Being woken at 5am in a sexless marriage

[5ammadness]

My DH regularly falls asleep on the sofa after he's been drinking. It's not every night, or even every week, but last night was the 3rd time this week. He wakes up around 4am-5am, and then comes to bed, waking me up in the process.

I have to be up for work at 6.30am, usually 7 days a week (self employed). I have asked him not to do this. In the past he has promised to sleep in the spare room if it is past 1am, but he seems to have forgotten this.

Sometimes I can fall straight back to sleep, but sometimes I can't, and I lie awake until my alarm goes off at 6.30am. I am tired. Very tired.

Our other major problem, is that we don't have enough sex. This is his choice, not mine. The last time we had sex was in January. He knows this bothers me greatly, and would like to fix it.

However, last night, he came to bed at 515am again - and in an effort to be closer to me, he spooned me, which would be lovely, except

A) it woke me up and
B) it made me aroused as we were both naked, which meant that I was wide awake and incredibly frustrated.

Part of me was hoping that the closeness might turn him on too, but he just fell to sleep. So we are lying there, him asleep and me WIDE awake and very sexually frustrated, and I lost my cool. Can't remember exactly what I said, but I made it clear that this wasn't fair on me.

All he kept saying is "IT IS 5.30AM, I'M NOT TAKING ABOUT THIS NOW" - he repeated this about 20 times before storming off in to the spare room, where he is still asleep, and will remain so until he decides to get up, whereas I am up for work as usual.

AIBU here? I just want a normal sex life and to be able to sleep until 6.30am. I don't feel like I am asking for the moon on a stick here. I am so sad about it all.

Thanks for reading.

Sounds like you both need to knock the booze on the head for a month.

Yes, she originally described it as 'falls asleep' at 8:25, then SmigeonPigen refers to "falling asleep (passing out?)" at 8 :30. This becomes "passing out" according to coffeecupsandmelts at 8:34 and OP falls in line with this new narrative at 8:38.

You should decamp to the spare room and move all his gubbins onto the marital bed where you used to sleep. I would also tell him that if he's not prepared to enjoy a normal sexual relationship with you, you'll consider yourself free to find a man (or men) who will.

Oh good grief the delusion on the forum.

If this were a man who

-pestered his wife for sex
-got angry when he didn't get any off the back of a cuddle in bed
-had a conversation every two months about how she was not fulfilling his needs
-did not listen to his wife and issued a 'compromise' of weekly sex

We would be telling him that's it's because of him she drinks and sleeps on the sofa and that he is a sex pest who needs to leave her alone and look at himself to see what's he is doing wrong.

We would not say 'give her a serious ultimatum' to fox herself for you or we are over.

That's emotional manipulation

Married 20 years, never given or received an ultimatum. Unless you count 'If you don't go to the shops today I'll get the milk on the way home.' Does that count?

Ah, emotional abuse. What a way to manipulate your victim. 10/10

@Plbrookes you seem obsessed with a minor theoretical difference between “passing out when drunk” and “falling asleep when drunk”.

Does it really matter? It’s happening enough that it’s upsetting the OP and interfering with their sex life. And it’s very obviously a sign someone is drinking too much.

Talk about a red herring….

5ammadness · Today 09:32
I'm sure there are people up and down the Country, who haven't had sex since January, who are absolutely fine with that. I am not.

No one is disputing that but you really aren’t being honest with yourself.

He’s drinking far too much hence despite him being a kind person (your description) he constantly wakes you up in the night, knowing you can’t get back to sleep. This is because he’s under the influence of alcohol.

You both need to stop drinking and I expect you’ll find your relationship will improve immeasurably.

Leave him and find a new partner who doesn’t inconsiderately wake you and wants to shag most days at convenient times before bed or when first waking up

Okay, fellow self-employed person here - never mind the sex, working seven days a week isn't sustainable, for you, DH or your marriage. You need to sit down as a matter of urgency and rearrange your work so that you have at least one clear day off each week. This may be difficult, but you need to do it.

Yes, there are weeks when you end up working every single day, but they should be the exception not the rule.

Another thing you need to make sure of is that you've booked in the occasional two or three day break (and ideally at least one fortnight).

You should also possibly look at counselling; are you trying to avoid the issues you need to deal with from your Dad's alcoholism by being Little Miss Perfect with your business? Have you turned his alcoholism into your workoholism?

It's not a minor theoretical difference, it's a huge difference between having some drinks and falling asleep and passing out through alcohol. Obviously, it's much easier to characterise the latter behaviour as problematic, which is presumably why some posters on here are so keen to describe it like that. If someone stays up late with a couple of drinks to avoid intimacy, it's not the alcohol that's the problem. It would be, indeed, a red herring.

I'd start by sorting the spare room and buying a new mattress, in the days he passes out in the sofa sleep in the spare room.

As for the sex you need to sit down and have a frank conversation with him. If he simply doesn't want to, then you need to think if it's the relationship for you

And how 'he doesn't drink every night, not even every week' just happens to be 3 times THIS week . So many just skip the relevant parts .

Good grief is right, you are being dramatic. OP doesn't even approach her husband for sex anymore. How is she being a 'sex pest'?

They haven't had sex since January. How is she being a 'sex pest'?

Stating you are unhappy and what needs to change is not "emotional manipulation". Good grief, are you for real? You've never had a relationship. Have you.

Have you ever had a relationship?

Because issuing ultimatums is not a fundamental part of them.

In the 10 years I've been married I've never issued or been issued an ultimatum.

Do you understand the meaning of ultimatum? Because I'm not sure you do.

I can't imagine wanting sex, bit it certainly must be frustrating.

Yes, I do understand an ultimatum. It seems you don't. An ultimatum is a demand whose fulfillment is requested in a specified period of time and which is backed up by a threat to be followed through in case of noncompliance. An ultimatum is generally the final demand in a series of requests. Ie when you as the OP has said, has had several talks with him with nothing changing. A series of requests and talks, and you have a final one. Ergo we sort this out or our relationship won't survive. You also don't seem to have the slightest grasp of relationships or how they work. Calling a woman who hasn't had sex since January and never approaches or initiates sex a 'sex pest' shows your grasp of reality is very askew, not just delusional.

Just to answer all those calling him an alcoholic for “passing out” on the sofa.

In our house we regularly go to bed at different times as we have had different days and one is tired when the other isn’t.

Husband and wife can both fall asleep on the sofa watching TV or listening to music. Sometimes after a drink and sometimes not. Basically just unwinding in their own space at the end of their day.

Falling asleep in the sofa doesn’t make someone an alcoholic ffs.

So, Mangogirl12, how many ultimatums have you given in your current relationship? How many have you received? Have you ever been in a relationship which didn't rely on "demands whose fulfillment is requested in a specified period of time and which is backed up by a threat to be followed through in case of noncompliance."

I actually have a lot of empathy for you op. I understand what it is like to not feel desirable and to crave sex. I admit that I would frequently get upset about it and air my frustration. I didn’t mean to be a sex pest although I probably came across that way.

However, I feel very strongly that if my partner asks me to be loyal to him, then we should be in a sexual relationship. I understand that many people here will not understand that.

I would view the slightest touch as a hopeful possibility and then feel crushed when nothing happened. Fortunately for me, my husband had a medical condition that was easily sorted out once he realised that there was a problem.

For you, I would bet the problem is alcohol. Can you initially focus on giving up? Don’t keep alcohol in the house. It’ll take some time but I think regularly drinking will of course affect your sex life and his ability to get an erection.

Whilst I don’t think it’s right to give an ultimatum like
‘sex right now or it’s over’

…I do think a
‘I want to have a sex life and if that isn’t possible, then our marriage is over’
is a valid discussion and I would say that to a man or a woman. But then you have to be willing to go through with that and not just use it as a threat.

I think you should put a time frame on when you both should stop drinking and another time frame on how long you are willing to wait for the intimacy to return. E.g. three months and six months.

Then surely, if you actually understand that definition you can see that saying

"Do what I want or else" is emotionally manipulative?

The op needs to look at herself and decide what she wants. She can then present her husband either with the outcome eg "this isn't working and I want a divorce" or she can present her husband with a choice eg "I feel we are no longer working well as a couple. I've thought about it and I want our relationship to work. I would like to go to counseling and look at our relationship together, what are your thoughts"

Zero ultimatums required.

You seem quite immature in your understanding of relationships, are you quite young?

You’re self employed, your business is “very successful”, yet you have to get up at 6:30 and clearly do not like having to do so. Why do you do it? Why not change your working habits/location? Do you work with people in Asia or something?

You’ve just become incompatible as a couple? If you need to have sex regularly and it’s important to you, and he understands this but doesn’t want to, that is a fundamental flaw in your relationship, is it not?

setting aside how good your relationship is otherwise, or how his drinking is or isn’t an issue, on a basic level you don’t want the same things.

Is this some fictional male viewed MN?

In real world MN women are told all the time that if their partner's want sex they have to find some way to comply or meet those needs, including on a thread this week where the woman was being raped by her husband whilst too ill to fight him off.

Women and men are not equal. Your fatuous "if a man said this" is completely meaningless in a society which views men and women and their sexuality so differently.

Its so ridiculous that you have invented a scenario which is worlds away from the one described by the OP as some kind of faux "proof".

The problem in this case is an alcohol dependent man whose alcohol dependency is affecting his personal relationships.

Right, whatever. It’s semantics. There’s a lot of people on here who are bending over backwards to justify drunkenly falling asleep on the sofa but it clearly upsets the OP and isn’t helpful for intimacy and trust.

Whether or not the DH would meet a GP’s definition of an alcoholic and whether he falls asleep on the sofa because he’s pissed or because he wants to avoid sex: who knows? It doesn’t really matter. Either way it’s shit.

I’m honestly not sure which is worse and I wouldn’t want to be married to someone in either scenario. Its not working for the OP and it wouldn’t work for me.