DW, marriage, communication, sex and stuff.

[Keepithidden]

Hello, I?ve posted in Dadsnet and Feminism already for advice regarding specific parts of my slightly dysfunctional marriage, so it?s time to bite the bullet and whack a post in relationships!

Bit of background, I?m male, DW and I have been married five years, together ten. Both mid 30?s, two DCs (2 and 4) and no sex life. I?ve considered and tried various anaphrodisiacs and been reading a lot about PIV/Feminism womens views of sex and got myself thoroughly paranoid about the number of women with disappointing sex lives and I think DW may be one of them.

I?ve tried to broach the subject a few times, but she says it?s tiredness/stress (understandable considering the young kids I suppose), I?ve asked whether she enjoys it when we do have sex, she says yes. I?ve even asked if she fakes it! She says no. Not sure whether I believe any of it because I know she wouldn?t want to hurt my feelings, and there does seem to be a big proportion of women out there who aren?t happy.

I help around the house as much as I can (still got to buy a copy of Wifework to make sure I?m covering all bases) and I think we split things pretty equally despite me being fulltime working and DW a SAHM. She has the option of lie-ins at weekends (but rarely takes them), I try to do all the kiddy stuff at weekends to give her a break and cooking/cleaning in evenings is my responsibility most of the time too (she tends to do most of the laundry and cooking for the kids).
So I suppose the question is, how long should I wait before putting an ultimatum/suggesting counselling/ending the Marriage? (rhetorical: I know only I can answer that) I love DW and would do anything for her (have considered chemical castration at times), but this is getting me down and I?ve started having slightly suicidal thoughts which I know isn?t healthy. The constant rejection I could cope with if I knew what the reason was. Could be a case that counselling for me is required.

I think it all started about 5 years ago when we were TTC, after 1 year DW became pregnant and morning sickness put a kibosh on any intimacy, a year later we DTD once and number two came along, again Morning Sickness meant a nine month break, BFing extended this and it all fell into a rut so we?ve only DTD six times in the past five years! Putting that down in writing is quite shocking.

Anyway, DW has issues with her body post pregnancy. I find her sexy and attractive, but my constant reassurances fall on deaf ears (haven?t seen her naked for five years either). I think she may need some help to improve her confidence as nothing I can say changes it a jot. Not sure on the best way to approach this one, so any words would of advice would be good. I think once she?s happy with herself then we can talk more about what she wants out of life and whether she even wants me in it.

Sorry, this post is all a bit disjointed and I?ve probably missed stuff out but it?s cathartic to get it down even if this gets no responses!

4 out of 10 women are homeless due to domestic abuse. All very well to say LTB but nice spare flats are out of reach for some of us.

darkest you were always free to leave but chose not too.

If it were any kind of other emotional abuse other than the withdrawl of affection or sex woud you have said the same in the same way.

I wrote up the whole thing for another site. The full background is here.

everydayvictimblaming.com/submissions/my-mother-misogyny-men/

DarkesteyesFri 12-Jul-13 18:21:23

Ive been reading this thread but didnt know whether to post or not.

keepit

you sound so nice and loving and just so desperate.
I want to hug you
and I wish I could talk to your DW to find out what's bothering her.

I don't know why she is distant, but I think it is more to do with her being unhappy with herself rather than being unhappy with you.
(I've been like that and most of what you said could have been written by my DH!)

I haven't read whole thread, sorry if repeat, but I think you need some professional help to get the communication going first.

I will PM you tomorrow about a book you might find interesting.

Look I'm not trying to give you a hard time, just wondering if that was an option you could've chosen. No judgment from me re the affair by the way.

I think it's taken as read here that ltb is the optimal solution to all abuse situations, tho easier said than done.

Sorry Hell It just gets to me sometimes Most of the time i cope. Turning 40 last month caused a mini panic attack about it all.

Agree with other posters KeepItHidden you sound like a really nice bloke and i really hope things get sorted and that you find a solution and happiness as a result.

Of course it is not unreasonable to want to have sex with someone who wants sex with you.

But my point is that it is unreasonable to expect a situation like this just to 'get better' if there is no communication or no will from the withholding party to make it better.

Sometimes you can just be stuck in a rut and will come out. Sometimes it is not a rut, it is the way things will always be. Then you have to make the decision about what it is about this relationship that keeps you in it.

Of course there are many happy, fulfilling relationships where the people in them have little or no sex. But I think this only works long term when this is the mutually agreed decision of both of them. Unilateral impositions of one person's reality on another for the long term are rarely healthy or happy.

The sadness is that the years go by so fast and you may find yourself stuck in a situation due to inertia rather than any positive decision.

keepithidden yeah at least you sometimes you have to think about what YOU want and if the situation is making you happy.

I hope all goes well.

OP, I also think your wife may be depressed - partly because you said she is terrified of getting pregnant, despite your vasectomy. It could be that the effect of having two small children is such that she knows another would destroy her.
To be clear, I am not saying her fear of pregnancy, when you are snipped, is a good reason not to have sex, I am just noting it as a possible indicator of someone who is drowning, not waving.
Do read the "parenting affecting mental health" thread that someone linked to. one of the things that I feel and saw a lot on that thread is that having small children drops a bomb for some people where the devastation lasts years. Some people are back to normal at the 6 week check after having a baby; for some, having a toddler around, or more than one small child, perpetuates the daily, absolute impact of babyhood, from which you have never once had a single day off, or enough sleep, since the day you lost a night of sleep or more in labour.

I suppose what I am saying is: early days. I still think you maybe should be seeing this as a post-baby anomaly with children the ages of yours.
If your wife used to like working and now says she doesn't want to, she may be too exhausted to try; may have lost her confidence, or her creativity or organisation, or whatever trait she was making her money from; she may feel completely out of touch with her "real" self.

she may feel far worse than she lets on. If you try to find out and try to help her get help, please don't let it come across as "I hope you are depressed because then you will get ADs and then you will be fixed and then we can have loads of sex!"

Hmm, I feel that "witholding" is likely totally the wrong word and even the wrong way of looking at it.

It is very painful, of course, to have a partner who does not desire sex with you. I just think it's important to note also that it is very painful to be the partner who does not desire sex, and usually has no idea why. It is not fair to state that this person is withholding sex, as though the decision were an arbitrary one, as though they are merely choosing not to have sex. It isn't as simple as that, you cannot choose whether or not you want something, you cannot force yourself to want something, desire is something which is completely out of our control.

This also makes it hard to talk about because you can see that your partner is upset, feel that they are frustrated, and to answer with "I don't know why, I just don't want to" feels so ridiculous and petulant that it is embarrassing. You feel like there is something wrong with you, you love this person, you want more than anything to make them happy but you cannot make yourself want sex with them. It's also scary - does this mean I'm falling out of love? Does it mean I'll never want sex again? How can they be happy with me if I can't give them sex? How can you talk to your partner about these fears, when you're questioning your own feelings about the relationship and the thought terrifies you because it is so irrational? How can you explain that to the person that you love?

I'm not wishing to minimise the suffering of those who are living unwillingly in sexless relationships, but to paint the partner as an uncaring, cold, withholding bitch is unfair. Yes, deliberately witholding sex is an emotionally abusive move, but it may not be deliberate - and the lack of desire could be a whole host of things, it could be physical tiredness, hormones, feeling "touched out" at the end of a day, it could be problems in the relationship whether that is resentment or emotional abuse (OP I do not think this is the case with you), it could be a past sexual experience/abuse which is now resurfacing, it could be an underlying fear or unease about the relationship which she is not consciously aware of (caused by growing apart, not feeling connected, falling out of love, emotional abuse again) it could be that it's just really, really low on her priorities at the moment and those 6 tomes in 5 years have happened to be when you both had enough free headspace for it to click into place, it could be any of these things, it could be something else but the point is that she probably doesn't know any more than you do, and when she thinks about it enough it upsets her. This too contributes to a vicious cycle where sex is somethin scary & stressful to think about and hence she does not want to initiate it when you don't seem bothered about it. Easier just to push it to the back of her mind and forget that it even exists.

FWIW I think your absolute best chance at salvaging the relationship is to keep building that closeness again, no pressure for sex, emphasis on not wanting it unless she also wants it, basically everything you are doing. I am really pleased to read that you are feeling closer and I hope that things continue to improve for you both.

Well exactly.

There could be a thousand and one reasons, some which can be very difficult to articulate.

Therefore you really need open channels of communication.

You may not be able to force yourself to have sex or to choose to have sex but you can damn well talk about it.

Sorry, I speak with the anger and bitterness of someone who lived for years with this. And I am angry because I see that I wasted my time.

I don't like seeing other people make the same mistake, but equally I don't like seeing people chuck away a relationship that could be good, that could be salvaged.

All I know for certain is that you can't stick your head in the sand and hope it will get better.

But I think it is important to distinguish whether your relationship is in a temporary rut due to demands of young children etc, or whether something deeper is going wrong.

The advice about casual touching was exactly what our counsellor recommended - just hug each other briefly in passing, kisses hello and goodbye etc, spontaneous non sexual touching etc. my ex couldn't even do that. I noted that in one five day period he touched me three times. And this was someone I shared a home and a bed with.

If it is just a rut and you love each other then it is definitely worth trying to mend relationship. But I would not try indefinitely or for more than a few years. I think you only have one life and I didn't want to live mine in sadness and resentment.

I totally agree with Spero, as someone who has been there myself.

Jessica, I think this thread is split between those who have been in a rut and got out and those of us who were never going to resolve the problem so we left the relationship.

I think those in a rut who managed to sort it out are perhaps thinking their advice applies in every situation and I really don't think it does. That's why I use words like 'withholding' - sometimes the refusal to have sex really is a deliberate and quite aggressive tactic from someone who just doesn't have the moral courage to either end the relationship or talk about what is going wrong.

I think it is really important to work out which side of the line you fall. If a number of years only with no change, I think you have your answer.

And another clue to where you might be is how things were at the outset as I think quite a lot of people have already said.

With my ex it was obviously from start that things weren't right but I think we both felt we were in the last chance saloon for parenthood so we both just stuck our heads in the sand and didn't face up to problems. Very dangerous and ultimately much more destructive than being honest from the off.

If you were loving and affectionate at the beginning I think you can get it back and you should certainly try especially where there are children.

But if the physical side of the relationship was always awkward and has now vanished entirely then I am afraid I think it is now doomed.

Mornin' everyone. a few more comments to respond to:

Zingwidge - Thanks for your kind words, I think you're right about the self confidence issue. Counselling could be the only way to get to the bottom of that. I don't know if DW will agree to it, but I'll suggest it as an option for her and us to consider. She knows she's not good at communicating (nor am I for that matter) and it's an area we both need to work on sepaerately and together.

Spero - I don't believe there is no will to make things better with DW after last weeks chat she has been making an effort to communicate more. It is early days and we have been in this rut for some time. I hope it doesn't end up being too hard for her and me to break ourselves out of the lack-of-communication viscious circle that we've fallen into.

While I'm on the subject I've had a chance to reassess my own behaviour and thinking back I have been quite passive/aggressive in my responses to previous rejections and can see quite clearly in retrospect how this not only failed to help us, it made matters worse. I needed something to snap me out of that behavioural trait and this thread is part of that something. It's not much fun realising how my behaviour has adversely affected things.

Darkest - That blog is quite harrowing and I can understand how defensive you feel, particularly the responses you've received in RL. I don't understand why people say those things, it's like they'd rather not look at the root cause of the issue and just minimise it by comparing it to something worse! Just such a ridiculous and irrational response to someone obviously in pain and suffering. I'm glad that you've found people who can understand and support you now though, the loneliness is the worst part.

Curryeater - "I hope you are depressed because then you will get ADs and then you will be fixed and then we can have loads of sex!" - Genuine LOL moment there, if only it were that simple, have you ever read "Brave New World"? Anyone who invents the drug Soma in there would be onto a winner. The kid-gloves approach is one I'm quite good at so I'll take it slowly to try and find the root cause. Of course it may be that I'm not in a position to do that anyway, in which case it's the counselling route...

RE: the rest of the posts regarding abuse/rut contrasts and how we were at the start. I'd like to think that neither DW or I are deliberately withholding anything (though our unconscious minds may behaviour differently). I don't believe there is any deliberate malicious intent from either quarter. It's going to take time and patience to sort out, but the last couple of days have proved better and I'll keep teaasing out our communication problems as opportunity sees fit. Not quite ready to give up yet. We were happy I'm sure we can be again, and if it doesn't happen or I sense deliberate reluctance to acknowledge there is a problem then, well I've no desire to spend my life in a marriage like that, I've no desire for DCs to experience that and assume it's how marriages should be so it'll be decision time.

Good luck, I do hope you can work it out. It would be a shame to end a relationship that can be rescued but it is definitely a two person job, no one can carry that weight alone.

Darkest - sorry to read what you went through. My ex also used to say 'I don't know what's wrong, it's not as if I hit you or have affairs' ...

How sad that some people see this as the benchmark of a functioning relationship - that they don't hit. Almost as if they want credit for NOT hitting or sleeping around.

Reminds me of that Chris Rock sketch - I take care of my kids! Well yes, you are supposed to.

"The last couple of days DW and I have been showing more affection to each other and have talked a lot more (not necessarily about us, but we can get on to that). I feel a bit more upbeat about future prospects "

• it is incredible what even a bit of 'stranger' support from the internet can do: you feel less alone and misunderstood and have a few new tools to go on with.

Do be brave and think about going to Relate. You love your wife dearly (lucky, lucky her), and talking to eachother and listening are skills that are learned, just like any other skill.

Be brave OP and go!

Another vote for counselling now. you need to arrange this, as previously suggested. I used to work in a very matey mostly male environment where we would talk about anything and everything over tea or a late afternoon drink. I can think of 3 males of my acquaintance aged around 60 who had this issue in their marriages and never discussed or tackled it, they were still living in sexless marriages around 20 years down the line and could talk about it within our group but not to their own wives (lawyers). Don't let it go on that long without tackling the issues here.