To tell DP to back off?

[Benjaminbuttonschild]

Hi all,

Sorry I'm a bit ranty. Me and dp had a row this morning as he keeps pressuring me for sex and sulking about it.

My sex drive has died down recently. I still enjoy it but I am honestly so tired generally I just can't be bothered.

We have sex maybe a couple of times a month although he is insistent that we should do it more. In turn I feel pressured like I'm gonna get his sulky mood if I say I don't want to. Last night we went to bed, we're both shattered and he's mithering me for sex. He said he wants intimacy, but we are intimate day to day, holding hands, affectionate etc. So I said intimacy isn't just about sex and he tells me "I wish you found me sexy and wanted to have sex with me!". He hasn't even asked me what I'm thinking or feeling!! Everything boils down to sex to him and I'm getting seriously fucked off having the same conversation again and again.

Aibu to tell him to back off and leave me be?

I'm fed up.

It's utterly shit isn't it. No is supposed to be no unless you are a man with an erect penis in a relationship 🙄

Ignoring the sex issue totally, get yourself to a GP. Excessive tiredness, dizzy spells, migraines all point to a need for a series of blood tests.

I've never in my life felt so tired as I have done these past few months. It's getting me down, I get dizzy spells sometimes.

A GP appointment would be very advisable, just to be safe. Could be anything from Iron deficiency to Anemia to a whole load of other things. Even if it's absolutely nothing at all, it's better to check than not.

Re. Pestering for sex, ask him how he feels when you nag him about something - cleaning the dishes, tidying the house, walking the dogs, etc etc. Does you nagging make him happy and excited to do the task, or does it make him do the task just to get you to shut up? Ask him if he wants to put you in the position of having sex just to get him to shut up. Ask him if he considers that a healthy way to sustain a relationship.

That aside, it looks like there's a communication breakdown somewhere, but you're 100% correct in refusing to accept this behaviour. A possibility would be to look at other possibilities e.g. he starts off by hand, you finish for him by hand. Oral, whatever.

Compromise is generally better than entrenched positions.

It's unreasonable to expect him to be happy about a nosedive in the amount of sex you're having, just as much as it'd be unreasonable to expect you to be happy about a nosedive in any other part of the relationship. He doesn't have a free pass to your body, or any rights over it, but if you've been having daily/weekly sex for a long time, and suddenly that's dropped to once per month, he's obviously going to be upset about that, and communication is vital to navigate it.

I agree OP, you need to see your GP. Sex aside, you shouldn't be this tired. Lots of us have children and/or pets but aren't this tired. You are probably deficient in something and a blood test should help figure out which and get you on the right track to having more energy.

With regards to sex. I see both sides. I'd be unhappy with sex a couple of times a month. I'd also be unhappy with being pestered.

Another poster suggesting a GP for your tiredness.
But afterwards, look up "where should we begin" with Esther Perel. She's an excellent couples therapist who talks about all manner of things but her podcast does cover communicating better and understanding how to balance sex drives. But it does it by listening to other couples problems - it's fascinating and really insightful. I've got my DP to listen to a couple. They make a great conversation starter and she's so good at concisely saying everything you've being trying to put into words.

I think I will make an appointment, I hadn't really thought about anything underlying, I just put it down to tiredness. Youngest dc is almost 3 and going through the tantrum phase. He wears me out.

I feel like I'm not getting enough sleep generally but going to bed early makes me feel I've no life of my own other than working. I don't know how other people seem to have it all together, its making me feel ill. Constantly juggling kids, house, bills, work and I don't have much of a social life. I feel like piling sex on top of that is just asking too much of my already exhausted brain and body.

I'd have thought my partner would be more supportive (it's only news since last Sunday night we had sex fgs) but nope that's too much to ask. Honestly his mentality is 1950s sometimes. And instead of him trying to find out what's wrong he's like a bull in a china shop pleasing for sex. He's not very caring at all sometimes. It was his birthday last week, I went out of my way to buy him nice presents and tried to make sure he had a nice day. Now I'm a bad person for not having sex! What the hell is that about??

Why don't you just tell him to have a wank?

Rudgie rtft. Ops husband says 'it's not the same'.

OP you and your dh have different sex drives.

He is of the opinion that his is 'normal' and yours is 'abnormal'.

Therefore in his mind you are in the wrong.

This is what you should focus on when you talk with him. You can empathise with him and say things like 'I can understand that it's frustrating for you. What do you think you could do to make yourself feel better about it?'

When he starts talking about you having sex with him more, say 'No, not what could I do. What could you do to help yourself?'

He needs to understand that his personal sex drive is actually nothing to do with you, rather than trying to get you to 'fix' the problem

He might go out for a run or have a cold shower or something. He needs to stop seeing you as a sex object with a duty to service him.

In my experience all men want more sex than women. One of these days I'm going to leave and just do what I want to do for a change.Just fed up with it. Sorry OP, not helpful but just know you aren't alone

Precisely Fairenuff. I keep telling him it's not down to me to sort that out. I just want him off my case. That's what he could do.

Thanks Anne. In my case, I do genuinely enjoy sex, but the combination of how I feel and how he reacts is making me want to run for the hills

That's just it. I don't want to split up, I just don't want to be pestered all the time.

My philosophy these days is that we should always be prepared to walk out.
You may need to put leaving him on the table to get him to stop pestering you, if it is making you unhappy.

By all means, find the cause of your tiredness and (if there's one) lack of sex drive, but his attitude is a big problem that needs to be addressed, at the very least alongside any investigations into your health.

Pestering for sex (particularly if together with sulking and other coercive behaviour), BTW, is a controlling attitude that falls under domestic abuse.

A lot of people (in my experience men, but of course it works both ways) don't seem to understand that pestering and sulking about sex drives their partner away, no one is going to say oh, you've made me feel so guilty about not having sex I'm going to spring into bed now with great enthusiasm. How would a guy feel if you went off on one saying you wanted more presents from them, more often. They might buy you more stuff, but would deeply resent you at the same time. Your partner needs to understand that's how it works and you need to work together to create an environment where it feels like a good thing, not an expectation.

I'll be having words with him tonight, this can't carry on. I'm going to ring my GP on my lunch break too, find out if there's an underlying cause.

Sex a couple of times a month isn't much at all and sex is a big part of intimacy.

I agree with Bluntness100 on this:

"I'm going to differ from thr other replies, at the moment neither of you are commicating. He's feeling sexually rejected. He is telling you this in as many words. You're not listening to him or trying to understand him, and he's not listening to your reasons why not.

You need to communicate better."

I know you said he does communicate clearly and you listen but if you have to come on MN about this then I think that's another sign communication has broken down.

I see both sides here.

It can't be nice to be constantly rejected by your partner, because that's how it must feel to him. He does his fair share, he works, he holds hands and is intimate with you day-to-day but gets rejected at night. That can't be easy.

But I totally see your point too - being pestered is a massive turn-off! But you said yourself you're just constantly shattered so I do think you owe it to yourself (and to your relationship) to do something about that. Sex aside, feeling exhausted and going to bed early every night can't be much fun for you.

The thing is, on the one hand you're well within your right to not want sex and not be bothered when tired. But on the other hand, if you were posting a "why doesn't my husband/boyfriend/partner want to have sex with me?" thread like you see quite often on Mumsnet, you'd get lots of sympathetic responses from posters who understand how your partner's loss of interest in you could massively hurt your feelings/affect your self esteem/make you feel insecure and confused and upset/make you lose confidence in your body /relationship/ etc. I think while he needs to understand he shouldnt harrass you, you also need to look at this from his point of view. He's probably feeling really upset and rejected and any of the emotions I just listed. I would be if my partner suddenly lost interest in sex and this is what a lot of other posters who write about this say they feel, so I think it's a common reaction. If you want your relationship to continue then maybe you should see if you can find WHY you can never be bothered and if it's just that you don't like sex anymore, maybe you could try to find other ways to show him you love him/are still attracted to him. Otherwise in the long run it might be the cause of the end of your relationship.

I agree with Bluntness that you need to improve you communicating - from your replies it sounds like you've done a lot of talking but not much listening/empathising and it's all about what YOU want, with a "like it or lump it" attitude towards him. If you really don't want to break up, you might need to start at least considering things from his point of view and understanding how shitty being constantly rejected by y someone you love can make you feel.

It seems to be the season for this kind of thread.

My partner has been similarly whiny about lack of sex with us, even though he knows I'm depressed about losing my mum, on top of constantly being exhausted cos life is so busy, and hating my job. He admitted last night that's he's been an arsehole (finally!)

I take all your points onboard Sadie. The thing that annoys me is that I am very affectionate towards him daily and show him I love him all the time. I kiss him a lot, hold his hand whilst watching tv, hug him, that sort of thing. If i was distant with him I could understand him feeling rejected but I'm not. I just don't have the energy or drive for sex as much as he does. Its only in recent months this has happened.

I wondered how long it would be before someone popped up to whine that women with sex-refusing male partners get more sympathetic treatment on MN.

Thing is, women whose partners have gone off sex don't tend to pester and bully the partner continually about it. Women tend to blame themselves and turn their distress inwards, because women haven't been raised with the same sense of entitlement as men.

OP's tiredness is certainly a separate issue that needs investigating, but the fact that this man is continuing to nag, insult, bully and harass her despite having been told that this makes her even less interested in his dick suggests that there's no need to waste much sympathy on him. If he wanted to resolve the matter, he could start by listening to the OP instead of yelling about himself all the time and waving his dick at her.

But again op, your post is about what you do, your needs. You're not thinking of his, it's like you can't understand it, why he wants sex and that affection should be enough for him.

For this to work, you need to be empathetic to each other. To listen to each other, it cannot just be about you.

Really sorry to hear that Donna