to think you can be happy in a sexless marriage?

[Melodychimes]

I have not had sex with my dh since my dd was born 4 year ago although we do cuddle, he doesn't 'kiss' either.

I have abandoned bringing the subject up as it makes him feel emasculated and he masturbates to relief himself most nights.

He does not use porn, does not work late, he is not having an affair as I believe he is not that interested in sex and I know he went through a period of thinking he might be gay before we married.

The thing is, he is a good dad, we have a reasonably happy home life and I am not particularly interested in sex although I was when I wanted a baby.

Is this a taboo subject for men and women not to have much of a sex drive? I do know of friends who also do not have sex either (obviously I know others who do). My dh and I used to have fun but then it dwindled to very much him wanting me to masturate him and very little in it for me, so now he doesn't bother.

Is there anyone else out there who is in the same boat? By the way, we are both slim, fit, attractive and I have had plenty of opportunities to have an affair myself but I'm only interested in a fantasy, not real life, ifswim.

I wish I could find other men attractive but I just don't find many attractive. When I used to get wolfwhistled I always wished I could equally get pleasure from looking at them instead of seeing the heaving ugly bumcrack types.

I've always been the same on this.

He might well think he loves you in his own twisted little way but he honestly can't, not properly - how can he when he thinks the fact that he needs to spend time on your sexual pleasure is unimportant?

At the very least he has deep personal issues, I can't think of anything more depressing and soul destroying than him turning away and hugging a pillow instead of you - you are so used to being ignored sexually ( he sounds like he treats you like a pet, does he pat you on the head by any chance, while telling you how lovely you are?) that it's been "normalised" to you.

IT'S NOT NORMAL loving behaviour, at all!

It's so, so weird and so, so wrong.

You've been kidding yourself that you have a sexless marriage and neither of you have any kind of libido - that's not the case at all.

I may be wrong, as I only have my 40-something husband to go on, but nightly masturbation strikes me as odd at his age too, a bit like comfort eating perhaps, to fill a void?

Just read all this, have to say I think he's gay too. Just because he wasn't into penetrative sex with another man doesn't mean he's not gay, lots of gay men don't have penetrative sex.

You also say it 'left him cold', again just because there was no chemistry with that guy doesn't mean he doesn't sexually prefer men. You still have to fancy the person whether they're a man or a woman!

If he doesn't like to go down on you he is probably a bit grossed out by vaginas, this may have been exacerbated by seeing you giving birth but unless it was all fine and dandy before then this in unlikely to be the sole cause.

I do feel for you Melody, it seems like you have tried very hard to talk about this but you say he 'shuts down', this is because he doesn't want to have to face up to the situation so it is unlikely you would get him into psychosexual therapy unfortunately.

After we split up he went out with a woman.

I married him knowing he'd experimented earlier.

May be it's me the one who's selfish wanting his babies and no one elses.

He's beautiful (in my eyes) and my dc are. I wouldn't change any of that for the world.

He doesn't make you feel beautiful though, does he Melody? You're a trophy wife for him, a pet to be looked at and admired.

His behaviour is not your fault - you didn't make him like this.

If you won't even recognise the fact that he has major problems regarding sex with you, this can never be resolved, if he won't even discuss things then he doesn't truly love or respect you - selfish is the only word for him.

Psychosexual counselling for him is really the only way to the root cause of why he behaves so bizzarely towards you, and it is bizzare, honestly.

You haven't said what the baby making sex was like, did he just want to get it over with very quickly?

I'm gonna jump in here and say to The Shrieking, i found your second to last comment really odd.

I didn't used to connect love and sex but after DS was born (we got pg STRAIGHT away so never really got to get into our love life until after his birth) sex with DH became something MORE than it ever was before. We literally have sex to share LOVE. We are always like that. Sex for sex's sake tends to happen in the form of 'a quicky' and that is not something we do often. I have never experienced sex like this. It is physical love for both of us. (funny cos i never pictured my DH being like that)

It brakes my heart to think of being with DH but not having that.

I really think you are trying to kid yourself MC but think even you know you are not succeeding.

I am just saying it as it is, trying to add all the bits which might help make 'sense' of it all, to give you all a bigger picture.

I value all your feedback and I'm looking at it differently as a result, so thank you for getting me to see your objective opinions.

I really do not know what to do next. Our baby making sex was great! I really used to love his weight on me and all that jazz.

I really do feel sadder about it than at the start of the thread, but in a positive way ifswim. I'm not brushing it under the carpet and I value your suggestions about what next to do.

I can't go in heavy handed though, he is probably not feeling great about the status quo either.

Well I am also in a sexless relationship and not through choice. I haven't had sex with DH for 14 years. Yes. 14.

At first it really really bothered me. Esp when I wanted children. (We had DS through IVF - turns out DH has low sperm count as well as low libido.) I have often wondered if he is gay esp as he is quite homophobic and I think that he could be really blocking those feelings. Sex was good when we got together but it would usually be instigated by me after the initial few months of the relationship.

I have to say that now it doesn't bother me too much. That is not to say that I wouldn't like it to change but I am not as bothered as I used to be. We did have some counselling a few years ago - twice in fact - but due to where we live never with someone experienced in sexual issues. I know he loves me and what we have together. He puts me first in nearly everything else. During one counselling session he admitted he hardly ever thinks about sex and it really wouldn't bother him if he never had it again. I also don't think he masturbates - at least not often. I do - around when I ovulate I think but as I am peri-menopausal now that is less often.

With regard to OP's situation - how do you know he masturbates every night? Does he do that in front of you? I find that weird and sad. A sexless relationship because of illness or zero libido is one thing but your DH HAS a libido. A high one if he is masturbating every night.

Of course you can be happy in a sexless marriage. I think some of the other posters have been harsh.

I don't see how they can be so certain that your DH is gay either, or why it is even relevant if he is that way inclined. Or why it would be necessary to split if he was. Life is not that simple and sexuality is not a binary thing.

I think that what you want is a way of bringing up the subject, without him feeling emasculated, so you can have more intimacy and have him help act out your fantasies every now and then.

It might be worth looking into the relate course mentioned above. Or maybe finding someone to take your DC while you have that short break.

Melodychimes, I second Malificence's suggestion of psychosexual counselling for your H. What he is doing does seem to have an element of compulsion, like comfort eating. And I think only a man who either totally disregards women, you in particular, or has a huge amount of anger towards women, would hug a pillow and masturbate openly while ignoring you sexually. He has huge ego issues too.

I noticed your comment earlier in the thread about his cold and abusive stepfather, and I would be willing to bet any money that this relationship really screwed him up. There may have been more abuse involved than just beating him for wetting the bed (and bedwetting issues can lead to problems if not treated with sensitivity too). I would also bet that he's not telling you the truth about the previous m2m sexual experiences he has had. There is no way either he or you can prove anything about what he has told you.

I would hesitate to condone having an affair. To do this would give him a stick to beat you with, help you in justifying his cruelty towards you (which you do enough of anyway even as things stand), and in general be just another way to avoid the real issues. Why muddy the waters? I vote for tackling this head-on. He is avoiding the problems by getting defensive whenever you bring them up, thus intimidating you in to silence. You would avoid the problems and create new ones by having an affair. Neither of you would respectfully communicate your feelings or get anywhere close to the truth. You owe each other at least that much.

Tackling the problem honestly may well result in heartache and maybe even divorce, but it is the respectful thing to do, ultimately. Respectful to yourself as well as to him. And please remember that your children are learning how to treat those they love by watching you.

I wouldn't suggest sneaking around having an affair either, but, I'd think about asking him how he'd feel if at some poiint in the future you had a purely sexual affair.. More to see how he reacts. Would he be jealous? self-pitying? relieved!!!?

It might finally galvanise him into something... Although I don't think people can be counselled into wanting sex with somebody though. Maybe he could be counselled into taking a long hard look at how he has been seeing things ONLY from his perspective though.

I have a relationship with a wonderful man, he is unbelievably affectionate, caring, kind and considerate, does everything for me so I cant help but love him. However he suffers from impotence. With the help of medication he can sometimes get sort of hard but then he suffers from premature ejaculation. So the problem is that although we have been together two years weve actually made love about three times. I am getting to the point where I dont want to try to make love because its so frustrating. We are talking about getting married but I am wondering if I can spend the rest of my life without sex but then I dont want to destroy him by leaving him. Do you think its possible that I am being selfish and that we could be happy long term?

Mayma
you have just posted on a thread which is over a year and a half old. This is really bad form as people waste time reading it until they realise (like I did until I got to an old post of my own ) and if you want advice you should really post your own thread. You can do that by clicking start a new thread at the top of the page.

Sorry haven't had time to read entire thread.

I think you need to explore the possibility that he might be gay - just because he isn't acting on it doesn't mean he's not gay. He clearly loves you but is uncomfortable being intimate with you, prefering to masterbate - it just doesn't sit well.

Society is still pretty judgemental and accepting that one might be gay can be overwhelmingly difficult for some people so they choose to ignore it. There are oodles of men who marry, have kids and then leave their partners for a man. It's actually quite common.

OP I think there is more to this than a sexless marriage. There is sex - but with himself not with you. You husband is not living a 'sexless' life. Do you want your life to be sexless forever?

god it's an old thread!
that will lean me.

IGNORE FOLKS IGNORE!

Oh.

Thought the OP had come back to tell us she's left him.

OP, you say "I'm not interested in 'pleasuring' him as there's nothing in it for me" as your husband masturbates daily without pleasuring you. That just seems so detached from each other: not sexually, just in terms of emotional openness. The pleasuring bit is of course sexual but it's meaning goes far deeper than that. It just seems rather selfish of him. I think you can be happy in a sexless marriage, but I don't think you can be happy in a selfish marriage. You deserve your happiness, OP.

Oh bugger! It's last year!

I was expecting to hear that he'd finally come out as gay, OP had moved on and met someone new and was now going at it like nobodies business!

Dh and I hardly have sex either andhe too doesn't like to give me oral. When i asked him why, he says he doesn't like it I've loved it with poat partners. Although he says he'd lik me to give it to him - i haven't doen in years.

I actually don't feel attracted to him anymore. I went for years thinking he wasn't interested, huge rows, splitting up, counselling, etc for a while, etc and now I just don't desire him. he knows this but doesn't seem bothered. I'd love a sexual close relationship but unfortunately not with him.

I think some people can be happy in a sexless marriage but as others have said, only it both of you are genuinely happy with it

I haven't had sex for quite a few months with DH but more for practical reasons, positioning isn't easy when heavily pg....
Anyway, normally we can go a few weeks without it, whereas I know some couples have to have it every other day. It's just what suits you both as a couple. I can also imagine there are couples who aren't really into sex much at all, and just prefer a platonic type of relationship. If you are both happy with this, then there's not much of an issue.

Everyone is so different, really. And the fact that he's masturbating and being open about this with you is great, at least he isn't trying to conceal it. That would be more worrying...

DH will occasionally go away and DIY if he feels the need, which I'm fine with considering sex isn't on the agenda at the moment.

lol - old thread then