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.

I was the other person in my marriage and I do know that pressure makes it worse. You feel judged. There is a book that I read about on here. To do with this issue. A poster said it helped. Someone might know its title. If it comes back to me, I will post.

Another thought is that sex often does become a bit different. A bit more mundane. I think perhaps always expecting it to be passionate, intense might be setting the bar a bit high.

I am sure you're right about the ADs and his anxiety.

I could not live with him off meds. He is very emotionally unstable and aggressive and miserable when not medicated. Not good for the kids either to have someone like that around. Te first few months of this year were bad when he wasn't on meds.

The are the best he has found with fewest side effects. Zoloft. They are much better than Cipralex.

Counselling may help if it is a desire thing actually because it may help you talk about it and therefore at the very least make informed decisions about how you go forward that are informed rather than frustrated.

When do you think your sex life change from this:

I first met my husband I thought "wow! This is amazing! Finally I've found someone who is as passionate and sexually driven as I am

to this:

We had sex twice. On our honeymoon

Was it as soon as you got married? How long were you together before you got married?

Also Peshwari had a point. Are you sure that he still loves you and is not just going through the motions? Once you fall out of love with someone it's quite natural to not want to be intimate with them.

And, if he walked naked from the shower and got into bed for a cuddle, would you be disappointed if it didn't lead anywhere or would you enjoy the intimacy of skin to skin contact?

Sorry for all the questions but there are lots of possibilities for his behaviour. This is why counselling would be the best route for you both. One thing I am pretty certain of though, is that it is very unlikely to be anything to do with what you look like.

Intimacy is a mental and emotional connection. Sex is physical. Some people need one before they are ready the other. Some don't.

What do you consider to be sex? Is it sex if there's no intercourse? If only one of you orgasms. Or neither of you does. Is it sex if it stops at foreplay? Or if there is no foreplay? Oral? Sex therapists often suggest 'no go zones' on the body. You have exercises where you are allowed to touch each other but not erogenous zones. It's designed to make your relationship more about intimacy and less about getting hung up on 'sex' and takes the pressure off.

Finally, I'm also pretty certain that lying next to him using a sex toy on yourself would be about the worst thing you could for his self confidence.

Thanks Maleview. I am sure you're right. He will never have a high sex drive.

Now I need to think if I can live with that for the rest of my life. And whether the positive aspects of the marriage outweigh it.

It's my own fault. I should have made 100% sure before I married him that we were compatible in this area. Now I have to live with the heartache. And so will he.

I'm not sure it is about the ADs either because it could well be about the things he isn't dealing with that make him have ADs IYSWIM. If he has been abused in childhood and that is why he is on ADs then for a variety of reasons he needs to work through what happened to him.

It may not be that he doesn't feel attracted or that he doesn't want to touch you but it could be that he doesn't want to do any of those things because he doesn't want you to touch him and he is still giving in to sex because he knows it is important to you.

I do think counselling would likely help.

If not being "fancied" is so hard to live with, good luck to all of you in middle age and beyond. Do you think your husbands/wives will be thinking "phwoar" when you are in late middle age and beyond?

Not having a loving partner or not having any sex is a problem, not having the quantity and quality of sex that you ideally desire and crying over it IS narcissistic. It is exactly the same as "needing" £10k per month to enjoy life and claiming the average is nothing to do with you and this is what YOU need. Especially with sex, if you want to be permanently desired, you need to keep changing partners once in a while or have affairs. To contrast an exciting sex life with the "mundanities of child care" screams ME ME ME. And, as countless threads have shown, you cannot expect non sexual intimacy when you are constantly demanding sex ("We argue constantly about this"). The poor man probably cannot touch you without feeling sex is expected.

I mean you are talking to us on the Internet when actually what you really need to find out is why things changed which is something he may even need help to find out.

I think it's a mix of all of it: ADs for long period, pressure, child abuse, anxiety, usual family life stress

I agree with everything Maleview has written.

The sex life with my ex was brilliant for the first 6 months too OP. It's only looking back I see that even then it was me ripping his clothes off (and him responding enthusiastically), rather than the other way round. It soon settled down to once or twice a month, which he was more than happy with. In fact, I think once or twice a year would have suited him fine..

The meds may be a red herring. If it were just libido he would still like to compliment, cuddle and be intimate, wouldn't he? But either way, if he needs his meds to be healthy, stable and a good partner/father, that's not going to change either is it?

Yeah yeah larry whatever because women can't expect to be fancied by their husbands when they are not young and nubile bodied(!)

I don't expect to be fancied either as I age. I am not as fanciable now as I was 10 years ago and in 10 years time I will be still less fanciable. And you know what, I can live with that.

Why are people so self deceiving?

Sex for me doesn't need to be about penetration but the intimacy and closeness of physical intimacy. I would love for him to look into my eyes and kiss me and touch me. It doesn't have to be penetrative sex. Or even for my pleasure. I like just as much to please him because it makes me feel happy that he WANTS sexual contact of any kind.

I don't know if he really loves me. Maybe he has fallen out of love. I dont know. That is a possibility. I can see why he would try to keep the peace and stick around for the kids and the life. We have a nice life and I don't think he would have anywhere else to go. Or that he would want to lose contact with the babies (we live abroad on my visa).

Perhaps that is the real truth.

Yes, but if you go to a sex therapist and they hear you are on AD's, they will also advise you that even with all the role play/exercises in the world, you will have to be a bit realistic about what this can achieve- AD's/anxiety/depression/mood swings all mess with your base libido.

I think, I know this is going to sound a bit horrible, but you are facing now the truth of your marriage. You married pretty quickly, in a whirlwind, had two children very quickly, you never got a chance to find out what his real sex-drive was like as you were already married, and not having much sex on the honeymoon. He also sounds like he has issues and is quite troubled, great that he is taking ADs. But, he is a real person, not a perfect fantasy man, and I think the truth of what you have taken on is sinking in now.

That doesn't mean you can't be happy, but the romantic idyll is over, and real-life, which includes some compromises such as : he has to be on ADs but that does mean his libido is lowered, are going to be par for the course.

But, stop taking it personally. Everything you have said makes me think he does love you and does fancy you (he takes enjoyment in your pleasure, for example). But: is he mad with desire from dusk til dawn, probably not. I would get out there and start focusing on other aspects of your life which are satisfying (e.g. if he's in a lot, then he can stay with the children while you go out with your friends). Dress nicely for yourself, exercise for yourself, call your friends a lot, have an interesting career. Enjoy the sex you do have and don't feel bad for him, he probably enjoys it too but just isn't thinking about it much inbetween.

But if that were the truth OP, he had fallen out of love with you by your honeymoon, hadn't he?

I am struggling to understand why it's so difficult for you to comprehend that your DH is like this - it's who he is and it's very unlikely to change.

I understand you don't want it to be that way, but it's not something you can control. You have to accept it.

I wouldn't stay married to someone who didnt fancy me or who I didn't fancy. My patents are nearing 60 and still fancy each other like mad. It is spurious logic to say only young thin people deserve to be or are sexually attractive to their spouses. Must be really sad to feel like you do.

maleview, I didn't say he must be gay, but that he could be - i can't see that it's unreasonable as there are quite a few married gay men out there, who eventually come out, even if you read some threads on Mn among other things. I didn;t know about their passionate start to the r-ship, so i commented not knowing that, if they did have a passionate start then yes, it's less likely, but not impossible htat he may be bisexual.
I know only too well that some men have issues with libido - I ve been myself in one r-ship like that even though he was in love - but despite his low libido he never made me feel undesirable/unattractive, he just couldn't perform enough and the whole thing eventually fell apart. Op saying how she walks in inderwear and gets zero reaction (I don't mean anything crass but even a long admiring look or a smile), doesn't even touch her breasts when they are in bed - hmm, I'm afraid it's quite unusual for hetero men. And tis happens EVERY time, not just when on 'off' days.
Op also says that when he was off the meds it wasn't any better.

That was to larry btw

Triffiddealer, please read my posts. I have already said I'm assuming he won't change and what I need to ascertain is if I can live with it. An of I an accept it because the good outweighs the bad.

But, where is the evidence he doesn't fancy her?!

I know this is going to sound horrible, but anxiety/depression makes you less demonstrative/more inward looking/not necessarily wanting cuddles/gazing into each others eyes. That's what he's got. If a woman came on here and said I've got PND and don't feel cuddly/like being intimate with my husband and he's cross about it, everyone would get it. Why not if a man has the same experience?

This man isn't a romantic hero in a novel, and the OP is not a heroine waiting to be swept off her feet. They have two children together and he has problems. I really think that stuff like 'perhaps he doesn't love me' when he's functioning fine, they have a sex life, they are presumably parenting fine together IS tending towards the self-indulgent.

Likeatonne - actually it is very usual for people of all sexes and orientations who are depressed/anxious and on ADs because of the medication and the reasons for the medication. Being bisexual or gay is not not responding to the sexual advances of your wife it is finding men sexually attractive and what has been described can be really normal in a variety of ways. Tbh I find it really crap that men are subjected to this constant shit about not being "normal hetero" unless they are humping every hole 24 hours a day and constantly groping women.

I have read your threads OP, sorry if it doesn't come across like that.

So are you asking for advice on how to stay married to a man who shows no sexual interest in you?

Need I know you feel really desperate and want an answer but don't be too quick to second guess what is going on. You need to be able to talk to your husband about why things changed and counselling may help. Don't jump to any conclusions by yourself because feeling separate in your sex life is what is making you feel so bad. I think you need to try to come together on this and talk about it together to find out how to go forward.

yes, he could also have fallen out of love, but that would probably show in non sexual ways too. If he is still 'considerate and wonderful lover' but just doing it for you, it sounds like emotionally he still loves you.

how does your dh feel about his own body? my dh's sex drive ebbs and flows with the size of his beer belly - if he's feeling fat it doesn't matter what i say he doesn't feel sexy... if he gets into training and starts to feel fit and lose his belly he will want more sex... ironically it bears NO relation to how fit or otherwise MY body is, it's about him and how he feels.