Not had sex for almost two years

[Olliedelondon]

I very much love my DW. Before we had our two children, we had a reasonable sex life, although I would always initiate. But since our children we have had very little sex (once every four months maybe) and nothing at all for now almost two years. My DW says that I am unreasonable in my 'needs' and that I should focus all my attentions on looking after the children. But I think it's destroying our marriage and I'm not prepared to sacrifice a sex life and frankly don't see why I should. I also don't think she fancies me. At all. Am I unreasonable? What should I do? I have 'got by' by using pornography in secret. I have also started fantasising about attractive colleagues, although I have never had an affair. The sexual frustration I feel is almost painful...Help?

Not having a go btw

No problem darkness.

Anyone can give advice, but to come on here and tell me that I am disgusting? No I'm not going to take that .lying down, least of all from someone who has no experience of anything the op or his wife have been through.

Oh and I having fucking pets too and more that 2 dcs so do I win?

Just on the point of my DW not having an orgasm (and I know I am probably inviting abuse), but why is that necessarily my fault? I have asked her to explore what I could do to facilitate it, but she won't engage. I try very hard and also I think I am a pretty selfless lover. In fact, in some ways, I would prefer to assist her needs to mine (if you know what I mean).

Well tbh I've only ever had to show one partner how to get me off. A lot of woman don't during penetration you have to concentrate on clitotal stimulation.

However from what you've said it's doubtful you'll get that close and in all honesty 9 months after a traumatic birth it wouldn't come anywhere near my list of priorities. It was about 4 years before sex was comfortable again.

But even then from what you've said it may not even be anywhere near your position if your wife has never really been into it.

Sex isn't really your problem as far as I can see.. its the no intimacy at all that' kills off relationships eventually. I couldn't live with no intimacy.

22honey - I am more than twice your age, have four children and have only had one sexual partner, but I agree with virtually everything you have said.

Ollie - I wish I had wise advice beyond what some of the others have already said. Good luck.

22 it's about your arrogance, your ignorance and your issues as much as it is about your age. I could go through all your posts and pick them apart but the main theme is you seem to have an extremely low opinion of men - seemingly as sexual abusers, and extremely low expectations of your postition as a woman in sexual relationships, as well as an extremely naive attitude towards what being a mother may be like, how it may affect your body and mind and how it may weaken your economic position as a person.

Your age means you've only been an adult a short time. You are not yet a mother. You are not married, you don't have the experience necessary to lecture other people about adulthood, motherhood and marriage. You just don't. Now that doesn't mean you can't express a view or aren't able to form a valid opinion but it does mean you can't validly extrapolate your opinion/view to lecture other people with more experience about the validity of their experiences/views. You must see that is what's getting people's backs up? That we've all been arrogant 22 year olds and we understand you've got a lot of life experience yet to come with this baby and the arrogance won't serve you well.

The problem is most of us have learned this stuff the hard way and don't wish that on you.

Sexism has affected my sex life in various ways, you don't understand that and that's fine but please accept the limitations of your lack of understanding mean you don't actually understand and therefore can't lecture me about what happened in my relationships. I've not given any information about them on this thread for you to judge!

I am however in an extremely sexually satisfying relationship atm. The problem, certainly in my marriage, was partly that I am a 'fully sexual being' and this isn't really allowed when you are a woman. It doesn't mean that you have a lot of sex it means that you assert your own sexuality including saying no to things/sex you don't want and never having sex because you believe if you don't your partner will cheat. It means expecting your pleasure to have equal status to your partner's. Or at least it does to me. I can see why many women believe it means being fully pleasing to a man because those are the messages we are given by society but that is certainly not what it should mean.

Apart from anything else being fully pleasing and sexually subservient to a man who apparently has 'needs' and will cheat if you aren't good enough/thin enough is such a fallacy and if you're with a man you think will cheat if you don't provide him with sex/the right sex/the right look, you should probably break up because that's not much of a relationship is it?

Oh and if you are going to say my posts are sexist please provide an example.

You are the one saying men are all liars, cheats and blackmail women into sex, assuming men won't want sex with an overweight woman, assuming it is normal for women to not like sex, that it is fine to have sex you don't want to prevent your partner cheating, that women blackmail men into babies and then withdraw sex commonly... I could go on and on... You have expressed some appalling views on this thread tbh...

The reason the current relationship is satisfying is because my current bf wants a woman who asserts and is comfortable in her sexuality including saying no when I don't want something because he is attracted to the idea that he can be completely confident the relationship is mutually sexually satisfying and the idea of doing things to me/me doing things to him that I'm not comfortable with is a turn off to him as well as upsetting.

We never talk about male sexuality like this, like we have to be careful about consent because we assume men are up for anything but that's damaging. Especially when men are sexually assaulted as happened to one of my friends - he felt he had to like it because men are horny. :(

Op - it's not that I think it is necessarily your fault. It was more that the sexual relationship is clearly mutually unsatisfying but you are blaming her entirely for that and saying it is only bad for you. It's not likely to be all her fault but both of yours. It certainly was my fault for marrying a man with such obvious red flags about sex that I ignored, arrogantly thinking I could/we could improve things. Sounds similar thing with you?

OP - I think it is a joint responsibility so if she isn't willing or able to help you out or give you a clue as to what would help, if she actually doesn't know and isn't open to experimenting either alone or with you then there is a limit to how much you can do. I suspect she got to the point where she decided she just wasn't interested in sex and so isn't making an effort. A lot of sex, for women at least (I can't really speak for men) is in their heads. If they don 't think it is going to be fun/fulfilling/earth shattering it won't be. No amount of expert foreplay or anything will help.

If you were communicating better as a couple and had a degree of intimacy you could perhaps persuade her to experiment together but I don't think that is going to happen.

22honey - I think you have been given an unnecessarily hard time too and I agree that age hasn't got much to do with it. Frankly, getting at you for your age is a bit low and experience is not necessarily something that you pick up with age, judging by some of the BS I read on MN.

Some people should remember that challenging what somebody says is one thing but personal attacks are not on.

to everyone on the last few pages for thoroughly derailing the thread.

I was thinking the same thing. This isn't the place for a scrap. We are supposed to be helping the OP not arguing amongst ourselves.

whats I agree. I tried some time back to get people to stick to the point and focus on the whole issue and not just the word 'sex' but they seemed intent on having their own private argument rather than actually contribute to the OP's dilemma. One of the most shameful and personal derailings/bunfights by a couple of people I have seen of late.

You have no respect for your wife whatsoever do you? "All she does is look after the boys" "She is a rubbish wife" "She doesn't care about me at all"...

I suspect she resents you, as you have completely belittled the hard work and exhaustion that is involved in raising children, and I can only presume because you are so engrossed in your own career and your self, you don't do a lot to help there.

You don't 'have it all' because it seems from here as though you don't actually love each other.

It's not sex that's missing, it's love, respect and equality in your relationship.

Op why did you marry a woman with whom you haven't had sex with?

Offered- well said you speak sense from personal experience.

Oh ffs ThePriory, read the context of those comments.

The op has been given lots of honest advice on this thread from women Who have been there.

I don't see him listening to any of it.

Interesting that it's the people who don't agree with the main point being made that are now jumping in with hand wringing about "shameful bunfights"...

None of what's posted has been particularly irrelevant and this always happens when an op is only able to post irregularly. Shameful is a little overboard IMO.

Although many people have tried to put words in my mouth about what I'm saying my actual point has always been this;

There is a communication problem at the bottom of this. Both the op and his wife seem to have problems with sex if he thinks porn is something which can be used to replace sex with his wife and she is not engaging with her sexuality at all by the sound of it.

It is not likely she is asexual as only 1% of people are. It is not normal for women to not like sex and it isn't helpful to the op to say this. Sexism has a lot of influence over both those things IMO in teaching men to engage only superficially with sex and treat women as objects and in teaching women that sex is not enjoyable and is dirty and shameful both of those things destroy healthy heterosexual relationships.

Also no-one is promoting a transactional approach to sex for either gender when they talk about his commitment to his work, or I am certainly not. What I am talking about is autonomy and equality, the words he chose initially gave the impression he had made the choices about work alone, he now says she was involved but clearly not in any ongoing or full way because he says she expresses dissatisfaction at what he sees as his work commitments but she has no power to change those things, he's just decided they are necessary and is doing them on top of the 60 hours perhaps?

It is not saying men need to earn sex by doing housework to expect that when you have children you both respect each other and have equal commitment to the family. There is no comparable situation in the reverse because very few women are doing or taking no or v. Little responsibility for housework/childcare when they are working 60 hour weeks according to research. In fact many women are prevented from making that level of commitment to work because it is assumed they will have family commitments - sexism again and yes it is also bad for men who are often pushed by employers to abdicate responsibility to their families by putting in long hours.

Having the attitude that this is all her fault is deeply unhelpful in sorting this out, as is her refusal to communicate. As is saying 'oh yeah she probably just married you so she could manipulate babies out of you, that's common' as is telling him he shouldn't consider divorce despite being alienated from any intimacy or communication about it.

The only options as I see it are counselling or splitting up. If he splits though he will have to make more time in his week for his dc, I would have thought he should apply for a prohibited steps order to prevent her taking them abroad.

Simplesusan - why did you marry a woman with whom you haven't had sex with? What are you talking about? They have 2 children.

And on the contrary he has listened to advice and has tried to talk to his wife, get her view on things. What he can't do it do is listen to and act on all of it as there are so many contradictory opinions. This isn't something that is going to be sorted out overnight anyway. This is going to take time.

Off, and some of us have agreed with you that communication is key. But the OP had stated, I believe, that his wife refused to discuss it in the past, with one comment being that his wanting sex and intimacy was "unreasonable" and that all his attention should be focused on their children.

But I maintain that what happened on the last few pages was a bunfight and unhelpful to the OP. Both myself and whats at least have been precisely in the OP's position but have expressed ourselves on previous threads on this subject in a better way than the OP and generally been regarded as decent men who have behaved totally appropriately and received enormous sympathy from MN. That is probably why we find the last few pages shameful.

Offred, I don't think many people are solely blaming the wife for the lack of intimacy. But she is at fault for not wanting to do anything about it. Where do you get the idea he is using porn to replace sex with his wife ? He is using porn to 'get by', which is surely just to get a physical release? It is certainly no substitute. (The voice of bitter experience....)

Because he doesn't need porn to wank. It implies by using porn he is seeking something more than wanking because he's missing sex with his wife and sees porn as a (he admits) poor replacement for interaction with his wife. That would make me wonder what he is looking for out of sex with his wife tbh.

And it's the op I'm saying is solely blaming his wife which, no matter what the reason, will not be helpful in sorting things or particularly likely to be accurate.

I've said loads that it is the things this poster has said not that he's male that has provoked the reactions but some posters, normally the ones with some kind of anti-feminist agenda who have insisted and insisted that it's his gender. Even going so far as to misrepresent other threads in order to prove a point.

It doesn't imply that at all. But I see that this point has been going round on this thread already, and I doubt any consensus could be reached.