How to cope with different sex drives? Male opinions welcomed too.

[maryloulou]

DH and I have been together 9 years and we have DD (7). I am struggling to cope with his high sex drive. He always asks in the morning and I am ashamed to say I give in most mornings regardless of my feelings. We have argued about this subject so much over the last few years and I do feel a bit worn down. He does get angry and sulks if I reject him most of the time. If he is OK about it he will expect it later in the evening or the next morning and I am normally just grateful for him not kicking off earlier that I will give in.

The few times we have discussed the situation he has explained that he gets so very frustrated if we don't have sex daily. He has said that if he switches his sex drive down then he will go cold on me because he can't be warm and loving but not get horny and expect things from me. He says it's all or nothing. This is the bit where I would appreciate a male opinion. Is this true? Is this how you think? I don't have much experience with other men.

Today we had an argument in the morning about something totally unrelated and he suddenly started being nice and suggested we go back to bed and make up. I was much too worked up to want to and he started kicking off again. It just feels like he is trying to get as much out of me as he can in the time we have together. We only see each other for 2 hours a day due to his work and most of that is spent in bed.

On the plus side he is always telling me how much he loves me and how sexy and gorgeous I am.

Has anyone been in a situation like this? Any advice is appreciated. How do we come to a happy medium?

This is terrible OP this isn't about sex drives being different. He sounds abusive and like a real bully.

This man is abusive. It's actually quite likely that he doesn't want sex half as much as he claims to - what he wants and what he likes is to bully you. It's all about making you feel humiliated, inadequate and scared - that's why he asks for sex at impossible times, and does things that hurt you. All the 'romantic' stuff he does is about harming you, as well - he wants you to forget that you are a human being and accept that you are an object which belongs to him.

I would strongly recomend that you talk to Women's Aid, get a solicitor and throw this man out of your life. He won't improve. He doesn't think women are people.

Men who ask for sex at inappropriate times don't want sex at all. What they want is to blame the woman for her refusal.

This man is sexually abusing you and you need to get out. He very clearly sees being married as an entitlement to sex on demand. The abuse will get even worse if you stay.

He's really abusive and he doesn't care about your wishes and feelings at all. He might say he doesn't think you have a duty to have sex with him but he's clearly lying - everything tells you he honestly believes your body is his sex plaything and you don't have the right to say no to anything, anywhere, anytime. Ugh. You're living in a horrible prison right now, think about breaking out.

You took part in a sex act that hurt you. It made you cry, he wouldn't stop straight away (you withdrew consent = rape) & you don't want to do it again.

He wants you to do it again.

This tells me that he has no respect for you. His declarations of love are not love, this is not love.

You don't make your wife cry & then insist she performs the 'task' that made her cry AGAIN!

My dh would be mortified if he thought anything he did made me cry!

I expect it is a shock for you to realise that your husband is abusive. It shatters all the other illusions. I can only imagine what the act was that made you cry and unfortunately this is becoming more and more common.

Please put yourself and your body before his wants and desires. It sounds like he is out of control with his sex drive and power issues and you are really just a recipient, the one with the appropriate holes.

PS. Before I get flamed, the act is ok if two people are enjoying it.

He is an abusive man though he probably feels that what he seeks is perfectly normal and certainly 20 or 30 years ago it would have been seen that way. He needs to see that this is abusive, in some cases actually criminal.

There are times when as a man the behaviour of other men makes a man ashamed to be considered part of the same gender/species and this is one.

Yes men are often most horny early in the morning and in my experience some of the best sex I have ever had has been then. None of this justifies manipulative and abusive behaviour.

Sex is the least important issue here. It's not the act itself or how you/he are mismatched, it's his attitude towards you and the fact that he believes he is ENTITLED. If he weren't behaving this way sexually, he could try it financially for instance, by withholding money or questioning what you are spending. It's an abuse tactic to make you feel guilty, confused and, ultimately, passive so that he gets his power fix.
Like a previous poster said, asking you at inappropriate times is designed to facilitate your refusal and therefore his 'victim' status.
It's very insidious and I speak from experience. If you take a look at other situations in your past with him, I'm sure you'll see a pattern of other times (non sex related) where he has made you feel guilty, and ended up getting his own way...even over seemingly trivial things. At times you may not even have realised what was happening, emotional abusers can be very clever at what they do.
Read 'why does he do that' by Lundy Bancroft, and speak to Women's Aid... Google 'emotional abuse' and see if anything resonates...although many abused people constantly question themselves and make excuses for their partners, try to look objectively and honestly at your relationship.
Recognising it is difficult, doing something about it can be even harder...

Yes it is hard to accept that this might be abuse. This morning when I woke him up he asked me to take off my dressing gown get next to him. I declined. Half an hour later he tried again. I explained that we had had an argument yesterday and asked where the emotion was, that it sounds like he just assumes morning = sex. He told me to fuck off, it was done to make it sound like a joke.

I know he will ask again when I go to wake him at 1pm. (he only got back from work at 7am). I don't know if what I am doing is right? I feel like I am
causing an argument just for the sake of it?

Saying you do not want sex is not the 'wrong' thing. The fact that you had an argument yesterday makes it even more understandable that you would not want to, but in this context, it is totally irrelevant anyway...you do not need any 'reason' or justification that you do not want to have sex. None. Nothing. Zilch.
A simple 'no' is all that's required. A non-abusive person would accept this.
Put the situation in reverse, I'm assuming you're a non-abusive person , if you went to him and fancied a fumble, but he refused...would you pester him or make him feel bad? Or cause an argument designed to make him feel like HE was in the wrong?

You're not causing an argument. You didn't feel like sex, you declined. I'm so angry for you reading this, he sounds like a fucking tosser.

I actually changed usernames to post about something which I thought would be similar from the thread title. But this is on a whole other scale. Honestly, like others have said, this is about so much more than sex.

OP, the incident you described where you asked him to stop having (anal?) sex with you and he continued till he finished - that is enough for him to be prosecuted for rape.

It's that serious.

My dp has a higher sex drive than me. But he would never pressure me into sex because he isn't a rapist. That's what having sex with someone who doesn't want to is.
He doesn't see you as his equal he sees you as an object to be used. Sex should be mutually pleasurable not one person using the others body.
I think he needs to have therapy to work out his issues with women and sex.

Reading more you need to leave him. And call the police.

You need to leave this man for your own safety. Period.

Will you?

My God, he was having what I assume is anal sex and would not stop when it hurt you. The man is an animal.

Don't believe any of that bullcrap either about him not wanking. This guy is into porn. It's obvious. Mostly anal rape porn, I'd say.

Mary, look again at your previous post. You are asking if it's "right" for you to have control over your own body. If your daughter came to you and said if it was right for her to refuse sex if she didn't want it, what would you say? Would you say "No, dear, let him rape you, there's a good girl."?

I was in a relationship like this for years. You won't find a happy medium because he will always want to push you further, he'll find some other thing he wants you to do for him in bed. If you carry on doing stuff you don't want to it will drive you crazy. Has he been like this for the 9 years you have been together?

After that relationship I had a completely different sexual relationship with someone else, who listened if I said I didn't want sex. There was no constant pressure to try stuff I didn't want to try. It was very strange at first, to say I didn't want to have sex and be listened to first time, but I now realise that is normal. Your husband is not.

This is incredibly sad, OP. It sounds like he has done a real number on you, that he really believes he has rights over your body as a result of your marriage.

You need to be in a position to say No and know that it's completely reasonable to mean it. I agree with pps that sometimes one might have sex to please a partner when one isn't precisely gagging for it, but that's quite, quite different from having to submit to painful or upsetting acts every day for fear of verbal abuse.

Does he turn you on? Bullies aren't terribly attractive. How often would you have sex if you could choose? I bet you'd want sex more often if you were badgered for it less.

I clicked on to this thread because DH and I have different libido levels and have previously struggled. But this isn't about how much sex he wants and how much you want, it's about his disregarding your wishes and feelings, and your not feeling allowed/safe to refuse him.

"He has said that if he switches his sex drive down then he will go cold on me because he can't be warm and loving but not get horny and expect things from me. He says it's all or nothing. This is the bit where I would appreciate a male opinion"

There is some truth to what he's saying. As a guy with a high sex drive, sex is a natural expression of love and desire. Being rejected for it hurts, not because of 'not getting any' but because it's rejection of our feelings, of an important part of how we connect with you, in a way that we couldn't fathom ever rejecting you.

For me, your husband, and probably a great many other guys, being loving and affectionate - these emotions actually make us want sex more. More emotional equals more horny. Its the natural outlet we have for them. Having the feelings without the sex hurts because it is as if you don't feel the same way about us as we do about you.

It's hard to feel hurt all the time, so dialing down the sex drive can mean dialing down anything that triggers it - such as, to some extent, being loving and affectionate.

I'm not saying he has any right to expect sex, but just understand it isn't as simple as 'wanting more action'.

Read him this post. I guarantee he'll agree totally.

Rolo does that mean they are fundamentally incompatible then?

rolo do you think it's ok to bully someone into sex?

I read rolo's post as saying it's ok to want lots of sex, and ok not to want intimacy without sex. He didn't make any comment about actions, only feelings.

It's possible to medicate for very high sex drive, by the way. Might be an option.