Need advice about my wife and how to confront an issue

[Dad1975]

HI , I am new to this , so please bear with me ,
I am married with 3 lovely kids , 2 boys and a girl . We have been married for 12 years and have been really happy together ... until recently .
Since my youngest son was born ( now 13 months ) , my wife has lost all interest in me ( sexually ) . We have spoken about this, and she has stated that she has lost her sex drive and really isnt keen on intimacy any more .
I have been very supportive of this until recently when I noticed a webpage left open with porn on ? I deleted it as my kids were next to me and confronted my wife about it later on , she shrugged it off and said it must have been our 11 yr old son ? I checked the history settings and noticed it was set at privacy for this period and it was while my son was at school ?
I hate to admit now that I got very confused/ angry and started to undo all deleted settings and came across hours of porn over the last 12months all time stamped during early afternoons on weekdays ( me at work , baby in bed and kids at school ) . I feel awful for spying but felt that I need to find out what exactly was being viewed .
This was several weeks ago , and it has continued on a near daily basis . I thought maybe this was probably her trying to get more sexually active , but when I try and cuddle at night or initiate anything she labels me a pervert and says she is tired .
I have no problem with her watching these things , I just wish she woudl inlcude me , or talk with me more , any advice ? Thanks - Costas

do you think DW would go to marriage counselling?...or maybe counselling for herself?
There could be many reasons going on...perhaps encouraging she find someone she could talk to to help her unravel her true feelings about things would help her.
Perhaps you need to be able to do the same too...
This may be something which began within your relationship a long time ago...it's difficult to be sure on something like this.....at the very least I do think you both need to find outlets which will allow you to talk about everything as the best place to start.
I hope this is of some help...keep posting..others will be along soon x

Thanks, it is really hard for me as I feel she will be really embarrassed by me knowing or angry at me for finding out . I just feel really deflated by this whole issue and my confidence has been totally ruined by her not wanting me intimately .

In a good sexual relationship, there's really no room for embarrassment or inhibitions. OK she may be angry you've been checking her internet history but you'll have to get past that in order to discuss the real problem i.e. the loss of intimacy in your relationship. You have to ask for and be prepared for an honest answer, and it may not be what you want to hear.

as DW already knows you have stumbled on this internet stuff...it follows you would have more questions about it with her...it's not this that is the core issue though so hopefully it won't just focus on this and will open up the discussion more....
think carefully about being accusatory or seemingly appalled...try to be more like...'ok, this has happened'.. that you are very confused and concerned, etc. but it's not so awful and you really want to be able to work things through between you....try not to stay with the internet thing too much...move forward to what really is happening and try to be pro-active about wanting to work through things...hopefully she will consider counselling/someone to talk to and then marriage counselling for you both later on maybe...you should seek this for yourself too...soul searching and hindsight can be very helpful...
I suppose it's an exercise in working out what you both want within your marriage and as people, what life is for you now and what you want from the future, etc...
Brace yourself for all of this...it's going to take time, patience and tolerance and you may find things you had no idea about and will need to take time to think and respond to....I imagine you must have some inclination of things having been unbalanced for some time so you need to be thinking about this and digging deep to be honest and realise that things did not get to this point by themselves....and it all takes 2 to create and also 2 to resolve....whatever that may become between you as you try to move forward with all this.

Well sorry but her porn use might well be the core issue, along with her trying to frame her own son for her habit. That makes her a liar and it's especially despicable to blame one's own child for one's own behaviour.

It might be that her porn habit has replaced her desire for sex with a real-life partner. It happens to lots of men with a porn habit - there's no reason to think it hasn't happened here too.

I suspect the crux of this is that she doesn't want you to 'join in' at all. There's no reason why you should either. She possibly sees this as her own private thing and it's also possible that what she views has desensitised her to sex with you.

This is no different to a woman whose sex life is being contaminated by her male partner's porn habit. So I hope you get similar responses to a woman posting about the same problem.

You don't have to put up with a sub-standard sex life, a partner who uses porn in preference to having sex with you, or living with a manipulative liar. That's her choice and it's being enforced on you without your consent. You have every right to want regular intimacy with a partner and to state those wishes.

yes that may be also true...what I was meaning was that this didn't just happen by itself...there must have been catalysts to this and especially as it sounds like it has become a long standing thing that DW has been doing.
I suspect she was saying the first thing that came to mind when she suggested her 11yr old DS may have done it...it's an obvious very secretive thing and people say things flippantly to protect their possible shame and fear of being discovered, etc...I'm quite sure she isn't meaning any harm to her DS in using this as a possible excuse to deflect from herself...just wriggling from confrontation with her DH at the time and not really wanting to be deceitful but more she was feeling unable to reveal this easily.
This woman obviously has some issues she is wrangling with and it sounds long standing for her too...living a secret brings a lot of stress and unhappiness with it...
I don't think anyone needs kicking when they are down...some understanding should be given to her...she isn't a monster...shes a person who is obviously become lost within a cycle which has caused great harm to herself and the people nearest to her....it wasn't a deliberate thing...I'm sure it has just evolved for whatever reasons...yet to be realised for both her and her DH here.....I think time and talking will be the best way forward for all....

Could it be that your DW has become exhausted with looking after 3 DC's & would rather sleep at night than be intimate but still needing the sexual release that most of us need?

I'm very much pro talking to your wife. This is your lives, your marriage & more often than not, things aren't black & white.

I feel for you both. Please open up the lines of communication.

Good luck.

if a man posted this (labelling the wife 'a pervert' for trying to cuddle up/intiate sex when in bed) ther'd be a lot fewer sympathetic responses! Whyt is she refusing to talk to him - he tried! she obviously lost respect for you OP, who knows whether she had a validreason for that, or just never had genuineg feelings for you? if she was just tired with the kids, surely she'd explain that, it's not unusual. Tbh I doubt she ever fancied you really, may be the case if justfinding a man to father her children. sorry if this is harsh.

I was in pretty much the same position as your DW after the birth of my ds (22 months.) it was horrifying. I had always had the higher sex drive of the pair of us and after ds was born it totally went poof! I tried everything. I went to the gp to see if there was anything physically wrong, had blood tests, came off the pill, bought a vibrator, tried just cuddling, and had sex when I didn't want to (which just hurt.)

My DH isn't into porn at all, but I tried to get my libido back on my own using it. I felt there was no pressure that way and no hurt feelings if I couldn't perform. I told him in the end, and he was so kind and understanding. He wasn't angry or defensive. My libido has come back. I was diagnosed with pnd and found that the ad helped too. It took until ds was about 18 mos for me to start feeling betterin that way again.

'of just finding a man'

MadCap - I can see your point of using porn to get libido back, but I'm sure you didn't pushed your dh off so unkindly (like OP's wife), and you did communicate. Also i doubt that you used porn daily. Sounds like an addiction in her case - or the case that libido is fine but she just doesn't fancy her H, so the porn is an outlet.

'didn't push'

I didn't tell my dh about the porn for a long time btw, because I was deeply embarrassed about it. I forgot to put that in my post and felt it was important.

oh don't be ridiculous likeatonne. Woman loses interest in sex with her DH after 3 kids and 12 years of marriage and you say she never fancied him in the first place and just used him as a sperm bank? There are plenty of possible reasons I can think of for a loss of interest in sex/intimacy with one's husband, but that certainly doesn't make the top 100. OP, put that idea from your mind, it is bonkers as well as plain unhelpful.

I wonder if counselling is the way forward here? Though it must feel that way, I very much doubt this is personal.

have you considered whether somebody could be ripping off your broadband/remote accessing the computer or, and i hesitate to type this, whether somebody is coming round at that time each day?

I have 3 young children and the first year or so of each child's has been exhausting and overwhelming for me. My relationship with my husband wasn't great (rubbish actually), I made no time for him after spending all day with the children...etc etc etc. It was really, really hard to get our relationship back on track and unfortunately for my poor Dh, he just had to wait while I sorted myself out emotionally.

I kept reminding him to go back to basics, remember the beginning of our relationship - it really was like starting all over again with a night out, a night in without the t.v/laptops, finding something to do together without the dc's. Our golden rule is to have one night a week to sit together and talk things through - the past week, the next week, go through our diaries.

libe, i said this was one possible reason, another being that she lost respect for him, whether she had a reson I wouldn't know. But she obviously is harsh and disrespectful to him - instead of talking he labels HIM a pervert for trying to initiate sex, wtf?

Bricks- You sound like a vile woman hating Daily Fail reader with that she only wanted a baby daddy comment- I totally was vile to my dh. I was on the computer looking at porn every chance i was alone. Not everyday. Im a sahm with a 3yo and 22mo so I didnt often get the chance, but I was desperate. Op might be worth checking out the symptoms of pnd. i only started feeling better when I started getting treatment.

I mean she labels him
MadCap - yes, that's understandable but you weren't nasty to him for being affectionate I bet, even if you refused sex you tried to be nice about it, not blame him?

MadCap, I repeat, i mentioned that as one possible reason, not the only explanation! I did say that OP
s wife may have some other reasons to lose respect for him, we don't know.
I don't read daily mail, thanks, but if a woman posted the same (H vile to her and using porn) I guarantee there would be less sympathy to her partner.

I think there are lots of excuses being put forward here, just because the one with the porn habit and rejection of sex and intimacy is a woman. I also think her lie about her poor son is being glossed over, something that wouldn't happen if a woman OP reported her husband lying and accusing his own 11 year old daughter of a porn habit that she didn't have.

She may not have lost respect for him at all. I don't think it's reasonable to reverse the sexes in this situation as men don't go through the huge physical and hormonal changes that pregnancy and birth brings. If you add in the change in identity that comes with a new baby and the exhaustion. It likely has nothing to do with the OP at all. My dh certainly did nothing wrong. I didn't lose respect for him.

I suggest OP that you discuss this with your dw in a very calm and sensitive manner. Also broach the subject of pnd with her. In my treatmentgroup there were loads of women with similar issues that weren't diagnosed until their babies were a bit older.

Beth and Bricks--what good would it to for OP to come down hard on his dw? I don't think he's looking to end his marriage. A little bit of compassion goes a long way. I have a lot of sympathy for you OP. I know it was difficult on my dh, but we're stronger for having gotten through it. I have nothing but the hugest respect andlove for him now exactly because he was so understanding during the whole ordeal.

Oh for god sake, I knew it wouldn't be long. Of course we can't reverse the sexes can we. For the love of chuff.

Lying, and what seems like an addiction to porn, whilst ignoring/being nasty to DH/no intimacy on any level is unacceptable. Full stop. Excusing it because we go through hormonal changes is not on.

likeaton, like madcap, I think that telling the OP that after 12 years of happy marriage and 3 kids that his wife never actually fancied him in the first place is cruel and unhelpful, besides being vanishingly unlikely to be the reason behind the problems they are having. You've read too many trashy magazines if you think difficult, complex, real-life problems can be ascribed to an 'I used him as a sperm bank!!!!!' kind of vision of human motivation.