DH threatened to leave (sex related)

[SexIsTheIssue]

We had a few baby free hours Saturday which DH took as an opportunity to row, when I tried to talk he turned away and refused to engage and since then it has been silent treatment with lots of door slamming. His major problem is sex, he wants it everyday, I dont, even before DC (who is 1.2, still BFing and not sleeping) we were 1-3 times a week, now I try to ensure 1 a week even if I dont feel like it (believing the "use it or lose it" mantra) sleep is far more important and I cant say I enjoy it and (TMI) I haven't orgasmed for a long time (to DH this is his measure of enjoyment).

Quantity has always been an issue but more so since pregnancy and explodes in a row every few weeks, DH seems to think he is in a competition with DS for attention and to him attention = sex. I'm exhausted with it all and admit I have withdrawn from DH as I cant cope with the constant sex groping, whinning, sulking and openly looking at porn when me and DS are in the room, i'm also worried about getting PG but DH flatly refuses condoms and when we do have sex it is all about what he wants. I have tried to explain to DH that this is very unattractive and unlikely to make me want sex with him but he threatened that he will leave unless I start enjoying sex more, I dont really know where to go with this, how do you enjoy something more? He basically issued an ultimatum that I have to stop BFing so I can go on the pill (solving 1 problem) and I have to have sex more even when i'm so tired I cry (but he will not allow me to have a lie in, ever, if he is up, everyone is up, if he is asleep woe betide anyone who wakes him).

My question is how do we reach a comprimise when we both seem to have entrenched postions, I cant force myself to enjoy sex more, I dont even have the energy to fake it, DH will not listen to anything I say/changes/suggestions, he has become very selfish when it comes to sex and as it stands today i'm thinking if he leaves it would be a relief in one way but I know he would make my life unbearable (he has form with previous GFs). I have suggested counselling in the past but that ended up in an epic sulk and hasn't been mentioned since. Before anyone asks, we used to be equals, he used to respect me and I used to have to confidence to tell him bollocks if he was been unreasonable, now...

He left porn running when the health visitor was there? Sickening. This man has no boundaries.

Look, yes, he will be a dick if you leave him. It will be shitty for a while. But what's the alternative? Your entire life being sexually and emotionally abused by this inadequate? Your DS permanently scarred by 'accidentally' seeing his dad's porn? Social services imposing a separation at a later date because your DS tells someone what daddy showed him on the laptop?

Flowers?

Oh my.

OP, I'm really sorry but he is succeeding in manipulating you.

It is not normal to have to request that your DH does not grope you.

Please do not go together for counselling - it can make your situation very much worse. You said in your last post that you do not want an argument tonight - that is actually you saying that you do not want him to know the truth about how you feel about his behaviour basically because you know he will go apeshit. Well, that is what happens in couples counselling - you get sucked into feeling that the counselling situation is a 'safe' place to open up with all your honest feelings. Then you go home, and he goes APESHIT. You know he can't handle the truth, which is why you are steering clear tonight - and that is why joint counselling is such a bad idea. Good as gold in the actual session - ammo for abuse when you get home

As for the porn...........it's just another massive red flag that he is not a very nice man. And he doesn't respect or like women.

Sweetheart you can't "stop him" doing these things, all you can do is get the hell out. But be wise about your safety here.

This person is abusive. Do you honestly feel your child is better off living with an abusive parent than ending this relationship?

Please don't try to set up joint counselling with him- it will be a waste of your time and might make it harder for you to leave if he gets a counsellor to back him up. Lots of them are useless, frankly, at recognising abuse.

The flowers does not mean he realises he was out of order. It means he knows how to manipulate you, and is betting on you being accepting his pathetic non-apology.

There are just red flags all over this, I am so sorry :(

Have you looked at the emotional abuse support thread at all? I think you might find it helpful.

I know it's a lot to take in and it can be overwhelming when you first look at your life in this way, perhaps you've had doubts or niggling thoughts that something wasn't right, but pushed them away or found reasons that they're wrong. It's really hard to leap into the unknown, but things can be so much better than they are and it really is worth making that scary step to look out in the long run.

You cannot change another person's behaviour, and he believes he is right, so nothing is likely to change his mind, unfortunately.

And finally, I hope that you won't feel you have to continue to have sex that you don't want in order to please him, but if you did want to go on the pill there are some pills which are safe for breastfeeding, your doctor would be able to advise you.

now he has it on the laptop all the time and left it on once when the HV was here

Jesus wept, OP. Please don't think that bringing flowers is any indication that this man has changed from being the abusive, manipulative, women-hating wanker that he is.

I can barely see throught the ENORMOUS RED FLAGS to type, but please make sure you are safe tonight, OP. you have stood up to him and showed him a glimmer of a chance that you are not to be treated like shit any more, as well as denying him his favourite form of control (sex), and part of me fears that he might escalate his behaviour tonight to put you firmly back in your place. Am not being hysterical or trying to worry you unduly, it's just that he sounds like... well, a man who is not yet technically a rapist purely because he's managed to manipulate the women he's been with into abusive sex that falls into a grey area of consent.

That he would have porn playing when a HV is there in the room is really scary. It really shows that he is not mentally stable, IMO. He doesn't love or respect you and your son enough to not do this and he will also risk offending a person in authority who could bring down the worst kind of shitstorm upon a family if she'd have known. He really does hate and have no respect for women, does he?!

The more you tell us, the worse he sounds and yet everything you've detailed was what I was suspecting would be the backstory. Typical porn addict: Misogynist with unrealistic ideas about sex, unable to see the woman as a living, breathing partner with her own needs or rights to consent or not, who expects you to pretend to enjoy something you patently are not enjoying and can't enjoy. Controlling, wife hater, sexually and generally abusive, unable or unwilling to conform to normal societal boundaries, porn addict... You want your son to grow up with him as a role model, why, exactly?!

There is no easy way of putting this OP but you husband is an abusive arse and I dont believe he will change at all. He believes that you are his property and that he has a right to do whatever he feels like. Everything this bastard does is stating my home my property and that includes everyone in it. The porn! The sex! And all the other stuff worries me.

Go and contact womans aid because I feel you are going to need some help to do what is needed and leave this bully. I have worked with men with this attitude towards women and frankly they scare the crap out of me because of what they have the potential to do to other peoples lives.

Be safe!

THink is, once you have ended the relationship and got him out of the house, he will be prevented from making your life hell. You will be able to get court orders to keep him away from you and DC and if he continues trying to harass you he will go to prison.

His attitude of 'It's my 'woman' (an object/possession, not a person), so I can do what I like with it' is unacceptable to anyone who isn't an abusive arse, and it's unacceptable in law.

I'm sorry to say this but I am angry with you! How can you accept him having porn on with yor child there? Do you really believe your child is better off growing up with this awful role model and being exposed to porn? What on earth are you doing with this vile creature?! You don't sound like you are standing up for yourself or your child at all by putting up with this shit.

I am in despair for your child and for you who is emotionally abused into thinking you can solve this or that this is ok.

namechanged to comment here but am around MN over a year.

OP I read this earlier and had to leave half way through. It brought back horrendous memories of when I was married to a scarily similar man. I am shaking writing this.

I dont want to hijack but want to assure you that you are not the first (and wont be the last) to love a man like this.
In my case, the abuse escalated....I was his sex-slave, I should be available any time for him. Near the end, when ''we had sex'' it would be him masturbating over me while watching porn. He had no concept that his (not vanilla, very degrading) porn should kept out of the reach/sight/knowledge of our children.
He eventually left as he had threatened to. He left thinking it would break me and that he could walk back in with no resistance from me ever again. I am so grateful that he did.
I had completely lost myself and it has taken a few years to get back. But my kids are not being reared listening and looking at that.

I thought it was my responsibility to 'keep the family together'. That it would be bad for the kids to grow up without their father.

solidgoldbrass at 13.06 tells it as it is.

This is not my thread and I add this only so you wont feel that you are alone, that this has never happened before or that you might feel that no-one else has made this mistake.
I was told that I had' caught a good one' when I married him.

It will take a while for the fog to lift. best of luck.

Just shaking, so sad for you, well done for getting free and being brave enough to post. Xx

Justshaking -I had similar experienced with exp. I didn't let it get to the events you describe but I can tell you without a doubt exp would have loved that scenario and not given it a second thought.

Op I was in your position from when dd was about 6 months and it never got any better. The more exp nagged the more my drive decreased. Then it wasn't just sex it was bloody everything. I couldn't be in the bathroom on my own or get changed because exp would have to be there and I'd there was nakedness he would pressure for sex/sexual contact to the point where I'd sneak upstairs to our my pyjamas on without him finding out. I stopped using body lotion et. For months even though I need it because applying it was too risky due to the above.

A few months after we split my sec drive bounced back in a huge way! I'm not ready to deal with a new partner but I've had some filthy text sex with an old flame that woke all kinds of desires I thought had gone forever. I would describe what went on with exp as a very sexually abusive relationship and I would describe it in a similar way to your op. I tried to explain to exp if he just left me alone for a few weeks my drive might come back but he couldn't do it. I will never let a man treat me like that again

OP, please take the advice of the people on this thread. You and your baby are in a horrifying position, please please get your child out, or they may grow up to think that this awful, distorted world view is acceptable.

Once you are both safe you can re build your confidence, and enjoy your child.

Good luck xxx

OP in my experience if someone threats to leave (for whatever reason)and you try to accomodate him then you set a nasty pattern. Even if you sort out this issue then he will threat you again for another issue or he will move the goalposts. Imo, if someone says 'or i will leave' you must say 'ok bye'.

Sgb your 13.06 post summed up my whole marriage

My similar exp didn't stalk but did Harrass his other long term exes resulting in stern solicitor letters and a civil court case. I got an injunction.

He's making your life unbearable now.

If you split up and he stalks you, you have the protection of the law behind you.

I feel desperately sorry for you SITI. Your partner is a man who is such a bully that the threat of what he'll do if you separate seems worse to you than being forced into sex, denied any contraceptive protection, and verbally abused . He competes with his own child for attention, is forcing you to stop breastfeeding, and refuses to help you out or let you sleep. It's abusive behaviour.

Somebody more knowledgeable than me will know this, but I should think that if the HV had observed porn use in the room where your child was, she'd probably have been obliged to report it under child protection guidelines. And I wouldn't be surprised if your husband did this on purpose, to frighten you.

Please re-read SGB's posts. This man doesn't want you to enjoy sex, he wants to force you into an increasingly vulnerable position.

Crackcrackcrak: Sorry that you had to live through that shit. Glad you are free of it.

SITI: you've probably got a lot to think about at the moment. It's hard to realise that things are not the way you thought - that your unhappiness is not due to you being a 'bad wife' and not allowing him to shove his cock up you often enough, but down to him being a really, really bad husband.

Hopefully this man will, for now, switch to 'nice' mode and do things like ostentatiously wash up, tell you how nice you look, etc (he's brought flowers already). Use this time, it's the 'nice' part of a dreadful cycle. Use it to ask for help: Women's Aid, Citizens' Advice, Rights Of Women - find out whether it would be better to take DC and leave the family home, or whether you can get an occupation order which means the police will remove this man by force if necessary. Please don't start thinking that it's not so bad, really, that 'breaking up a family' is wrong - it's NOT wrong to get rid of an abusive man, it is NOT a woman's place in life to do anything to placate a man who has shown himself to be inadequate and unpleasant. Being single is far better than living with a bully or a rapist or even just a lazy man who won't do his share domestically.

crack and justshaking - well done both of you of getting out of such awful relationships. I was mentally/emotionally/verging on sexual abuse abused by my ex, and know just how liberating it is to get out!

OP - I really hope that you are taking all these posts on board. Did the HV not say anything about the porn while she was there or afterwards? HV's are supposed to ask you about domestic violence, and I reckon obvious porn use would be a big red flag.

SarryB Thu 20-Sep-12 12:17:16
HV's are supposed to ask you about domestic violence, and I reckon obvious porn use would be a big red flag.

I know the man's a twat.
Is porn use a red flag for DV?

I think obvious porn use in front of children would be - the OP said that there was porn playing while the HV was there, so I imagine the child was there too? Did she not see it? If the HV did see it while the child was there, did she not think it was a bit odd? It would certainly make me question the husband if he was happy to show porn to his small child.

I think it shows he's a twat. I'm still unsure how we get from that to DV - although I suppose with the expanded defn it could be EA?