I hate sex

[Penguin2]

Am I the only one to feel this way? I hate sex. I endured it while we were making our family but now that it is complete, I just don't want sex (though i still like to be with my husband) Does it mean I am with the wrong man?

Littleweed, yes I think he knows I love him in a way. He is away a lot for work and I hate it when he is not around and he knows that, but does that just make me needy? I find the kissing cuddling bit hard. I want to do it and of course he does too, but I fear it will lead to more things and so it seems easier not to start anything at all. I think there are a lot of us out there as my husband left an article from the Sunday Times out for me to read today which was written by a man and was all about how his wife kept avoiding sex, although there was no hint that she didn't love him anymore, just they had different sex drives. Some of it could have been written about me. It reassurred me a bit because part of why I started this thread was because I wondered if love and sex had to go together in marriage, ie did the fact I didn't fancy it mean I wasn't with the right person, but now I think it is possible to be with the right man but just have a low sex drive. We are going through a tough patch right now with work and kids and the sex has been the first thing to go (not that it was there much from the beginning!) I hope that if we can get through the next few years, there will be more chance to work on the sex. I am going to steel myself this weekend and try to give him what he wants. Some of you out there may think that sounds cold and clinical, but it is a start and the best I can do.

Penguin - I could be way put of line here, but i don't think that is such a good idea. If my wife suddenly started to show an "interest" I'd know it was just to shut me up - pity sex - and although I'd probably take the opportunity it would really just make me unbearbly sad, as it would confirm that our love was over. Maybe you haven't gone that far yet, and i'm wrong, I hope so.

I saw that articel too adn wondered about leaving it lying around....could you maybe start by laying afew ground rules - as in 'I'm not in teh mood for a full blown romp, but could we just ahve a kiss and cuddel?' or could you - ahem - 'satisfy' him? (don't know how to put it mroe delicatley!!)i don't mind doing that sometimes as then he's happy and at least I feel i've done somehting positive. i think the thing to do is hold onto teh fact that you do love him and try adn buiold on teh other good parts sof you rrelationship? nothing wrong in having a low sex drive - but tehn I'm biased too!! does that make sense/help?

I'm not sure that I follow you, Reallyembarrassedbut. What is wrong with doing something you'd rather not because you know your partner would like it? Isn't that just being selfless? I think my husband would be happy that I was trying for him (we didn't actually do anything this weekend despite my good intentions). Why would that mean your love was over? I am interested to hear your point of view as you are in the same position as my husband but can maybe explain things to me without the emotional attachment my husband would bring to it.
Littleweed: yes we have tried the "let's go for the kiss and cuddle but stay off the full blown sex" line. Trouble is, it never results in sex and that seems to be all men want! I@m not keen on "satisfying" him in the way you suggest. As I said earlier, I am a bit repressed when it comes to that sort of thing. I think that is my problem with sex: the basic stuff is OK but I don't want to go on to the, shall we say, harder stuff. My husband knows about that, and is OK about it: he would be happy (for now) with anything.

A pretty complicated situation, and I'm not sure if my response is going to help. Accordingly take what I say in the context of a relationship that is dieing.

What I'm looking for is a connection, a deep loving connection with my DW, and in other aspects of our life it has pretty much gone, I'm little more than breadwinner and irritant in her life, which is probably the main issue.

We stopped making love a long time ago, and I didn't want to say anything or make her feel uncomfortable, and talking about it was a waste of time.

One way or another we tried again, recently, but it was out of pity, or to shut me up, and that was when I realised that I had lost the love of my life.

not sure if this is any use - but i have sometimes found with a patch of low sex drive that just going ahead and doing it does seem to kickstart things again? I suppose by things I mean hormones. maybe that seems even worse, i don't know - as if doing it once would open the floodgates! but i have certainly sometimes found in the past that i actually started to dread sex, but once I did it i 'remembered' that it was ok, pleasant and not such a huge deal. sorry if that sounds cold-blooded, it's not meant to. these days i mentally schedule sex to make sure i don't get out of practice - that probably is coldblooded, but the point is to keep my blood warm as it were. wish i'd changed my nickname for this!

I htink you could be right - its just finding the mental and physical energy to get going in the first place!! I'm sure it won't be as bad as I think once I get round to it!!!

That was what I was trying to do at the weekend, but it didn't get off the ground. I'm glad to know there are others like me out there.

acnebride, completely agree. The more you do it the more you want it, and the opposite applies too.

Well let me join you all in this one as i have totally gone of sex is well. It's not the fact that i have gone off my dp as i still love him. But i feel the same as you littleweed! I really don't care if i have sex ever again it just does not seem to be an "Important part of my life" it did used to be before i had my baby but now i seem to be to tired my mind racing else where or stressed and the last thing i am thinking about is sex. I have a very low sex drive at the moment and have done for the past 20 months.
My dp is always trying his luck but only manages to actually "get it" once or twice a month!! Is this enough? Please could a "Man tell me will my dp be looking else where?
It does worry me !
Also i hate the thought of actually having sex but once i get "started" i feel ok about it. I get into it if you know what i mean its just the actual pushing me to egt started! Very weird!

Penguin2 believe me your not alone this has been a big part of my relationship for the past 20 months.
My dp says he will never leave me because of this though he says he loves me and just hopes that one day i will want "sex" again.
He's very understanding about it but sometimes gets frustrated!

Yes, my dh is the same. He can't have very high expectations though as I have never had a high sex drive. I worry about him "getting it elsewhere" too. I suppose the ball is in my court.

well at least then our Dhs knew what they were getting into! I think that as long as there is love adn affection there, I'd rather have that than a relationship where we didn't talk /get on so well but had ramampant sex every night.

Me too but do DHs feel the same way? Men seem very odd creatures sometimes with only one thing on their minds!

I just joined mumsnet today and after reading this, I don't feel so odd anymore. DH thinks I don't want him but I do, I just genuinelly don't want sex. I was getting a lot of pain but when I spoke to a consultant, she said there was nothing wrong with me and that I probably needed psycho-sexual counselling. That made me feel worse.
I think once my little boy is older and doesn't need so much attention, I might feel different.

what a complicated problem here! unfortunatelly i wouldn't know what advice to give here as i'm in the opposite situation: i'd love to have more sex and of a more memorable quality but it just doesn't happen! i'm getting fed up with trying and don't see why should i have to. husband seems unavailable, tired etc etc most of the time and i am not willing to try and lure him anymore. if only he's have an affaire, i'd have a good explanation for it, but that's not the case.
if you don't enjoy sex, i would say don't do it. althught, as someone already pointed out, the more you do it, the more you enjoy it. how about experimenting with your husband in different ways (buy a sex book maybe?? see what he thinks. just leave it lying around the house for him to see like he did with the sunday time article). maybe you'd want sex with a different partner. i do hope you won't continue feeling quilty or trapped because of this issue. good luck!

My big fear is that I would want sex with someone else. I am not very experienced with different partners, and as has been mentioned, I am quite a sexual being when alone and time allows, so I began by wondering if I am with the wrong person. Having said that, I am not very modern in my outlook and would not seek a relationship with someone else just to find out. I don't believe in breaking up an otherwise satisfactory relationship just for sex.
I feel I should just give my dh more of it, even though I don't really want it in the same way that I give him other things as part of a selfless, loving relationship, eg time meals not to clash with the Grand Prix or buy him his favourite beer. I wanted to know if other women did the same for their men and it seems as though they do.

i don't know about other women but i often find myself getting things ready at the right time for my husband (i.e. go out with the little one if there's a good rugby game on or similar just to give him a bit of peace and quite, get snacks or meals ready in good time, prepare a drink when i know he'd like one and so on)purely out of desire of pleasing him because it gives me certain pleasure to know i've hit the right button and he'd appreciate that. a bit mumsy if you like, in that respect. but i haven't yet applied the same approach to our sex life. if i wouldn't feel like having sex but he would, i would just not do it. strange isn't it how women's minds work to please their partners. really, don't do it just for him. if you're not enjoying it as much as you could. maybe you'll change your perception in time, or maybe you'll find somebody else, out of the blue, just for sex. that would be somenthing! but yes, you have to be careful, you're right. i think the basic problem with married men is they stop providing all the play and fun before the actual sexual act. does it make any sense? you know, like just fooling around, furtively kissing you, touching you up just for fun and all the so important foreplay seems to dissapear, which is sooo important for women. really, i think if a woman was to be satisfied properly (i.e. serious foreplay and so on) they would go for a quickie anytime. men just don't get this. maybe that's what's putting you off sex now, not having the opportunity to play just for fun beforehand. sorry, if it all sounds so crude but i don't know how else to put it. and i'm the last person to give advice on this subject as i'm not the most experienced person on this so all that i've written represents just ideas going through my mind. i hope it makes some sense

Poor Penguin! I hope you are feeling better about the situation as we are now mid May and you started this thread early April. I must say after both children (now 20mth/7mths), the last thing on my mind was sex. It was painful and I was tired. During my pregnancies, I hated the smell of my husband so that was a problem too. So over the past two years, we have had much less sex and while I was preg he was very understanding. But once no longer preg and after reasonable time, 4-6weeks post partum, I sensed he needed to get back to a normal sex life. While again that was really the last thing I wanted to do, I did miss being close to him and that is the closest physically I can feel to him. And I agree with what Acnebride said, and I found that starting slowly ie, once a week (! - I do feel sorry for DH) did get me in the mood to soon move up to twice a week. Now we are on three times a week and I now don't feel guilty, I feel close to DH, DH is happy and not tense and feeling deprived and everything is good. Yes, I have the same deal with running a home, 2 kids, running a business, going out with DH 5 times a week and I really am tired, but I realise that I have to actively keep DH happy and sex is important. Gotta think back to the beginning and remember the magic then. DH just got home, must fly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do we mean sex, or do we mean intimacy? My DW hates intimacy of any sort, and that didn't always used to be the case, but now she flinches when I get near her, and I can't remember when I last had a hug. This is having an effect on me now, and I can't bear anyone to touch me - if she (unlikely) tried to seduce me I wouldn't know what to do, and suspect that despite my relatively high libido I wouldn't be able to "perform" (blushes), because it would just be physical, there is no love there anymore.

I don't know if any relationship can last if intimacy has gone, because it is the starting point for so much else.

Possibly she doesn't want to encourage me, if you see what I mean.

Penguin - maybe you are with the wrong person in the arena of sex, but maybe the right person would make an all round poorer choice of partner.

I think it is fine in theory to have sex for the other partner's sake if the relationship on balance merits this. However, if both of you were willing, you could probably improve things in terms of both of you getting pleasure with some expert help. It's not really embarassing talking to a sex therapist about sex, so I think you would find it OK from that angle.

In case you think everyone else is having loads of sex, having young children has a detrimental effect on most couple's sex lives!

Penguin2 I use to feel like you. We both had high sex drive when we first met but after having 3 children very close together it was the last thing on my mind. I felt like I didn't want him to touch me and would avoid intimate contact and I also felt unattracted to him. But I have learned to love him again and to feel attracted to him. We went through a very bad patch ( he left for 3 months) and I think at that point I realized that I had neglected him both phsically and emotionally probably because I was so exhausted with babies etc. Sex definately makes me feel closer to him and I agree that the more often you do it the closer you feel. My youngest ds is 5 and it has taken that long for me to regain my libido and I never thought I would feel like this 3 years ago but now I love having sex.

So much of reallyembarrassedbut's posts could describe me and my dh. We used to have a very loving, intimate relationship and made love regularly.

I have no libido whatsoever anymore. Its not my dh's fault - I love him as much as ever, in fact more, but I cannot show anything - I don't like even being touched anymore, it makes me "freeze up".

This has been going on for over three years now. DH puts no pressure on me, although he really, really misses what we used to have. The thing is, so do I, but its like a part of my brain has died.

I know I need, we need to sort this out, but I don't know where to start or perhaps I can't face confronting the problems and hope that my feelings and libido will miraculously reappear one day.

Oh something - I wish my DW even felt like that - She doesn't seem to think there is a problem, but what happens now is that i over-react to every slight, especially if it feels like another reminder about how ugly/smelly/unnattractive/unloveable I am.
My biggest fear is that I will do a bad thing with someone else, and while I've turned down the opportunities so far, unless she starts putting something in my tea it's always going to be a real risk.

Just to say that my dh has denied me all forms of intimacy including sex and that if that continues (for years in my case) then all love and affection in the marriage dies. I warned him over 7 years ago that we couldn't continue like this but he wouldn't do anything about it except try to change for the next few days/weeks. Yes, I've been tempted to have an affair and yes, I've been to see a solicitor about getting a divorce. I now cope by us being nothing more than two people sharing a house and raising our children. I don't want to leave while the children are young. He promised to love me forever. I get: no kisses, no hugs, no sex, no love, no affection, no b/day presents. I think it hurts him to know how badly he has let me down, but he doesn't do anything about it ie go to see a doctor/counsellor. Our marriage is now 100% over. I honestly don't think I could try to make it work anymore. How many chances do you give someone? He still thinks he loves me! I'm frustrated, annoyed, angry, sad, etc. Sorry to go on. I deserve better.