To withold sex unless I see some affection?

[Rivetting]

DP is an extremely un-affectionate person and to be quite honest, I'm sick of it. He never kisses me, never hugs me unless I specifically ask him to and in bed he'll say he can't hug me as its "uncomfortable" and it stops him from getting to sleep and makes him too hot and a million and one other excuses. He'll try it on for sex and would be quite willing to "mess around" until gone midnight but if I say no to sex he decides its time to sleep. Won't hug or talk because he's "tired" yet he was quite willing to stay awake when he thought sex was on offer.
He never does anything affectionate like stroke my hair, rub my shoulders or like I said, can't even kiss me. The other night he was after sex and I said "no, not until you can show some affection" and expected him to kiss me or do SOMETHING but he just said "ok, night" and went to sleep!!!!
His argument is "I do loads for you, I'm always nice to you." in which he's refering to the fact that he does alot around the house, makes me the odd cuppa etc but he doesn't seem to understand that in normal relationships, affection goes hand in hand with sex! or is it me that's wrong? is it not normal to be affectionate anymore??

I wouldn't withhold sex temporarily to try and get him to show some affection

It would be entirely false on his part and would make my skin crawl, tbh

I would, however, leave the relationship if it was making me this unhappy

True, at the moment I know he only hugs me in bed because I ask him to and it just isn't the same, is it. I once went through a period of just not asking him anymore to see how long he'd go without hugging me. It lasted around two weeks, he didn't come near me at all. It was like he thought he was off the hook. Like a kid who's teacher has forgotten about a planned detention.

How awful for you

Thing is its been like this for so long I started to wonder if it was me that just expected too much. Do husbands and wives still hug and kiss after 5 years together? I hope so because it's a pretty depressing thought otherwise.

Hmm, and here lies the classic problem.

I think women need affection to have sex, but men need sex to show affection. My dh is always much more affectionate during that post sex glow!

So, I'm not going to join the 'leave him brigade' from everything else you say he sounds like a good guy. Are you tactile with him? Some people are just not, don't withold sex, imo that will make things worse.

I've got sympathy for you. When I first married DW I was pretty similar. I was actually never a big fan of sharing a bed! We had a long chat about it between ourselves and with the couple that we did our marriage preparation with and we don't really struggle with any of these issues anymore.

As much as I hated it (it sounded girly and I'm not the best at talking about these things) we ended up looking at our 'love languages' - its something in a book that most people here have probably heard of, but I can't remember what it was called - i.e. the medium through which we give and receive love.

The starting point was agreeing that we definitely both loved each other. The next step was to work out how we showed it. It became apparent that, whilst physical affection was one of my wife's main love languages, it didn't really feature on my radar (very unaffectionate family background blah blah blah - no excuse). In return, I would like to buy presents, did most of the housework, cooking etc and tried to demonstrate my love for her that way. Didn't even say it much.

Basically, just having an awareness of this stuff firstly meant that my wife didn't feel so rejected/unloved because she recognised my affection in other behaviour; secondly, this made me relax and feel more able to make an effort with the physical stuff.

Dunno if that's any help. Does require a modicum of effort from both sides, which can be difficult - I didn't like it at first - but the end result was great. More sex as well, because suddenly the whole stigma around the physical affection issue had gone .

DH never shows me physical affection either unless he wants sex. if I snuggle in for a cuddle he immediately thinks he's on a promise. so now our physical contact is pretty much nil, sex life ditto.

You are not alone. DrNorthener says it well. I think women need affection to have sex, but men need sex to show affection. Very true in many cases.

And deepheat offers good advice in suggesting that you try to understand that his doing stuff is his way of showing you affection. If you can work with that you will probaably want to have sex more and then he will be even more affectionate.