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.

Like I said, if she's ill or on her period then that's fair enough. Oh well that's good of you, op is 'allowed' to not have sex when she it ill...I am sure she will thank you for that! [eyeroll]

I'm sure when the OP is tired there's still time to watch the TV. Why not use that time to instead spend quality time with your husband and have sex? Yes op, stop having time to yourself, get your clothes off & give into your dh's urges. He is more entitled to get his end away then you are to relax...how dare you!!!

[the 50s called, they want their screwed up sense of entitlement back]

Yes after 2 weeks I would feel crappy. For my partner to not have sex with me for 14 days would leave me feeling moody and rejected.. That doesn't make me a spoilt child. Not having sex with your husband because he's annoyed that he's not getting sex is childish.

Yeah, course it is love

Why SHOULDNT he act moody when his own wife chooses not to sleep with him?

oh you poor love.
I feel sorry for your P and suspect he won't be a P for long if you carry on like this.

Wow! Actually think you missed an important point there. Not having sex when you wanted it just to upset your partner would be spiteful. Not feeling in the mood when your partner is acting like an arse and being spiteful to you is totally understandable.
What is sexy about a silly,cross,selfish man?
And actually a t shirt saying I will be a full partner who contribute s and isn't doing you a favour when I wash up would definitely elicit enthusiasm from me.

Again, in many situations like the one the OP describes, the man is doing nothing to make his partner feel happier and better about herself because he doesn't really consider her a person at all. She's there to raise the children, clean the house and open her legs on demand.

It isn't wrong to want more sex than your partner. It isn't wrong to start a discussion with your partner about not having much sex and how it's making you unhappy. But the way to have this discussion is to start with the expectation that you need to be meeting each other halfway and considering each other's feelings, not just issuing demands and threatening unpleasant consequences if they are not met. The OP's H is sulking and pestering and making threats, which means that sex has become a chore for her: something she has to force herself to do just to keep the peace. This is unhealthy and unfair.

Also, this sort of situation deteriorates steadily: the sex becomes more and more about doing what's necessary to 'despunk' the man as efficiently as possible, so it becomes less and less pleasurable for the woman, so she becomes more and more reluctant to endure the process...

As a single person (not really by choice, just turned out that way), I find this whole idea of being grumpy because you can't get sex with your partner all the time weird. And I don't think it's harder when you with someone. I fancy people I can't have ALL THE BLOODY TIME. So I sort myself out, usually every day. And that's what someone in a relationship can do too - if they are not childish and sulky/borderline cunts.

I wish the OP would update and include how often her H gets up in the night with the daughter who wakes up most nights. It's a complex issue but surely it would help if he did that.

The trouble is with this issue is that the OP said in her original post that sex has been a problem right from the outset of their relationship. Just generally, fixing something that was never right in the first place in a relationship is pretty doomed. So I am not sure that this IS just about getting up in the night for the kid.

Many people have a bit of a sexual drought with young kids in tow, but if sex was good at some point in the past, there is something to work on to rebuild your sex life when the time is right.

If the OP's husband felt sexually frustrated in the relationship from the beginning, he should have had the decency, self-knowledge and courage to end it and find somewhere more sexually compatible before having kids, if that's what he thinks he needs. He needs to take responsibility for that choice, and to some extent so does the OP.

I say that as someone who has both been with a partner who never wanted to have sex with me, and one who was just oppressively highly sexed to the point I could never relax and have a cuddle. Neither of my relationships split because of just that issue but it did contribute, and I have experienced how it can be extremely stressful from both sides and a huge pressure. I think people can overcome slight differences in sex drive with compromise, but where there is a massive gap I'd question if it is the right relationship.

A few years back, my wife would have said a similar thing to the OP. She would have complained about me sulking or having a bad attitude - she'd have probably said every few weeks.

She'd say I nagged her all the time; that she was poorly/tired/at work in the morning/on her period; that everyone had dry patches.

She'd say she wouldn't have sex with me when I'm "like that".

And seeing how this thread went, I'd be called everything from emotional abuser to rapist. Charming.

But the truth is, it was every couple of months. Not weeks. I wouldn't ask all the time, maybe twice a week - if the kids had behaved and there'd been no stress, if I thought she might be in the mood.

If I was lucky, I'd get an perfectly valid reason why we couldn't. No problem. But she'd say she was tired, then stay up until 11 watching some reality based shite, probably with Ant and Dec in it. The thing is, after a couple of weeks that started to burn into me - I'd try to ignore it, but eventually you realise that you're not as exciting as X-Factor....and that fucking hurts.

She got the implant and her periods went nuts. Again, it's a perfectly valid reason and that's not my thing anyway. At one point, she had a period for 6 months. Didn't go to the doctor. Didn't even mention it when she got a new implant. And you know what, it happens again. Now she'd rather bleed than have sex with me.

If I was unlucky she'd sneer and laugh a "no" - like I'd just suggested painting the living room black. And the worst thing is, she wouldn't even look at me. I genuinely can't even explain how hurtful that is - how it just sits there and gnaws away at you.

The sulking part would true. Ish. I wouldn't be sulking. I just couldn't even bear to be in the same room as her. Why the hell would I?

Finally, I really tried to talk about it with her - as soon as I mentioned it, she said "Just have a wank". That was it. Conversation over.

But sex isn't just a mechanical thing. The reason you cope on your own is because you're on your own. There is no-one else. Sex is about a couple - about feeling loved, wanted, attractive and desirable - about having a moment that's just for you two.

I stopped asking for sex that day. It was about 2 years ago. We've had sex less than 10 times in that time, and once in the last 5 months.

So, you know what - I have bad days. I have days where I feel repulsive or loathed; so I take myself off and sit and do something in a totally different room. Because it burns away at me all the time and sometimes I just don't even want to think it anymore.

You've assumed a lot about the OP's husband. Just consider he might well feel hated in his own home.

WorthANameChange

For what it's worth, I agree with you. But you should leave your wife. The OP should just split with her DH as well, probably. They'd probably both be happier.

I don't think we've 'assumed' anything about the OP's husband. Let's review the charmer.

1. a week or two will go by where we don't have sex and then he starts to behave like a spoilt child - note, not months, 7-14 days.

1. Silent treatment, moody and miserable awful to be around and sleeping on the sofa

1. It's happened again and he's left the house for the afternoon to get away

1. he says that if he doesn't have sex then the chemicals/ hormones make him crazy

If I was married to a bloke like this, as well as working f/t and having to get up to my child every night, I wouldn't fancy him much either. As I said upthread, the OP is not a wank sock.

I'm sorry your marriage is not a happy one Worth - from what you've described I'm not sure why you are both still together. The OP might decide that the man-child really isn't worth it.

Worthanamechange, what you have said may be true, but we can only judge on what the OP has told us. I'm sure for a lot of threads there may be things being over or understated, but we don't know. If the OP doesn't tell things like they are then they get bad advice so it's on their own heads.

The reason you cope on your own is because you're on your own. There is no-one else. Sex is about a couple - about feeling loved, wanted, attractive and desirable

The reason you cope on your own is because you have no choice. Last time I checked, it was frowned upon to go and rub oneself on unwilling strangers. At my age, even finding NSA sex (which I don't much like, because it leaves you feeling very lonely after in my experience) is getting difficult.

We who are not in relationships feel lack of love just as much, you know. The need for all the things you list does not switch off.

OK, I'm new around these parts, and I'm viewing this from the other side of the fence...

I have been, and continue to be, on the receiving end of the never-ending list of excuses why sex wasn't going to happen (over a period that extended not just into weeks but many, many months...) but accused of "putting pressure on" every time I broached the topic...

There's no more dressing up, no foreplay, and most definitely no "it"...

I am sure those who think I am being unreasonable wanting sex with my partner would equally think I was being unreasonable if I "played away"

Again DadsPerspective, that is not what the OP has described. I'm in a very similar position to you, so I fully appreciate what it's like. (Except for me I didn't really get many excuses, just up front that she didn't want to have sex. I've got that to be thankful for at least )

Worthanamechange and Dadsperspective you're not actually talking about the same scenario as the OP.

Unless after a week or two of no sex you behave as follows:

Like a spoilt child... Silent treatment, moody and miserable to be around and sleeping on the sofa

Is that what you do?

OnlyTheOnce - I accept that.

But the OP suggests:

1. Her DH gets grouchy after a period without - not that they cause it
2. The periods without are quite regular

This all suggests some major underlying problem in their relationship - and the (illness, exhaustion etc we have two you children under 8 and I work full time) are just an excuse

After all, I assume there was the same amount of illness, exhaustion etc when there was only the one child, yet they managed to conceive a second!

Twinlestein - as we're now over the five year mark, and probably forevermore, it's not so much the sofa, as the second bedroom...

Pretty much, from a relationship viewpoint, we're now little more than house-mates looking after our two children

But the 'period without' is one or two weeks. And in between it is 'great for a while'. So no underlying anything. What she describes seems to me to be a perfectly normal relationship (especially when you have kids). You seem to be under the impression that it is an almost sexless relationship.

Dadsperspective

Quite. So you're not actually talking about the same thing at all...

Note, at no point have I agreed with, or endorsed, the OP's DH's behaviour... even based on the one side of the story we have been told.

I'm just suggesting that (and offering up my experience) the other side of the story might be illuminative?

Implying that we need to hear the other side of the story is a (not so) subtle way of undermining the validity of the OP's account.

You're assuming the husband would fare better if we heard his side, whereas he may conceivably come off worse.

As your experience is completely different it's not actually relevant. I think you're reading your own issues into a circumstance of a fundamentally different nature and are perhaps over-identifying with a man who may not behave like you do at all.

I don't think anyone denies that having less sex than you want can be personally frustrating . Plenty of people (some of whom have had longer time periods without sex than the OP's H) have extended that POV on this thread. But the way you deal with it is the point in question, particularly if the way of dealing with it causes anxiety in the partner as that can lead down the road of coercion.

But the way you deal with it is the point in question

^ this

Twinklestein - I'm suggesting there are two sides to every story. Not that one is more right than the other.

History is merely the perspective of the victor...

You're not shedding any new light here dadspersective...