Is my marriage over?

[Lifeisrosy]

Long time lurker, first time poster so apologies if I don't have the abbreviations correct.

Married 8 years, together 14. Two kids 4 and 1. Both earn exact same, work FT.

So sexlife has been non existent since youngest was conceived but not great before that. Terrible birth with oldest, forceps, prolapse, incontinence etc. Breastfed both so libido was never great after kids arrived.

Last year has been very tough, we were in a terrible place and sought marriage counselling. Slowly addressing intimacy, for me its emotional, I can't be intimate when we are barely getting along. For him its physical and he feels rejected.

Anyway had an argument this morning regarding something else and he throws no sex in my face. This is a common occurrence. I appreciate its frustrating for him but I can't be intimate until other issues are resolved. He said this morning he will have to make other arrangements. I will not turn a blind eye and don't expect him to stay in a sexless marriage so do we split?

Also I don't want a sexless marriage either.

Anyone been in a similar position?

So he’s going to shag someone else instead of fixing the problem at home ?
Id say it’s over, but it’s a shame as your youngest is still so young. Another couple of years and you could be in a totally different place, if he was prepared to wait and work on it.

If you took sex out of it, how do you get on ?

I think you are both having a really tough time, and I think you should have counselling together before making any big decisions.

Up and down. We are in counselling as we couldn't communicate at all.

It had been much better the last few months until this outburst

he needs to be much more understanding. It seems to me that men can’t quite understand that women need to feel emotionally connected whereas men dont.

You must be pretty exhausted with two small children and working full time. Does he co- parent effectively and do his fair share around the house ? Has he made much effort to support you and make you feel good?

Thank you. This is exactly how I feel.

He is great with the kids but definitely not 50/50 in the house. He cleans and cooks sometimes. I do all shopping, meal planning, laundry, finances, kids clothes, life admin, planning etc. This was a huge part of the counselling. I felt completely taken advantage of.

I completely identify with this. We've got two kids, although a bit older than yours and we are so busy with working fulltime and bringing up kids and I spend most of my spare time exercising to battle off depression (the current economic nightmare and not being able to afford to buy a house really wears us down). We get on OK but have no sex life, except being a bit older we are less bothered! I think I miss the validation more than anything. It wasn't as if our sex life was bad, just having kids has messed up our confidence and has not given us time to connect.

I might get flamed, but the expectation that both parents should work FT with kids is a bit high, but we have to do it in order to stay afloat and alot suffers because of this. You don't even get any financial benefit because of childcare costs. Parents are getting screwed over in this country and this is the result. I say this because my parents. Elder relatives and friends never had to have both parents working FT to manage. It has been incredibly stressful to the point I've regretted my kids or wanted to split up as I thought it might get me a proper day's break every week.

Would you say it is similar? The first couple of years of a child can really kill a relationship, but they do get more manageable. The worst thing you can both do is bicker and kill the friendship as well as the sexual attraction in the meantime. You've been together a long time, so it sound to me that you see both exhausted and struggling to connect as you never switch off properly from your responsibilities. Are you able to get anyone to babysit? Just focus on connecting first rather than anything sexual. Hopefully the attraction might come back over time.

Breastfeeding is a nightmare on so many levels and nobody talks about the negatives of it. I've breastfed for ever and it feels like it's made me perimenopausal a bit early, made me maintain weight due to the oxytocin and I've been sharing a bed with my children for years instead of my partner. Benefits of breastfeeding aside, it can kill your sex life!

Ultimately it’s up to you but for me the marriage would be over.

I couldn’t get past his lack of concern for my emotional wellbeing and the demand for sex. Such a turn off and so disrespectful.

Presumably your relationship was in a good place before you conceived your last child? So it’s a reasonably recent problem, out of a 14 year span.

I can’t tell you if your marriage is over. It might be, I guess it depends how much you both want to fix it?

It's a bit if a vicious cycle, in that you won't feel closer to you have sex but you want to be closer to have sex. I was in your position (including terrible birth with eldest/ forceps/ 4th deg tear and then twins!). We went 4 years with no sex! We began with the counseling but it got to the point where I wasn't feeling ready (not sure I ever would) but decided to go for it anyway. It was crap the first few times but it actually did help and we soon got to a place where it was better and it did actually increase my sense of emotional intimacy. I'd cut him some slack with the comments. Not kind but we all say stuff in anger that is horrible (well I do) so whether it's about sex or something else is no different.

I could have written this post myself.

We are still renting, trying to save for a house. Cannot afford for one of us to go part time. Also I don't want to as I want to have a pension etc when I retire. But yes childcare wipes the extra cash from working fulltime.

We get nights out here and there but its usually to a wedding or other event where we hardly spend anytime together.

I honestly feel with kids, work (I should mention I'm a director of a company so full on) I feel it would be easier to go it alone than have to deal with this constant pressure and guilt he puts on me re sex. I don't think I'd cope only seeing my kids 50% of the time.

I do identify with what you say about life admin too! You just need to list everything that needs doing and delegate.

I do feel like I do the thinking for my family. All the little things like getting kids party gifts and remembering school eventsand shopping for it. I wouldn't want my other half to do these jobs, but I have recently asked him to set reminders in his phone to help me remember stuff. He is pretty good at everything else though and is as busy as I am. It's just shit working FT with kids. I think we have both come to that conclusion now and try to avoid arguing over delegation of work and just get on with it and accept a bit of nagging if the other doesn't pull their weight. I think sometimes you can be oblivious to the little things the other parent does.

I really hope you work it out OP. 14 years is a long time and I hope you can build a connection again.

That he can’t empathise and realise much of this is due to you having his child is awful. But it’s a big step to say over from reading a few paragraphs on an anonymous board. I think the post above about is this a couple of years in a long relationship is worth focusing on. Hopefully it won’t always be like this and you and he can work through some of the hardest years and flourish in a couple of years, it will take patience from him though, and maybe his right hand rather than another woman.

I see both sides here. Sex is so important in a relationship. In my experience physical intimacy helps build emotional intimacy just as much as the other way round. Whenever I'm feeling like DH and I are disconnected I make an effort to instigate sex, despite low libido due to ADs and breastfeeding, because I know it always makes such a difference to how close we feel.

But him saying he's going to make other arrangements is disgusting, and I'd find that hard to forgive.

It sounds like a comment made in frustration not necessarily that it will be what he does or that it needs to end (if you don’t want it to). He might find it reassuring that you feel the same and that you want marriage that contains sex too even if you’re finding it hard whilst you aren’t getting along so well. Only you know if you want to try again or have a break/split, but you’ve been together along time and need to find the space to talk about it calmly.

I'll be honest, I see so many threads about this and similar stuff.

I've been a single parent for 12 years and life is so much easier without a live in partner.

It depends how important sex is to you. Your last bit about not wanting to be in a sexless marriage either suggests it isn't unimportant, and that's fine and good. Maybe you just don't fancy him?

Also had bad birth, extended breastfeeding, two children close in age, both work full time, plenty of arguments during those early years. I was NOT at all on top of the clothes, life admin, finances etc, we ate far too many ready-meals, and to my eternal regret I neglected several important friendships. However, we did have a lot of good sex. In other words, I'm not sure that all of those reasons are in themselves the reason why you aren't having sex with you husband. Could it in fact be the other way round, the lack of intimacy developing over time as the result of a basic loss of sexual chemistry and attraction (at least on your end; sounds as if he's still eager to keep things going)?

I think he is handsome yes but I probably lost a little bit of attraction due to resentment with how much I took on/my life changed with kids.

I feel like I'm slowly getting back to me and that will come as we work on the emotion/connection side.

This made me laugh. Thank you