to think I may never fancy my DP again?

[thisusernameismine]

Just wondered if there's anyone out there who kind of fell out of love with/stopped fancying their partner but then got the feelings back? And if so, how and why??

Married 3 years, together 6, one baby of nearly a year, been through a LOT together. I wear the trousers and am fiery and he will do anything to keep the peace.

I have completely gone off all forms of intimacy - can go days escaping being touched (much to his dismay but he's so used to it now ). Lots about him gets on my nerves, I don't take a great deal of interest in his life anymore, and if I was doing a reverse thread here you'd tell me to LTB (and I'd agree).

We are very different people and I'm struggling to see how this is going to pan out - but struggling even more at how difficult life would be if we split.

The relationship was amazing at the start. Loads of sex, laughing etc. Major (bad) life events happened to both of us a couple of years ago but we pulled through. But I just have zero desire towards him anymore. In case relevant, I'm no longer breastfeeding my baby so that's not it (still carrying an extra half stone and DH is not much bigger than me which I don't like).

Just wondering if there's any hope really. We are both very late 30s/early 40s.

Please don't be too mean to me as I do that to myself enough

Thank you @Branleuse - I've just switched from sertraline to fluoxetine so hoping it was a good choice!

@SmiledWithTheRisingSun 🥰

@skybluee I'd say a total loss, I don't really think about getting frisky these days! I don't find him sexually attractive I guess more than him annoying me, it feels more like I don't know him anymore if that makes sense. We are TOTALLY different people (he's lovely and understanding and patient, I'm a complete bitch!) and I can't really remember what got us together sometimes! I feel like I need someone who puts me in my place but it's a bit late now

@UpToMyElbowsInDiapers glad to hear you are in a better place now and thank you for the tips. Why do you say you are arguably in the same place? I really want to be madly in love, and want to kiss and cuddle my husband, I'm just not feeling it so much 😢

Your mum is very wise and I will live by her advice!

@Singlenotsingle @LordNibbler yup these are exactly the kind of things I say to myself.

I think youve been through a lot and yes that can seriously affect libido but I also agree with @Singlenotsingle he's desperate to keep the peace and balance out your so called fieriness and in doing so comes across as desperate which is a seriously unattractive quality.

I think you need to get to know each other again, outside of parenthood and all the shit youve been through see if you can be nicer to him and yourself and hope you can work through it. Otherwise it could end up him getting fed up of walking on eggshells all the time and end it

@Toknowornot such wise words - thank you. And @FifteenYemenRoadYemen i completely agree with what you're saying. And you @1forAll74 ! Such great advice from this forum to which I am really grateful.

@Treesinaforest thank you for your story - it gives me hope. So glad you're in a good place!

@AmICrazyorWhat2 thank you. I am so tough on myself and definitely not kind to myself... and I guess I push that onto my long suffering husband too I do really want to stop this as don't want my child to grow up thinking this is acceptable.

@ThumbWitchesAbroad amazing advice. So grateful xx

You need to take responsibility for your behaviour, OP. Don't be a "complete bitch," treat him the way you want to be treated yourself.
It's not his job (or anyone else's) to "put you in your place."

OP I can’t help but I could have wrote your post myself , only I’m not on any medication that I can blame my total lack of interest on. Just hoping things will eventually get better and staying because of my child

@Rebssss I'm so sorry how long have you been together? And when did you start feeling funny about things?

I was feeling a bit like this which is one of the reasons I went on meds.

It's so shit x

This reminds me so much of year 1 post baby. I have mild depression and anxiety and tend to beat myself up. So I’d be prone to using terms like “complete bitch” and “wears the trousers” to describe myself.
I wouldn’t put a massive amount of weight on that.

I am still bf (DD is nearly 2), but similarly had a traumatic journey to get our baby and having a tiny one I just felt emotionally and physically touched out. We fought loads in the first year and I really thought we’d split up. But found a therapist and that helped. Baby growing up and needing me less, going back to work, going out for the occasional date night all helped. Eventually my sex drive came back but it isn’t what it used to be. But hey I have a tiny toddler and I’m exhausted.

Give it some time, check your medication, change your contraception if you’re using the pill.

I also found I had no interest in masturbation or any kind of sexual feeling for about 9-10 months post partum. If you feel similar it may well be your own libido and not your husband per se.

Also cut yourself some slack!

ADs will mess with this hugely.
I have 0 interest in my dp at the moment & I know its the ads.

Sadly, it's just another side effect

I think most people massively underestimate how early parenthood affects your whole life, I love my husband and find him very attractive but in those early years i would lie in bed thinking about getting divorced and how much happier i would be if he would just leave, out sex life was practically non existent too.

Its more than likely you will come out of the otherside of this stronger and still together, just try to make an effort to remember what you were like pre baby and try to get it back, even in little bits

I felt totally the same for the first 2 years of my first child. God he annoyed the bones of me and I dreamed of running away and finding a more interesting love. I then got diagnosed with PND. Depression and ADs will definitely play a part in this and the new kid.

I've just had baby number 2 and no PND and this time I feel closer to my partner. Maybe it's us both coming together to try and control the tyrant that is our 3 year old 😂

I'm pretty shocked at the way some people are talking to you, OP. If you didn't care about your DH and your marriage, you wouldn't be here asking for advice in the first place. You clearly do care about him and the fact that you've observed the effect things are are having on him, and feel bad about it, makes it pretty clear that you are absolutely NOT the ungrateful bully some people are making you out to be.

First of all, almost everything you've been through can affect libido in general, including antidepressants. You say you don't want sex or affection from your husband - but it sounds from your post that you don't want to think about sex or affection at all, from anybody. Is that correct? Because I think if it was just a lack of attraction to your husband that was the issue here, you'd be fantasising about other people or, ahem, 'taking care of yourself' in secret when he wasn't around. It sounds like a loss of libido in general rather than just falling out of love with your husband. It also sounds like you're really lacking in confidence because of your issues around size and weight.

You also have a very young baby. It doesn't matter that you aren't breastfeeding any more - your baby is less than a year old and what you're describing is really, really common among women with kids this young.

Have you actually talked to your DH about this and told him that you're struggling with your depression and your self-image and all those things?

The fact that you remember the laughing, the sex etc from your early relationship before you had all those big life events to contend with suggests that you do wish you could get that connection back. Have you told him that?

I think you should perhaps ask your GP to refer you for some counselling or psychotherapy in addition to the medication. If that's not possible, would paying privately for a therapist be an option?

Having a child wil totally change your perspective on your partner. You see them coming into a whole new part of themselves, their parent self, and unless you are really aligned you may very well hate what you see. Opposites attract only works in a two person relationship - when you have a child, you develop a really strong idea about exactly how you want to parent them and what you want them exposed to; if your co-parent fundamentally disagrees and a ta in contradiction to this, you will come to HATE them like you've never hated anyone. Because they have power over something you love more than yourself, and its power you can't take away.

So even just by being passive and a bit of s yes-man, he is not being the kind of role model you want to see for your child. If he is not enforcing the boundaries for your baby you think are necessary (or conversely if he is too disinterested, or too harsh)... It goes on.

My partner and I are really struggling to come back from that place of total disconnect and mutual distrust. Like you I just stopped liking him and wasn't at all attracted to him any more because I hated how he parented our small baby. He is a much better father to her now she is a toddler, and we're getting there again... But I sometimes wonder if I'll ever get past the realisation of how much more important to him he is than she is (or me come to that). The first year showed me a real streak of selfishness that I can't unsee. Like you I am desperate to get apart it as there's a lot of good there too, and we have a child, and I want another. But I feel sometimes it's unfair on all three of us to carry on.

When I had PND my midwife said to pretend to love my baby and the rest would follow. Wondering if a sustained period of pretending might help. Initiate sex (even when you don’t want to), act like you did when you loved and fancied him. See how he is when respected and loved.

I also read this interesting piece on maintenance shags.
I'm not suggesting someone should have sex when they don't want to. But I have found that for myself at least (and others I've discussed this with) sometimes not having sex leads to not wanting to have sex. DH and I went through a phase of this soon after our wedding, where we were kind of in a rut for about 5-6 months. We started talking about it more openly and making time for sex and it led to a resurgence in (my) libido. Similar thing about 10-11 months post partum.

I have been through this with my DH too. Been together almost 10 years, married for almost 2 of those years. Within the first year of our marriage I thought I didn't want to be with him, didn't find him attractive, found him irritating etc. Turns out it was all me.

I lost my libido due to ADs and a large weight gain which has left me feeling completely disgusting. I don't fancy me so why should he, kind of thing. I think most of our unhappiness towards others actually stems from unhappiness within ourselves. I really felt like I had checked out of our marriage and there was no way back in.

Thankfully I was wrong. I started practicing gratitude daily. Thinking of all the things that are great about my life, all the things that are great about him. He's not perfect, but neither am I. Nobody is. Ot has felt like I fell in love all over again and it has been a blessing to be honest!

I know it sounds a bit trite and happy clappy but positive thinking can change so much in our lives! At the moment you are stuck in a cycle of only seeing the bad in him (and I bet in yourself too) but my advice would be to start thinking of all the things you do love about him. The reasons you fell in love with him in the first place?

Life just gets in the way sometimes and so many people including myself, blindly wander down a path of negativity and apathy towards our relationships with husbands, family and friends etc. I was never quite prepared for 'life' and naively just didn't put any time into working on our relationship, and just let everything slide. But your relationship can be brought back to life if you truly believe that it's what you want.

Wow some extremely powerful messaging there thank you @weaningwoes and @TrueFriendsStabYouInTheFront - thank you so much for taking the time to share and advise. I'm really taking this on board.

I do feel my poor husband is quite browbeaten. I give him such a hard time but sort of in line with what you're saying, @weaningwoes, I really don't respect that he enables it (i know I'm more at fault for being a cow) and it's almost like I'm trying to make him stand up for himself but it never works! I want him to be 'the man' and I want to feel more respect for him but can feel so easily angered if he's not mucking in with the baby (I've had to remind him a few times that her needs come before his - it's amazing how much the mother has to sacrifice compared to the dad most of the time).

It's just the worst feeling being married to someone you feel you've lost the spark with, especially with a baby in the mix. I do definitely need to practice more positive thinking. The gratitude journal is a great idea xxx

Sorry not sure about the on and off bolding in my previous post!

I wanted to update with some great news in case anyone else stumbles across the thread with a similar issue. Well, things are amazing right now!! We went on holiday just before our DD turned 1 and had the best time ever. We are completely reconnected again, more active sex life than pre pregnancy (pretty much every day) - it's like the wool has been lifted and I can see my husband for the beautiful man he is. Thank god 🧡 thanks to all for a lot of support at a very difficult time xx