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 just noticed this too:
”my DH wants a lot of attention from me and is almost quite needy since having DS.”
I remember being warned about this in antenatal classes - the midwife said that some men get jealous when their wives are BF. And it is indeed a thing, and could be part of why your H is being so much more of a pest right now.
He’s the problem not you, and it’s him who needs to change. If he wants to still be a husband and father.

So if he won’t make you tea, you don’t take him lunch. Simple.

I've read the whole thread and he sounds like a selfish twat who has evolved into even more of a bellend as the thread has progressed. You sound so lovely and deserve so much better.

I'm very sorry that no man has ever taken the trouble to learn how to please you in bed.

But OP look at the way even you phrase this.

He "helps with the house".

Why do either of you feel he is "helping" - by doing some of what needs doing in the house you share?

@Shoopdadoop oh you’re very sweet. I will have to have a long hard think about how I want to deal with all of this, as for my sons sake, I want to sort it out.

@KettrickenSmiled yeah you’re right. Unfortunately I was brought up in a house where my mum did 100% of the childcare, cooking, cleaning and worked and just got on with it, whereas of course realise that’s not on and not right, but it’s hard to change your mentality when that’s all you know.

@KettrickenSmiled i even often feel guilty for not being able to do it all by myself…and regularly try to do it all by myself 😖

@FictionalCharacter hmm interesting. We did actually have a conversation when DS was very little and DH admitted to feeling jealous of him, he was very very upset that he felt like this though.

Stop with this men have needs nonsense. He is sexually harassing you. In your own fucking home! Would you tolerate this filth from a work colleague, or a neighbour? On a night out?

You've told this creep repeatedly to stop and he hasn’t. Stop making excuses that he doesn’t understand. Of course he does because he’s not doing it to anyone else.

He is sexually harassing you and manipulating you. There is a type of man who uses sex as a tool to bully, harass and degrade his partner. He is deliberately trying to degrade and humiliate you with his dirty requests.

@Sausagelove i honestly don’t think he’s doing it intentionally or knowingly. I will just have to have a very serious conversation with him about it, as me continuing to turn him down doesn’t seem to be getting the message through. I do realise that doesn’t quite sound right, but as my husband and father of my child I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt and an opportunity to change.

Thinking about you OP - are the prolapses being treated? Are you seeing a specialist physio about them? Make time for yourself to do this, find money if possible/it'll take too long otherwise to go to a physio privately - it will revolutionise your life.

Sex needs to be enjoyable, or else why would you want to do it. Would he want to do it if it caused him pain? Of course not!

@QuinkWashable yes been seeing a physio. I also think it’s hard to feel good about sex after a traumatic birth, and my birth very much felt like it happened to me, rather than something I did, and that in itself almost feels like an assault in some ways. I probably need counselling for that too really!

During your birth it would seem that health professionals sacrificed your body, damaging you and leaving you with lifelong injuries that you will need to consider returning to health professionals to be mended, possibly reliving the trauma.
Your baby's birth will have effected them too and both of you may benefit from seeing physio to aid your baby's sleep and your ongoing process.
I would also look into diet/increasing your protein and core muscle control to support your pelvic floor. Your prolapse should not be lifelong.

Your husband would have also suffered from your baby's birth. Many men naturally want to be the hero of the hour and he failed in protecting you from being so severely injured. This will effect his bond with your baby and your relationship with him.

He may well be on the spectrum and you could be blunt with him or leave. But please do not tolerate further abuse from him.

@Nowthenhere i should probably try and prioritise exercise. I don’t do any as any childcare I can get (from grandparents) I have to work and so haven’t figured out a way of fitting it in so far. My baby did have some injuries from birth and we did see an osteopath, as far as I can tell there are no lasting effects on him but maybe I should reconsider. I wish I could say that was true about DH, but my mum was my birth partner, unless this could be true because he wasn’t there and able to help, I don’t know.

So many red flags, it's classic abusive man. Starts off by getting with a woman who has already been groomed by her past to think she alone is responsible for cooking, cleaning, food shop, food planning, laundry, childcare, etc. and any tiny contribution from him is 'helping' her and she should be grateful for it.

Tells her that he expects sex on demand. If she doesn't consent to intercourse she must fellate or masturbate him, when he wants it, even if she doesn't. She must accept that him demanding sexual attention is because of his massive lordly sex drive so she must understand and not complain.

Of course all of this works for meek little woman because she can put his needs first and all others after. Until she has a child. She can no longer prioritise the unreasonable demands of the Lord and Master because she knows that the child's need MUST come first.

This is why so many women do not realise their partner is abusive until the first child comes along. He then has to ramp up his demands to get what he wants. He will use many different tactics, bullying, belittling, gaslighting, coercing, sulking, crying, all of them abusive. Sadly, for many women, they do end up putting him before their child.

They all say he is a good man, a good father. They are wrong. Good men and good fathers do not behave like this.

But sweetheart - you HAVE given that opportuntiy.

What part of "sex is currently uncomfortable for me, my desire is nixed as I'm breastfeeding & sleep deprived, you perstering me is offputting so let's agree once a week for the foreseabale, & you don't pester me outside of that window" do you think he is having trouble understanding?
HE TOLD YOU HE AGREED & WOULD STICK TO THIS.

You are so nice! Which is a lovely trait - but not when your other half is actively nasty to you. And texting you for another room, summoning you with a peremptory demand for a hand job or whatever IS nasty.

@WallaceinAnderland hmm I have to say I disagree with this, as although little, I’m not meek. I do stand up for myself. However in this case I’ve just been trying to muddle through and keep my family happy and have not been considering my own needs. DS is my priority and I thought I was doing right by him by trying to keep the peace, but I know long term that will negatively impact him and changes have to be made.

No one 'needs' sex. He wants it, unfortunately in life we can't always get what we want.

@KettrickenSmiled yeah I see where you’re coming from. I’ve not looked at any of this from this perspective before, so I think I need to digest it and sleep on it all.

This.

Your posts are so sad to read.

You are being treated like meat, harrassed, tormented and stalked in your own home.

This is not a nice man.

You are being abused by him.

Please call Womens aid for a chat.

You need to hear out loud the words of just how not normal nor acceptable this is.

For christ sake do not have another child with him.

That he could text you explicitly when you have had very upsetting news is so messed up and chilling.

This is not normal.
HE is not normal.

If you can i would look at moving out of the shared bedroom and take space.

Tell him you don't want him to touch or speak to you about sex as you need to process his behaviour.

Tell him you are going to speak to people about how you feel.......see how he likes the idea of that.

Men like him, know well they are behaving like sex pests and his response will be interesting for you to see.

I think he isn't far away from raping you in your sleep, such is his complete disconnect from normal respect for women.

Stop feeling you are the problem.

HE is the problem and you need to protect yourself, physically protect yourself, from him.

I honestly don’t think he’s doing it intentionally or knowingly.

Are you suggesting he doesn’t know what he is doing? Or that he doesn’t know it upsets you?

what did he do when you ended up in tears about his messages again?

He’s a sex pest OP. There is no way I’d be putting up with this behaviour and you shouldn’t be putting up with it either.

It’s sickening how regularly these threads come up. So many women thinking having a sexual predator in the house is normal. Disgusting misogynistic predatory behaviour being shown as ‘normal’ to kids. Coerced sex is not consent.

This male needs to let his employer know he is incapable of focusing at his job because of his penis.

As for him announcing he is jealous of a baby..I have no words. What an irredeemable failure of a man.

OP you do not stand up for yourself. If you did he wouldn't still be treating you like this, you would be long gone.

You are one of the many women who need it spelling out, bluntly. None of this is your fault, you just don't know how to recognise a bad 'un. This is why many women stay with men like him, make excuses and blames themselves.

Your response to a sex pest? - I must try and prioritise excercise