Husband only happy if he gets sex

[atmywitsendd]

Are they all like this ? I can't take it anymore. I just don't want to do it.

How do I get past it. He literally hates me and lashes out over every tiny thing. Everything is my fault, I can't do anything right and I actually think he despises me.

His behaviour in turn doesn't make me want to get anywhere near him at all.

We have two small kids. One baby. 5 months.

Husband works very long hours, so basically, I do everything. Older child is at nursery some days, but other than that it's on me.

I just don't have the space for sex at all.

What can I do ? Force myself? He literally hates me. He's so unhappy.

Sexual counseling etc is there for couples who struggle with intimacy in a non-abusive, non-coercive, mutually respectful relationship.

Abusers frame it as a you problem not an us problem.

Society says a lot of things that I disagree with e.g "I was smacked as a child, it did me no harm", a focus on physical violence being "actual" domestic abuse etc etc.

Whilst that might be society's view it is of no comfort when you are crying yourself to sleep, scared to wear dresses for it being seen as a come on, fear of showering, the drop in your gut when you are trying to decide which is worse the physical discomfort of unwanted sex or the emotional fallout of asserting your boundaries.

Eventually the only way of surviving is to completely deny all your emotions, to become blank and empty, down beaten and despondent. Then you get yelled at for not looking like you want it and you retreat further and further into yourself feeling utterly trapped and confused. The trauma is cumulative and at some point you can take no more.

@atmywitsendd it seems like you really wanted to be told that this is normal, and most responses are saying it's not so now you are downplaying his behaviour.
It's not that bad
He's not that mean
It's only when i do this or when this happens
These are all things that many people have told themselves so they can continue to cope and not blow up the family unit.

Ultimately, you have to talk to him, only by his reaction can you gauge where the marriage is at.

I mean, not really. I'm just expressing what happens in my mind to be honest. I was hoping someone has experience at why my mind jumps to all these ' excuses '. Why I doubt my own reality all the time and why I feel so confused.

What exactly should I say to him ? And what response should I hope for ?

Your mind does that because you’re being abused 🤷‍♀️

and probably had an abusivr childhood

but you don’t seem willing to be open to the idea of that op

What do you want long term from this is your first thing. What is the point of talking if you dont know what you want.

I think you need counselling first of because your thought process towards sex and something to endure needs unpicking

I can just do it anyway, even if I don't really want to. No, absolutely no. You should never ever have sex that you do not want - absolutely NEVER,

I am open to it. I'm just showing how my brain works, because these thoughts and feelings are very strong. I'm trying to make sense of it and assess this critically.

Your brain has been trained over many years to do whatever is necessary to placate him.
When he behaves the way he does, you are not sexually attracted to him - that's pretty normal! So then your brain now has two competing issues, the "duty" you have been groomed to feel and your gut instinct and natural feelings telling you this is not right.
You do need to get this straight in your head before you try to explain it to him, if not, he will just spin it round to make you think there is something wrong with you WHICH THERE ISN'T

Whether or not there are issues which you yourself have to work through regarding sex is your business, the problem he needs to address is that he is not being considerate of your position and guilt tripping you into sex should not be something he should want.

Its very bad for you mental health to force yourself to have sex with someone when you don't want it. There are multiple problems in your post that aren't going to be fixed by a conversation with your husband. You also can't change his attitude and behaviour, that's going to be his responsibility.

I'm going to suggest you contact Women's Aid and ask for help accessing counselling, so that you can sort out how you feel and what you want.

@atmywitsendd how would you react if he went out and found someone else for a fulfilling sexual relationship FWB . Would that take the pressure off you. I have known a couple of women who turned a blind eye because sex wasn't important to them but family was.

I'm not really sure. I think it's the sort of thing I won't know how I will feel until it happens.

Sometimes I think it would wake me up and make me appreciate him more and actually like him more.

I've always had a thing for men that are don't actually want to be with me, unfortunately. I assume that's why I have intimacy issues when in long term relationships. I only seem to be completely interested during the phase where you're winning them over etc. once I actually ever had them, I was no longer interested sexually. I only stayed interested for longer in men that didn't like me/ didn't want to commit/ made me feel worthless.

That's another reason I didn't want to let go of my husband. I've had lots of therapy, but these feelings run deep I think. So I didn't attribute it to HIM.

My father never loved my mother. He's an abusive arsehole. Actually abusive. Calling her names every day. Telling her she's worthless constantly. Never showing any affection etc. occasional physical abuse too. Threats of violence / and worse.

@justasking111 how does that solve the problem of him being massively abusive?

Your husband is also actually abusive OP

i knew there’d be childhood trauma

OP the way to make this better is to leave your ahusive husband and heal your childhood trauma

Read the whole thread 🙄

Your father damaged you and your mother. You're a classic case. Your Therapy didn't help unfortunately. So often on here I read of people who have seen a roster of therapists to no avail. I have to ask are many therapists useless or are patients beyond help.

I found books hard copy not kindle very useful at a bad time in my life.

He's not a bad man your husband but after all these years is at the end of his rope. You're both too young to be celibate unless that is what you want. You do, he doesn't.

I really wish there weren't children involved

@justasking111 yeah that's what I think a bit. Although does it excuse the outbursts ? Is that really the way he hoped we will get back on track ? I've told him that we just need to let the kids grow up a little bit and things will be easier then. But he's becoming more and more impatient and more and more unhappy. I'm withdrawing more and more into myself.

It doesn't matter whether you label it as abuse or not. He's an arsehole. He's treating you badly. You're not the least bit attracted to him. You're unhappy. That's no way to live. Just leave and find happiness. I did and haven't looked back.

OP, thank you for sticking with this thread, even though it must have been tough.

Of all that you have said, and added to what you have said, I am still seeing a pretty obvious to me picture of an abusive man.

People on mumsnet don't generally say LTB frivolously, we say it quite often because to an outside who isn't swamped in the middle of the situation it is often obvious to us just how abusive and bad the situation is for the woman posting.

One thing I haven't seen you post is what HE is doing to try to make the marriage work? You seem very eager to believe that you must work hard at a marriage, but it seems as if you are working quite hard to overlook the fact that he isn't willing to even consider the idea that he may be contributing to the problems, let alone that he might be the cause of them, nor that he may be able to play a role in resolving them. That's not normal nor is it healthy, nor is it respectful. You must also realise deep down that it isn't sustainable either. A marriage is a partnership of two people and you seem like you are trying to shoulder all of the blame and responsibility by yourself.

Here's a story about sex life, and quality of it. I went through most of my life until I was late 30s with men who I now know to be mediocre at best, straight up selfish at worst. I'll spare you the details but I then found out what I'd been missing; that what I had accepted as normal didn't have to be, and that there are men (many of them!) out there who take their pleasure from sexually satisfying and delighting their women. It was a total turning point in my life. I wish, I absolutely wish wholeheartedly that every woman knew, to the depth of her heart, that she doesn't have to put up with a selfish lover. That men who aren't making sure that you come at least as often as they do, are 10 a penny and absolutely aren't worth opening your legs for.

You haven't said, but I strongly suspect that your husband is a selfish lover who couldn't care less about if you enjoy, let alone orgasm from sex. Yes babies, birth trauma, full time childrearing, relationship abuse and childhood abuse all 100% have their part to play in if you feel like having sex or not, but let's not overlook the fact that if he cared about making sex enjoyable for you, you'd probably be more up for it.

You don't need to share it with us if you don't want to, but if your husband is a selfish lover, there's a VERY basic cause and effect going on here (as well as everything else).

That's on HIM.

He's not actually a selfish lover. I don't want to let myself enjoy it though. Because I didn't want to do it in the first place. It's like a protest. I don't let go at all. I just endure it.

Besides sex, the way he speaks and treats you would make me not want to share a bed, a house.

Of course you dread him coming home.

Your marriage is long over.

The sooner you realise that it is, accept it, and start making plans, the better.

This is not fixable.

You need to think about the environment you want your children reared in.

Yours was abusive and now their's is too.

You need to get them away from this home where their mother is being abused emotionally and sexually.

If he's not a selfish lover and you're enduring it as you have with other men before him, that's so sad for you and the other men you've been with some who may have been caring lovers. As I said before you both deserve more whether it be celibacy or a fulfilling sex life

Tell me are you envious of couples who do enjoy a fulfilling sex life or numb to it.

@atmywitsendd Actually, I can answer this one. My husband dealt with with it for seven years. Eventually, our relationship did become more complicated due to lack of sex due to my illness, and we still can’t have sex BUT we still live in the same household, he’s agreed to stay with me until I die, and he still refuses to leave me. I’m definitely not a shining example of a perfect marriage, maybe we were before I got ill, but DEFINITELY, definitely not now.

But I can tell you what happened during those seven years: my husband never, not even once “tried it on” when I said no, or I couldn’t, or I didn’t feel up to it. I never felt coerced. And because of that, I was actually sad myself at the lack of sex; I still very much wanted him. It was heartbreaking then and it still is now. AND he sure as hell never kept going when he could tell I was hurting or not into it. He said being able to tell I was in pain or even just not into it was a huge turn-off for me. Because sex in a marriage is supposed to involve love and intimacy like that. Because my DH is not the perfect man, no, BUT he’s also never tried to coerce me into sex. I think a lot of posters in this thread could say the same: imperfect DHs, but no coercive sex. Nor did my DH ever blame me. Blaming someone for not having the desire to have sex will not magically cause them to desire sex. And your husband is not exactly having kind, loving conversations about why you might not want to have sex, is he?

So there you go. That’s what non-abusive husbands do. They go without. They care that you don’t want it. They would agree to go to counseling if that’s what you needed. You had a baby five months ago. There are women so injured by giving birth that they physically can’t have sex for over five months - what would his plan have been then? Just treat you like shite, make your life a living hell, make your whole house miserable with his “snapping” and make you walk on eggshells? You must know how wrong that is; you’d never tell your best mate to let her husband treat her like that, I hope.

As for how you can feel safe again, OP, sigh. You’re not getting it. You keep thinking you’re broken, you’re not doing something correctly, you can “fix” this, you want to know how to feel safe again. The real question isn’t how do you feel safe again - it’s how can HE make YOU feel safe again. And you’ve already answered again and again and again what he needs to do - stop pressuring you, give you space, listen to you about sex instead of tear you down, not call you names, not make you feel emotionally blackmailed… How long does the list need to be? And do you think he’ll ever do any of it? Yes, leaving is a big decision, but so is every time you say yes when you wish you could say no - please don’t tell yourself those are NOT big decisions and it doesn’t matter just because he acts like sex is no big deal. Either it’s no big deal, so he should be able to go without it, or it’s a very big deal, in which case you have every right to say no whenever you want to something so important. Please understand that, OP: your husband can’t pretend it’s no big deal when he’s coercing you and a very big deal when he’s treating you like shite about it. That’s absolute horseshite.

BUT it's not five months it's 11 years. The OP hasn't had physical health issues for that length of time.

My OH had an operation that left him impotent. We struggled mightily with this despite it being the surgeon fault. If I had been younger I don't think I'd have coped. I wept, raged, silently and alone. You husband maybe felt like this but like me wouldnt burden you because you can't help your health problems.