Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Wife incapable of loving me - what do I do now?

488 replies

Nigel10 · 19/04/2011 13:59

It started off as a sex thing - I wanted it more, she wanted it less. Then she didn't want it at all. She admits to having no sex drive at all.
I have spent the past 9 month doing everything I can to inspire some desire in my wife - to make her love me and want to be with me.
I love her so much and only want to be with her but she seems unable to show any love, desire, affection or intimacy towards me. Yes we do have sex (and she enjoys it I think) but she'd much rather be doing something else.
I appreciate this is probably a very common situation but as a man I want to share my feelings on this. I am near breaking point and very sad at the love we seem to have lost. I have cried more times in the last 6 months than in my entire life. I can no longer talk to my wife about this as she says it puts pressure on her.
Simply I need more love in my life, I want to be desired, to be touched lovingly but the one I want doesn't want to do this anymore.
I never wanted an affair but now when I hear about people having an affair I don't judge them as I once would have - I partly understand what may have driven them to do it.
For me I see no way to win back my wife - the more she pushes me away the more I want her, the more love I show her the less she wants me. It's a hopeless mess.
Does anyone share what I'm going through? I'd love to hear if there can be a happy ending to this.
Any advice is welcome - except the obvious. Believe me I have done everything to win back her desires (gifts, spa breaks, backing off, house work, fixing up the house, surprise dinners where we got married, date nights...blah blah blah).
This is destroying my relationship with her and she seems oblivious and unconcerned.

OP posts:
Truckstop · 20/04/2011 18:28

So apart from being a rapist and walking around with his cock in his hand and being a self-entitled prick on legs, he's now shit in bed.

This is better than TV.

Malificence · 20/04/2011 18:29

Yes, because the only way to get good at sex is to have multiple partners. Hmm

Nobody in a lifelong monogamous marriage could possibly have a good sex life, not a chance.

SunRaysthruClouds · 20/04/2011 18:30

Springchicken - might be just me but that is a pretty crap thing to assume. I agree Nigel has avoided answering some key questions but to draw such conclusions is a bit much. You probably think she should leave him just for that. Jeez

ScaredOfCows · 20/04/2011 18:32

That comment about only having one long term sexual partner and having a crap sex life pissed me off too. But maybe some people just need to shag around to learn.

Truckstop · 20/04/2011 18:32

And a domestic appliance with a fuck-hole attached?

Would that be a type of Dyson I haven't seen yet?

ChristinedePizan · 20/04/2011 18:38

I'm fairly sure SGB's comment was in response to the somewhat surprising stats of Nigel's life that I posted, rather than a comment of one partner people's sex lives. God knows, my sister certainly seems to do alright :o

HerBEggs · 20/04/2011 18:42

Am weeping at the image of a new Dyson Grin

"In time I will disconnect emotionally from the relationship and maybe my body will follow my mind out the door. Why live with a 'lover' you can't love?"

That's what you've picked up from all the advice is it?

Do you do your fair share of housework Nigel? Grin

noodle69 · 20/04/2011 18:58

Havent read any of this thread (soz too long) but is she always orgasming every time? I think that is essential if you want her to be horny and up for it a lot I found as I always know its a sure thing I want sex often even when I had a young baby/am very busy. I have been with some exs who came too quick and didnt bother about my pleasure and I just wasnt up for it with them No one wants sex if they know it isnt going to be satisfying.

dittany · 20/04/2011 19:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

StayFr0sty · 20/04/2011 19:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Truckstop · 20/04/2011 19:29

There's no way on earth I'd post details about my relationships on here.
And I think the OP was naive to do it.

Lovemy2babies · 20/04/2011 19:34

Nigel, you are a div.

You have refused to listen to the good advice on here and are now behaving like a brat

No wonder your wife does not like you

Grow up...

dittany · 20/04/2011 19:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

DuelingFanjo · 20/04/2011 19:52

yes, it's weird isn't it. I mean, what kind of advice was he expecting to get? Was he hoping to hear something from us 'ladies' which would help him get more sex from someone who clearly doesn't want more?

Re-reading the OP (and disregarding his subsequent posts) I just think that Nigel, if he really does love his wife, needs to accept that relationships/marriages change OR he needs to tell is wife it is over.

What else was he expecting Mumsnetters to say?

DuelingFanjo · 20/04/2011 19:55

"Any advice is welcome - except the obvious"

And this was so untrue, unless he expected someone to say 'Do A, B and C and you WILL get more sex'?

ChristinedePizan · 20/04/2011 20:24

I think he is a sniggery fiction of Easter holiday people's imagination personally. Nothing adds up - the dates, the lack of facts, refusal to answer people's questions, the size 8 although she has some body issues, the fantasy stuff (a pill to lower libido?)

I don't know why people believe it's true.

nijinsky · 20/04/2011 21:21

ChristinedePizan I agree - nothing that Nigel says on this thread adds up. I do believe is on here for a purpose though - to gain sympathy from the mainly female users.

The mysterious libido reducing medication. Surely in time this will cure his problem anyway, so why get so het up about it? Sex, sex, sex, thats all Nigel wants to talk about. Not why his wife has lost her libido, but about his lack of enough sex, and desire for more. On and on and on, going in circles.

He is not a kind man, nor an intelligent one, but he is sure about one thing - being a man entitles him to have as much sex with his wife as he wants, and if she can't provide it, he is entitled to it from elsewhere. Poor thought process going on there.

I have a problem with the title. However, once you realise by "loving" he actually means having sex with, it makes sense. "My Wife is Incapable of Having Sex With me (more than once a week). Who do I Go to Next?"

bbird1 · 20/04/2011 22:09

Nige - have you tried knocking her back doors in? Just to break the monotony, like?

SpringchickenGoldBrass · 20/04/2011 23:02

It is actually quite rare to marry young, stay married and learn about sex and mutual pleasure in the course of the marriage. Not impossible, but rare. Most people who marry young grow apart, and a lot of men who marry young with traditional, entitled ideas about sex are shit in bed and remain so, their sexuality being fixed at that teenage-boy stage of being desperate to stick it in, no matter what. Nothing that Nige says on this thread gives any impression of him being much cop in the sack - the utter cluelessness he displays about the whole concept of women being people is a fairly clear giveaway.

sayithowitis · 20/04/2011 23:06

Why the implications that he is crap in bed? Why the intrusive questions regarding how frequently his wife orgasms and the inference that if she is not getting there every time, he is somehow to blame? a vast number of women do not orgasm every time, and many never do. It doesn't mean their partner is crap in bed.

And like Mal and a couple of others, I also resent the fact that if you have only ever had one sexual partner, they are automatically rubbish in bed. I have only ever slept with DH, and he with me. We have been together around 30 years and tbh, he is damn good at it! I have found that over the years, he has learned exactly what buttons to press to make sure I have the best time in bed. I don't claim it is perfect, but it sure as hell isn't the crap experience that has been suggested is the fate of those who choose not to shag around.

HerBEggs · 20/04/2011 23:08

"a vast number of women do not orgasm every time, and many never do. It doesn't mean their partner is crap in bed."

Um actually, quite often it does...

HerBEggs · 20/04/2011 23:09

Sayit the reason that there are intrusive questions, is becaue the OP is asking about sex.

It is very hard to give honest, useful advice about sex, if you dn't ask a few intrusive questions. Tht's the nature of the beast, as it were.

StayFr0sty · 20/04/2011 23:11

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

pigstrotters · 20/04/2011 23:11

Dear Nigel

I have only read your posts as the others were too long and too typical of MN for me to be bothered with.

I understand your situation from both sides. A long time ago I was living with a man who didn't want any sexual contact and didn't want to talk about it. It stemmed from my infidelity in the first few mths of the relationship but it made me feel worthless, ugly and depressed.

I am now married with 3 kids under the age of 5 and work full time. Sex is often the last thing on my mind and my Dh feels the same a lot of the time as he is looking after the kids full time. The trouble with sex is this...the more you do it, the more you want it and the less you do it the less you want it. In a long term relationship it is almost impossible to tease out the differences between love, sex and emotions as they are so connected. If one is affected...they are all affected.

So..yes...sex is incredibly important in a relationship and it can also be the first sign of either unhappiness within a marriage or depression.

My advice ( which I am sure has been echoed) is to seek relationship counselling with someone who also has experience of sex therapy.

Just agreeing to go forward with this in our marriage has improved our relationship already as we feel we are doing something positive. I would also steer you in the direction of a "Relate" book called Sex in loving relationships. I don't think your situation will be resolved without external help.

Finally, I think it is disgusting that you have been offered anything short of supportive posts. But I am afraid I am not surprised. Women on MN don't really know the true meaning of gender equality.

ValiumBandwitch · 20/04/2011 23:12

I agree, the self-pitying melodrama from nigel wouldn't put ya in the mood.

Who takes pills to lower their libido when they're having sex once a week and there is nothign to stop them wanking? Did he tell the gp that he had to 'give up on a sex life in his 30s' and was having sex once a week? huh?