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.

Why are you bothering to post then if it's just chit chat?

I still think you need to look at how you ended up with this man, if it was a blinkered, hasty choice, and if the red flags were ignored.

I know you are not obliged to reply to any posts at all- but you do tend to cherry pick and ignore any that ask really searching-painful-- questions.

You sound arrogant OP.

Arrogant with low self esteem eh?! Some therapist would see me as a gold mine

(got more time to kill as my lift home is late)

ameliagrey rightly or wrongly, this is the man, and the marriage the OP has chosen. She loves him and wants it to work. No relationship is perfect, and I don't think getting divorced is always the answer, where there is love and some compatibility. I agree with you that the OP is now facing up to that choice, and some of it is uncomfortable. But, it was a choice, there are good things in it and things change (like power-relations in a marriage) over time. I think if the lines of communication have been opened up, and perhaps the Op has thought about some of their problems as not just about sex (which they clearly aren't), that is some type of progress.

Arrogance and low self esteem are not mutually exclusive.

In fact they may co-exist: one can appear to be and behave in an arrogant way in order to cover up one's low self esteem. Not aimed at you OP_ just saying.

I still think it's worth thinking about how you came to choose this man given the relatively short time you have been with him.

On the surface, you sound chalk and cheese. Opposites can and do attract but sometimes the differences are too much.

sorry but this:

The main reason we don't have much disposable cash is because he has massive debts and a house in negative equity which we can't sell and which he didn't tell me about until after we had got married and I had put financial commitments and structures in place NOT taking all his debt into account

is a horrendous way to behave on the part of your OH. How can you NOT be incredibly angry about it? Have you really addressed this issue?

Enjoy your long weekend op, hope you get fucked or we will be in for a hell of a long rant when you get back!

This is the thread that keeps on giving !

op, I think you owe us a few quid for psychological services rendered

"he came out in 2008"?
Happy Eid alfitr!

Lol! Not out of the closet.

Amelia seemed determined to interrogate me until she obtained every last detail of every aspect of my life and it was a slow afternoon. We arrogant bankers love nothing more than to talk about ourselves endlessly you know. Underlying cause of the financial crisis.

couldn't resist!

OP- you flatter yourself :)

I was never setting out to interrogate you. I don't care that much TBH.

You mentioned several pages back, that part of your unhappiness was your financial situation. Can't recall the precise wording but you did have a little moan about it and imply it had relevance to the way things are now.

Your assertion that I know nothing about economics- maybe I don't directly, but how do you know I'm not married to a banker or an economist? You don't.

You've taken what you want from this thread, but you have ignored plenty of the more hard-hitting posts which suggest that you get therapy for various reasons, and that it's you who has the problem and issues, not your DH.

OP I'm stepping away from this thread now for two reasons: 1) I've got other things in my day but b) you haven't really shown any acknowledgement of some posts which dug a little deeper and perhaps asked you some searching ( and painful) questions.

You've become very flippant and more than once referred to the help as " chit chat". This is insulting to posters who have invested their time and energy in trying to help you- and I am not talking about me here.

I suggested as well that your DH may conform to a certain "type" of personality which finds security in the armed forces' lifestyle and that your marriage where you are very much the dominant figure, replicates this.

Now these points may or not have any bearing on his low libido- but they might.

On the surface- to outsiders- you don't seem a good "fit" and it would have been intersting to know more about how you ended up togather- a couple of other people asked how you met and why you married him, and you didn't reply.

I hope you will get the help you need- because you do need expert advice. Relate offers phone counselling and email counselling too.

OP, TBH I feel the same way as ameliagrey.

I hope things work out for you, I really do. But I'm uncomfortable with the flip from despair to joking around, if you haven't really addressed the underlying issues.

OP just may not know the answers though (why do we end up with a particular partner - not everyone is so insightful). I do think that lack of sex is linked to his passive personality and possibly seeing Op as a mother figure, which wouldn't manifest so much when they got together at first (and the sex was fine), it's her being the boss in daily life and him being comfortable but not communicating honestly is quite childish of him, and yes as other posters say military background sometimes produces/attracts that sort of mentality (easy to be told what to do - but sexually it doesn't work that way for some).

And if I was married to a doctor it would qualify me to cut your leg off would it?! What a bizarre comment. Amelia I'm more than glad to see you leave my thread.

Cinnabar your advice and comment along with many others was most useful, thank you.

That's a pretty stupid analogy Needto.

Carrying out surgery is not quite the same as having an opinion through discussion with other people, who are experts. You seem to be making a pretty big deal out of my suggestions that you took some advice, or that property investment was not always the way to go.

Whatever.....I don't care any more , because you are getting petty and personal.

I have just tried to think how I would feel in the situation that the OP's husband is in. Obviously there are some things, like the hard childhood, I can't empathise with, but I am also married to someone who likes organising both my life and her own. She also makes more money - actual salary is similar but she has great benefits and a final salary pension and golden handshake, whereas I won't get any pension and regularly work 15 hour days for my money.

He's very lucky to have a wife who is so committed to the marriage, and wanting to provide a good life for him, and who sounds like she is genuinely prepared to stand by him for richer or poorer. Finding out that you have married someone with a load of debt that they didn't let on about is no small thing.

The one thing that would rankle me if I were in his position is the job situation. While mine isn't as good as my wife's, it is well paid, and very satisfying to do. It can be indescribably frustrating to be doing something you don't really want, while hoping for a better job, and relying on your partner financially (and for the visa in your case). I have been there, not in a marriage, but in an engagement. I moved a long way to join my then partner who was just starting her career.

I was completely unable to find a decent job. I did work, to make some contribution to the finances, but hated it and really wanted something meaningful to do, and better paid, obviously. My partner was very understanding, and took care of any financial issues we had, but, shallow though it may be, over time it eroded my self-respect completely. I tried not to take it on my partner, since my mother drummed the "never blame anyone who isn't at fault" mantra into me, and usually I succeeded. But there was one thing that did happen. I did not want to have sex for anything.

too long to read? here's a summary. lack of self respect from being unable to get a decent job played havoc with my desire to sex. I wonder if the same is true of your husband - unfulfilling work (my interpretation from your posts, apologies if not true), relying on wife for visa and financial support etc. In which case, things might improve when he gets a job or gets to work on the wreck you intend to buy.

Hope things get better for you.

just wanted to applaud your thoughtful post Badlad

Have followed this thread but not posted.

I think there's a whole load of shit going on here - some we know, some we don't.

I also find the 'despair to flippancy' thing (complete with an array of passive aggressive smillies) insulting to posters who've tried to help you explore your relationship.

I know people like you in RL who share too much in high drama stylee, then feel embarrassed/humilated afterwards and start to backtrack.

You generally seem like an exhausting human being.

[Smile]
am also looking for the "like" button on badlad's post!

[Smile]
am also looking for the "like" button on badlad's post!