Husbands says his needs are not being met - I’m 8wpp!

[Stephanieava]

I’ll try to keep this short

I’m currently 8wpp. I had a terrible pregnancy, sickness the entire way & just all round awful. Me & my DH had zero sexual intimacy during that 9 months, plus a couple of months before (beside the obvious) when I was also pregnant but it unfortunately resulted in a loss. Got pregnant again within a month

Anyway, today my DH has sat me down for a conversation telling me his needs aren’t being met & i’m not making his feelings a priority

We had an incident at 1wpp (section) where I had been keeping a secret from him (financial) & he was very cross when I came clean. I said i’d do anything to keep him from leaving & made a joke about BJs everyday etc (god that’s so juvenile). Baring in mind I was 1wpp, & not in the best head space anyway. We had about 2 weeks where I really made an effort… and this sounds awful… it wasn’t because I wanted to, i felt i had to to keep him here. Not that he was pressuring me into it or anything, but i was trying anything to get our relationship back to normal. Which it now feels like it is

My headspace just isn’t in the place of giving sexual favours. I’m still in pain, my boobs are hurting from BF, i’m exhausted, my MH isn’t great etc etc etc

His point is that I was doing ‘bits’ for those 2 weeks, so why was it alright then but not alright now

I said i suppose i see his point, but i don’t want to feel cooerced into doing something sexual when I don’t feel like it. It’s not the first time he’s said this to me though, he also said it when i was pregnant

I suppose neither of us are being unreasonable in our stances, we’re allowed our feelings. But a part of me feels he should swallow them as I’m still only 8wpp!

How can I explain this to him in a decent way?

Why would you not want to pleasure him? Is he actually for real? Errrr because you're sore and exhausted? Tell you what, give his cock and balls a decent fucking pummeling and then ask if he fancies being pleasured.
Or even better, ask him exactly what he is doing to meet your emotional needs other than battering your mental health thinking with his fucking dick.

Is it? What matchbox did you get that off the back of? 🤣

Not really interested in some crank policing my language, to be honest. If the uncensored modern internet is a problem for you then I suggest you remove yourself.

😊

That's not love .
Making you feel guilty and pressured into doing something you are not ready for and probably not physically up to is awful.
I had c sections and sex or anything linked to it was so far from my mind.
It was months till I felt able to even think about that stuff.

Christ. He's all 'wah wah wah. Me me me'

It won't fucking drop off!

Christ men like this enrage me.

It was bloody 2 months ago!!! Her vagina is fully healed,

Did you miss the bit where she had a c-section @PregnancyHormonesss ?

I've had 3 of the bastards and I felt very vulnerable 8 weeks pp and certainly not really physically comfortable enough to have sex.

And how is he meeting your needs and making your needs & wellbeing a priority?

God i feel really terrible at how i’ve made him come across, though i do appreciate the support

the financial side of things, i was using the credit cards for living expenses, things for my eldest & new things for the baby. I am self employed & wasn’t bringing in my usual amount as i wasn’t able to work as much due to HG & severe PGP in pregnancy. He didn’t really ask about the money & i didn’t really tell. He does pay most of the bills but i have my own account for spending & some other bills like dentist, nursery etc

he also isn’t pressuring me into intercourse, he was meaning that i’m not pleasuring him by hand or mouth! He is very involved with the baby, though i do the nights as i am breastfeeding. He does change the nappy, give expressed bottles when he can, looks after baby & allows me time to myself, takes care of our eldest whilst im feeding

my point in all of it was that i think he’s being unreasonable to hold me to a standard when i was 1wpp, mentally unwell (my mh still isnt great tbh as the birth was very traumatic & i’m not healed properly from the section) & performing ‘acts’ because i thought that’s what i had to do at the time to keep the peace- he wasnt forcing me to do this. But now he’s bringing it up asking why it’s stopped

god i dont know. Postpartum is wild, i literally feel like a shell of myself at the minute

I am sorry he is being so utterly vile to you. Your updates are increasingly hard to read as you start to defend his behaviour. His pressure on you, coercion of you, his inversion of who needs support right now, is disgusting. I don’t even know what advice to give except to side with you and say he is in the wrong, totally and absolutely.

God i feel really terrible at how i’ve made him come across, though i do appreciate the support

I know exactly how you feel and this is part of the script that every abused woman goes through when she first seeks help. But you know all you've done is tell the truth, right? You haven't tried to make it sound worse than it is and you know you haven't.

The hundreds of women on this thread haven't all got the wrong end of the stick. We have read your balanced and true account of his behaviour and we see that it's abusive. It really is.

He is the father of your child. Your finances during pregnancy and maternity leave should be at the top of his priority list.

holding you to promises of sexual favors is simply vile.

This all sounds like you need couples therapy. Sexual consent and financial control or deceit are pretty big topics.

So… he doesn’t support you financially when you’re too ill to work, forcing you to get into debt.

He accepts sexual favours when he knows you’re desperate to keep him.

He whines when the sexual favours stop, and does not care at all about what the pregnancy/birth did to your body and mind - except that it made you less sexually available for him.

He’s truly a prince among men, isn’t he?

14 years ago I was in a very similar situation to you.
I had a two year old and a 3month old and my partner (father of both children) complained about not having enough physical intimacy. He booked for us to go to Relate and I just sat there and sobbed. I'd also had 3 miscarriages between my two births.
The counsellor was very stern to my (now ex) partner and told him that my hormones were everywhere and to have some compassion.
We went on to have a third child in 2012 and I finally left him 3yrs ago. I never forgave him for putting his own needs above mine, when my body & mind were in such limbo. I was
Self-employed and went back to work 4wks after the birth of each of my children, I did all the cooking cleaning, admin, everything. I later found out about his excessive porn addiction and blamed myself for this (he blamed me too.)
The breakup has been awful and amongst other things he has been done for coercive & controlling behaviour.
Believe you me, what you are seeing now are your husbands true colours. I can recommend doing the freedom programme where you'll learn about many traits of an abusive partner. It's been a breath of fresh air to me! Good luck.

your DH didn't consider supporting the family financially when you were unable to work during the pregnancy?

Op I hope you find the strength to leave.

Your OH is not a good man.

He is gaslighting you, abusing you and you need to get out.

This is a damaging situation for you.

Just read your updates. He really is a manipulative piece of shit

Oh give over😂

the financial side of things, i was using the credit cards for living expenses, things for my eldest & new things for the baby. I am self employed & wasn’t bringing in my usual amount as i wasn’t able to work as much due to HG & severe PGP in pregnancy. He didn’t really ask about the money & i didn’t really tell. He does pay most of the bills but i have my own account for spending & some other bills like dentist, nursery etc

But your H must have known you couldn’t earn what you normally do! Why didn’t this come up in conversation (from either side)? Are you in a position where money is ‘his’ and ‘yours’ and ‘yours’ is earmarked for childcare and material things for the kids? Because that’s not fair. These are both your children!

As for you should be thinking about your H’s pleasure- can he really not see that you have three people’s needs to think about now before you can get to his? Even if you put your needs below his, you still have a young child and a baby to care for before you can start thinking about his.

This whole scenario doesn’t sound quite right. I wonder if he is controlling and coercive and that’s how the financial issue and then the sex thing started in the first place.

why would i not want to be pleasing my partner when it would make him happy.

This seems to be his sticking point. You should want to do this to make him happy even if you feel crap.

What is he doing to make you feel good, how is he pleasuring you, how is he making you happy? Is he bringing flowers, chocolates, gifts after work. Is he making you your favourite meals. Is he running you a bath. Is he giving massages.

Is he going out of his way to look after you and feeling like it's not reciprocated? Or is he expecting you to look after him but not looking after you?

I remember my ex kicking off becuase I could run my baby a bath but couldn't rum him a bath for when he got home from work. I hadn't showered in over a week, was not looking after myself and a grown man was kicking off becuase I hadn't ran him a bath. He had spoken before ttc that it was important to him to be treated as an equal. I thought he meant equal parent, turns out he meant equal baby 🤔

he also isn’t pressuring me into intercourse, he was meaning that i’m not pleasuring him by hand or mouth

Same difference, op.

In a healthy relationship to a good man, no wife would EVER think at 8wks pp, 'I need to keep my dh happy, so I'll give him blow jobs.' Regardless of their current mental health state.

That already marked you out as not being in a healthy equal relationship. You are in a relationship whereby your role is to keep him happy. You have both seemingly settled in to these roles to the point that now you think him demanding the continuation of his blow jobs is a perfectly normal request from a fantastic father.

It isn't at all.

If your relationship was good, it would never have crossed your mind that you need to give him blow jobs to keep him happy. He would have been taking care of you and his baby as his first priority, and put his own wants aside. Like good parents do.

You ARE being sexually abused. Coercion.

It also sounds like you are being financially abused now too. When you weren't working due to your pregnancy, a good man would have said 'shall I transfer some money to you/shall we set up a joint account.' You have taken the blame for getting in to debt, whereas you got in to debt because he didn't step up like he should have financially.

I'm sorry that your life experiences to date have led you to believe this is a good man. I hope you work it out soon so that your children aren't role modelled this inequality much longer.

Intercourse doesn’t have to mean penetration. What you are describing is really worrying OP. No matter what he does outside of this, his behaviour has been shocking at an incredibly vulnerable time in your life. Mentally and physically you should not be prioritising his sexual needs so soon after birth unless you wanted to, and even then they recommend waiting 6 weeks for a reason.

Imagine if you had had major abdominal surgery that wasn’t related to pregnancy, I bet you’d think slightly differently about his requests. It’s because he is putting himself in competition with the baby and wanting a part of you that nobody else can have.

He should have been paying your living expenses and all expenses relating to the children while you were unable to work.

When you revealed to him that you had run up debts during pregnancy trying to pay these necessary expenses he should have felt downright ashamed of himself and like a failure as a man, father, husband and human being for not taking care of his family. Instead he got shitty with you and is now pressuring you for sex.

The man is a walking red flag and you should not subject yourself and your children to a life with him.

Yuk! What a dreadful person you are. Some women take much longer to recover from childbirth and not everyone is fully healed after 8 weeks. No-one should be having sex that they don't want.

Does that mean that a woman who has been, for example, physically and sexually abused by a man would lose the moral high ground if she called that man a cunt? That swearing is on the same level as abuse?