Sex is making our lives miserable - does this happen to anyone else!

[alltalkedout]

Hello. My husband and are in a bad place. Sex has always been an issue for us - according to him we don't do it enough and sometimes when we do have sex he doesn't feel that I am attentive enough to him in bed.

We get stuck in these cycles of it all being great for a while but then something will happen (illness, exhaustion etc we have two you children under 8 and I work full time) and a week or two will go by where we don't have sex and then he starts to behave like a spoilt child. Silent treatment, moody and miserable awful to be around and sleeping on the sofa. Then we don't have sex because I don't like him when he is like that. Usually it works out and we make up and things are fine but not this time.

It's happened again and he's left the house for the afternoon to get away (not left for good). He said he's not sure that he can live like this for the rest of his life and that we are incompatible sexually.

I tried to explain that it's normal for couples to go through dry periods but he says that if he doesn't have sex then the chemicals/ hormones make him crazy. This changes who he is and I don't like who he becomes when he hasn't had sex for a while which makes it harder for us to reconcile. He is also convinced that I don't fancy him - I do I just feel knackered as my daughter wakes up every night.

I just wondered if this happens to anyone else. It make me feel like a frigid freak and he tells me that other women actually like sex and I don't. Am I being unreasonable or do others experience this - especially the hormones making him behave badly/have no control over his moods and behaviour.

Thank you.

you're expecting your wife to put up with moody behaviour if you don't get your sexual gratification. i'm not sure that there is an enormous amount of difference

OP the part that worries me is where you say you get anxious. is he aware of the effect of his behaviour on you?

It doesn't matter cutlery whether the pain is from a physical illness or whether it's psychological. But the OP says one reason for 'rejecting' him is she is dog tired and/or she has been ill for a week or two, That's a good enough reason as any to say no.

Since when did a woman have to have some kind of cast iron defence to say she's just not in the mood?

You are being totally lacking in empathy.

Like I said subjective. We dont all know thw circumstances. We dont know what they have or havent spoken about or tried to sort it out.
but youve all made your minds up. Hes a twat and an abusive one.

again its pathetic.

What???

cutlery you are unbelievable.
Are you female?
Are you winding people up intentionally?

All we need to know is the OP has times when she doesn't want sex. It doesn't matter why not but in my book getting up every night to tend to a DC and being tired is a jolly good enough reason.

Any man who sulks and says he can't go on like this after a couple of weeks without sex is an idiot.

Ah- cutlery- you are a man.

That perhaps goes some way to explaining your opinions on this.

Bye bye.

I am male. One of one on this thread by the look of it. Perhaps thats why this site is so shocking when it comes to relationship advice.
Zero balance to any advice.

It's not the fact that you are male that's the issue.

It's the nonsense you spout.

Go and dry some cutlery or something, there's a good lad.

Go and dry some cutlery......
Post of the month candidate there !

Cutlery, there's plenty of other places on the internet which are male dominated, if you consider this site shocking.

oh dear cutlery. it seems clear that you're keen to justify your poor behaviour here.

hear hear

I just feel terribly sorry for Mrs Cutlery Hands.
And yes, ladies, there is one.

Eeek.

Shocking for relationship advice yes.

My, you do all love to jump on a line dont you.

I am not here to justfy anything. Just provide perspective where there is none.

you have provided a perspective. which is one of entitlement and justification of coercive behaviour

A perspective which appears to support another man sulking and being PA when his tired or ill wife says no to sex ( for whatever reason , note) is not one that is usually welcomed on a forum used mainly by women.

And I suspect most men would turn their backs on you too, for the kind of perspective you appear to have.

You've been around a few months; if you like it, stay, if you don't, don't. The site won't change because you think it should.

Coercive, entilted, abusive, manipulative.

The mumnetters relationship armoury. To be referenced with every post, no exceptions.

Site ? Or just one tiny corner of it ?

i suppose it is easier to dismiss posters here as lacking perspective than it is to examine your own behaviour within your own relationship, cutleryhands