To think I'm not normal about dtd?

[DcQuinn]

My first time post after lurking for a while.

I have been reading about how some women feel that having sex once a week is not enough for their partners. Because they don't feel like it etc. But now i am starting to feel that i have a problem. I could go months without it. It doesn't bother me anymore. My husband is actually great and has the patience of a saint. I feel so bad for him, i just wonder what the hell is wrong with me? We have been together for 14 years and I still fancy him loads. I have a 15 year old and my two youngest are 3 and 16 weeks. But i have felt like this before i had the younger two. So what is wrong with me?!

dh said he would be happy not having sex for the rest of his life rather than have me do sex acts he knows I'm doing as a "favour" or "treat", that my body isn't a reward to treat and my consent isn't something to be given as a treat either.

Ah you see the secret there is that you didn't marry a cunt, unlike the last MrsBreezeet

Reading back to that doesn't make sense. I'm a bit shaky to be honest. What it meant to say was i would never be manipulative or bullying at all, in any circumstance. He is a lovely man. I feel like im rambling now!

I think more women would want sex more if there was more in it for them.

I reckon there's a lot in this. I don't come from penetration ever, and rarely from a partner doing anything to me tbh. I'm just... fiddly to get working. I can do it myself, but with a partner I'm really unlikely to get off. So the nice things about sex are the closeness and physicality of it. I only want it if I'm the mood to be very physically close to someone as an end in itself. And with small children climbing on me all day, by evening that is basically never going to appeal to me.

@helpmesusan yeah we are, he's got better (after I snapped at him a fair few times) I think he has figured out if I'm angry or upset or fed up with him or something he has said then I will definitely not have sex so it's in his best interests to not say anything inconsiderate and let me do this at my own pace, and now I have started to initiate so the balance has become more equal

DcQuinn it's absurd to suggest this "manipulative/bullying" crap. You're not deliberately withholding sex in order to control, anyone with half a brain ought to be able tell the difference. If you don't feel like sex then that's all it is. It's unreasonable to suggest that you make yourself go through the motions when you don't want to, and any half decent partner wouldn't want you to.

You could talk about it with your partner and see if there's anything that's stressing you out or occupying your thoughts. Maybe you can make changes to address anything that's a concern. Any chance you can get a bit of time regularly when you and your DH can be together without the children, to reconnect and just talk/be together?

Strygil "That said, to conduct a relationship on the basis that "he wants sex, I don't, and he puts up with going without" is, bluntly put, exploitative, manipulative and bullying."

It's not bullying not to have sex with someone. No one has a right to demand sex. If a couple are not happy about how much sex they are having they should talk about it and decide how to proceed and that may mean proceeding to the doctor (if they think this is relevant) or to proceed in their direction away from the relationship.

I'd never advise anyone to stay in an unhappy marriage. Just to take steps to make it happier or, if appropriate, to leave.

"I can imagine only too clearly the outrage which would result from someone posting that their male partners refused to meet their sexual needs on a systematic basis. "He's shagging his secretary, he's gay, he's projecting his sexual inadequacy on to you, he's bullying you, yada yada yada".

There was such a thread on here, and the problem was possibly medical and the man would not seek help. And the posters advised the OP to do what was right for them. As I would advise the OP her to do so too.

The difference is the OP has a new baby and that baby will grow and things may change.

Young kids are exhausting and zap all energy and time I find ..

Assassinatedbeauty, we have both said we need to get out just on our own. A date night thing maybe once a month. I do think it would help us as we are all about the kids and doing things with them all the time. The more i read all the different comments, the more i am thinking we should make time for ourselves.

Yeah you go have fun, just the 2 of you. That will soon bring the spark back aventually and if it takes a while, o well you'll have a night out and the closeness if being together again as a couple and not as Mam and dad. A few glasses of 🍸 Will help relax you too. So get a sitter, put your glad rags on and enjoy.

That sounds really good OP, to just see each other as maybe you used to. An adult you fancy and are interested in, other than just in a co-parent role.

Hi OP, you are definitely not manipulative and you are definitely normal. Everyone has different libidos and it's very normal for these to differ within a relationship. With me it's my dh who has a very low sex drive. It used to upset me, a lot, and I was frustrated and felt I had a problem because he didn't want me. It took us a while, lots of tears and talks to realise he just doesn't want to, with anyone, it's not because of me and it's absolutely fine for him to feel this way. He is a wonderful man and I would rather never have sex again and stay with him than have loads of sex and a shit relationship. Yeah I'd take both given the chance 😂 But no one can have everything. As it happens we're starting to be a bit more sexually active of late, maybe when we stopped worrying and as dc gets older it all became more appealing. Don't be hard on yourself, you've got very tiny dcs and a lot going on, it's no wonder you feel this way. Just reassure your dh as needed and as others have said try to make time for each other where you can 💐

Peach

I agree, men's libidos change too. I generally want more sex than DH does. It's just he doesn't think about it all and I remind him

I'm 48 with teenagers and my dh is the one that is not interested. I would say it's pretty normal not to be interested if you have a young bay and toddler. Hormones tiredness etc I'm not surprised.

I have an amazing DH, who makes sure that I organs every time ( not the easiest of targets), and that I orgasm first. Sex is excellent..... but my libido is very low. He places no pressure on me and I offered some form of sexual activity just for him for a treat, he would turn it down flat!

I think men these days can be very demanding. I went off sex because my ex wanted such a performance every time. Me on top, oral, do this, that and the other.... It became a flipping effort. If he had been happy for a quickie then he would have got it more. Anyway, I went right off it and he left....Good riddance! He wasn't the one for me.

I am pretty much celibate at the moment, do not much miss the full on petetrative sex bit but I pleasure DH in other ways so they he has a bit of rumpy pumpy. His libido is way out of kilta with mine. I agree with quite a few posts on here, it's the getting from A to B that I find difficult to overcome. But I also think there is a lot of truth in that old adage that men think about sex 90% of the time! They always seem ' up for it' when they wake up in the morning! I also believe that saying 'use to or loose it'. Well, I've well and truly lost it at the moment.

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Breastfeeding killed my libido. And then also I was afraid of getting pregnant again too soon after the first one so I couldn't relax. The women I know who were bragging about DTD the minute they got home from their six week post party check up all ended up pregnant before the first child was 12 months old. You have a 16 week old, you sound perfectly normal to me!

My dh and I are both like that. I think it's largely exhaustion and habit. We've got into the habit of not dtd so now when we do it feels like such an event with so much pressure on us that inevitably it never ends well.
We haven't dtd since before Christmas.

I don't really miss the sex (sometimes I do) but I miss the intimacy and the closeness. I find I'm more up for it when I'm mid-cycle and ovulating, although we're not ttc. Dh only ever really tried it on after we've had a few drinks, but after several failed attempts several months apart where things didn't happen as he'd had too much to drink, I won't dtd if we're drunk.
Our children are bad sleepers and still little, but I think dh believes that once they turn older we will just miraculously be horny all the time and it will go back to how it was. I'm not so convinced.

I have the opposite problem as in not getting it. He hardly ever makes the first move and a couple of months can go by. I only ever get a peck for a kiss (no french) and a slap on the arse!

Plenty of slaps on the arse which actually turn me off sex. I find it demeaning especially as it's done when I'm usually doing chores and he isn't giving a hand. I find it almost impossible to have sex with my DH if there are underlying and troubling issues and he has been shit to me before hand. Make up sex won't work for me. Talking would work better and when issues are resolved, then a sex romp. This will sound odd but I would be more up for having sex with a stranger with whom there are no ties then sex with my DH when there is so much under current of things that need to be discussed. The only time I can get to talk to DH is during Sex, which obviously puts him off! Afterwards he reverts to type and nothing has been solved. If I felt respected and loved, I would feel like sex. At present I feel like just a body with no person inside. I could be anyone. This is why I am not interested in sex, I find it humiliating with my DH, for women, I think sex is intricately tied to emotion, for men, sex is more of an animal instinct.

It's not just women though. There are plenty of Relationships threads where it's the woman complaining about the man not fronting up.

And as my name (NC regular) suggests, I'm one of them. I don't have young children. Still only in my 40s. Once I've done a full day's work, made the dinner, cleaned up and done whatever else, I've no energy for anything. Perhaps I could ease up on the chores, but the truth is that I'd probably be exhausted anyway.

DW says she wants it most nights. I asked her, does she mind? Yes she does, however she says she has no interest in sex as an activity in itself, only with me, and if I'm not interested, that's that. Perhaps she should try a few things to get me in the mood? No, she says- that's manipulative, and she's not going to do anything to force me.

Basically I just need a bit of seducing, but DW thinks that's wrong .

This might sound silly. I felt like this for many years, I've also been vegetarian for most of my adult life. I started eating oily fish every couple of days for unrelated health reasons. The side effect has been the return of my sex drive. DH & I are both delighted.

I can take it or leave it, I love the build up the kissing and touching etc and those feelings down there start happening. The actual sex however I'm less fussed about, I used to be really into it but I think the fact I can never reach orgasm has just made it so much worse over the years, throw in a special needs child and a clingy toddler it got worse and now I can't be bothered to get it back. We argue all the time I've gained a lot and I'm not happy with myself, it's all so depressing but unless I had an orgasm I don't think there's any reason to bother with it again.

That sounds so sad flop she needs to understand that seducing isn't manipulating it's just helping someone get in the mood, I used to always start touching, kissing my partner etc and work my way down and he has done the same to me if I'm not feeling it as much. It's only manipulative if one person says no at any point and the other carries on, then it falls into something else anyway.

When my oldest child was about 18 months old my relationship with my husband was extremely wobbly, not least because my once very active libido had totally died. All the reasons mentioned in this thread applied, with the result we were both pretty unhappy. We decided to go to Marriage Guidance....think it is called "Relate" now. We worked with two Counsellors who happened to be a married couple. We worked separately, me with the woman and my husband with the man, and then had joint sessions every 6 weeks or so. We resolved some day to day issues but it always came back to lack of sex so they offered us some direct sex help. It sounded pretty hairy and I think in different ways we were both freaked out by the idea. However we both knew that the sex issue was making every thing else much worse so we bit the bullet and said we would give it a go. In fact it wasn't hairy at all. Boiled down the advice was one partner was not feeling the need for sex and when the other partner made a move the first partner felt pressured, then when the refusal came the 2nd partner felt hurt, rejected and unloved. The first step was to remove ALL those negative feelings by taking sex off the table. Sex was banned for the first week. The most we were allowed was holding hands. For me this sounded like heaven. In reality it really was heavenly as we both felt better about the other when the negative feelings around sex were removed. The second week we were allowed to cuddle but no sexual touching. That sounded heavenly too. To my surprise I found myself wanting my husband to do more than we were allowed, but stuck to the rules. Next week when we had fed back how things had gone and how we were feeling we were told that this week we could touch each other sexually ABOVE the waist. We tried this for a few days. ..and then the rules got broken and we were into full sex with me leading the way. When we went back the following week expecting to be in trouble as we broke the rules ...We were told it is different for every couple and if we were happy after such a brief intervention then that was fine. Other couples need to move slower in smaller steps.

For me taking the pressure off worked a treat, specially combined with the work we did on every day issues. We have never looked back and 45 years into our marriage we still feel the sexual spark between us, and hopefully always will.