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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to expect sex to be a REAL and INEXTRICABLE part of marriage?

78 replies

jillowarriorqueen · 28/12/2019 02:28

So I married a man who was in his early 30s and a virgin, due to religious reasons. He believed sex was to only be enjoyed within marriage. This was 20 odd years ago.

I was more experienced than him, but tried to be sensitive to that fact on our wedding night, so as not to overwhelm him.

Over the coming years, our sex life was comprised of him rolling on me at times, fucking me, prematurely ejaculating, then going to sleep.

A short while after we married, he started sleeping apart from me due to having a bad knee, back etc, which eventually started me staying up later to play on the computer etc etc.

At one point we decided to go full on for a family and we had a lot of sex during that time, none of which was at all satisfying for me and purely pragmatic - but which did the job of TTC a number of kids.

Weirdly we managed to conceive 8 kids - 6 of which never made it beyond the first few weeks. Two did in that time and we had beautiful daughters.

90 percent of our marriage, my DH has slept elsewhere in the house, from the spare bed to the downstairs sofa. He knows how lonely this makes me feel, but says he can't sleep with me whilst he can't "have me". What he means by this is that I won't just allow him to fuck me on a whim and just let him sleep before he makes me cum. He has done this so many times over the years. This seems very selfish to me.

AIBU to expect more after almost 24 years of marriage? My DH never seems to care about my needs sexually. Just his own. If his own can't be satisfied, he withdraws from me entirely. Should I expect another 20 or 30 years sleeping alone, with no sex, no intimacy? I've had a fucking lifetime of this crap? He's a good dad and a good husband in all of the practical ways. Just shit at the intimacy part.

OP posts:
ClemDanFango · 28/12/2019 02:33

Jesus fucking Christ! Dump this useless prick! Go out there and find a real man who can give you what you need. Honestly you are missing out on so much by being tied to this cretin. Just dump and run!

Bottler · 28/12/2019 02:38

Sounds like he never learned how to be a lover. You ever try to teach him?

Original poster
jillowarriorqueen · 28/12/2019 02:49

Am I supposed to do this? He is 6 years older than me.

OP posts:
violinrosa · 28/12/2019 02:51

but if he had no experience before you, and you have been married all this time, who else can teach him?

Josette77 · 28/12/2019 02:54

Have you asked him to do things for you? Does he know he's had in bed?

Bottler · 28/12/2019 02:58

Well yes. Unless he watches porn or something and learns something, but most porn is about women being abused and focused on them rather than on pleasing a woman.
Learning usually involves a man picking up on cues from the woman as to what she's enjoying.
After 24 years of marriage though, I doubt you can teach him much.
Religious people tend to believe sex is for procreation really. They can have fucked up ideas about enjoying sex themselves. Then there's the Madonna/whore thing. Perhaps sex counselling where you could address his techniques and his ideas around sex might help.

Bottler · 28/12/2019 03:00

Maybe ask him how he views sex within the marriage?

Original poster
jillowarriorqueen · 28/12/2019 03:03

He's 6 years older than I am. Why is the onus on me to teach him things?

OP posts:
Original poster
jillowarriorqueen · 28/12/2019 03:04

It's not rocket science to want to please your partner and to not abandon them alone to sleep each night, lol.

OP posts:
Bottler · 28/12/2019 03:04

Sorry, something else I picked up on is that either A. He's punishing you by withholding affection/his mere presence because you won't allow him to 'fuck' you as you refer to it. Or B. You're punishing him for being crap in bed by banishing him. Hard to tell which it is.

It sounds like neither of you learned how to have sex together. For him it has been perfunctory and you presumably have felt used as an object for 24 years.

Is sex really that important to you?

Bottler · 28/12/2019 03:05

What has him being six years older than you got to do with things?

Bluerussian · 28/12/2019 03:07

Being a virgin at marriage doesn't mean you can't learn to do it properly. Have you talked to him about it? He sounds awful but perhaps he just doesn't know what to do to please you and he won't know if you don't tell him.

Bottler · 28/12/2019 03:08

There's not really an onus on you to teach him, but it might be in your best interests.

violinrosa · 28/12/2019 03:13

I don't understand how else you think he will learn?

Bottler · 28/12/2019 03:16

Do you communicate at all during sex? Or do you just lie there and think of England?

RunsForGummyBears · 28/12/2019 03:19

Lack of sexual compatibility will kill relationships. Either work on this together or end it.

Original poster
jillowarriorqueen · 28/12/2019 03:20

Have tried to talk alot with him. He just isn't interested. He hates discussing it.

OP posts:
Bottler · 28/12/2019 03:23

I'm guessing you're around the 50 mark given the ages mentioned.

Why are you acting like a petulant child about the 6 year difference? 'But he's six years older than me!'.

Are you any good in bed? Has he mentioned anything? Apart from the fact that he sleeps elsewhere 90% of the time...

violinrosa · 28/12/2019 03:23

oh that's different. He has to want to work together with you.

Bottler · 28/12/2019 03:25

What have you talked about specifically?

expat101 · 28/12/2019 03:38

Even if he had had a sex life before you, what might have suited that person may not suit you, so yes a bit of direction as to what you like or want to try, goes a long way.

How close are the children's bedrooms to yours? That can be a major turn off too.

Do his parents share a room or have separate sleeping arrangements? Might be something there to look at, to understand how he is approaching the situation if he grew up watching or hearing them going bump in the night once a week or so... and then cracking a floorboard returning to their room.

Would he go to a specialist with you or does he think its all your problem because you are refusing his quickie?

Good luck.

Henrysmycat · 28/12/2019 03:38

I’m with you. You can teach and help if the other person is willing. And I don’t think you sound like a petulant child, just fed up.
Since you say he’s religious, are you sure he’s not gay? Sounds extremely familiar with a situation I knew. He was religious saving himself for marriage, then seeing sex as a means to have children and since he didn’t believe in contraception, once he had a child, (children conceived after a few attempts), sexually he checked out of the marriage. He was a lovely man but misguided. He came out in his 50’s and lived with a ex-priest after that.

Henrysmycat · 28/12/2019 03:43

For me that’s no marriage or partnership. Even just laying in bed, cuddling, sometimes naked, kissing, feeling each other is intimacy. I’d be devastated if my DH behaved like yours.

VenusTiger · 28/12/2019 03:58

He's only ever been with you and yet he won't discuss sex with you, his wife. Tell him, religion or not, to grow the fuck up and get a life. Neither of you can continue like this - he won't share a bed with you because he only wants to have 'boring, 5 minute sex' and you won't share a bed with him, for the same reasons. If he won't act like an adult and discuss a big part of your marriage with you then you'll have to ask the local priest to have a bloody word in his ear - it's ridiculous that he won't discuss it, he's not an embarrassed teenage boy - out of interest, was he present when your DDs were born? Is he a prude?

PenelopeFlintstone · 28/12/2019 04:03

There’s a YouTube called Jordan Page. She’s a Mormon. On one her Q&A videos, her husband mentions a book teaching religious men the ins and outs 😉 of sex and how to satisfy your wife. Maybe give him that.