First world problem I know - husband just not interested

[needsomeperspective]

I know this is a frequent theme on these boards but I just really need to just get it out.

I've been married nearly 4 years and for at least 3 (well before we had kids) our sex life has been less than amazing. I am the kind of person to whom sex is very very important in a relationship. It cements the bond, oils the wheels, helps with communication, feeling close and feeling loved and wanted. In my opinion it should also be a source of fun, joy and bring a little color, passion and excitement to the mundanities of everyday life, work, domestic drudgery, child are etc.

Unfortunately my husband doesn't feel that way and the state of our sex life is just tearing me apart.

We have sex once a week to once every ten days. When we do I get the feeling that he is reluctant or doing it as a duty. He has actually told me me needs to "work himself up to it".

We argue constantly about this. I have told him that I desperately long for a close, passionate, frequent, fulfilling sex LIFE which runs a thread of intimacy through our marriage NOT just an occasional shag. He says he will "try" but nothing ever changes.

I don't feel sex is something which interests him. In between times he shows no sexual interest in me and if I try to initiate anything by kissing or caressing him he lies there and mostly ignores me and I can almost see him mentally trying to persuade or force himself to make an effort because he knows I will otherwise be upset.

This has got to the point now where my self esteem in shattered. I feel close to tears a lot of the time and like I have a big rock in my chest. If its been a long time since we've had sex I almost hate him.

I'm 34. I can't imagine going through the rest of my life being sexually unfulfilled and feeling unwanted, undesirable. I feel like there is a whole side of marriage, of LIFE that I'm missing out on.

I know some people would be quite content with sex 3 times a month but I'm not. I'm very very unhappy. He knows this.

He is on anti anxiety meds but if anything he is LESS interested in sex when he is not on them because he is then anxious, mean and sometimes violently aggressive. They don't seem to have any physical impact on his abilities in bed and he has always functioned perfectly in a physical sense whether on or off them.

When we do have sex he is a considerate and wonderful lover. He cares that I am enjoying himself. But he just doesn't seem..... enthusiastic. He just isn't driven or really "into it" if you know what I mean. He touches me for ME nt because e actually wants to. He makes no comment and shows zero interest when I'm naked or in underwear. God knows I'm no a pretty sight after 2 cesareans and 2 stone overweight but I'm not that bad. I know husbands who still show their wife desire when their wives aren't physically perfect.

I know I should lose weight but I'm scared to. If I get back into a size ten and he still has no interet that's my last hope gone. And he SAYS my looks are fine and that's nothing to do with it. If the problem is my body I wish he would just be honest because that is something I can actually fix!

I've now basically given up on ever having the vibrant, experimental, fun sex life I want to share with the person I love. I don't want an affair - I don't want random sex with someone I don't care about I want to share the pleasures and intimacies of a physical relationship with the man I love.

I just don't know what to do anymore. It's actually more painful and upsetting limping along having occasional awkward sex than it would be to just stop altogether. At least if we just said "no more sex" I would feel the constant rejection and disappointed hope and expectation.

We have 2 small children. I don't want to end my marriage. He is a great father and a great husband in every other way. He just can't make me happy because he doesn't care about sex and cannot relate to how I feel about it.

Please tell me what to do. I've suggested counselling but I think I would be too ashamed and humiliated to say to someone face to face "my husband isn't attracted to me".

Sorry this is so long. Just needed to vent or otherwise I will be crying at my desk.

YY @ ameliagrey.

I just don't think I could live in a relationship with this much stuff going on.

needs - your DH has had a hard life.

Do you love him? I mean, as a human being, and not just in a romantic sense? Can you sacrifice a great sex life in order to keep your marriage going? I would be willing to do anything I could possibly do to keep my marriage going, including letting go of things that are very important to me. But that's because of the deep gratitude, respect and love I have for my husband as a human being. He's a very, very good person. But what I couldn't do is create a desire for sex where a desire doesn't exist. It's simply not humanly possible. Is it humanly possible for you to live in this marriage without the sex life you want?

Remember by the way, that your feelings about sex, about your body, may change as you go through menopause and as your body ages.

Having said that, the revelation about the secret debts is quite a big one.

Agreed it is more than just about sex (isn't it always?)

Yeah that took some work to get past! There was all sorts of awful guff to deal with the first 2 years. Not least because of his MH problems and that he had to unlearn all the unhealthy ways of coping and dealing with life he had been forced to use to cope thus far.

But nothing worth having is easily won. Or so my grandmother taught me.

And for someone with ADHD the "stuff" can be the fun bit! Mostly our days roll by in a rather dull and pleasant fashion. If it was always like that I'd die of boredom. DH has certainly not always been easy. He has done a LOT of work on himself over the last 4 years. If he hadnt we wouldn't be together now. I admire him hugely for that. Really do.

I've changed a lot over that time too. Am LESS controlling if you'd beleive that ;)

Our relationship has its ups an downs but has without doubt moved in a definite upward trajectory.

I kind of like challenges. And the things we have worked through to date have been worth dealing with.

I hope this will be another bump on the road not a cliff edge!

Op, seems like you love him, you are totally committed to your marriage, you want it to work.

But in trying to erase all his problems, take away any of his stresses, you have become like the wonderful mother he needed but clearly didn't have. Is it the case that while he finds you attractive, he just doesn't fancy you in this role you've taken on?

Think you need to ask yourself how unhappy you really are. You say that you are often tearful, resentful, angry. Would you consider dismantling the life you've built for yourselves? Go right back to basics, sell the big house you've bought, move back to the UK, buy that wreck, let (make!) your husband grow a bit. Not suggesting you stop working or lose your financial independence, just cut through all the stuff that's making your life so complicated.

You will soon have to think about schooling for your DC - you say you had an idyllic childhood, while your husband was forced to move every year. What do you want for your own DC? If stability is important, now is the time to look at the big picture.

I won't go into the long series of unfortunate events which ended up with us owning 3 homes. Or I'd be here forever. There is a long complex explanation which all makes perfect sense, just take my word for it.

I course now with the markets the way they are we can't sell them and cant pay much off the mortgage aside from interest. It's a pinch I tell you.

But they will basically be our pension / income when we retire (standard expat financial planning). Also we could technically be asked to leave here without notice at any time and with 2 kids I wanted to be damn sure we would at least have a roof over our heads in a town where my DH could get work easily if that happened (standard expat emergency planning).

My question is what you are basing your self esteem on? A lot of it seems quite ephemeral.

You say you are a Senior Financial Services professional yet you are building a lifestyle that you cannot comfortably afford, working away from home. Financial services, especially banking at the moment, is notoriously volatile and people are valued based on their contribution to the bottom line. That can vary enormously from day to day and month to month often influenced by external and uncontrollable factors, so you feel buffeted by sometimes feeling enormously valued and sometimes having to justify yourself to your boss. Then you have built what is clearly a leveraged investment portfolio which is hard to manage and stressful. You clearly also put great esteem in being good looking, which you have struggled to retain if you are two stone overweight.

You say you have good friends, yet in expat life, friends are short term and more based on lifestyle and shared interests than the true deep friendships formed at home. And finally, the subject of this thread, how you feel depends on how often you have sex, another thing that you have limited control over.

This thread seems to have a major ommission. The only time you mention your children is that "childcare" (a word I hate when used by parents) is mundane and you discuss issues surrounding babysitters. Do your children not bring you lasting pleasure? And you do not discuss much else about your husband? Do you have shared interests, sense of humour, good discussions?

I think that your posts show the fragility of self esteem based on issues outside your control (banking p/l, frequency of sex, property market, looks) and you do not seem to find any inner peace in the more basic of life's pleasures (though, arguably, sex is one of those when it is good). I think if you could address some of the above you might find yourself dealing better with the "lack" of good sex.

"I hope this will be another bump on the road not a cliff edge!"

It will be a cliff edge judging by how you currently feel if you don't change or if he doesn't.

Can either of you actually help or change how you feel about sex?

Good thoughts takeitaway.

Weve discussed it. I'd be sad if my babies didn't ever get to feel "English" didn't know what pie, mash and liquor was, or how much the seasons influence our way of life. I want them to experience bonfire night and a proper English christmas. My husband wants them to have the childhood he never did. We definitely don't want to be here indefinitely. But we are find of stuck here for financial reasons for now. And the lifestyle is nice - especially for small children.

I think another five years would enable us to get the wreck. Without the pension / old age provision. Ten years out here we could do both. But we both would like the kids to grow up out of this middle east bubble. We have another 3 years before my oldest starts primary school. 8 years before secondary. And schools are expensive out here although my company helps with the costs.

We are praying to the God of Bonuses for him to deliver his bounty at some point before my eldest is 7!

Gosh how I love the Internet. You could never whitter on for 15 pages about random twaddle to anyone in real life could you?!

But this isn't random twaddle though, is it? It's your lives. It's damn important. Why belittle it?

OP, you sound hyper today. Manic, almost.

Yesterday, you sounded deeply depressed.

Is it normal for you to go through such extreme mood swings? I'm actually beginning to get a bit worried about you.

Ha! Me good looking?! Oh dear no. Ive always been average, a little chubby and shortsighted but able to pull off "attractive" given enough makeup some highlights and poor lighting! Never valued myself on my looks at all. One of the academic, no good at sports but GSOH / can laugh at themself types.

Thinking about it compared to many we've been very lucky with our friends. We have been out here six years and most of my girlfriends I met in the first 6 months. In what is a notoriously transient world usually our group of friends seem to be long term stayers.

Our investment portfolio I'd indeed over leveraged. One of te main reasons I took a nank job which is less well paid but much more stable and safe than what I was doing before. The role and institution are about as rock solid safe as you can get here or anywhere else in the world. It was a big factor in my career change.

I'm not at all concerned about my ability to take solid and sensible financial decisions and keep things afloat when thrown a curve ball (as we have been). I'm good at it. Not a boast, just a fact. We have multiple layers of back up plan in any given scenario when it comes to that sort of thing. And I'm not precious. If we had to go home with nothing and start from scratch in our little 2 up 2 down that is not the end of the world. Shit happens.

I'm glad you've managed to diagnose my low self esteem from this thread when 4 months of therapy didn't!!

Well when I started this thread I was coming to the end of a 2 week dry spell and my husband wouldn't talk to me.

Since then we've had sex, discussed the matter in a constructive way and I am 41 minutes away from a 5 day Eid weekend where I get to spend time with my babies. So I'm kind of in a good mood today.

Oh Larry - on my kids. I don't tend to talk about them on t'internet much. I have no issues with my relationship with my babies (aside from not seeing them as much as Id like to - another reason why I picked this job rather than stay in my previous sector - I have to work but at least I always get to be home for dinner, bath and bedtime and no foreign business trips).

And this thread was about my and my husbands sex life so not REALLY the appropriate place for it if I did!

May I ask how/where you and DH first met? You say you've been out there six years, but I thought you'd only been married for four years, and not together long before that?

(Not trying to trip you up, just looking into the chronology).

p.s. if you're serious about wanting your DC to have the whole Christmas/bonfire night UK experience, don't leave it too long! My eldest DS stopped believing in Santa by the time he was eight. These years fly by, believe me.

@ needsome

I always suspected the greatest proportion of supposed sex addicts were basically narcissistic cheaters looking for a get out clause or excuse for their infidelity (see tiger woods).

Absolutely, couldn't agree more. Poor me, I'm not a shit I'm a victim. Riiiiight.

I have a feeling the idea of nymphomania was invented by someone like Freud who basically had no better understanding of female sexuality than anyone else did 100-odd years ago. Hence labelling something as an abnormality when it was just that he didn't "get" it. I wouldn't be surprised to find it doesn't exist.

What made me think of this though is when you said you'd do it 3x a day if you could. Have you done this and was that enough, did it then need to be 4x, and so on?

No I reckon even I would be knackered and sated at once a day. I could enjoy it several times a day at the beginning of a relationship when you only see each other at weekends but I reckon I might get sick of it very fast if we did actually try to have sex every day for a month or something as an experiment.

I came out here in 2006 with then fiancé. Broke up. Spent 18 months single. Met H in 2008. Married in 2009. So I have been put here six years - he came out in 2008.

The odd day off would probably be required ;)

Your houses But they will basically be our pension / income when we retire (standard expat financial planning). Also we could technically be asked to leave here without notice at any time and with 2 kids I wanted to be damn sure we would at least have a roof over our heads in a town where my DH could get work easily if that happened (standard expat emergency planning).

If you were made redundant, you'd be in exactly the same position as anyone in the UK- without a job, at short notice.

You could presumably move into one of your homes?

Do you not rent them out to have some income/cover mortgage?

I don't really get this- you've been married for just 4 years. There hasn't been a property crash in the past 4 years. Where I live, house prices are still increasing though sales are slow.

I think you really need some financial advice, as the status quo is not working for you.

Re. your DH in the forces. I know this is stereotyping, but some people who join the forces do so to escape "ordinary" life; they want to live in an institution where they have limited responsibility for thier lives. Many of them come from broken homes, poor parenting and poor educational backgrounds. They have personality traits which are best suited to a regimented lifestyle. Adjusting to civvy street can be hard.

It sounds as if your DH has swapped one institution for another, and you are his new sergeant major :).

You make all the decisions, control everything, and he just fits in.

In the areas where we own house prices are static and have been for five years. One of our properties is outside the uk and biught long before i was married, as was my husbands. The main issues revolve around not being able to appropriately refinance the portfolio due to having an offshore income. I dont need financial advice Ameila I provide financial advice for a living. And I suspect you are a. Not qualified and b. not informed enough from reading the small amount of information on here to comment on my familys financial situation. And I'm not sure why you are doing so actually? Have I asked for input on my finances?

I'm sure you have a point. He says he doesn't miss the military at all. Perhaps I eased the transition for him ;)

I'm glad youre TELLING me the status quo is not working for us financially. Not sure where you got that information from though. I don't think having dinner at Chilis rather than the Ritz Carlton or downgrading the beachclub membership is a calamity of epic proportions and nor does my husband. We chose that rather than have him work away for 6 weeks at a time. Time together over money. Sorry if you think that equates to things "not working".

Doesn't everyone wish they had more disposable income and that they didn't have to stick to a budget?

I'm not sure quite what any of us can say to you to help. Yesterday you were talking about ending your marriage. Today you're on a post-sex high. On neither day have you really taken on board what posters have been suggesting. Maybe tomorrow will be different again?

Did you marry this man on the rebound?

I know you said that you got over your ex, but I wonder- did you. Really?

I bet your DH is the complete opposite of him.

That's a common way to behave after a break up.

What exactly drew you to him- and why did you decide he was " the one"?
It can't have been great sex because you said after a year it went downhill a bit.

Exactly how long did you date before marrying?

Is this a case of marrying in haste...blah blah.....or did you want babies? And there again, you had to "persuade" him.

It sounds as if there were plenty of issues from the beginning.

Oh- touchy now? About the money?
I'm basing my posts on what you have said. Don't give me any crap about bankers being good with money- not in this economic disaster!

You moaned that your income didn't allow you to spend freely, yet were "property rich".

You stated that you have 3 homes but little income day to day. I asked why you didn't rent them out or sell them.

Buying property for investment purposes is one way - but not everyone would agree with that as a good move. I know enough about economics to know that.

I've taken in board everything posters have suggested. Thought it over. Discussed some of it with H. And established yesterday how I intended to go forward. It's been a very cathartic and useful exercise and I feel much better to have discussed the issues thoroughly without having to tiptoe round anyone's feelings or exposed these issues to friends in real life (which I think would have been very unfair to my husband). Our talk together was far better than I expected and laid to rest somewhat the scariest possibilities people raised on here which were the ones which frightened me (doesn't love you anymore, is deepy unhappy and just hasn't told you, loves you but not in that way). He provided actual reassurance and talked to me about it which is a first. Of course I feel better.

He agreed with my suggestion, derived from the advice on here to work together on getting physically fitter thus fulfilling the joint goals of spending more time together without any sexual overtones / pressure AND getting physically more attractive to each other and in our own minds.

And I agreed that stepping back and letting him take the lead is the way forward. Along with open communication when necessary (not badgering or constant dissection).

All of those things were discussed and suggested by various posters in various ways and I took that on board along with the other suggestions and advice and selected what I thought would work and what my husband would be happy with. Isn't that exactly how this board is supposed to help? It helped in exactly that way the last time I posted.

That was about 9 pages back.

Everything from that point has just been chit chat hasnt it?

Not particularly interested in giving you further breakdown of my financial situation and not quite sure why you'd want it??? And I suspect you know very little about economics....

Getting bored of answering silly questions now as my working (or rather non working!) day has come to a close and I'm off on hols.

Thanks to all who provided useful suggestions, feedback and perspective. I very much appreciate it.