DW - She's just not that in to me.

[Keepithidden]

Hello, back again for more useful advice from the nest of vipers! I had a previous thread on here whinging about my lack of sex life with DW and got a vast amount of very useful advice from a range of viewpoints. As ever in these situations it’s taken me a few months to process and take heed of that advice (and read all the recommended literature), but now I have I’m back for more.

So, quick potted history. DW and me been married five years, together before that for five. Two DCs ages 2 and 4. Limited sex life since DCs came along so thought I’d come here for advice a few months back. Made an effort to be more appreciative, attentive and physically affectionate (without pressure for anything more) and was happy for a time. DTD a couple of times at DWs instigation, got knocked back a few times and have realised that it was basically pity sex and I feel a bit sh*t now.

I have tried to talk about it a few times but without much success DW is quite reserved and when I suggested counselling last time I broached the subject it ended in tears, she said she didn’t want to lose me and assumed counselling was a precursor to divorce. Looking back I think she may have been thinking about the impacts of a split, rather than losing me personally, I’m confident I can support her and DCs and live elsewhere though so I don’t think that’ll be an issue.

Anyway, all this means I think she probably doesn’t see me as a romantic prospect anymore, we still get on well, good friends even affectionate with hugs and kisses, but sex feels forced and lonely (for me anyway). She deserves better and I’m not happy with the status quo, so I reckon we’ll be heading for a split soon. I don't see why this can’t be amicable and why co-parenting can’t work out well, but I still love her, I still want her as my wife and I want to try and emotionally detach myself from these feelings to enable the split to be amicable and with as little pain as possible. Any words of wisdom/advice/experiences of similar would be welcome.

x-posted with Agatha!

Hi op, I have just read this thread, I am a dw with 3dc, the youngest is 2.

My thoughts are:

1. In the context of a non-abusive, loving relationship that has some problems, only a selfish idiot would leave when the youngest dc is only 2.

1. Following on from 1. IMO it is far too soon to leave, esp since you haven't been to counselling. IMO you should make counselling the issue, NOT splitting up. If yr dw thinks you would walk away at this stage, she may well have lost her trust in you. (Not conducive at all to wanting to be physically intimate with you.)

1. Purely on the sex issue - my dh and I probably have sex quite often under our circs (say once a week/2 weeks) But we only have quickies - I cannot be doing with long drawn out sex with loads of foreplay at the moment - for the reasons lots of PPs have said. It's a great fun physical urge we scratch but it's not the sex we had before dc. If my dh wanted that kind of sex at this point in our lives I would rather not have it. I can see going back to that when the kids are older, but really not now...

I suppose I'm suggesting, she might want sex if it required less intimacy and pressure - it's hard to be intimate when you have young dc

Agatha and Zut - Ouch. I deserved that rereading what I wrote.

I'm not uber-reasonable, I'm not trying to pay lip service, I know I'm flawed, I know I'm not 'getting it' and not understanding how DW feels. I've been trying to help her after reading up on recommendations on this site and half a dozen others. They all go on about a balance being needed between motherhood, being a person yourself and being in relationships with others (be that OH, colleagues or friends). From my (limited) understanding I concluded that may be that balance wasn't right and figured I'd try and find a way to help her correct it. Stupidly assuming that something was wrong in the first place too. Okay so I didn't go about it the right way, although I didn't know what the right way is, I made lots of assumptions, I jumped to conclusions and I'm sorry for that and I'll take responsibility if that's the cause of the failure of our marriage.

If I can get anything out of this it's that I'm thinking things through way too much, not listening to what I'm being told by DW or posters here and picking the stuff I want and leaving the uncomfortable stuff behind.

I'm sorry too about the martyr thing. I didn't mean to come across as rolling my eyes at her, that is something I can appreciate and do know about. I pull my weight at home, I get up in the night to calm the kids, I come home from work, cook them and us food, do the washing up, make lunch for them, iron clothes, put the laundry on, sort the bins, clean the bathroom etc all the drudgery of everyday life with DCs. I know what it's like to not stop 'til 11:00pm then fall into bed and get up again a few hours later to either go to work or sort out a vomit/piss covered bed exactly the same as DW. Hell, why am I even listing this sh*t you know it as much as I do. Sorry, getting annoyed at being accused of something I did not intend.

Lazey - what exactly are you trying to say? You take issue with the thoughts of the later posters that think the OP should think a bit more about his marriage before leaving? You don't believe that I and other posters don't have sex that often yet accept that it is just a phase? You don't believe that my friends don't have sex that much either and while none of them are happy about it, they also in general (with one exception) think it is a phase that will pass - with the crucial thing here being that their minds are willing, but their flesh is weak ie if they could muster up the energy they would? I don't have a problem with you having a different view, but you seem to be implying something that I don't quite understand. Perhaps you would enlighten me?

Am I right in thinking that the OP's wife has been having sex with him in the last few months, just not the kind of sex/frequency he would like?

I read this thread with interest as the title resonates with me....I realize I am just not as into my husband as I would like to be. There's a whole thread up about it - 'I realize I don't want to be married any more'.

The big difference is that my children are now at college/University.

I think I probably married a man who I felt would be a great father and a very faithful husband - which I did - but put the sexual/romantic feelings and excitement lower down in the order of priorities.

Perhaps he did the same! In fact, I am sure he did!

When our children we quite small I had a few crushes and realized that I was not as 'in love' with my husband as I could have been and probably never would be, but I just could not bear to split up when we had young children, partly because my own father left when I was a child and I found it quite traumatic.

Anyway, we both threw ourselves into making a home and bringing up children and did the best we could. Sometimes we had a reasonable sex life (particularly when we went on holiday and got away from everyday stresses) other times it was verging on non-existent. I know there were times when my husband was frustrated but he too prioritized bringing up young children and having a family life as being more important than a sizzling sex life.

Fast forward to both our children leaving home to study and the old beast is rearing its head again. In all honesty, I am attracted to other men apart from my husband and am not sure I can stay married now that the child-rearing part is over.

We have had a few good discussions recently and my husband is well aware of how I feel. He too has his frustrations - they are somewhat different to mine but it is good that he has aired them as we both tend to be 'ostrich-like' and bury our heads in the sand. It may be that he has been as frustrated by the marriage as me, albeit in different ways!

I think there is always a dilemma with regard to the sometimes conflicting roles of making a home and bringing up a family and achieving a satisfying and mutually fulfilling romantic/sexual/emotional life.

I made a conscious decision to prioritize family life and home building over sexual fulfillment. And I think my husband did too. I'm not saying that is the right decision, but it was the decision we both took.

Others may think it is better to be completely sexually and romantically fulfilled and 'in love' and the children will be fine as long as the parents are happy, even if they are not together. And I am sure that can work very well too.

I haven't read your other thread so don't know the full picture, but, given the very young ages of your children and what you have said about your wife, I am wondering if you might find counselling helpful, maybe individually and together? I did this with my husband and it was really helpful for us both to be able to put forward our own feelings without being judged and with a third party moderating. It enabled us both to see each other's point of views. Anyway, seems like you are a caring, thoughtful person so I am hopeful that you will feventually find a way forward that works for both of you. Good luck!

Josie - Thanks, I think we've established my selfish credentials and rapidly coming to conclusions about being a bit of an idiot too.

I'm also starting to think that this isn't about sex, and may not even be about DW.

Keepithidden what do you actually want? Do you want your old wife back, do you want to improve the current situation a bit or have you talked yourself into leaving already and want validation from us? I think that would help to understand where you are coming from.

Sorry Josie, that reply was a bit short.

I was being sincere in thanking you for your advice though, it's all useful.

No worries!!

Madasabox - I originally started this thread as a request on how to emotionally distance myself from DW in the way that I had perceived her to have done to me (that sounds like a nasty revenge type trick, but really I was just trying to look at things as objectively as I could). I thought she no longer cared for me as a H but as a friend, provider and father to our DCs. I thought this would make the inevitable split less painful and more amicable.

DW has changed since DCs, and would have anyway, that's what people do. So the "old" DW will never come back, just as the old me won't. I want to improve the current situation whether that involves splitting or whatever.

It's all gone off onto several tangents now though and I'm unsure of how DW is actually feeling, wondering if the state of our marriage is what I thought it was and starting to question my own motivations, beliefs and judgement. None of which is a bad thing, unsettling, uncomfortable and painful though it is.

There is a lot of your perception of how she feels in this thread. A lot of assumptions about what she thinks of you, what she wants etc. I don't think you can do that. If she is not typically very communicative then you probably don't actually have that much idea of what she is thinking. Do you think you could be projecting your feelings on to her? By that I mean, the only circumstances in which you could imagine yourself being happy without sex would be if you didn't fancy your partner any more? We know already from a number of the responses on this thread that this is by no means necessarily the case - she might not be thinking that at all. Or it might be the case, but that the fancying is recoverable once some other issues are dealt with. I think your only option is to sit down and be really frank with her about how she is making you feel and ask if there is anything that she would like to change and why she is the way she is. If she is resistant to that then counselling sounds like a good option.

Why is it always such a big deal about sex?
You can have some very nice love making and sex in half an hour or just 20 minutes, or even 15, with someone you were fond of enough to marry.
Surely that's not all that time consuming or exhausting for either partner? Should it not be fairly easy to fit that in somewhere once a week or every 10 days or something? Can married life not be easier and simpler than this?
Does sex really need to be such a gigantic major issue or problem? After all, we're talking about people who wanted to be a loving, married couple and sleep in the same bed.

Those who are too exhausted must be indulging in extremely energetic, tiring sex! I was thinking more of nice simple, warm, cuddly, comforting and loving sex.
I don't really understand why there should be such a huge fuss about it. Sorry!

everyone's different - for some people it is more than that. For some it is nice simple warm cuddly sex others such as the OP seem to think that if the woman doesn't orgasm then it is pity sex. Some people like a performance, some people don't. Some women find it hard to get warmed up so need their DH to put in a bit of effort on foreplay, which may mean that it seems like a big effort for both parties, some women/men may be harbouring resentments re unfair distribution of responsibilities/work, which impacts their ability to get into it, some people have half an ear out for a very disruptive small child... it's rarely that simple I think.

It's interesting that you've started two threads and received quite different responses. Of course, to an extent that is an inevitable (and often useful) feature of MN - it is the sum of its users, and you are dependent on which of those users happen to be logged on that day.

However I think it is also due to the language you have used to describe your situation. At one point you mentioned going without sex for 18 months - well, nearly everyone would agree that is a very long time. I think some of the more recent posts may be in response to your definition of a sexless marriage as having sex fewer than 10 times a year. Suddenly you come across as less reasonable. Many posters may have read this and thought 'Hey, that's nearly once a month - that's similar to how it was for me and DH when the kids were young, and I'd have been amazed / devastated to hear him describe our marriage as 'sexless'.

Pdfan, that is a really interesting question. All I can tell you is that when my DCs were very small I honestly couldn't face 20 minutes of loving sex with my wonderful partner, sometimes for several weeks at a time. It's hard to explain why - I agree that logically it doesn't make much sense. (All back to normal now thankfully!)

Madasabox - A lot of assumptions about what she thinks of you, what she wants etc. I don't think you can do that Understood

If she is not typically very communicative then you probably don't actually have that much idea of what she is thinking True. Silly mistake to make in retrospect.

Do you think you could be projecting your feelings on to her? Without a doubt.

Full and frank talk has to be the way forward really, just a bit reluctant to do it due to past attempts. Although I think actually listening to DW would be a step in the right direction, rather than trying to intepret what she says through a me-shaped-filter.

pdfan - Good question, I'm more used to the cuddly comforting variety but I'd guess (and it is only a guess) in DW case it is more the energy required to build up, rather than the act itself. Also guessing it's much more a mental energy rather than physical energy thing. If I find out I'll let you know. I think I probably put far too much value on it as a bonding/emotional validation thing too so it's best to take my opinion as an outlier rather than anything else.

It is understandable,I think, that sex becomes a symbol of bonding and validation. My dh admitted that he sees the fact that I am turned on and have orgasms as a sign that he is worthwhile and accepted. I think he has major problems feeling 'good enough' in life generally due to rubbish parenting. From my perspective it is quite a burden - having to validate him with praise, approval and orgasms! I wonder if any of that resonates?

And you do sound a bit defensive tbh! I don't think you have been pitched as a selfish pig, just someone who has misunderstood a few issues. I wonder if you are being that defensive in your relationship because that would obviously impact on how much your dw felt she could confide in you,

And a genuine thank you because I have realised how I second guess my dh and how it probably makes him feel.

tumbletumble - Yes I suppose my use of language has caused altered responses.

For the sake of clarity, I understood a sexless marriage to be less than ten times a year. I googled it and according to Wikipedia this covers 20% of couples. In our case I think it's single figures for five years, but this year it's been four times. The 18 months were when DW was pregnant: morning sickness and breastfeeding put paid to any sex for both DCs. Between the two 18 month periods we DTD twice and thats when DC2 was conceived.

Thinking about it, it would interesting to see a correlation between couples with small DCs and sexless marriages (according to those measures on Wikipedia) I suspect they may follow similar lines.

Apologies if this is all a bit clinical. Scientific background and all that.

Just out of interest - when did you have the snip and have you had the all clear? I have two young DC's and fear of an unwanted pregnancy is a major turn off for me. Aside from appalling self body image, chronic exhaustion and loss of "self".

If your youngest is 2, then I genuinely think you have about another year before things start to improve. Kids are marginally less needy, they get out to nursery for a few hours, and you are generally happier leaving them in someone else's care as they are more verbal and if they are not happy you have a reasonable chance of understanding why.

I would try to work on your marriage gently in the interim, get some time together as a couple more regularly and try to restore lines of communication. Simple things like eating a nice dinner at a table with no tv on and some adult conversation, can do more to restore your sense of being in a relationship than feeling forced into relationship counselling to try to explain nicely that you just can't be arsed and are generally disinterested in everything requiring additional effort at the moment.

Op i do think you have been getting a slightly hard time. you sound like a thoroughly decent guy who accepts he is sometimes a bit of an arse (aren't we all) and sometimes does not put things quite as well as he might. neither of those things makes you anything other than a normal.person.

It is all very well for people to say that you just need to hang in there and this is just a blip. but if like me, you have a sex drive (i am not going to say normal as i have no idea what that is) then coping without sex for the best part of three years is hard. it is hard emotionally and mentally and it is tough on a relationship.
I imagine the prospect of another year or so of the same is quite daunting i don't know if i could.

...and I am now going to risk getting flamed, yes motherhood is hard, small kids are hard, childbirth can be very traumatic but I do think there is more of a tendency these days to wallow in motherhood a bit. possibly it is because we tend to have kids later and have a much more indulged and entitled lives before that we now find the transition much harder.

I guess what I am trying to say is, i am really sorry you are going through this, and well done for bring brave enough to come on MN to ask. your questions may be getting some tough answers but I think you get credit for even giving enough of a stuff to ask.

I sympathise with your DW too. It is a very difficult situation and I hope you find some resolution.

I think the op's wife sounds like the opposite of wallowing. She may be struggling, but she isn't complaining about it. She is coping, but perhaps only by cutting out absolutely everything that is not essential to day to day getting by, doing nothing nice or fun for herself. this means sex is one of the things that is on the "oh god not now" list. this actually sounds like a very old school, stiff upper lip position. I bet there have been a huge number of marriages like that throughout history but people got on with it and didn't whine about it. the aspect of modernity that applies here is that the OP thinks things not being enjoyable is a reason to call it a day.

Haven't got time to read the whole thread but just wanted to say OP please do not leave your wife. You are wrong to think she won't get back to her old self or that neither will you.

Me and DH have been together more than 20 years and have 3 small DCs. We've had lots of dry spells sex wise in the past, I always knew he wasn't happy about that though he never pressured me. I wasn't that happy about it either but just didn't know how to communicate with him in a way that wouldn't hurt him.

Anyway, keep doing all the considerate things you're doing, it might take a while longer. Reassure her that you find her attractive, my Dh never really did this, I knew he felt it but he hardly said more than 'you look nice'. Peg the washing out in the way she likes it done, put the top back on the toothpaste etc, it seems you probably are doing the small stuff but don't give up.

Cut a long story short, I read an article in the Guardian recently, an extract from a book recently published about putting your partner first and how the best thing for children is for parents to stay together and work out how to make their relationship a good one. It rang some very loud bells for me and I spoke to DH. We've had some long soul searching conversations recently, the upshot of it all is that we are very much back on track in the sex dept and it's wonderful. He has been attentive and more honest and so have I. I feel as in love with him as I did 20 years ago and I never thought that I would have those feelings again.

You and your wife CAN get it back, relationships have peaks and troughs. Don't give up now - you could be missing the most wonderful intimate married relationship that's just on the horizon if you and your wife can find a way to come together.

Don't kid yourself that the children will be OK, divorce leaves scars that can run deep and don't necessarily show on the surface.

I hope my story might help you in some way.

Pardon the pun

Probably - All of that resonates, something along those lines made me think earlier today "maybe it isn't about sex, or DW, may be it's just me".

Oscar - I had the snip in August 2012. Thanks for the suggestions too.