Nothing nothing sex

[smalltroll]

Hi all,

Me and dh no longer have sex. We have been married a while and have two primary age children. I know the lack of sex is not something dh is happy with but he doesn't often initiate anyway these days.

The problem is, I have made it clear to him that the lack of any physical touch and emotional connection outside of the bedroom is what has killed my sex drive but nothing changes.

I understand that people have different love languages, and dh does things for me such as acts of service, but he doesn't bother with me for days then all of a sudden becomes interested in me, it's very off putting and makes me feel used. There will be no kisses or hugs, no chats etc then on the day he wants sex, all of a sudden he's touching my bum or something.

When I bring this up he says that I don't initiate any physical contact either, which is true, but I don't then expect sex or suddenly start showing an interest one day knowing that's where I want it to lead.

I don't feel I can be physically affectionate outside the bedroom because any touch leads to dh thinking that we are going to have sex.

I have no idea what a healthy relationship looks like as I have no reference from childhood. We are good together in all other aspects of life. Is this fixable?

@shuggles, I take emotional connection to mean feeling cared about and loved. That your partner is interested in your day, listens to your worries and supports you.

Ignore this one, it's another baiting post. They know fine well what it means. Don't waste energy.

Fucking hell, something in the MN waters lately.

I’d suggest a sex therapist who can talk you through building up intimacy with each other.

to me this sounds fixable- it’s not that neither of you or one of you doesn’t want sex, it’s more that you are miscommunicating.

how about both agreeing to a week where you are physically affectionate with each other, but no sex. For example, taking half an hour to cuddle up on sofa. Might be easier to work up to it

OP, I separated from my last XP as a result (partly) of an attitude like this. I actually asked him for a hug and he said 'I can't hug you, I might get an erection.' I question him as to why that might be a problem and why he couldn't just get an erection and not mention it or refer to it and why it had anything to do with anything, but it seemed that, for him, getting an erection meant that we had to have sex. Therefore, any touch that was non-sexual was ruled out. He also couldn't have any physical contact after sex. It wore me down, after trying to understand him and communicate with him as to why this was so upsetting, he just couldn't get it.

🥱

So we had some issues within our marriage earlier this year.
It came down to lack of communication
So we have set some ground rules for our marriage

1. One night a week we have dinner without children, without phones and round the table with candles!! We have conversation, dinner and play a game....
2. Giving each other affection, and saying I love you regularly- even infront of children- hugs and kisses helps us stay close
3. Respect- the issues for us come from DH being a stay at home dad and doing not a lot in his day (she is at school 30hrs a week)... so respect to actually keep the house relatively clean and tidy
4. Both of us exercising regularly- has improved libido and our sex life immensely....
5. Going out for dinner/gym/fun every 6 weeks (even if it's in the day when kids are at school)
6. Going away once a year for 1/2 nights for us to reconnect...
7. If its not in the diary it doesn't happen (we diarise date nights, time alone, family time etc and regularly check diaries together)

My advice see what you want to change- and have a date night we find out of the house better to have serious conversations to come up with a plan..

OP, loss of intimacy is incredibly common in long term relationships especially after children.

It’s natural for us to want our partners to be all things to us. Reliable and steadfast but also fun and exciting. That’s hard to maintain over time. We fall into complacency and boredom.

I think you need to clearly explain to DP what you need… handholds, cuddles on the sofa, back rubs… but that you want an explicit agreement that it won’t lead to sex. You have to be able to trust him not to break that boundary, no matter how horny he gets. Then build on that. Get back into the habit of just touching each other without it being sexual, Re-learn how to be physically intimate.

I’d really recommend checking out Ester Perel’s talk about desire… https://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_the_secret_to_desire_in_a_long_term_relationship?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

Google sexual currency have him read up on it.

In meantime take sex off the table and to build up some sexual currency first.

would you both be up to see a sex therapist?

Also be explicit about sex being off the table but initiate the kisses and touches you want.

😂

Should've done that at the start of the thread, might've spared everyone the ball bearing in a tin can rattle it's turned into.

One of the most common reasons for a divorce, would you be ok with 50:50 custody?

I have actually tried to write a post similar to this in the past and couldn't articulate what I meant. You have described me and my DH exactly in your posts. Solidarity. It's rubbish :(

I recommend reading or listening to ‘how to not let having kids ruin your sex life’ by Karen Gurney. It’s really insightful and helps build the communication

Funnily enough with my extra DH it was the opposite way around - he said he didn’t want to hug me or be affectionate because I just would pounce on him like he was some kind of living dildo (my words not his). He felt used I think. We ended up divorced. So not very helpful but I think it’s very hard to overcome sexual differences.

That is understandable op. I would hate that too. It might be fixable with better communication. From what you’ve said it sounds like you could do with talking to a couples therapist? I am just thinking if it’s difficult for you two to talk about this and you don’t have healthy examples to inspire you it might help to have someone to facilitate the conversation. Ideally in your marriage you should both want roughly the same amount of romance and intimacy, not what you have now which is probably not great for either of you.

ignore the men are like dogs train them etc, this is edgy teenager stuff.

I don’t mind you on here. These women are being bitchy. ‘Mumsnet’ yet there are a lot of posts from people who don’t have kids because they don’t want kids, threads men have started and no one has commented saying they aren’t welcome. It’s all abit mean girls.
I think it helps to have a male perspective on such matters.

Thank you for the book recommendation, definitely going to read that.

Therapy is a good idea.

I think I do need to be more explicit because dh genuinely struggles to understand what I'm talking about at times.

I think getting a males perspective on relationship issues is really important.

As women, we do not think like men and vice versa.

OP can post and get multiple women’s opinions but it’s often the few men’s that actually have a bigger impact.

It’s like a man asking his male friends on his wife.
Yes they can give him good advice but often the advice from women about a woman is going to be better

Thank you very much for your kind words,it's their opinion but to be honest using words like creepy is a bit OTT if they look back over my previous posts they will see I've never posted anything creepy and always been serious especially given some of my life experience.

Thank you so much for your kind words it's nice to hear that this is not a majority held opinion

This is the opposite of what OP wants though.

She wants affection and intimacy without the sex.

Any time there is intimacy, he thinks it’s going to lead to sex.

So her giving him sex any time he is affectionate, is literally going to have the opposite effect of what she wants.

“Training” aside, would it be possible to suggest that you both take sex completely off the table for a few of weeks (maybe consider your hormonal cycle when deciding an end date) and ask him to practice non sexual intimacy with you in the meantime. Take the transaction out of it completely.

That might help you free to initiate hugs, closeness, holding hands, touch, maybe phone chats on the way to work, nice texts.

And if he needs to sort himself out turn a blind eye. But no sex until the time is up. And then it’s back on the table - but not guaranteed. This is just an experiment to see where it takes you and your sex drive. It’s about taking the pressure off.

And, it gives you an opportunity to respond openly and genuinely to what you like and appreciate, and gives him some practice.

I’m creeped out by the training conversation . And I know that what I’ve just said is going to be reviewed in that context. But we’ve had various occasions in our marriage where sex had to come off the table for a while, and our non sexual intimacy increased during the droughts. Not because I was training or manipulating or putting dh through hoops. It’s just what happened. It always brought us closer. That’s the context I’m coming from.

It might be harder when the reason for no sex isn’t as concrete but it might be worth a conversation at least?

Good luck op, it’s a tough one.

I mean you could just type "I have low standards and am willing to settle for crap men."

Sad to read this

I could have (mostly) written this post myself. DH and I have been together almost 20 years (met as teens) and have been married for ten with two DC. Sex life was great, albeit I've never been the most confident person in the world in bed, until this last year where we've probably had sex less than ten times.

For us it is a combination of things: work stresses, kids, depression meds (him), anxiety and ADHD (me), illness and general fatigue. I think the key thing for me though is feeling as though other needs aren't being met like a fair share of the mental load, and of course, intimacy that doesn't lead to sex. I love DH dearly and would love to get back to how things were. I've discussed it with him in the past (we went through a similar spell after our second DC was born - two under two was no joke!) and it made a difference for a while but now it's probably worse.

That is all to say that I'm right there with you and it's absolutely rubbish. A good conversation about getting other needs met and intimacy not leading to sex needs to be had here, I think. As I'm about to have to do the same again too. Good luck.