I really need to talk about my relationship with my husband

[Ineedcheese]

We have many problems, but my new and immediate one is this.

We haven't had sex since before ds2 was born - he is 8.5m. No particular reason and we haven't spoken about it. This happened after the birth of ds1 as well, although not such a long time. In fact there have been several 'dry spells' and its always been up to me to start the conversation to try and get back on track, which I have said to him before I am fed up with always being the one who has to do this.

This time round, I haven't said a word and neither has he. He's slept in the spare room since ds2 was born. Ds2 is still in with me.

Yesterday I looked at the internet history on his ipad. He is watching porn daily or every other day. I had suspected he was watching a bit, but I am stunned by the frequency. Is this excessive or normal? I have no idea.

I am not anti porn as such, I have watched some in the past years ago. But certainly these days I find it uncomfortable and unpleasant and wouldn't want to watch it myself. Dh and I have never had a conversation about it really. I am very uncomfortable with some of the searches he seems to have made - its not just a quick look online, he is looking for specific stuff (not illegal or anything, just gross) . He is clearly a member of at least one site as there were several history items of you have a new message etc that if you click on it asks you to log in.

Mainly I can't get my head around the fact that he is spending clearly a lot of time and energy on this, and yet can't be bothered to do anything about his actual sex life.

I can't get to grips with my feelings about this, its left me feeling yucky all day today. Do I mention it? He's away tonight and just texted to say he's missing me. I want to reply asking if he hasn't got internet or something

Hang on a minute, I'm not taking the blame for this because ds2 is in with me! Millions of people share with their children all over the world! It doesn't have to lead to problems!

Yes I think dh would certainly prefer for us to be sharing, but no way am I gojng to be woken by his snoring on top of having to get up through the night to feed the baby!

As for not sharing for 8 months, we didn't even live together for the last 2 months of my pregnancy and the first 3 months of ds2 life, as dh assured me the building work we started could be finished pre birth, it wasn't, and he stayed at the house while I had to move elsewhere.... It's still not fucking finished and yes I am very resentful of him not being there for that time (I said we had a number of problems!)

It tailed off after ds1 was born sick, we got back on track though (thanks to me.....) and now again after ds2.

We've never been swinging from chandeliers but it was perfectly fine!

I think some blokes just lose a bit of interest when you turn from GF/wife into mother.

Won't resolve itself without talking though. What's a problem to you, currently is not a problem to him as he is clearly pleasuring himself on a regular basis.

You will have to tell him how you feel.

The child in bed isn't ideal though to be honest.

Please don't come on here asking for advice then throw it in our faces!

Sharing your bed with children DOES effect marital relationships.
If you want me to troll through the interwebs looking for evidence of this then I will!
Sure some couples make this work but for you it obviously does not.

No one is blaming you, both you and your husband are responsible for your relationship and how you manage it.
One way or another you have both come to the conclusion that sleeping separately and you dealing with all childcare during the night works for you.
I think from your OP it does not work for you.

You are both culpable for this situation, more so your DH who is taking the piss out of you but you BOTH need to put it right.
Marriage is a partnership.

Drew Your post was just about the most sensible thing I have ever read on mn - you are so right. Whilst others are hellbent on convincing the OP that her dh is shagging his colleagues (based on no evidence and the OPs own gutfeeling that it's nonsense) You have actually 'told it like it is' Op you would do well to heed this advice, I was in exactly your position, co-sleeping, dh in the spare room...until we had become mates and lost all intimacy...it destroyed our marriage and it ended in divorce..

No one is "blaming" you OP - you asked for advice and you've been given some. One suggestion is that you go back to sharing a bed. Now we know from your last post that sharing a house is a step forward. If you don't do anything then you are in real danger of living parallel lives, which isn't fun for anyone.

Do you want to be in this marriage? If so, there are things you can do, starting with getting DH into the same bed as you.

You might find DS sleeps better in his own room anyway do you aren't getting up so often

I'm not throwing it in your face.....

I read your post as saying I am solely responsible for this because ds2 is in with me and it's only natural that Dh is doing what he's doing. If that's not what you're saying then I apologise.

I certainly agree that having the baby in our room is absolutely a contributing factor, however I do also think that people can and do make that work so it's not just that. The first year of a baby is surely about survival and for me that includes maximising my sleep as much as possible!

God i don't know. It's a bit intrusive to go trawling through someone's ipad and then pull them up on their porn use. I'm sure if our partners were privy to every random thought or desire that went through our head they'd be hurt, best leave somethings be if you ask me. He probably be horrified you saw what he was looking at and how does it help really? We all have fantasies we'd never mention let alone act upon or I do anyway!

Re your other issues, v difficult to have a sex life if you're not even sharing a bed. Instead of a snuggle leading to sex in a natural way you would practically have to make an appointment! Of course it is fine for a period if you are both ok with it but it doesn't not sound really like it is working for you. You want a sex life again and he is watching porn.

If it was me I'd start making noises about moving the baby out and the dh back in and take it gently from there. I'm sure loads will say you should talk about it and maybe you should but I personally hate talking and prefer gentle pro action!

Good luck op.

Op- the above is a fair point. What made you search his iPad? Just wondering

With respect Joysmum - you don't know either. And you seem to be projecting your own issues onto this thread

Exactly, that's why I posted!

I feel very strongly that nobody knows how he feels which is why I advised the OP to talk to him to find out either way, as making assumptions could lead them down the wrong path.

It's all too easy to get caught up thinking there's only one explaination for anything. My experience is different and I felt it important to share an alternative explaination.

Communicating is the way forward to know what the OP is actually dealing with.

To see if he was using a lot of porn seriously. I was feeling very down about things and wanted to try and figure it what was going on.

We have each other's passwords and use each others iPads from time to time.

...oh and there are cultures where big families share few rooms and still have many children so I dont see separate beds as necessarily being an issue either. It just requires better communication which is clearly not up to scratch in the first place.

You could always go into the spare room for a quickie if baby is asleep. Make plans to move baby into own room by age 1 though as it's definitely not helping.

If you want sex then you find a way. I think it's lack of communication that's the problem here with a case of him not being sexually frustrated at all because he is wanking himself off almost nightly by the sounds of it! He might actually be thinking he is doing you a favour!

As you have said, survival is key when baby is small so don't make it into a points scoring system about Who is instigating and who isn't.

Lots of relationships drift from where you are now to affairs and divorce so you once again need to take the bull by the horns and start things up again as he doesn't look likely to!

Hi OP,

There are lots of big issues between you and sex is just the tip of the iceberg, or rather an outward manifestation of lots of problems. I'm probably telling you what you already know... but here goes. You are still really, utterly furious about the house renovation etc - all those promises that were broken there, I imagine. Just at the time where you really wanted to be nesting and cosy with your second pregnancy and subsequent birth.

it's still not fucking finished

There is an awful lot of stored up and ongoing anger, and I am guessing that your has DH failed to step up to the plate on this one, leaving you living out of a suitcase and dealing with dc1 etc., and has subsequently failed to make it up to you, apologise/explain etc etc. In fact, I would guess that he is stubbornly refusing to be in the wrong, ever!

I don't know what the solution is. Your relationship won't be making progress while you are incredibly, understandably, angry and meanwhile he is failing to address the problem by looking at porn, and generally not trying to repair the damage. The porn thing is not so much that it is pretty yuk, but that it equates to him not making any effort to help your marriage. He can just about bring himself to be nice when he is far away and texts you - that seems to be the limit of his effort. No wonder your first instinct is to repond with a curt of the lip. It may be that is the response he expects. You are both in a bit of a corner.

I think it might just be time for a real crisis meeting between you. Get the dcs a babysitter, and rather than going out for dinner etc, why not go for a long walk round the park and a coffee where you can talk properly. Your marriage is in crisis - you, historically, have been the one to retrieve the situation, but you are fed up of that role and you want to know how he feels and what he thinks he can do, and how you can start working as a team again.

If he refuses to see a problem or refuses to recognise his responsibility to do half the work in your relationship, then that's another conversation.

Good luck OP. It sounds really like you're stuck and you need some kind of shift to unstick it... if that means you having to make the first move, then so be it... but that first move should alert him to the fact that you both need him to do some work too.

OP you seem to want your Dh to make the approach a d appear to be seething with animosity towards him because he hasn't suggested putting baby in his own room so that he can move back into the marital bed and have sex with his dw. Can you see that if he is a half decent human being, that he rightly does not do that as it would put pressure on you that you do not want. Instead of spending all your time and effort totting up whose 'turn' it is to make the approach, how about just realizing that this is your decision to make. you are the one in the marital bed with the baby, you are the one who pushed another human out of your body, you are the one who decides when they are ready for sex again. On any thread about sexless marriages the man is told to back off until invited. yours has done just that and you are hacked off because he hasn't hassled you about it ? There is no other way, get baby out of your bed and dh back in. Get used to having a cuddle and then one thing will lead to another....but surely as eggs is eggs there is only one way it will go with him in the spare room and it isn't a a nice place to be.

sorry - curl of the lip

Ohhh

Joysmum and Ineedcheese

Co-sleeping IS the problem here

Not sleeping in the same bed =
-No Intamacy
-No Sex
-No private time
-Opportunity to seek other methods of satisfaction

(Those were the issues in the OP were they not?)

They are both responsible, DH more so and both need to start acting responsibly to rectify this for themselves, their relationship and their children.

Co-sleeping is a bit of a can of worms, isn't it? My MIL was horrified to hear that DH did'n't sleep in our bedroom but DC1 and later DC2 did. Honestly, there was nothing else we could do, both DCs slept awful, and so did DH. I think we would have divorced if DH hadn't moved out.

I think every couple is individual, but co-sleeping/DH in spare room worked for us. I don't find sex very appealing when you have to live up to some myth, "if you don't have sex 2 x week, then you will end up divorcing".

DH moved back in the bedroom when DC's were 9 months. Years later I went in the spare room, because we disturb each other, and we both need our sleep. Even pre-kids, we both enjoyed sex more in the day time when we weren't tired, the bedroom is for sleeping!

Now about the porn ... I would not be pleased if DH was spying on my computer! I don't have a problem with porn (as long as it's not illegal), and most men watch it. It's not sex for them, it's having a wank.

Having said all that - we don't have sex that often. We both have demanding jobs and DH has health issues. When we do have sex, it's great! It's obviously not like when we were young, where we would have sex daily. My couple friends who don't have kids but are of a similar age (I'm 42) don't have much sex either.

OP, it does sound like you have lost your self-confience in your relationship. Before you have a go at your DH about the porn, the dinner etc. you need to do some soul searching in regards to what you want and what is realistic at this time in your life and with the demands on you and your DH from work/children/house building. When you do have a chat with DH, you need to be open and especially be open with your own feelings.

Best of luck - don't LTB, work it out!

Op hope your ok? And maybe started to talk to your oh

I'm sure that co sleeping works for thousands of people, I have done quite a bit of charity work in the third world and I can say that there are many families that live in a single room with their children and have perfectly happy marriages, but..they are co sleeping because they cannot afford more than a room, are not pussyfooting about not waking the children up and, have sex in the same room while the children are asleep.

I only know 4 european women who co slept, 2 are now divorced, the other 2 are married but still recovering from their husbands' affairs. Obviously, this is not a representative sample but It makes me think that when you throw in a spare room into the co sleeping situation, it does scupper things up one way or another.

Hi, yes I'm ok. Won't be talking to Dh anytime soon as I'm away with the boys at my mums now and he's at home.

If I do mention the porn, which I probably will, it will be along the lines of I'm sad that you've chosen that route instead of trying to talk to me about lack of sex, not oooh how disgusting, you've been using so much porn.

I am quite torn about the co sleeping thing. we will give own room a go and see what happens I guess, although I don't think I could have Dh straight back in with me as I'll probably sleep even worse to begin with, and that is not an attractive prospect after 8 months of already really shit sleep!

It also makes me feel rather sad for ds2!

Don't be sad for DS2. The best thing a child can experience is the knowledge that parents are happy together and loving and affectionate towards each other. If parents are happy with each other, of course the children benefit.

Sorry I tried but can't ignore this.

So...your going to make it all about your husband and pornography and take no responsibility?
He's been absent from your marital bed for 8 months because you insist on co sleeping with your DS2 and it's now all about him?

I despair, I really do.

Good luck OP

drew err ok despair away. I was asked if I'd be talking to him about the porn and I was merely giving the context in which I would. It would be a small part of a wider conversation.
And you seem to have reverted to making it all my fault again? In case you are somehow unaware you are supposed to share a room with your baby for at least the first 6 months. We are only a couple of months past that - it's not like I'm talking about an 18 month old still being in with me.