Advise re spicing up sex life please

[ray81]

Ok so we have a very rare night off tonight, DDs are staying with one of my friends. DD2 is only 5 months, this is the first night we have had alone since she was born.

So we have decided to stay in, get some wine, he is going to cook us a meal and then i am sure will lead onto other things . We have a good sex life anyway in that we make love about 2-3 times aweek, but i want to spice things up alittle and cant realy think of what to do. So the purpose of this thread is to ask for suggestions pretty please. I realy want him to enjoy it and not feel like its the same every time ifkwim. There is a back story as to why i am doing this and will elaborate if anyone wants me to.

Never TMI by the way i am open to any suggestion within reason.

ray....watching this also if you dont mind!!!

of course i dont mind.

Come on someone must have some ideas please

tell us the back up story and maybe we can find some ideas!

Ok so as i said DD is 5months we tried for 5 yrs and had 5 Mc before we concieved her. I have DD1 who is 8 from a previous relationship. Me and DH got together when she was very young, we started trying for DD2 when we had begin together a yr. In hindsight this was probably to early in the relationship. Ttc put alot of pressure on us and we pretty much only made love at the right time of the month. So when i was 38 weeks pg with DD i found a fake facebook account, yahoo and msn account. Dh had been talking to a woman on Fb for a yr and pretty much having cypber sex on msn, looking at LOTS of porn every night too.
I confronted him and he admitted it all, we talked and talked and pretty much we are through it now, however i cant help thinking it was because we have something missing in our sex life that made him do this (he denies that).

Since DD has been born and i felt up to making love it has been great, it feels like we are discovering each other again but alot of the time it follows the same routine ifkwim. I need some ideas to spice things up alittle, and thought this would be the best place to ask.

Hi Ray...

If DH says it was nothing to do with your sex life, can I ask the reason he did give and why you don't believe it?

I would like to answer your question but first want to make sure we are barking up the right tree. A big part of me is worried about you rewarding behaviour which does not sound like it is worth you getting the cheerleader outfit for.

Hi Duvetcover...

The reason he gave was basically the fake Fb, msn and yahoo started as a joke with one of the blokes from work to see how many women friends they could get. He started speaking to a woman who he added as a friend and i have seen all the messages and nothing sinister ifkwim. I have to add the picture on the accounts and the name wasnt actually him.
He admitted that it had all gone alittle far and ended up being a bit of an escape from everyday life, he was pretending to be 25 living the high life etc. The MSn was the same just added abit of excitment to his life. He thinks he was having alittle bit of a midlife crisis and he was in the process of closing the accounts down by telling people he was going away to work in another country as he realised what he was doind was wrong and didnt want to hurt me.

With regards to the porn the answer wasnt sufficient but he maintains that he is a man and look at stuff like that sometimes.

The reason i think its our sex life is because we were only having sex 2-3 times a month and then to try for a baby and when i did fall we hardly had sex at all because i had had 5 mc so we were both alittle afraid to ifkwim, and i realy dont think i man looks at porn and has cybersex if there isnt something missing from his sex life.

I rememeber your original thread ray and I'm with duvet cover on this one. I wonder why you think it's your responsibility to spice up your sex life and not his?

Try and reverse this. He knows that you're having a rare night alone tonight. He knows that he betrayed your trust horribly. He knows and has told you that his behaviour had nothing to do with your sex life. Do you think he's agonising today about how he can make tonight really special for you and how he might meet your sexual needs? How likely is it that he would expend the same effort and thought on this, as you have this morning?

Spicing up a sex life is a great thing, as long as it's a shared responsibility, but I do worry that you have fallen into a trap of thinking that if only you had been a sexual goddess, he wouldn't have done what he did. You are buying into what I call "the prevention myth" and that worries me.

Ray, the truth is, you could have been having exciting sex every night and he would still have done what he did - because this was about him, not you. He's even telling you that, too.

Whenwillifeelnormal....

You are right and your post has made me cry, home truths hurt sometimes!!

I do think that had i been a sexual godess he wouldnt have done it and i think this is because i dont understand why he did that to me. I think that is because i would NEVER do anything like that as i love him very much and i now struggle to understand how he could love me as he says he does and still do what he did ifswim.

I hate to admit it but i almost think if i am that sexual godess now he wont do it again or god forbid actualy go out and have a full on affair. trust is a serious issue for me at the moment.

Didnt expect this when i posted this thread.

Hi Ray, I really think that given the situation he is the one who should be coming to you with rose petals, candles and a bottle of lavender massage oil (there's my suggestion if you do want to go through with it). I understand you say you have worked through your situation but sounds like you are taking responsibility for recreating intimacy after a train wreck based on his choices.

Hope tonight gives you the special moments you are looking for. Please keep an eye open though for how his words and behaviour show how he wants to put in effort to move forward from what has happened.

sorry I spent too long on writing that last message and missed the last couple posts.

I think if you had been this "sexual goddess" you speak of, he would have looked at even more porn tbh.

I believe that the more men think about (and have) sex, then the more they think about..... sex.

Just my observation.

ray I think I came onto your original thread, but did I suggest you read Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass? If you haven't read it together (he should read it too) it would be so helpful, because Dr. Glass explains the prevention myth so well. If you google the book title, you will find a link to her site and there are some excellent excerpts for you to be reading in the meantime.

You are saying that you still don't understand why your H did this, so you are filling in the gaps based on some myths that perhaps we all grew up with - that men don't stray if they are getting their needs fulfilled at home. This myth falls apart however when it turns out that people still stray when every conceivable need is being fulfilled by their spouse. Trust what your H is telling you - this wasn't about you or your sex life. This was about him.

Only he can tell you what this was about, but I suspect he became addicted to the fantasy element and the feelings a new relationship - even a cyber one - generate in us all. This is distinct from an addiction to a particular person - the addiction is to the feelings.

No existing spouse can ever "compete" with that, because they are not "new" anymore. You could have been performing sexual cartwheels, but you could never be "new". Do you see then, how this is a flawed competition?

If I'm right about his motivation - and also if he really has given up porn, because it horribly de-sensitises people from loving sex - then the area to work on as a couple is how he can prevent himself from getting addicted to those feelings again. But please note that this is the conversation you should be having; how he can work on himself.

Spice up your sex life if that is what you both want, but please do it for the right reasons and don't neglect your own sexual and emotional needs in all this.

It sounds like you've got some more talking to do as a couple and it would be well worth you spending some calm time revisiting all this.

WWIFN thankyou for the book recommendation, i have looked it up and will order it to read it looks very good.

You make so much sense in your advise, it has realy helped to know that it wasnt about me or our life together. Even though he was insistant that this wasnt about us i just couldnt get it out of my head that it must have been ifswim.
I can see how it was about the fantasy and the feeling of a new relationship (we all love that feeling at the start) and how that became an addiction for him.

I am slightly worried in how that we can prevent this from happening again. He has given up the pron and the computer so i know that it isnt happening anymore. However i am alittle paranoid re his work. We used to work together and that is how we met but i dont work there anymore and he now talks about another woman he works with, he picks her up on a saturday to do over time and then takes her home, i do question him re her and he seems to be quite open about what they talk about etc, but i am not comfortable with the situation and i dont know how to tell him this without seeming unreasonable. An example of something that has made me uncomfortable is i asked what she looked like (her sister works at same place and i know her) his answer was well complete opposite to her sister. Her sister is small and petite and pretty so i assumed she wasnt that attractive etc, when i did finaly see her she is very tall, slim with long blond her, very attractive. I think i am just being paranoid because of what had happened but i cant help it and i hate these feelings, how do i get passed them?

We had a lovely evening last night it was realy nice just to have some us time, and have a full nights sleep.

also thankyou for all your advise ladies

SOCD - i think you are right i need to stop thinking there is anything i can do, its very hard to do that though.

I do enjoy having sex alot more then i thought i would after having DD2 as i had no sex drive after having DD1, but will make sure i dont just do it for him and do think about me aswell.

He is well aware that i will leave if it were to ever happen again as i made that clear when i found out about all the other stuff so i would hope that he wouldnt risk that. I think the worst thing is knowing if he did then it would be over and i realy love him and want my marriage to be life long, but as you said i cant control his actions.

ray81 I'm glad this thread helped you, but PLEASE buy that book, find that website and read it TOGETHER.

I have already decided that when our DCs have a committed relationship, this book will be gift wrapped and presented to them, because it's the best book I've ever read about fidelity and the need to have safe friendships outside of marriage.

I still have the sense that you two haven't yet constructed a shared understanding of what happened here and it is really important that you do, because you both need to understand the boundaries that need to be in place to protect your fidelity.

I understand for example, why you worry about the friend he is driving and working with, but once you have agreed together what makes friendships safe and have learned to recognise the warning signs, such friendships won't cause you any pain at all.

People often misunderstand this on here and think that I am advocating that no opposite-sex friendships are permissible and that is just not the case. In my own life, these friendships are a source of great comfort to me, but have been able to co-exist with my marriage because I know my boundaries and what is safe and conversely, dangerous territory.

In the meantime, trust what we are telling you here and indeed what your H has always said. None of us can prevent infidelity in someone else, we can only control our own actions. None of us can affair-proof our marriage single-handedly.