Soo sexually frustrated!!!!

[mrsdp16]

Hi ladies

Really need some advice. I have been with my husband for 7 years, married for almost 5. We have a 2.5year old son who is adorable. My husband is so funny, tactile, interesting, supportive, a brilliant dad...basically my best friend. However, he's also quite slovenly, has put weight on, has zero romantic inclinations and we argue quite often. Our sex life is nil. We haven't had sex since I was pregnant!!! I can't bear for him to touch me. The thought of it is just so....I can't even go there! I love him dearly but am not IN love with him. Yet, I am horny as hell!!! I constantly fantasise about other men and feel so sad that we have got to this stage. We've had counselling which has really helped with communication issues but neither of us are actually wanting any intimacy with each other at all. Personally, I don't want to leave this relationship because of our son. I don't want him to have the fractured childhood that my husband and I had as children. However, I know, deep down, I am on the brink of an affair. If a handsome man fluttered his eyelashes at me, I would need the will power of Hercules to fight the urge off.

Please don't hate me ladies. Every day, I realise I am so lucky. My husband is faithful. Sober. Dependable. Reliable. Secure. Everything you could want in a husband. And I know, alot of you lovely ladies on here have partners who give you grief and abuse every day which is so stressful and depressing (I've been there with ex's so I know what some of you are going through!). But I look at my husband and I'm totally cold. The spark has very definitely gone. out. He does try it on with me bless him but I just freeze, I just don't find him in the least bit attractive or sexy.

We do hug often and we laugh and we love our son and have some good times - although babysitters are virtually non-existent so our social life is also nil point!! As I said to our counsellor, in a private one to one session, I've made my bed (married him) so I've got to lie in it So, I am very aware of my responsibility as a wife and a mother. Which is why I'm in such a dilemma. I just don't know how much longer I can cope with feeling so sexually frustrated and desperate for some fire!!! It's not something we can re-kindle either I don't think. We got together quite quickly - I suspect we were both on a rebound and we just ran with it. We had lust at first which then fizzled out slowly.

I'm just wondering whether I can keep being married to someone for the next 20, 30, 40 years who I feel is just my best friend..housemate...son's father... and nothing else? I know if we did split up it would be completely amicable and friendly. I just don't know what to do, more so for the sake of our son. I think he and I both deserve some passion again but perhaps we can learn to live a life without sex, without intimacy? some people do....

What do you all think??

Is it just that he has put on weight? Would you fancy him again if he lost it?
Or are there other factors? Would he join a gym, or could you go running together?

Hi vintagewarrior, no it's not just that. Of course I would like him to be thinner but he just doesn't turn me on. full stop!

I think if you don't love you husband and find him sexually attractive then you should not be together.

You said it yourself that it would be amicable and friendly. Your son will be happier if you are both happy, be it, together, or alone. Plenty of children have brilliant childhoods with seperated parents.

However, if you can't live the way you are and don't end it, and have a affair, then you could end any sort of relationship with your dh and it could effect your son.

You say you have tried. have you tried hard enough? Absaloutly everything you can to make it work? If so, then you can do no more!

Do not stay together because of your son! It will do him no good in the end!

Happy parents = Happy children!

How much time do you spend together on your own? have date nights? Not having couple time can be a real passion killer and you need to invest in babysitters.

Have you told him how you feel? told him that you are in the brink of looking elsewhere - he needs to be aware that he is in danger of losing you. Finding someone else without giving him the chance to improve things is cruel.

What has changed so much (apart from the weight gain) in 5 years that means you no longer fancy him at all even if he lost the weight? Did you ever fancy this guy?

Not really alot he can do is there though apart from lose a bit of weight but she has already said its not just that its the whole package. She has also said that he does make a move, its her who doesnt want anything. To be honest it should be him who is on the brink of an affair!

It's a tough on but I think possibly you need to think back to why you did find him sexy and make an effort to re-establish some intimacy. 2.5 yrs is a long time not to have had sex with him.

I didn't want like to say but.... seems like OP married this guy in a hurry and now he has donated his sperm she wants nothing more to do with him (physically speaking)...

I could understand if the weight was an issue (although after a baby I doubt OP is still in the same shape either), but to say the whole package is a turn-off so quickly in a marriage.... Sceptical:

I think once you get to that point, you do need to think about splitting up then. It's a shame when you obviously get on so well but you both deserve a fulfilling sexual relationship, even if it is apart. Shelve the affair thing, trust me you'll just feel worse.

Been there (pre DS) & it's a tough choice to make. He obviously knows your not feeling it, has he asked you about your reasons for rejecting him?

FWIW I became like that with EXDH. Still got on really well but I just couldn't go there. It was his happiness that made me leave in the end, I knew he deserved more from someone, glad I did as he married again and is happy.

No one plans on breaking up a family, but can you see yourself still feeling like this in 10 or 20 years? I couldn't.

Forgot to say, worked out for me too, met the sexiest man 6 months later who is DS dad, and 100% the love of my life, hoping to get married at some point.

My take on this would be that yes, poss a rush decision then, but also I noticed that we often (not always) quite subconsciously repeat the pattern of our home life :( speaking here from my experience too. It takes immense energy to examine and break that pattern if at all possible - and it needs 2 to do it.

I was you a few years ago, OP.

On paper I had a lovely partner, a gorgeous 2 year old and a nice house. Behind closed doors I had a partner I could not have had sex with, no intimacy, and retrospectively I had fallen out of love with him a long time before.

Eventually it got to a point where we had nothing to talk about. Every night involved me on the Internet, him on the playstation. We went out one night and it was beyond awkward - I was literally wracking my brain for a topic. There was nothing.

I eventually ended it.

DS flourished. He was (and still is) able to see me in a wonderful, happy relationship and now has an amazing step father. For all I worried about wrecking his life by splitting the family, it has done quite the opposite. If I had stayed he would have had a skewed perspective of what a good partnership looked like, and two very stressed, unhappy parents.

Hi

I have no words of wisdom whatsoever - I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone. I have had these feelings for sooo many years now - loving and appreciating what I have but having a massive part of my relationship (i.e. the sexual part) completely missing. I am talking years and years. We have seperated a couple of times over it and we seem to be stuck in a cycle of loving each other, loving our girls, loving spending time as a family and then realising that we haven't really got a relationship as such, more a friendship and parentship. Its so painful - and knowing what the right thing to do is just so difficult. I sometimes feel like i have to choose between my family (i.e. children) and their happiness and my own (i.e being a sexual being, and possibly happier?). I say possibly there because we have seperated before and being away from the children was just more than i could bear and felt so wrong when there was nothing horribly wrong with the relationship. Like you, my husband is lovely, kind, a bit useless but no more than me (!) - he is not abusive or mean or anything. I just don't have those feelings anymore - it makes me cringe and freeze up when i think about any intimacy with him which is just horrible for him and me. We've talked, we have had counselling, nothing has made a difference other than some understanding on some level. I know this doesn't help but i do understand where you are coming from!! Also, i too am soo sexually frustrated, seriously, i might actually pop! Seems a rubbish reason to break up a family though.... wishing you all the best, and if you get to an answer please let me know!!

Frankly, I feel sorry for your DH and think splitting up is fairest to him. (though wouldn't want to put words in his mouth.) Marriage to someone who has zero desire for you, despite shared history and a child, must be soul destroying. It may even be why he has put on weight - comfort eating.

I'd add a note of caution. Since there is nothing your husband can do to increase your desire for him, surely it's you who has changed, not him? Whatever the issue is inside you, I think you'll take it forward to future relationships. After you end it, you need to be in counselling, and deal with this before you meet someone else. Most adults have discovered, by your age, that desire, like love, is some days a decision, not an emotion.

I don't have any wisdom, I would say in my opinion being a happy family is better then splitting up and chasing a spark with anyone else. I hope it all works out for you.

I am surprised that so many people are suggesting that you split up. The spark can go in a relationshipbut it can also come back. You say that he is funny and your best friend, you just don't fancy him anymore. That can change.

I think you need to help him with the losing weight and encourage him to take up some exercise. Then start dating again, get a babysitter and go out for the evening, a weekend away together would be a good thing to aim for.

I think a counsellor would be looking at issues in your life and background to explain this, and not at him.

I also think that whether you have an affair or not, the problem will remain until and unless you are willling to tackle it, by being much more honest with yourself.

Maybe time to look a bit harder at that fractured childhood.

There are lots of well known book which can help you to think this through, too.

No advice except to say that if I were in your shoes I would worry, before splitting up, about ending up back at the same place in five years with someone else. Or worse still, break up with him and then find I've hooked up with a total arse.

Split up! I would be so offended if I were to believe for one second that my OH didn't fancy me & went cold at the thought of being intimate.

This is not only your decision to make & if this man is as much of a friend as you say, you need to tell him how you feel about him & give him the respect he deserves to walk away.

As you say, you know it would be amicable if you split. Would it be the same if you split after him finding that you didn't actually have Herculean willpower after an attractive man fluttered his lashes?

Leave.

It's what everyone else would say particularly if it was man who'd "fallen out of love" with his DP. After asking what exactly he'd done to make the other party want to have sex with him.

Are you going to take your son with you when you go, or are you expecting to toss your DH out of the house you share, as well as your life?

or are you expecting to toss your DH out of the house you share, as well as your life
That was bit harsh.

I think that when sex and desire goes completely like this, it's often the symptom of deeper incompatibilities and good underlying reasons why people shouldn't be together. My ex and I didn't have sex (except for a handful of times) for 3 years after our child was born and I ended up leaving - but the lack of sex was just a symptom of the fact we didn't love each other really like a husband and wife should, weren't able to sort those fundamental incompatibilities out and weren't really making a healthy or happy home for our child. We got on reasonably well and could, I guess, have accepted existing and trundling on in that kind of existence - but no, I wanted more for all of us, especially my son who deserves more out of life than that kind of childhood.

I really hate the phrase 'breaking up a family' - it's such bollocks. My son's family has been rearranged, not broken.

... so why do XHs get told they are breaking up a family - I agree it's bollocks, incidentally.

Usually, I'd expect the unhappy one to leave - that's certainly the general advice to men... I just don't see why it would differ here.

Bit confused "neither of us are wanting any intimacy" but then "he does try it on with me bless him" !! So he does want the intimacy? "I know I'm on the brink of having an affair".
What I am wondering is whether the OP is entirely honest and perhaps she has someone else in mind already. This would explain the recoil effect she has about her DH, which is odd to happen after only 5 years given that it was 2lust at first sight".