Gutted: Is this the begining of the End?

[Contrarian78]

I've happened across these pages by accident (looking for a review of something I was buying) but have read with interest the advice that's given.

I'm a mid-thirties (34) male who is married (9 years) with two children (7 and 3). My wife and I have been together for 16 years and have, up until recently I think, always had a pretty solid relationship.

The one area we do seem to struggle with though is sex. Our sex-drives are massively mis-matched. I try to be understanding and of course we always march to the beat of her drum - which I sort of accept (even if I resent it a little) as there's nothing that would turn me off more than knowing she's doing it out of a sense of wifely duty - we fell into that trap (and never really got out of it) after our son was born.

My wife and I both work full time and split domestic duties evenly (honestly we do!). Having recently realised that we were in real danger of going our separate ways, we have decided to make more of an effort. She acknowledged some things - which was great, and I've made a real effort to not pressure her and be more romantic.

The 'problem' now is that it all seems a little 'forced' it doesn't quite feel natural. I sympathise with her becasue she's damned if she doesn't and damned if she does, but it feels like she's making more of an effort in order to protect the lifestyle we have and not disrupt things for the sake of the kids. I apreciate that, but I honestly don't think she'd choose me if we met today.

This is all made harder because I still fancy her rotten and she's such a kind person. Certainly I'd never cheat on her (we've only ever been with each other) but I do sort of wish that she wanted me as much as I want her. She admits she's not a particularly sexual person. We've done some pretty amazing stuff over the years (though I always feel I have to push it) but it's only when she's had a drink - which makes me a little sad if I'm honest.

Sorry for the long whinge off. It's sort of cathartic to get it off my chest. I feel bad becasue she's lovely and we have really made a good life for ourselves. But at what point might you realise that a split is inevitable?

Definitely passive aggressive.

I tried to remove sex entirely from the agenda, but se didn't want it. You're right though. I do have I own this.

I don't do the footrubs in the hope it'll lead anywhere - it's just something I do most nights if we're watching tv. I was just pointing out that we are often tactile.

I'm thinking we need to let things take a more natural course. It surely won't be any worse.

If you've talked as much as you have, and things aren't necessarily resolving - but you're chopping and changing your 'tactics' (ie being hands-off, doing all the chores, then being all attentive, etc etc), I can't see that's going to create a stable long term solution.

How about this: live the way you want to live (as in you yourself), see how things go without being a different person to who you naturally are (perhaps asking for sex a little less, but not creating artificial dynamics around it), and set yourself a time-limit (Christmas, a year from now, whatever). If by then you can honestly say you're happy or unhappy with how things have been over the period, that probably tells you what you need to know.

(I'm not suggesting you tell DW this time limit obviously - it's more a timeframe for you so you can be clear and definitive with yourself)

A marriage, a family is not something to throw away lightly, but you can't spend the next however many years hoping and despairing for something you might never get (or maybe you might?).

Remember also this isn't about one of you being right or wrong. You both need to understand how each other feels, live life how you each want to live it, and see if that is still compatible.

Staying or leaving, either is unlikely to be a perfect solution. Leaving for obvious reasons (with DC and a DW that seems right for you, sex aside), but whatever happens I doubt your DW is going to flip into raging nympho mode. You have to be clear in your head that the decisions you make will not fill you with regret once made.

My wife pays a hire purchase £70 pcm.

I pay everything else:

Car Insurances
School fees
Mortgage
Electric
Oil
Building work
Main food shops
Fuel (for both cars)

It doesn't bother me. Friends tell me I'm getting a raw deal, but as I said, I'm happy with the arrangement. My wife is supposed to pay £500 into the joint account, but she often forgets. She does the discretionary spending. She had a next account, in my name, which I ended up having to pay off - because she forgot. She's not really great with money o be honest, bit does have other redeeming qualities.

(oh, and not making a decision and trundling along is, in itself, a decision - or as Roosevelt once said "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.")

I think you are mad to have a financial arrangement like that if she is just spending all her money on herself!

DF depends on what's left over, doesn't it? If they both end up with the same disposable after bills (ie OP earns a lot more), that's okay?

How it works in our house, but I can see not everyone might want to do things that way.

Somehow you need to find a way to break the cycle.

Husband approaches wife for sex, wife is knackered/stressed/ill and rejects husbands advances. Husband is an arse to the extent that they have to be avoided, and needs to have sex to stop being an arse. Wife doesn't want to have sex with husband because they are being an arse (and maybe feels shitty because she thinks husband is being an arse because she rejected them and now she has to have sex with an arse), this escalates until the wife has has sex with the husband, and now husband is nice again. Wife's suspicions that the bad mood around the house was all caused by husband not getting sex is confirmed, as the mood was improved by the sex. Wife feels crappy about this for a while.

Husband is feeling nice and feeling good, so approaches the wife for sex, she is still feeling shitty cos she had to have sex with an arse, and now has to have sex again, or husband will be an arse again. Maybe just the suggestion of sex reminds her of what an arse husband was last time she rejected him, and it puts her off. So she has the options of having sex with husband and there will be no mr grumpy pants, or rejecting husband and hoping that he is not an arse. Not a very sexy situation. But unfortunately if she doesn't have sex, then husband is an arse, and this just goes around and around in this cycle.

The overall result is the wife has to have sex with someone who punishes her, and the family, emotionally, if she won't have sex with them. That sort of person is not someone she is going to feel like having nice sexy emotional sex with. Who wants to have sex with my grumpy pants just so he can cheer up?

Of course the wife can just have sex every time the husband wants it and he won't be an arse (assuming that's the only thing that causes mr grumpy pants to surface). But that's a bit rubbish too, the fear of mr grumpy pants shouldn't be a reason for having sex you don't want.

I think too that some women add up all those times the husband was mr grumpy pants, and sometimes this simmers underneath the relationship, and they build up to something that is bigger than all those few days here and there of being an arse. The husband forgets, moves on, and moves forward, but the wife is still feeling hurt by mr grumpy pants.

Is there any way you can stop yourself from being an arse when you don't get sex? I'm not saying the cycle is all husbands fault, but that's the bit the husband has control of....

I think that relationship counselling could help break the cycle, and that you would need to recognise the effect that these few days of mr grumpy pants, every month, for many years, may have had on your relationship. There may be things that your wife would need to confront too, but she's not the one posting how she feels so there is just one side of the story here.

Coffee she works 30 hours a week so presumably earns enough to contribute more than £70 a month? Maybe not?

love absolutely, I'm not saying it's necessarily right or wrong. But let's say she brings home £2k a month, he brings home £5k a month. If the household bills he's paying are £3k, they both end up with £2k disposable.

Should the OP 'require' his DW to have less disposable because she earns less? I can't see why. Yeah, I wouldn't share bills like this with a flatmate but for me that's one aspect of being in a marriage - treating each other as equals.

"Should the OP 'require' his DW to have less disposable because she earns less? I can't see why. Yeah, I wouldn't share bills like this with a flatmate but for me that's one aspect of being in a marriage - treating each other as equals."

i don't thik it's as simple as what the OP 'Requires' - as an adult earning a wage and using the utilities in a joint house I think the OP's wife should want to contribute.

My wife currently works full time - but will be going down to 30 hours per week next week (or before the kids go back).

She doesn't spend all of her money on herself. She'll buy for the kids, or buy dinner, she even buys me things. She has been known to put diesel in the car - but does this at 10-15 per time!! Which drives me nuts!

She qualified as a nurse early last year. It was a long hard slog (for all of us I guess) and she's now in a job she loves. I mean LOVES!

I really don't mind that I pay the lion's share of the bills. It's improtant to me that she has financial freedom. I merely point it out becasue I don't think she gets a particularly bad deal - nor does she I don't think.

Decent advice/observations from CaS and whosshe. Thanks

DF feels a bit formal to me. But like I say, different people see this differently.

My situation is as my example (except sadly neither of us earns that much). I pay all our bills and we end up with the same amount to spend.

I've no doubt my DW would pay more for bills if I asked, but similarly if I'm entirely happy with it (and I actively encouraged it) I don't see that she should feel obliged. The earlier post suggested the OP's DW was taking advantage financially. Maybe she is, I'm just saying that maybe she isn't.

Ah, x-post with OP (who will know better than us his own situation )

If I thought about it, I could probably drive a 'harder bargain' by making sure she pays the agreed £500 pcm contribution but to what end?

She's not a money grabber. It's unlikely that I'd ever enter into this sort of arragnement with anyone else; however, my wife comes from quite a poor background (I'm ex-council estate myself). She really did struggle as a kid and went without. Consequently she probably goes overboard with our kids - in fact she's admitted she does and is working on it.

We had nothing (I mean litterally NOTHING) when we met. We were 18 and 17. Everything we have, we've built up together. I've always been the main earner, but she doesn't OWE me anything in that sense.

Anyway, the fiancial arragnement isn't really the issue.

"I merely point it out becasue I don't think she gets a particularly bad deal - nor does she I don't think."

why is it important to point that out in the context of your differing sex-drives?

Contrarian, do you think mr grumpy comes out because you want to say something like "it makes me feel terrible when you reject my sexual advances, and it makes my angry and resentful", but you can't say that, as it would hurt your wife, so you try and protect her from being hurt by being an arse and her having to avoid you, so you don't end up saying how you feel?

Are you bottling up how the sexual rejection makes you feel, and this results in mr grumpy?

I can't believe we got to page 4 without someone mentioning wanking. And it seems to have not really been addressed.

I'm a single woman with a high-ish sex drive. I don't have anyone to help me out with this. To stop myself getting into stupid situations (there have been many, usually involving much younger men), I take matters into my own hands several times a week.

Why can't you do that? I know that in a marriage sex isn't only about sex, but it would surely defuse the "atmosphere" if you just took yourself off for a nice juicy wank every couple of days.

DF: I point it out becasue in most other relationships I'm aware of money is an issue, and I've read enough on here about some people (usually the bloke) using money as a way of controlling their partners.

whoshe: To my eternal shame, I've said exactly that. I express my love for my wife in a number of ways, but most usually, physically. When I said I wanted more sex, she obliged. What I actually meant was "I'd like mnore sex where you play and active part/initiate/engage.

I do defnintely bottle it up. It'd be too much to live with on a day-to-day basis otherwise.

have you ever tried counselling as a couple?

Depends if the atmosphere is really about the orgasm, or actually more about rejection and a passive aggressive attempt to show the wife how the rejection affects the husbands feelings.

If its purely that the atmosphere is caused by a build up of tension because the husband has not ejaculated for a while, then yes a quick wank would fix things up.

If the atmosphere is more about how the sexual rejection has made the husband feel, then a wank is not going to fix things.

My last reply was in reply to puddinglane, btw, not you contrarian.

How did your wife react when you did say that to her contrarian?

I agree lois but I think on MN, there's a trend towards seeing a huge dichotomy between wanking and loving sex etc etc, with the latter being seen as some sort of holy grail that everyone has to achieve, and the former as not making the grade at all in terms of an interim solution. Baffles me.

There's absolutely no excuse ime for taking grumpiness (ostensibly from lack of sex or whatever) out on anyone. Sex is a want, not a need.
Not criticising you OP, I think you're reasonable and trying to do what's right... in general.

Lois in my experience whosshe has it right. A wank might relieve tension for a while but doesn't overcome the sense of rejection.

LPL: I actually laughed out loud!

Beleive it or not, my wife isn't too keen on me doing it I don't rub her nose in it . That deals with the physical side of things (but then she questions me about it and it all gets a little bit 'strange' though she's perhaps become slightly more accepting of it; it's not someting I do every day

There's no emotional satisfaction though (obviously). Also, she's none too keen on grot - like many women I guess.

Um - can't believe I'm posting on this type of thread but a question seems relevant to me due to my own experiences...

What contraception method are you using?

If it is the oral contraceptive pill, then IME it can, in some people, result in having the sex drive of a plank of wood (pregnancy hormones do the same).

A move to non-hormonal contraception (IUD has proved effective and efficient) made a huge difference.