involves some degree of implicit violence. That does not mean I think it is only rape if someone is directly threatened. I thought my post made that clear.

Consent is all about context, MCP, can you really not get that? What you describe about the sexual touching between you and your DH is clearly loving and consensual, but clearly wasn't between the OP and her DH. My DP loves to give my breasts a quick squeeze now and then and I enjoy that but that doesn't mean I would therefore enjoy waking up to find him about to shove his cock into me (and then actually doing so despite me clearly not understanding what's going on and not being happy about it, which is what happened to the OP)! The two things are completely different.

sorry my typing seems to be up the wall, but essentially I'm saying - if I had to take it to a hypothetical court of law where I didn't have to deal with real life jurors, I think I could easily make out a case of rape because recklessness with regard to consent is just as bad as knowing there is no consent.

So yes it's rape, but I wouldn't want this to further upset OP, only perhaps to underline that no one has to have sex with someone that they don't want to, and that the law hypothetically accepts that, even if the reality is very different.