To not have sex unless I actually want to

[OverOverOverAgain]

Me and my husband been having issues for last couple of years. We have young kids amd full time jobs and we have grown apart. We don't have much in common

Tonight we had a "chat" after a month or so of barely saying two words to each other

I've slept in spare room for months. My choice. I find it hard to sleep next to a man I barely talk to for days.

He said our lack of sex life was a driver in our issues. I said its a symptom of the issues, not the cause. He disagreed and said we should schedule sex and commit to regular sex and the closeness and love will follow

I said "but I don't want to have sex when its so frosty between us" and he said "so?". And I said "i have to want it"

He replied "well I'd rather you want to have sex but even if you dont - I'd rather you just did it anyway - because I need ti have sex, and our relationship needs it. You refusing is causing huge distance" and so on.

Im just sat here by myself at 11pm on a Sunday unable to sleep mulling it over in my head

But it feels like a really shitty thing to have said. But maybe there is a grain of truth to it. I need some advice!

There was an influx some time ago (maybe there was a thread that made fun of a particular subreddit or something). Some of them are honest about being men and some pretend to be women.

I know men have as much right to be here as women and some of them treat it like a normal lifestyle/parenting forum. But most of them do seem to be here for the purpose of scolding, correcting, whinging, patronising, deflecting and complaining because they're totally threatened by the existence of a largely female space and even more aggravated that it reflects being largely female instead of being some morally perfect court of justice, like women's spaces, and only women's spaces, are apparently obliged to be.

They think it makes them victims.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/4173710546254265

Has been going on since forever!!

Will your children at 30 years of age thank you for leading such an utterly miserable existence, just for their benefit, or will they wish their lovely Mum had stood up and rejected that misery and walked tall and left him? Would the want her to stay, or find happiness?

As they get older they'll absolutely pick up on the relationship between the two of you. Do you want your children to think that's what a healthy relationship looks like? Do you want to spend the next 25 years with this arsehole until they've flown the nest and have families of their own? If you can't handle the thought of this stretching into the future then isn't it best to get out now? Why waste your best years with such a knob when you could be investing these years in making a secure, strong and independent future for yourself. The sooner you leave the sooner you can create a happy household for you AND your children, not just your children.

If would be far better for him to initiate romance and date nights every thing that’s needed to bring them close together, if he truly cared for and loved his wife.

Much better than the vulnerability of a penis thrusting inside you that you don’t want with a man you don’t fancy who can’t be bothered to get close to you with the romance and date nights. 😪

Was he ever a considerate lover? I can’t imagine so from what you say about the kind of sex he wants you to endure. 😣

He absolutely gets it.100% He functions perfectly well in all other aspects of his life, doesn't he? And even if he was, initially, years ago a bit thick about it all he's had it explained to him repeatedly.

He gets it, and he wants you to be his fuckbot and maid and be quiet about it.

Only you can decide if you can tolerate him in your life.

@Newbutoldfather
And, we don’t actually know the tone or the words which he used to suggest they get back into the habit of having sex. Was it rapey or was it more a desperate plea?

The tone doesn't really matter here, the words were rapey and his idea was rapey so the tone just makes it bad or worse, but doesn't change what his idea actually was.

And so what if it's a desperate plea, the OP probably made many desperate pleas over the years for him to do stuff around the house or take on board things she said...and he didn't care and still doesn't care, it's not sadder or more desperate when the thing the person wants is sex.

If he was that desperate then he would listen to the OP and take what she said on board but he just ridicules her or ignores what she says.

So if he feels desperation it's his own doing.

Plus, we're talking about him having a wank here, after all. Yes, sex is much nicer and more fulfilling with a person who wants to have sex with you - but pigman has stated he'd be ok with her NOT wanting sex and letting him masturbate into her anyway.

After ignoring her attempts to get closer, barely speaking to her and leaving this to go to hell for years, he now literally just wants access to her flesh because it's nicer than wanking.

OP has stated too she has tried just lying back and thinking of England but she really struggles with it. I've just re read her responses and he has been awful. I feel so sorry for her.

He is gaslightighting you. If you are doing everything he checked out of your relationship long long ago. And it's not about remembering dishwasher tablets, it's about not treating you like the hired help. Now he wants to treat you like a sex worker.
In the kindest way, it absolutely is not you and you need to stop even entertaining his logic that there's anythig you can do to make things better.
I feel like he's an absolutely lost cause.
Has he always been like this? Or has it been a gradual decline?

Man wants sex with his wife (who never wants sex and has left the marital bed)

Mumsnet answer =
He is manipulative
He is controlling
He is abusive
He is a rapist
He is a criminal

Well no it's obviously not about him wanting sex. It's about what he does when he wants it. HUGE difference.

It would be like if you wanted ice cream, that's just a feeling, but if you broke into a shop to get some ice cream because all the shops were closed then that's very different.

Or in a relationship if a man wanted his partner to wear less revealing clothes, that's just a feeling, but it's the behaviour that matters, if he demands she wears different clothes and tells her what he expects her to wear then he's crossed the line.

This marriage is at crisis point because Op has withdrawn all sex, affection and intimacy. We don't know why, but she hasn't said anything about abuse, people are just making that up.

You've just made up at the marriage was at crisis point because OP withdrew all sex, affection and intimacy.

Anyway I reckon your prediction is completely wrong, your assumptions you made were way off the mark and the people you criticized were spot on.

You completely jumped the gun slating the OP and acting like she's the one with the fingers in her ears saying La la la, yet he's the one who has ignored her for years when she tried many times over the years to get through to him, and then in regards to the chat which led her to write this post OP was the one who initiated the chat and she's the one who wants to leave, not him, so I don't think she needs to be grateful he's not cheating or worried that he ends the marriage.

Men can be so damn selfish and unfeeling. If you’re having problems like this now, I feel for you but you remind me of me. Mine in the early days used to say to me’ turn over and let me stick it in because I need a good nights sleep’ and stupid me allowed myself to be treated like that. Strangely on Sat morning he calmly told me he’s slept with two prostitutes abroad. I haven’t processed it yet! I have had trust issues for years. Find g viagara in his pockets, seei g a text telling a friend to bring ‘the tablet’ to his room at 11pm. That same night he sent me a pic of two tiny yellow diamonds asking me what o thought of them! ( no intention of buying g them)
So please be careful. Ask yourself if you want this for the rest of your life. He will get worse. You do t have to have sex if you feel tired or Jist don’t fancy him Bit be prepared. He will cheat on you.

No amount of "intimate time" is going to make a lazy arse, sex demanding man-child attractive.

The OP works full time (as the main earner), takes on all the housework/child responsibilities - what exactly is this man bringing to the marriage? Apart from incessant whining that he "needs" sex?

Meanwhile if the OP stays in the marriage her children are learning that women do all the housework as well as the outside work and have to put up with however a man behaves.

These threads often have many people feeling sorry for the men and it's crazy.

All of the pain and sadness the woman must have felt over the years when it was death by a thousand papercuts every time he didn't listen or take anything on board or treated her like a skivvy is irrelevant because once it gets to the point that the man is so sad that he's not getting any sex then that's suddenly the saddest and most painful part of the story!!

I love sex, but respect in a relationship is a pre-requisite, I would be so fucking mad if a man treated me poorly, would not address any of the issues, ruined my enjoyment of sex (with him) and then he tried to turn around and say the issues were because I wouldn't have sex with him and suggested the solution be that I had sex with him when I didn't want to!

You don’t sound like you even like each other anymore. If you want to stay together (I’m not sure why you would given your description) then you’ll need to find a way forward which probably will feel extremely unromantic and unsexy but scheduling in dates, time together, and sex.

You need to start somewhere.

You absolutely should not have sex if you don’t want to but you have to try to want to.

It sounds like there’s a lot of resentment and if you can’t resolve it I don’t think you will be able to resurrect your relationship.

Couldn’t agree more.

I love sex. Thought I’d gone off it. Didn’t have it for over three years and experienced 9 years of always being told my ‘feelings’ were ‘wrong’

I left.

Turns out I hadn’t gone off sex at all, just sex with a man who couldn’t have cared less about how I actually felt