To Feel Like DH Doesn’t Respect my Boundaries

[MintGreenLife]

Sex has been an issue for us for a long time. Our DS is 18 months and isn’t a good sleeper, which means we aren’t often intimate. To be fair to DH, we can have a few months where we don’t have sex, but go through periods where we manage once a week.

I had a traumatic forceps birth and as a result have two prolapses, and now found intercourse quite uncomfortable, I’m still BF too and find I don’t have much of a sex drive, but I still try to make the effort when I feel able to.

Something I’ve struggled with is that my DH wants a lot of attention from me and is almost quite needy since having DS. And I’m almost fearful of too much touching or kissing as he then wants more and I’m not willing or able to give it.

We spoke the other day and I asked him if we could set aside one evening a week for intimacy/sex, and then put it off the table the rest of the week, so that I feel less pressure and more able to be affectionate towards him without worrying about him wanting more. He said yes fine, however he’s clearly not understood as today during DS’s nap he’s asking me to ‘help him out’ so to speak. He works from home and so we are in the house together a lot, and for me it feels like I never get a break from it. I feel like he feels he can ask for it at the drop of a hat whenever he pleases and it’s too much.

In addition to this, he knows I’m having a bad time with DS at the moment. He’s extremely clingy to me, I regularly feel touched out and am up BF still several times in the night. I just feel like DH can’t understand me at all to think it’s ok to do things like this.

Another example is when DS was just a few months old. He was a poorly baby and we had to have a lot of tests and I was in hospital with him until he was 14 days old. At 3 months we got some test results back which showed an abnormality and more tests needed. We got the results on a Saturday and I couldn’t get much info from the doctor. On the Sunday I was still very upset and spent a lot of the day in tears. While I was crying downstairs, by DH was upstairs trying to get me to send dirty texts to him. He’s not a bad person, but I just cannot forget that incident and cannot understand how he got that so so wrong, and how he was even in the mood when we had had such horrible news.

AIBU here? Is he just a normal bloke? Is it me that’s the problem because of having a low sex drive and a toddler that doesn’t sleep well? Should I just be getting on with my ‘wifely’ duties? Or am I right to feel like he’s not respecting my boundaries and how I feel?

I’d sit down for a very serious chat- come at it from the position that he has clearly misunderstood when you said to completely take it off the table the rest of the week. I’d be 10% honest and specific and see if he knocks it on the head. If not OP I’d be looking to leave, ignoring your boundaries is abuse.

100%!

@KettrickenSmiled i guess because of BF, so I just always have done. DS cries, and I get up. I often think it doesn’t always need to be me, especially as I’m working PT too…but I just always get up.

@kateclarke well that’s a horrible thought, but yes, I would be completely horrified and heartbroken. One of the most important things for me is that DS grows up respecting women and as a kind considerate person.

“but he’s actually a kind good person, I just think his sex drive takes over and he forgets everything else”
NO! This isn’t what’s happening! Hopefully enough people here have have assured you there’s no such thing as “male needs” and a sex drive doesn’t turn a man into a monster.

If a man has a stiffy and it’s feeling uncomfortable he can masturbate, and most men do that. Though if he’s meant to be working from home why isn’t he thinking about work not sex? He shouldn’t be using WFH as an opportunity for sex.

He’s one of those men who has no idea that an invitation to “help him out” by servicing his erection is a total turnoff for most women. It isn’t “hey wife, I really desire you”, it’s “hey wife, here’s my cock, get on with it!”

WTactualF?

I don't know who's been brainwashing you with this nonsense OP but you can set it aside right now.

No, sex isn't like needing sleep.
Without sleep - we would become extremely unwell, then die.
We NEED sleep.

Without sex - we would feel horny, & use our own hands.
We WANT sex. It is not a need.

Men therefore do not NEED sex any more than women do.
Some men have high sex drives. So do some women.

Most women are less interested in sex for a couple of years post-partum. This is something that should really be taught in school sex ed. Desire ebbs & flows, for all sorts of reasons, but nobody has a RIGHT to sex & nobody NEEDS it. Wanting is a different matter.

I think you are reasonable to feel seriously pissed off that your H pretended to go along with your "once a week, & all pressure off me outside of that, while I recover my sense of self & desire after having a baby" - but then instantly reneged. Have you read him the riot act about that dishonesty & lack of respect yet?

@DowntonCrabby yes I think you are right, I need to make it clearer to him obviously. The awful thing is, I suggested that once a week thing, to enable me to show him more affection, not for my benefit, but to try and make him happier, as he often mopes about and I try my best to keep moral up, and so I thought maybe if I was able to show him more affection he might feel a bit happier 😖

Text him back:

’We discussed your sex pestering and agreed that we would set a day a week aside for intimacy/sex. Yet since that agreement, you’ve consistently pestered me for sex, which shows complete and utter disregard for me as a person. The more you pester me, the more I am turned off by your selfish attitude. Either you stop the sex pestering or we stop having any sex or intimacy at all. Let this be a warning because I mean it.’

i guess because of BF, so I just always have done. DS cries, and I get up. I often think it doesn’t always need to be me, especially as I’m working PT too…but I just always get up.

Bloody hell OP.
Express some milk, & kick your lazy sex pest's arse out of bed to attend to his own child ffs.

I cannot believe the man's entitlement.

@FictionalCharacter he actually regularly says he’s struggling to focus on work because of his sex drive 🤦🏻‍♀️

He sounds creepy and predatory towards you. He ignores your wishes and has no respect for you other than as a sex doll: not as a human.

If sex is uncomfortable then you never have to have it op: a good man wouldn’t want to have sex with you when it made you uncomfortable

He is disgusting OP. I can't believe he texts to summon you to service him.

FUCK OFF YOU CREEPY SEX PEST is all you need to reply. Maybe he'll get the message then.

@Shoxfordian ors obviously from the replies I’ve been getting this very very wrong. I’ve just been trying to muddle through and keep him and DS happy and realise now I’ve been completely disrespecting myself. I just accepted it was harder for mums and that was just part of being a mother 🤦🏻‍♀️ I am extremely committed to my DS and I do think DH struggles with that. I can see why he might feel neglected, but that doesn’t mean his behaviour is acceptable I know that.

Competing for a attention with your own baby is an another ugly trait. He sounds like a man child, not an adult.

Spell out to him that he's behaving like a repellent giant toddler, wanting to clutch at you all the time.
Except he's not a toddler, he's a selfish adult.

Well most of what needs to be said has been. But he's seriously texting you, after you've made his lunch, got him a cuppa, tended to his child and he is texting you to ask if you're in the mood? Like a summons? He can't even be bothered to attempt to romance you in any way, not so much as an offer to make you lunch in an attempt to show willing, he just lies upstairs on his arse having finished the sandwich and tea you've made sending you texts to see if you can run back up to provide yet another service? Does he think you're his maid? And his chef, nanny, and personal (unpaid) prostitute?

He’s being ridiculous. Most men, including those with high sex drives, get through a day at work and manage to survive without needing to be “helped out”. Even if they WFH.

@LifesNotEnidBlyton hmm it doesn’t paint a pretty picture 😖

"am extremely committed to my DS and I do think DH struggles with that".

Oh, heaven forbid! A mother, committed to her child of all things! The poor flower, it must be so hard for him only getting his end away once a week because he's gone and had a baby with a woman thats committed to taking care of it.

Sorry but from all you've said I'd have to leave. He's a full on nuisance. Helps out fuck all with his kid and resents YOU for not wanting to have sex at the drop of a hat. I couldn't live like this - I'm surprised you still have any respect for him.

My ex made me feel like this - I was doing everything, plus working, and he couldn't even be bothered to have a coffee with me (it became a standing joke that if I came into the living room and sat down, he would immediately leave it), yet he made it out to be my fault we weren't having sex, that I didn't want to have sex, when really, it was that I didn't want to have the sex that was on offer from him - unfulfilling, when he wanted - no matter how inconvenient to me - and at the drop of a hat with no effort on his part.

I can't believe the gaslighting job they do on us. I enjoy sex, I want to have sex, but I want to have good sex.

@VladmirsPoutine he does do a lot for us in other ways, but I do know I’ve let things get out of hand and we need to make some serious changes.

@QuinkWashable i did say to him the other day that we spend no time together, as a couple or as a family. He prioritises diy, walking the dog etc.

Why are you making a grown man his lunch, & tea, & serving it to him like you are his maid?

You work too, you are the ONLY parent who tends to your child at night ... I bet you do all the housework, shopping, cooking, domestic organisation as well don't you?

@KettrickenSmiled actually believe or not, he does help with the house and cooking. I guess I make him his lunch just because I’m making mine and so just get on with it, but I do wish he would bring me a cup of tea now and then.

I would be telling him in no uncertain terms where to get off as clearly the first explanation didn't work.
Men don't have sexual needs any more than women do. They have desires, like us, which is completely different to needs.
Sex is like chocolate, no one needs it, but most of us want it.
Sometimes we want chocolate twice a week, sometimes twice a day, sometimes weeks between one bar and the next.
You need to tell him that he either respects you as a person or the sex life will be nothing more than him using his hand.