DH and I have the same argument every month and its making me want to leave

[oldlongjohnson]

DH and I married for 5 years, we have a 2.5yo DS.

Before DS we had an ok sex life, probably got intimate 2-3 times a week, sometimes less. I have much lower sex drive than him - he would prob take it every day, whereas I am happy with once a week or less. When we first got together DH would handle the rejection of not getting it as much as he would like badly and get in moods and throw his toys out the pram. This was quickly addressed.

Fast forward to now and sex life has gone downhill we are intimate maybe once a week sometimes less, mainly due to me suffering from PND and thyroid issues (feel fat, low libido, knackered all the time) basically it isn't high on my to-do list. I only really fancy it at random times of the day, usually DS's naptime or after we put him to bed - mornings are a write off because DS is awake at the crack of dawn and by the time we get into bed at night I am ready to be asleep asap. I've explained this to DH so he knows the situ, and yet sometimes he will still try to "initiate" (i.e boob touching, bum squeezing) and I have to move his hand elsewhere or flat out say no.

Every month it all blows up into a big row. Once it gets to a week or so without intimacy you can cut the tension with a knife, he basically starts ignoring me and barely bothering to speak to me. He says he is sick of rejection and 'switches off' at this point, but to me it just seems like he is in a grump because he wants sex. I have really been trying to be more engaged with him, to cuddle and kiss more and just generally be more attentive but he says he hasn't even noticed a difference. I don't know what I can do - I can't physically force myself to want sex more.

I'm fed up of having the same argument every month, and can't see it going away. I'm seriously considering walking away.

Sulkers are unfuckable. Manipulating a woman into feeling she has to fuck you is disgraceful behaviour. Tell him the more stonewalling he does, the less you ever want to fuck him again, and you will not be accepting his behaviour for the next forty-ish years, so he needs to find better, less abusive, ways of interacting with you.

Having sex once a week sounds reasonable to me. There will be some weeks where you want more, others less. Ultimately, if he’s willing to sacrifice his entire relationship with you because he would like more sex - he doesn’t value the relationship so highly. We all have individual niggles with our partners, and different preferences, but if the most important thing is sex then a long term relationship was never for him. When he sulks, tell him “sulking is the biggest turn off in this house.” It’s completely counterintuitive as well as wrong to apply that sort of pressure.

Go to some couples therapy. They’ll help you explain to him why coercion, fighting and sulking do nothing for you. (Worth noting that the fact he acts like that isn’t switching off) Nor does weird inopportune groping. Do you initiate when you want sex, or prefer him to do it? Maybe if you initiate he doesn’t have to keep pushing the issue which makes you more comfortable and he feels less rejected.

I’m sorry to hear about your PND. If those feelings are returning, maybe some teletherapy would help while this lockdown goes on? Please don’t attempt to force yourself to have sex, Mumsnet must have the highest collective libido in the world based on how shocked people are at once a week. I actually thought that was quite a lot

Is thought it was quite a lot too.

I had the same issue as you OP but 25 years ago. When we did have sex I enjoyed it but I was deeply fatigued, full time job, 2 young children, lots of travel. I convinced myself that it was worth while to keep my husband happy but it took a toll.

After a while I would have the question in my head ' if you love me so much, why can't you just let me go to sleep when you know how tired I am?' and then 'Why is it so important for him to be happy? What about what makes me happy?'

Then my libido just stopped dead. I'd have sex to keep him happy but I really didn't enjoy it and resented it.

We went to a counsellor and it made me think when I explained that previously I might not be in the mood but after a bit of persuasion I would usually enjoy myself and she immediately asked 'why would you husband not just respect your original statement that you were not in the mood? Why did you have to be persuaded if you'd already said no?' and I thought 'Good point'.

At one point I was even emailing the Samaritans as I felt that there was so much pressure to 'fix me' and make me enjoy sex again. What if I didn't want to be fixed? What if I was quite happy not to have sex? Why was I the one who had to change? (bearing in mind that by this stage I'd already taken a massive hit to my career with time out for the children plus other constraints relating to it being the early 1990s and the society I lived in expecting me to make any accommodations necessary to support the family).

I do take Glitteryone's point that it can be soul destroying for the husband to be rejected. AlI I can say is long term it didn't do my soul a lot of good either to feel guiltily obliged to share my body when all it wanted to do was sleep.

I did eventually get back into it but it was never the same.

The point of writing all this is that I think a lot of my genuine enjoyment of sex was destroyed by doing it when I didn't want to in order to keep my husband happy. Maybe if I'd been given the space I needed back in those difficult days I'd have bounced back without any of the resentment that hampered my relationship.

I could have written this.
It's horrible isn't it. And we're less frequent than you.
No advice

Yeah I agree that mismatched sex drives can be the end of a marriage, at least unless one or other partner is prepared to give in and put up with having sex when they’re not in the mood or have sex a lot less than they feel like it. I think you need to have a frank discussion, when you are both not tired and not after rejecting him, about how you both see the relationship going. If you see sex as being only x times per month then you need to be clear about that. If he’s not able to live with that, yes, the marriage may end - though it’s obviously worth exploring other options (eg maybe you would feel more in the mood if he did more round the house, leaving you less tired; or would you and he be content with kissing more often; might you even feel open to giving a handjob more frequently). Couples therapy might be a good context for this kind of discussion.

Thanks every body. A lot to think about.

@sergeilavrov I do initiate it when I fancy it! Usually it is after our son in bed, I will lay down in the bedroom and wait for my DH to finish tucking DS in and usually he will come in to our room to grab the monitor, so I'll usually get hold of him then. Sometimes he will do the same to me (we take it in turns to do bedtime) but other times he won't take the opportunity. I also sometimes feel up for it after I've had a bath, so sometimes will send him a cheeky text to come upstairs, or I'll just go downstairs with little on and ask him. Basically I'm trying!

I think he feels like he can't initiate it. But he just tries at all the wrong times (for me!)

I'd say once a week is perfect for me.

I never know what to say to women in situations like this as the most advisable thing is to dump sulkers long before it gets to marriage.

@sergeilavrov Thank you for your reply, it has given me a lot to think about.

The term you used "sharing your body" is exactly it. I don't always feel like sharing my body with him, and forcing myself to just feels so damaging.

OP, are you me? I could just have written this.

@peppermintcapsules I mean he isn't a bad person. He will still hold ordinary conversations with me and sing in the car with me and play with DS while I drink my cup of tea. He says he just withdraws from initiating any affection, but I can feel its more than that - the weird tense atmosphere when DS is in bed and we have to be together.

Strewth! I'd love sex at least once a month - I'm struggling to remember when I last got any! But then we're the other way round.

There's something called Love Languages out there (American app, it's a bit cute, but some useful insights nevertheless and it's free) that describes how each of you expresses love. We were put on to it by our couples counsellor (which I set up and paid for, after individual counselling just seemed to be making me more likely to leave him) and both got a bit out of that. You have to keep working at it though. I think whoever on this thread said something about doing it anyway and it will come back was right, though it can take a while, so you've got to know it's worth the effort.

It depends how fast you need results, I guess - this sort of thing, you can't move fast. I've invested most of my life already, so I'm prepared to dig in (not that I'm doubtful how fast I'd get another bloke at my age, perish the thought!)

I think once a week is totally normal for a married couple, if you look it up there have been quite a few studies on it, the average seems to range between once a week and once every 2 months depending on age etc. More than once a week would definitely be more frequent than the average. So I think your husband is a bit unreasonable to expect even more than that.

@ Electrical- 'Sulkers are unfuckable*'

^^ 100%*

@Everhopeful Thank you! I will check that out now.

I'm pretty invested. We have a son, and were considering round 2 before the world fell apart. We've just got a mortgage together. He is my favourite person (apart from my son) so theres that. I think its worth saving, I am just a bit dubious.

Once a week just wouldn't be enough for me. Sex is an important part of a relationship for me and to other where it is less important, they don't always get why people with higher sex drives get frustrated. But on the other hand, people shouldn't be having sex they don't want.

I think you need to be honest and say that once a week is as much as you want and he has to decide if he can live with that without pressuring you or being unpleasant.

It was less frequent than you and my partner of the time wouldn't really discuss it so I ended my relationship. Mismatched sex drives can be a huge problem but I think the most important thing is communication. If you can't talk about it together then it ends up in resentment, affairs or divorce. Not saying any of those are acceptable, but is my experience and the experience of others I know.

This isn’t going to go away. It will probably get thrown in your face when arguing. My ex used to use it as a sly dig.

‘Sex what’s that?’ ‘I don’t initiate it any more because I know I’ll get nothing’

The pressure will always be down to you to ‘give in’ - to the point you initiate sex when you don’t even want it just to please him. Kind of takes the fun out of it

@Inthesameboat10 I do worry.

Last night I asked him if he wanted to come for a cuddle because I was so sick on the frosty atmosphere. He said no, and I was relieved.

One tip - I personally am way way more in the mood around the middle of my cycle, could you keep a note of that and see if you have certain times you are more/less up for it? Then if he knows that in week 4 you’re not up for it but he’ll get some good times in week 2, maybe he’ll be able to deal with it better?

It's not fair for your husband to make you feel guilty, nor is it fair for him to stay in a sexless (heading that way) marriage.

Oh come on, once a week is hardly sexless!

Your update re him not actually not speaking to you or sulking, but it being your perception of an atmosphere makes it sound like your DH isn’t really doing much wrong other than not being a mind reader.

He’s isn’t not speaking to you, he’s not huffing about, he’s not demanding sex or passive aggressively coercing you to participate in sex, he is telling you that initiating intimacy has become problematic for him and so he is avoiding doing so.

You’re not being very fair, are you?

Either you dislike him initiating intimacy because he does it wrong, or you dislike him not initiating intimacy (whilst still behaving in a warm and engaged way with you, speaking, laughing, singing etc) because you then perceive an atmosphere.

This ruined my marriage. But we were the other way around. In every other way our marriage was perfect and in every other way he was the perfect husband. He had a great job he enjoyed and earned well, we had a lovely home, 3 beautiful children and 50:50 on childcare and chores. I found him attractive, he made me laugh and he supported me through tough times...but he hardly ever wanted to have sex. It was once a month and that was enough for him. Ideally I’d have sex once a day but once or twice a week would have been a compromise I would have made but he would have compromised to once every 6wks if he could. He enjoyed sex a lot when we did it and he was an attentive lover but he simply had no need for it the way I did. I tried everything from being moody to being like a 1950s housewife trying to ‘tend’ to him but nothing worked. Despite everything else in my marriage being great, I asked for a divorce. Sex is a massive part of marriage for me and the fact he could admit to not feeling the urge for months but made the effort to do it once a month just for me made me feel like shit. I feel very sad about the whole thing and I know he’s devastated but I don’t see how my resentment and frustration was ever going to be good long term.

I hope you get it sorted. He shouldn’t be coercing you but I often tried coercion along with begging, pleading, crying, shouting etc. A mismatched sex drive is never going to work out long term unless one of you is left feeling frustrated or the other ends up forcing themselves to have sex they don’t want. Neither of these scenarios is desirable.

He sounds just like my ex. My ex is an ex for this very reason.

nor is it fair for him to stay in a sexless (heading that way) marriage.

When the hell did sex once a week on average with PND and a toddler equal a sexless marriage?

So am I reading this right? You don't often wants sex when he does, so he feels unsatisfied/unloved/unappreciated, but when you initiate at a time that feels right to you he either ignores you, sulks or turns you down flat. He sounds a peach.