To not want to be woken for sex?

[Niceplaceforanap]

Long time lurker, first time poster. I’ve been with my husband for over 15 years and we have two young kids, 6 and 3. I’d say our sex life really comes and goes depending on stress, life and just general desire. We’ve had patches where we’ve not had sex for a few months, which always makes me quite worried. We have been better at making more an effort recently (still only like once or twice a month), but it’s hard when you’re just knackered from kids and work and the mental load etc etc.

my issue is I still feel like when we have sex is really down to him, and increasingly his “when” is in the middle of the night. This happened on Sunday night when he woke me up making moves at 1am when he knew I was fast asleep and had to get up at 6am for school run, a really stressful workday, bla bla. If I try and resist he will persist for a bit but gets the message and will leave me alone if I ask, but sometimes I do relent as I feel like I should try even though I’m exhausted as it’s bad if I’m always saying no, especially as it’s me saying we need to make more effort to have more intimate time, just wish he would try it on at a normal time when I’m actually fully conscious! He falls straight to sleep after and then I’m left awake going through my mental to do list.

i’m aware our sex life could be better, and I’m probably quite vanilla, but surely this isn’t great either? Honestly, sometimes a vibrator is so much easier!!

he is generally a very good guy and very much a feminist. But still, I’m not mad keen on these middle of the night sexy wakeups.

Serious conversation needs to happen. Tell him no. If he rides your boundaries then divorce him.

This. He can sort himself out if he wakes you after 11pm each night he fancies a shag. Especially if you're up early the next day.

You're having sex under duress. What are you scared of if you don't do it?

Sorry OP but you’re deluded if you think he’s a feminist. I’d tell him straight and if he continues I’d have to think seriously about this relationship.

He would have only tried once in this house. Yanbu. He is taking the women need to be relaxed advice to literally, nothing more relaxing than my precious sleep x

Is he watching porn on his phone then waking you up 😟

FFS my husband does this! He starts with his hands on me trying to get me in the mood so I grab them and shove them away. I never cave in during ridiculous times otherwise he would carry on. I have had words now it's more like 6am

Talk to him about consent Op. It's not consent if he wakes you then pesters until you give in through guilt or just to get some sleep. If he's a feminist he'll respect that you don't want to be woken

Sorry but if my husband woke me up in the middle of the night I’d go ballistic. Especially if he was then ‘persistent’ when I resisted. Super creepy.

Is he doing this deliberately and calculating to control you? A way of dominating you. Sounds like an Andrew Tate trick to prove to himself that he is the boss.

Well that’s rape btw… I hope you’re ok

I’d be raging

“Woke me making moves” is sexual assault

The more worrying this is that you needed to come here to mums net to sense check and you couldn’t just say ‘hi DH I don’t like being woken up when you’re horny pls just sort yourself out instead if that happens when I’m asleep. I’d love more intimacy in general though while awake let’s make time for that’

I would go fucking nuclear if my husband did this. Nothing is more important than sleep, especially when you have small children.

You made some absolutely stellar points which I nodded along to… then proceeded to blame the woman in your sign off, I also ‘despair’. It’s quite clearly on this gross man.

He’s not a feminist…..

of course YANBU.
If anyone other than my small children woke me at 1am I would stab them

He should only be waking you up if the house is on fire or there is a medical emergency.
Nothing nice would be happening for anyone if they treated me like that.

Hey all,

Thanks so much for all the replies, feels confronting in the cold light of day! By moves, he’s not molesting me, but might be pressing up against me in a hopeful way if that makes sense (cringe to type that out). I don’t think I’ve helped myself as I’ve told him over the years I want him to make more effort to make sure we don’t leave it too long again, so I suppose there’s this voice in my head telling me that I’ve told him to do this? I’m also not great at initiating.

despite being together all this time and being able to talk about nearly anything, we are shite at talking about sex with each other. I don’t know what happens to me, but I find it so difficult to talk about with him as I’m so conscious of how personal it is and say the wrong thing and it’s hard to recover.

we do make time for each other with dates in the evening etc. and we’re good at splitting childcare so we can each go out with friends, but we’ve never had a night away together.

part of the problem I think as there feels such little time. I often go to bed first about 10ish, and he’s more like 11 so not crazy. I like being the first to bed so I can read and have a minute of no one bothering me.

but yes, we defo need to try and talk about this and be adults. We had couple counselling early on in our marriage and this difficulty in talking about sex has always been an issue.

Maybe I'm not understanding but your dh wakes you at 1am trying it on but doesn't try it on when you're both in bed before you go to sleep?? Is that right?
If that's the case I don't understand why he's waiting until 1am.....?

This is awful OP.

Of course you don’t want sex in the middle of the night when you’re asleep.

He needs to be told a firm no to doing this again, and that you do not consent to sex that you’ve had to be woken up for. It’s a blanket no.

I think when you’re married with kids, sex tends to be something that needs a bit of build up and time set aside for it. Middle of the night sex is for couples in the first throws of passion (if they both want it of course, but I mean that’s more likely in this situation)

Op you need to have a proper conversation about this in daylight with your dh when you have a calm moment together and sex is very not on the agenda. Go for a walk together if you don’t want to face him directly.

You have been together with your dh for fifteen years so you need to get over your shyness.

Yes, he absolutely should know, without being told, not to wake up a busy mother in the middle of the night for sex, when they have an early start in the morning. But communication between you isn’t clear, you have said you wanted to make time for more sex, and , if he is a thoughtful companion otherwise, he has obviously misinterpreted this statement. So you need to talk to him about it in very clear terms.

Also, if you rarely initiate, then he is currently having more of a say over ‘when’. Could you book a babysitter occasionally and go to a hotel room on a ‘date’ night?

Or how about agreeing to an early night and then setting the alarm for an hour or so earlier than normal, for sex early in the morning? Maybe at weekends if weekdays are too fraught?

Also, bluntly you may need to explain to him about the difference in men and women’s sexuality in that for men, sex is a huge stress release and usually one orgasm is enough. Whereas for women, with the ability to go again, it doesn’t always work that way, especially if the man is selfish in bed or still believes that piv is the only way to make it happen.

Just talk to him. Yes he is being a selfish arse but he is also not a mind reader!

Oh no way! Yanbu. I thought you were going to say 6am or something - I don’t mind if I’ve actually had my sleep, but I wouldn’t be happy someone interrupting me in the wee hours. No way!

YANBU

no no no no no no no no no

not acceptable

complete disregard for you as a person and treating you like a vending machine. Just no way. But you have to be able to say so.