To have sex with him to keep the peace?

[BlazeM]

DH wants sex way more often than me.
He is currently furious with me as he thinks I am a selfish wife for not considering his ‘needs’. This stems from an argument last week where I was on my period, but refused to pleasure him by hand resulting in him being unable to sleep.
I have refused to have sex with him since, as quite frankly the way he’s behaving is repulsive.
He’s becoming more and more vile, ignoring me during the day, ranting at night not allowing me to go to sleep because he can’t sleep, threatening to go and have sex with other women, telling me if I loved my husband I should want to please him and I’m breaking up the family because I’m selfish and only care about myself.


We’ve had this same type of argument over and over again and I always give in and give him what he wants so that he will stop being such a prick.
Until the next time.


AIBU to just have sex with him to keep the peace, what do other people do in this situation where their partner’s sex drive is way higher than theirs?

Do you not want to leave for your children?
they know what's going on, even if they don't fully understand yet.
Do you want them to be in the position of understanding as they will do if you stay.

This is abuse

Would you give your daughter (or son) the same advice "shut up and put up"?

Please contact a women's shelter or similar, they can help

This 'man' is a vile and doesn't deserve to have his wife & children living with him

Ergh

I’m reading this post and it sounds exactly like my best friend writing it. When she texts me to say what’s gone on, I don’t know what to do to help her. I can only listen as she won’t leave him because of their kids, money, house etc.

I hope you have support, op, if you’re not in a position to leave your husband,

Remind him of the old adage; men need sex to feel loved but women need to feel loved to want sex. Perhaps he should focus on making your feel loved rather than bullying, nagging and coercing you into sex. The responses here are unanimous, which is reassuring as a thread a couple of days ago, where the OP said her husband had complained about not enough sex (complained 3 times in 3 years if I remember), had started an affair and announced he was leaving (wife and 2 young children), had various posters telling her it was her fault as she knew he wasn't happy with the amount of sex he was getting so she could hardly blame him for getting it elsewhere. I was rather at this, so it's good to see the OP is being supported rather than bullied off the thread as the other poster was.

I'd be very wary of doing relationship counselling with him, tbh. It would actually put you in a very vulnerable position and you'd be at risk of being ganged up on.

Thank you for your responses
I think I need to step away from this post for a little while to think this through.
I suppose I was hoping for experiences of how people manage mismatched sex drives, I wasn’t really expecting to hear this is abusive behaviour and it’s a lot to take in.
I’m still not really sure what’s going on, our relationship would be great if I just wanted sex as much as him. I need to consider where to go from here.

Oh gosh yes, what MrsStrowman said. Couples counselling with a coercive man like this is not recommended in the least.

l had exactly this situation with my ex husband. Note the use of the word 'ex'. He actually said that it would be my fault if he went out and raped someone. We were going to Relate at the time, and our counsellor absolutely wiped the floor with him when l told her about that. His attitude made me more reluctant, which in turn made him worse, let's just say we ended up in separate rooms after he insisted on his 'rights'.
l endured days on end of silence, sarcastic comments, him losing his temper and smashing things up in the house. He insisted it wasn't abuse because he didn't hit me. He'd stand in front of me (l'm 5'2", he was 5'10" and 16 stone) and shout "have l ever hit you? have l ever hit you? have l ever hit you?" getting louder and louder and closer and closer. The counsellor put him right on that one too.
The day after we split up he turned up at my house crying with a huge bouquet of lilies. Way too little, too late.
He's been my ex for 17 years now and l thank god every day.

I’m not trying to minimise his behaviour but it really doesn’t seem as bad as how he’s being portrayed here

See the thing is you won't be able to go back to this way of thinking now you've talked about it. You'll think about what has been said to you the next time you give in, during it and afterwards. You won't be able to shake off that feeling you'll get.

All the nice houses in the world won't be worth it in the long run.

our relationship would be great if I just wanted sex as much as him.
Nope youelionhail qouod be great if he was happy to accept you dont want sex every time he wants to (aka he isn’t ready to coerce yu into having sex).

Responsibility squarely on his shoulders there, Not yours.

Follow my example if you like, do it to keep the peace. Drink to make the regular fucks tolerable. Develop an alcohol dependency. Separate. You're left with the alcohol dependency and an inability to trust anyone. Become paranoid and change the locks because you haven't been allowed to define a boundary without it being ignored. Be treated as a unstable paranoid person because of the above.

It's a shite situation to be in and I'm not much help but no. Do not fuck to keep the peace. It is your sanity you will be sacrificing.

OP, I feel so sorry for you. I'm pretty sure your life's ambition wasn't to be a prostitute. Don't be one for the sake of a nice house . It's really unfair to put all this on the kids. Staying for them is shit and not fair on them at all.

You have been told about people's similar experiences - people told you about partners that respect them enough to accept no for an answer, other women told you how they left partners that bullied them into sex and felt like a weight came off their shoulder...

I hope you do reflect on this and snap out of the "but he's not THAT bad really" mode. You and your children would be much healthier away. They will pick up on this sooner or later and they will grow up thinking this is how men treat women. (They might not know exactly what daddy is bugging mummy/sulking about, but they will know he is).

I know you’ve stepped back OP, but let me post my experience. The situation with my ex was like this. He’d sulk. Massive sulks. I had sex every night with him for 5 years. I realised after I had left that I had been raped throughout. Raped. Every night. By someone who was supposed to love me. Love doesn’t mean making a person feel bad until they let you use their body. Love isn’t emotionally blackmailing. It took years for me to realise that this wasn’t normal and that my next partner wasn’t disinterested or didn’t like me physically, they just weren’t rapists. Your husband is a rapist. No more no less. I am sorry. You need to leave. It doesn’t get better.

our relationship would be great if I just wanted sex as much as him

But you don't want sex as much as him, and that's ok. His needs do not over ride yours. It's the way that he's reacting to you that is the problem.

Lots of couples have mismatched sex drives, but they (often with difficulty) discuss the situation, and try and find a way forward. In an abusive relationship, the abuser will coerce his partner into meeting his needs, despite knowing that they are trampling all over their partner's.

It would be useful to think about why being coerced into sex against your will stacks up as the least worst option.

How long do you think you can keep giving in to him whenever he wants sex? Your whole life? All the way though menopause and into the retirement home?

These men don’t change. If you decide it’s easier to just give him sex to keep the peace, you should realise that this will be forever.

I did it for four years. I would never, ever, ever go back to that kind of relationship. Even just remembering what it was like fills me with dread and anxiety

He sounds a real prize.

.

No wonder you want to stay, women must be queuing up to live with such a charming specimen.

I’m still not really sure what’s going on, our relationship would be great if I just wanted sex as much as him. I need to consider where to go from here

I'm sorry OP, but even if your sex drives were matched, it doesn't change the fact he's abusive.

I have refused to have sex with him since, as quite frankly the way he’s behaving is repulsive. He’s becoming more and more vile, ignoring me during the day, ranting at night not allowing me to go to sleep because he can’t sleep, threatening to go and have sex with other women, telling me if I loved my husband I should want to please him and I’m breaking up the family because I’m selfish and only care about myself

Fucking hell. I have no new words. What an utterly spiteful, cruel man.

I honestly feel like it’s easier to just shut up and put up, if it means that our children can continue to live in a nice house with both parents

When one is an abusive, aggressive fuckwit? And one is being emotionally abused by him to the extent that you've almost given up? You need to STEP UP for your DC not PUT UP with abusive behaviour and set a pattern for them that will inform all of their own future relationships? Don't kid yourself that they won't know a thing about it, please.

For their sakes, for your sake , leave this sorry excuse for a man. He is a vile, abusive monster.

omg I used to tell myself exactly the same thing when you say our relationship would be great if I just wanted sex as much as him
No, it really wouldn't. Start thinking about other things he may be doing that you have learned to accept.

I’m still not really sure what’s going on, our relationship would be great if I just wanted sex as much as him

OP, don't normalise this. It's so, so, so far from normal.

This is NOT about wanting sex as much as each other. It's about him an abusive bully.

Eurghhh what a complete turn off and an abusive wanker.

Just tell him straight that perhaps if he treated his WIFE with respect instead of a piece of meat that he owns then perhaps you may want to have sex with him.....

Abuse is about power and control, not violence, not monsters. I'm sure he has or had good qualities - you never would have gotten involved with him otherwise.

Everything you're describing is classic abuse, including turning his behaviour around to make it your fault, and promising to change and then going back to the same old ways.

Please don't go to relationship counselling with him. Go to counselling for yourself, go on the Freeodm Programme, but don't go to joint counselling. It is never recommended and goes against all professional best practice where there is any abuse, because the abusive person will manipulate it to deepen their control over you.

He's not a monster, but he is deliberately hurting and controlling you and that is wrong.

It's also not your fault.

I usually want sex more often than dh but id never make him feel crap about it,he works longer hours and is more tired

He only wants counselling to try to justify and validate his abuse of you. He is abusing you. Gaslighting and coercion are now considered forms of domestic violence. Blaming you (you never hug him, probably because you can't, he doesn't see that as anything but a gateway to sex; you don't do nice things for him - who wants to do nice things for an abusive sex pest?) is part of the abuse. He sees you as an object to sexually pleasure him. He won't even wank. He disrupts your sleep. Start sleeping in a room with one of your kids if you have to. Don't shag him. He's an abusive twat.