AnyFucker - I generally like straight talking, especially if it pricks the fragile male ego - it's good for us - but this thread was polarised very early on, due to comments like
"Men who make pronouncements like this think that once they are married the woman is there to service them sexually".
These kind of generalisations are emotive and harmful and will tend to shut down reasoned debate.
The reason I first took an interest in this thread, before it got derailed, is that in my own marriage, about 4 years ago, we were where the OP is now. Similar ages ourselves, lots of kids of similar ages, same sort of frequency of sex, same tension. I ?had a bee in my bonnet? about it.
Now, we are having more sex, probably 3 times a week average, and better sex, with a greater sense of genuine ?connection?. But?? if I hadn't pushed for it, it wouldn't have happened. You?ve probably already decided that I fit right into your easy stereotype at this point, right ?
But? I didn?t demand more sex as ?my right?, pretty much the opposite, what I saw was that my wife was so dedicated to meeting the demands of her family, that she felt it would be too ?selfish? to give sex a higher priority for herself. If I had thought the answer was just to help more with housework, that wouldn?t have fixed it. Yes, it?s important to share the load fairly, but there?s always more bl**dy housework to do when you?ve got 4 kids, so accepting her set of priorities would just have meant both of us always having something else left to do before heading up the stairs.
So when I said ?I don?t think we?re having enough sex? I was not saying ?I don?t think you?re giving me enough use of your body, which I thought I?d bought the keys to?, I was saying ?I want us to give sex a higher priority because it would be good for our marriage, to spend more time just focussed on the two of us, with the rest of the world shut out for just an hour or so, to appreciate each other, to rekindle the generosity towards each other that was bursting out of us when we first met, to physically and emotionally lose ourselves in each other and so strengthen the bond between us that allows us to cope with all the stresses and demands that raising a young family means.?
Maybe the OP?s husband is just selfish, but maybe he is genuinely interested in the role of sex in keeping their marriage strong. We don?t know. But it is definitely legitimate for one partner to say to the other ?I don?t think we?re having enough sex, and I want us to talk about it?, and it will not help the OP if all she hears from real, or virtual friends, is basically ?he?s a selfish bastard?.
It is fundamental that every woman has the right to determine whether or not to have sex with her husband, but it?s not much of an answer to more nuanced questions around mismatched drives. Talk of ?rights? gets us nowhere in such cases. It is possible for a loving husband to ask ?how can I and my wife have the strongest, richest, most durable marriage possible? and for one answer to be ?we should have more sex?.
For anyone struggling with mismatched sex drives and misunderstanding of each other?s sexual motivations, I can recommend the work of Dr David Schnarch. Intimacy and Desire is a good starting point.