Page 8 | Dear mum of young kids who doesn't want to have sex

landrover · 11/02/2016 22:20

As in kids who don't want to have sex! Should there be some punctuation somewhere?

Banquo54 · 11/02/2016 22:39

No, you just need to read the thread title carefully. ;0)

PoundingTheStreets · 11/02/2016 22:49

This has been fascinating to read. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think it all depends on how representative of the blogger's daily life that particular post is.

If she feels like that most of the time, I'd say her relationship is in trouble. Whereas she may just be posting at a time when she's particularly feeling the effects of sleep deprivation and children's demands.

I raised twins from babyhood as a single parent. I didn't want a relationship for many years, and didn't feel like there was enough of me to go round even if I had wanted a relationship TBH. But that may have been because I saw a relationship as an extra demand on me.

Fast forward several years when DC were older, I started a new relationship with a man. Eventually he moved in. He was as supportive as he was desirable, and while I don't want any more DC, I feel that had I chosen to have had DC with him, I'd have been able to nurture my relationship as well as my DC because I know that other than pregnancy, I'd have only had half the workload of small DC.

That said, there would have certainly been days/periods when I was just too knackered/strung out for sex for whatever reason because life with small children (let alone 4 of them) will do that to you. Studies have shown that the stress levels experienced by mothers of small children regularly exceed those of top-level business executives!

Interesting reading.

swingofthings · 12/02/2016 15:14

No she doesn't, but great selective quoting skills you have there!!

Selective or not makes no difference, if she wrote the words, she thought them. Most mums feel overwhelmed by all the hugging and touching of their kids all day long, but most still get excited, rather than unappealed at the prospect of a hug by her husband at the end of the day. Even in the context of her verbal moan, these words are so disrespectful.

She claims to love him. I would call this selective love, ie. I love you as long as I get what I want and that's not what I consider love for your soulmate.

swingofthings · 12/02/2016 15:23

I can imagine the reaction if a husband posted in his blog:
My wife is always expecting me to tell her that she is beautiful and looks good. Frankly, if I don't feel pressure to tell her just to please her.

I am a model photographer and all day long I look at gorgeous women with gorgeous bodies who walk around half naked all the time, who are mostly insecure and constantly need reassuring that they look good. It's a nice job and I enjoy it, but after a whole day of it, the last thing I want when I come home is my wife getting upset because I didn't notice her new haircut or that she's lost a pound and even I have, I don't want to discuss it and tell her that I find her attractive. Why should I have to when I already deal with this at my work. She should be grateful I have a good job that brings in good money.

I do love her, but I do find nothing more unappealing than having to look at my OH wearing almost nothing when I come home after a day staring at models.

Offred · 12/02/2016 15:35

I'm totally with differentname and some others in feeling really disappointed with the reaction to this thread.

I'm tempted to conclude that many of you have never been touched in a way that you don't want by someone you love rather than you just have what I see as a really poor understanding of love and consent.

No-one ever should have to put up with or feel they have to force themselves to enjoy sexual touching that they don't want just because the person touching them is in a relationship with them. Ever. Feeling creeped out when someone persists in touching you in a sexual way when you don't want it is normal.

swingofthings · 12/02/2016 16:13

I'm tempted to conclude that many of you have never been touched in a way that you don't want by someone you love rather than you just have what I see as a really poor understanding of love and consent

After experiencing troubled relationships, and then being single for many years, accepting the lack of intimacy and physical closeness of someone you love, when fate finally gave me the chance to share my life with someone I love and am in love with, I certainly didn't take it for granted.

Of course, like everyone, including many men, there have been occasions when I didn't want to be touched at that particular time, however, these have been a minority of times and didn't last long. One sure thing, these occasions have never made want to shout to the world that I wish my OH kept his paws (how awful of a choice of word) from my body.

My question to all those posters who see nothing wrong with the OP, how often do you feel this way? once every 10 or 20 times your OH comes to touch you, every other time, or 9 times out of 10? Because really, that's what it comes down to. The first is normal and not an issue. The second is an issue that needs talking together and resolving. The latter is certainly a problem.

Dadbot3000 · 12/02/2016 20:21

Whilst I very much believe you shouldn't do anything just because you feel pressured or obliged, it isn't always black and white.
Pre children, I was often on the receiving end of attempts to "get me in the mood" when I wasn't interested and it was generally effective. I don't think this is particularly out of order as long as one doesn't persist having been rebuked.

Clarabumps · 12/02/2016 20:38

I have felt like this. My relationship wasn't dead. I was fucking exhausted. I wasn't disgusted by my partner, I just couldn't bear another living thing wanting anything from me. I was emotionally and physically spent. Luckily DP realised that it was temporary and we stuck it out. 6 months later we were back to normal. I don't think it's a matter of loving someone any less or deciding that you partner shouldn't have a sex life. If your partner had an illness, you'd hardly expect them to be swinging from the rafters to please the wo/man in your life.
In a relationship there are peaks and troughs. You cannot say a relationship is over because libido wanes? seriously?

Offred · 12/02/2016 21:18

I've already said a number of times, I've never felt this way. I am not a person who feels touched out. I'm just able to understand that a lot of people do and I think the reasons are entirely understandable.

There's so much catastrophising on this thread. Wailing about sex lives being over and contempt. The only thing I'm actually reading in it is a woman who is honestly explaining something which is a fairly common experience for mothers of young children and offering support to take some time out to feel like you and attempting to empower women not to just give in and have sex/accept touching they don't want.

I don't get all the posters who seem to think consent is about give and take and love means having sex you don't want sometimes 'for your partner'. I don't see any way of killing any love and affection that is quicker or more effective than that tbh.

Clarabumps · 12/02/2016 22:51

Offred you have put down what I was unable to articulate. Exactly that.

Canyouforgiveher · 13/02/2016 00:12

So if someone has a different opinion they are "Wailing"

I am one of the posters who saw contempt in the blog post. I didn't "wail". i wrote what I thought - like you offred.

But I am old enough to be well-used to women's opinions being put down with words like "wailing", "hysterical" "pearl-clutching" " moaning" etc.

par for the course but always depressing when it comes from other women.

peacefuleasyfeeling · 13/02/2016 01:40

Thank you Clara and Offred. I am surprised at the lack of imagination, the absence of empathy in so many of these responses (although it's clear that some pp are missing the context, not having read the original article ). I am a little disappointed, assumed that collectively MN users would have more awareness of and solidarity with the experiences of other women. Actually, disappointed doesn't cover it. I, and most of my friends, have experienced sharp drops in libido through the years of parenting young children, going without sex for months at a time, not even counting how long, not even bloody thinking about or worrying about how long, because sex, although it may enhance a partnership, just isn't what it is all about. DP wouldn't dream of communicating any kind of expectation of or entitlement to sex to me except perhaps through the medium of classical mime or expressive dance. I find him awesomely attractive, I love the very bones of him and we are very tactile and physically affectionate, but for now, sex is so not where it's at. And that's OK. I suppose what I am trying to express is that some posters seem to say that the blogger could do with being a bit more "generous", that she could try to just "get into it". Yuk. I despair.

Dadbot3000 · 13/02/2016 02:08

I don't think anyone on this thread actually disagrees. I'm sure we all accept that you can become "touched out" and not want any physical contact and that this is absolutely fine. Any DP worth their salt would accept this. However, it is also hard to argue that the tone of the blog is pretty disdainful. I don't think it's too controversial to say that if there is "nothing you find more unappealing than being kissed... by your other half", if you pretend to enjoy those kisses but they make your skin crawl, then there is something deeply wrong with your relationship. Especially if he is leaving you to change all the wet sheets in the middle of the night.
If you don't respect your partner and try to empathise with them, then you are asking for trouble.

Offred · 13/02/2016 08:23

But that is rather the point. It's the job of the person initiating or seeking sexual contact to 'empathise' and to seek consent.

It is not the job of the partner who doesn't want sex/touching to rebuff advances... That is basic consent...

Expressing that you don't want to be touched and that if someone touches you when you don't want to be touched it makes your skin crawl even though you love them and are attracted to them is NOT showing your partner contempt.

It is expressing normal feelings about unwanted sexual touching. It is having boundaries which by law everyone, even those who are married, must respect.

Offred · 13/02/2016 08:25

I mean come on saying no to sex with your husband, not wanting to be touched during a time when you have small children is treating your husband with contempt?!

It's an archaic view...

swingofthings · 13/02/2016 09:22

Thank God for Dadbot who summed it perfectly.

It's the job of the person initiating or seeking sexual contact to 'empathise' and to seek consent.

Says who? Emphatising is a two way direction. Being touched sexually when you don't want to is not nice. Being very horny and being rebuffed by the person you love isn't nice either.

Maybe the main issue is those women who think that because they have a right to say no to sex, it also gives them the right to withhold from empathising how that might make their partner feel. Sometimes when you use your 'rights' to protect yourself from having to express much deeper seeded feelings, it questions the whole foundation of the relationship.

Offred · 13/02/2016 10:08

Says who?

Err... The law in most developed western democracies...

Touching someone who doesn't want to be touched even if it is a person you are married to means you could be arrested, charged and prosecuted for a sexual offence. The burden is on the person doing the touching to ensure they have consent.

Queue loads of drama re that being ridiculous...

The reality of course is that very few people would have a partner they love arrested for something like this and most people would just deal with it apparently by just having sex they don't want to please their partner but it'd be better for the relationship to deal with it by reiterating their boundaries and possibly having a bath by themselves for space.

Offred · 13/02/2016 10:13

And men and women have the right to say no to sex and touching that they don't want.

I don't think it is reasonable to expect that someone who is temporarily expected to deal with a partner's dip in sexual desire needs 'empathising with' more than someone who is being subjected to unwanted sexual touching. We are adults. We should all be capable of understanding that there are times when sex is off the cards in a normal relationship and not becoming sex pests who need to offload about how terrible things are when the problem is clearly understandable and temporary like illness or childbearing.

Original poster

Justlurkingaround · 13/02/2016 10:13

Being touched sexually when you don't want to is not nice. Being very horny and being rebuffed by the person you love isn't nice either

Sorry to only pick up on this but I don't think these two issues should be equated as they are here.

OP posts:

Offred · 13/02/2016 10:18

Exactly. Touching someone who doesn't want to be touched is potentially a reportable crime. Being horny and your partner not wanting sex temporarily for a good and understandable reason is something that should not be a problem to any reasonable person, even someone with a high sex drive.

Clarabumps · 13/02/2016 10:25

Jesus some views on here are depressing.

As if any loving partner would deliberately withold sex. When I had a loss of libido, I wanted to have a 'regular' sex life but I was emotionally spent. I'm assuming Dp wanted more sex but he didn't want us to have sex if I didn't feel as if I really wanted to.
I don't think anyone could expect to be "soulmates" (shudder) with someone and not go through patches where libido wanes.
Should we just be readily available for our men so he won't feel shunned?

MuddhaOfSuburbia · 13/02/2016 11:06

Weird thread

I had twins and breastfed them. This meant basically ALL FUCKING DAY AND NIGHT

It wasn't living, it was existing. In a perpetual fog. If OH had laid a finger on me, I'd probably have bitten it off. When the choice was Shag or Sleep, I'd have chosen sleep, no contest.

What's wrong with a wank?

This didn't mean our relationship was over. That was over ten years ago and we're still together-much more together, tbh. I would still advise any mother of small, breastfed, night waking children to chose sleep. And I would advise any man who chooses to have small children with his partner to resign himself to cracking one off in the shower for a few months

and make tea once in a blue moon and maybe hoover the fucking stairs

Moln · 13/02/2016 11:27

I would have thought the interpretation of the writer's husband being 'pawing' developed from him touching her before she'd had a chance to 'recharge' (so to speak). If he touched her and tried to initiate sex before she was ready (that is immediately after the four children were in bed) and repeated this over and over again, despite knowing she didn't want it, then at some point that will feel like pawing.

But no, she's the awful one, not him for not giving her a bit of time in the day to be alone and unclaimed.

Moln · 13/02/2016 11:29

... writer's husband's touch* being 'pawing', developed from him touching her ...