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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

zero intimacy- is this why i dont want to have sex?

41 replies

Irishchic · 31/07/2013 23:03

Our sex life has stalled. We have been having some arguments lately, but in the last few weeks dh has been making an effort to do more with the kids and on the domestic front.

The problem is this just isnt working for me. I just cant help thinking of all the things we dont have/do together, and feel totally disconnected from him.

We are going away for a weekend in a month for my birthday, but this is with another couple, the other guy instigated it. I dont mind who instigated it but i am not really looking forward to it as i think my dh is going to assume there will be sex, and i just dont want it.

Just to give you a picture. He wont hold my hand in public, say if we are out walking around. He says he feels daft and silly doing this, we live in a small town, and he doesnt want to be seen holding his wifes hand as he thinks this is sort of pathetic looking.

In the evenings, we have our meal, then he goes in to one room to watch all his tv shows and do stuff on iPad. I stay in the other tv room and watch girlie stuff. If i go into the room with him, he makes it clear i am interrupting his tv time.

In the rare event we are watching a movie or programme together he sits on one sofa and me on another, we never sit on the same sofa, and never curl up together, he seems to feel really uncomfortable if i am leaning against him or cuddled in to him.

He has an abhorrence of feet, so never ever touches my feet or gives me a foot rub, and sometimes picks the skin on his feet when watching tv which i have told him i find disgusting, but he still does it.

When i talk to him, i sense he is bored or not listening. Often when we are with other people and i am in the middle of telling an anecdote he will just cut across me and totally change the subject and cut me off. I really dont think he does this on purpose, but he is just totally disinterested in what i have to say and therefore thinks nothing of cutting me off.

God. This all reads awful. This has been going on for years, but for some reason is only beginning to upset and anger me in the last month. I feel like i have suddenly woken up and thought enough! this is not good enough. This is not meeting my needs at all. And so I just cant have sex any more as i feel i would just be going through the motions and i am just not prepared to do that.

But i dont know what it is that i CAN do to help improve my marriage.

OP posts:
MexicanHat · 31/07/2013 23:15

OP I feel for you. I could have written your post.

My H was the same. A total lack of intimacy, no interest in what I had to say, disgusting personal habits which totally put me off having sex with him. I tried to talk to him but he would cut me off, walk out the room or tell me to shut up.

I came to the decision that I would rather be on my own. All the attraction that I once had for him was gone and I knew I couldn't get it back and we separated last year. I am in a much happier place.

Original poster
Irishchic · 01/08/2013 21:28

Thanks Mexican. I just dont know what to do really. I know that he is wondering why i am avoiding him, and that we are going to have to talk at some stage, but i dread it.

OP posts:
Dahlen · 01/08/2013 21:33

I don't think you can do anything to improve your marriage. That has to come from him, and if he isn't prepared to do that then you either accept this is the way it will be for evermore or you leave.

It's not asking too much to ask him to show you affection and respect. They should be an absolute given in any relationship.

Original poster
Irishchic · 01/08/2013 22:13

He is so distracted all the time. For eg he would rather read the paper while i am talking to me and give me half his attention rather than just focus on me fully for 10 minutes.

The whole not holding hands, feet phobia and not wanting to share a sofa or curl up together really gets to me too. I need that physical closeness and just dont get it.

Also, his response are often lacking. For eg, the other day i was talking about a mutual friend of ours whose father has suddenly taken really ill and may be dying, and his response was totally lacking, like there was not "really, oh my god thats awful poor jane etc" or anything like that, in fact he barely registered what i told him at all, and i had to ask him had he heard what i had said. He had heard, it just didnt concern him and therefore it didnt elicit any reaction at all, no sympathy or enquiry at all.

I find this type of thing very frustrating. His detachment towards bad or sad news, and his inability to stop and just listen to me, and talk to me without his eyes wandering to the football results or to answer a phone call.

OP posts:
MexicanHat · 01/08/2013 22:24

OP it's uncanny you should mention that. My H showed little concern about illness/death of people close to us. I found it incredibly frustrating.

I would describe him as being completely emotionally detached, as if he just didn't care. He would appear to show more emotion if his football team got beat!!

It actually became soul destroying, I more or less gave up on our marriage because I felt this was him, he'd never change and I wasn't prepared to look back in 5/10 years time wishing I'd finished it sooner.

BerylStreep · 01/08/2013 22:30

I could possibly be writing this from the other POV.

I abhor feet. I mean ABHOR THEM. I'm also not overly tactile, and we tend to spend evenings totally apart (at the moment I am in the kitchen, DH is in the living room). When we do watch TV together, it is on separate sofas.

But I love DH - I just need to be on my own a lot. A lot to do with being tired, in pain, exhausted from work, sick of housework and the kids.

We do however have quite a good time when we go out together on our own, especially if fuelled by alcohol Blush.

Although the picking of feet and cutting across conversation in a dismissive fashion is pretty bad.

Not sure if that helps at all.

Original poster
Irishchic · 01/08/2013 22:31

Yes Mexican, i do understand. The thing is I do still love this man and he does have many good qualities about him. He is also the father to our 5dc so saving the marriage would be something i would strive for with all i have before i gave up on it.

If i told him all of this, he would try, he will try, and do something about it. But it slips back so easily. And how do you make someone have a normal humane response to someone elses misfortune. He can be very thoughtful towards certain people, (often people who do not deserve that concern) and yet oddlly detached toward others problems, people who are deserving of his compassion. I dont get it.

Also feels he has little time for me. and yet is ever available for other people, certain friends, acquaintances, even people he hardly knows.

OP posts:
Original poster
Irishchic · 01/08/2013 22:34

We have been invited to dinner tomorrow night by friends and i have made excuses to get us out of it, because i am just not in the mood to socialise and pretend that we are this happy couple and that all is ok. It is unlike me not to go out with this couple, but i just feel that i cant do it, dont see the point.

OP posts:
Original poster
Irishchic · 01/08/2013 22:36

mexican that is so strange because my dh would be the same if his football team lost, he would be totally animated watching the match and then totally deflated afterward.

OP posts:
Original poster
Irishchic · 01/08/2013 22:42

Thanks beryl, that does help actually. I do actually quite like my own space too, and the separate sofa thing probably wouldnt bother me at all, nor the foot phobia, if everything else was ok with us.

For eg, if we go out on our own for dinner say, he always wants to go somewhere where there is more distraction, like the pub. He prefers to finish a night in the pub. But if we do this, then invariably some bar fly will wander over and engage us in chat, and dh will love this, will happily chat all night to whoever wanders over to chat, and i am left sitting there wondering why i bothered. I actually am beginning to think that he hates being one to one with me. I love talking to folk and meeting people, but when i go out with dh, we mightnt have managed to chat to each other properly all week due to very busy family life, so i just want to focus on him, and for him to focus on me. But he is incapable/or not interested in doing this and loves it when we are interrupted, so i have just given up on going out with him for dinner etc.

OP posts:
Imsosorryalan · 01/08/2013 22:51

Do you think he has just got himself into a rut? I seem to spend most evenings on the sofa on the Internet and he watches boy telly.
Occasionally we make the effort to have a nice meal, play cards etc but we are just so shattered with young dc that we prefer to vegetate!
I think you should talk to him and agree on one eve per week where you have no telly/mobiles etc and concentrate on chatting, board games. If you want to save your marriage, these small steps may help.
Good luck, we've all been there at one point or another

lemonstartree · 01/08/2013 23:54

er - TELL HIM how you feel ? What you think ?

1gglePiggle · 02/08/2013 00:01

Has he always been like this or is it a recent thing?

Original poster
Irishchic · 02/08/2013 09:34

He wasnt always as bad as this, we used to talk more, he was never really in to big visual displays of affection out and about, but as the years have gone on he has become more detached, more into his own tv programmes and more fussy about watching them on his own, not liking me in there rustling a newspaper or whatever, and the thing of not reacting when i tell him about something that concerns someone close to us, seeming totally unconcerned about other people, that has developed gradually over the last few years.

OP posts:
DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 02/08/2013 12:17

A bloke writes: he needs a kick up the arse. However, it needs to be administered by a third party who knows you both. He won't engage if you do it.

I was a bit like this once, mainly due to associating physical contact with...unpleasantness. Also, I was brought up in an all-male environment: no sisters, boarding school, technical education and jobs.

Then my family Had A Word. Liking my knees as God made them, I pulled my socks up.

HTH.

Original poster
Irishchic · 02/08/2013 17:19

Disgrace like who do you mean by a third party? You mean maybe his brother, or a friend?

I think they wouldnt want to get involved or be seen to be taking sides.

Funny, he was also brought up in an all male environment, no sisters, all male boarding school and a very dominating father...

Not sure that his family would have a word with him though Sad

OP posts:
valiumredhead · 02/08/2013 17:42

Do you ever just kiss or hug? I wouldn't want to go from nothing to full blown sex with no lead up or day to day affection with my dh.

ofmiceandmen · 02/08/2013 18:33

Irish read this www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/1815729-Does-anyone-elses-partner-never-stay-out-later-than-9pm-Aaaagh?pg=1

Written by a woman who could be feeling what your DH is feeling.

I don't in any way agree with your DH's behaviour and maybe you're just not compatible, but having read it myself I began to consider the other side of the argument.

MexicanHat · 02/08/2013 19:38

Don't agree wth involving a third party at all!!! I wouldn't go for that advice OP. He needs to know from you that your relationship is in big trouble...........

Original poster
Irishchic · 02/08/2013 21:18

Valium no not really, apart from a peck on the cheek when he goes to work in the morning and a goodnight kiss on the lips, no tongues!

OfMice I will look up that thread but just from the title i can tell you that i certainly can stay out past 9pm. I love a drink and a night out when the company is good and when me and my dh are getting along. More often than not, when we go out dh drinks too much and then isnt great company, sometimes embarrasses in front of our friends, sometimes puts me down in front of our friends, and then when we get home puts a move on for sex, which strangely enough i dont often feel like having. Hmm

OP posts:
Original poster
Irishchic · 02/08/2013 21:19

embarrasses me that should be

OP posts:
DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 02/08/2013 21:35

MexicanHat:

The OP doesn't actually register in her H's field of attention. Seriously, this is what I was like. DW could reason, then needle, then kick off. But I couldn't process emotional dialogue, so kicking off got me into line and simultaneously fuelled resentment.

So my brothers had a chat, and DW helped me work out how to be human. The DBs didn't take sides, they did it for both of us.

OP: if you can't get a neutral viewpoint (pastor, family, counsellor) you're to have to be very very loud and persistent.

Original poster
Irishchic · 02/08/2013 21:57

Ok Disgrace I see what you mean.

I hate the thought of bringing a 3rd party in to this. It feels very disloyal and i dont want to make people feel awkward and obliged to help me out.

But maybe that is just what i am going to have to do. Did you find it hard to change?

OP posts:
MexicanHat · 02/08/2013 22:19

So Disgrace you seriously expect the OP to discuss her lack of sex life (see title of thread) with a family member and for them then to discuss it with her H?? Each to there own I suppose. Obviously worked for you. Maybe your H would consider counselling OP? But he really needs to know you're at the end of your tether.

Original poster
Irishchic · 02/08/2013 23:36

Dh is going away to a music festival for the weekend, leaving tomorrow am. Last night he was out for a few pints with a couple of guys he plays golf with and two brothers and an uncle who is over visiting PIL.

Tonight he has gone out again for a couple of pints with one of the brothers he was out with last night.

Normally i would have been wanting him to stay in tonight so we could have a bit of time together, seeing as he was out last night and is away for the weekend as well, but tonight i just didnt care. I am past caring. If it were me, i would want to stay in the night before heading off to leave him for a couple of days, but he just doesnt think like that. So off he goes, and i am off to bed. There is no point in trying to force someone to be someone else is there? He is always planning the next trip away, next stag night, next gold trip, next concert weekend etc . I am tired trying to understand why he always has to be going out, or going away, never content to be with me, or the kids. I am not making an issue of it any more cos even when he is at home, he isnt reallly here iyswim, he is busy with his programmes, newspaper, ipad etc

OP posts: