Sexually frustrated Husband

[Brightling]

It seems I'm married to one of those men who gets very moody when their intimacy needs aren't being met as often as they would like.

We've been married a significant amount of time. When we first met my sex drive was average and a few years and very young children later it's pretty much dwindled. I'm all touched out by the children. I am very unhappy with my post multiple pregnancies body. I'm tired. All I want is to be able to go to bed and sleep without being propositioned. It's not every night but it happens frequently enough for it to be considered badgering. Actually what I would like also is for the "no I'm not up for it tonight" to be received with "ok let's sleep" rather than him raise his voice tell my I've got a problem, I need to see a therapist, I should stay off those websites (such as MN) and what's he supposed to do about HIS sexual needs as it sounds like he's supposed to have an affair if I'm not interested. He says he can't even cuddle me if I've said no as he finds it too difficult. Whenever I say none turns his back on me and I feel like I'm being punished for saying No.

I get that he is frustrated but I am not prepared to lay back and think of England. Sex is a privilege not a right. It's my body and if I don't want to I don't have to. Even though he says that he doesn't want me to do it for the sake of it I think he's BS'ing me. He tells me he's a nice person, a good partner, a good dad and that other couples are all having sex though he always refers to sex as making love.

When we are having an active sex life he is ridiculously happy and helpful and affectionate.

I can't stand the sulking behaviour when he's frustrated. He is a hands on father and he does pull his weight round the home. It's just the sex pressure pushing me away. It's getting to the point where I don't want to be intimate with him at all as any contact he sees as a green light to progress a cuddle or whatever is then met with a sulk when I say I don't want to continue.

He does make lots of effort making meals but I'm so cynical that All I can think about is that there is an expectancy at the end of the night which puts me on the defensive and then I end up causing an argument simply to avoid the strop that he will pull when I say I don't want to be intimate because it's only when I get cross about it that he will let it drop and quit going on and on and on about it.

I'm know my sex drive isn't what it was but the sulks and date nights are not helping one bit. I dread any meal or date night. I'm not even sure why I'm even posting.

Can you explain how you came to that conclusion Peggy? The OP said she was tired after battling to get children to bed.

There's a fundamental divide on this thread between those people who think people 'owe' their partner Alex if they're in a relationship and those who don't. I don't believe access to another person's body is a right.

I think the OP and her husband are trapped in a spiral in which the more he pouts and sulks and forces any affection in the direction of sex, the less likely the OP is to want it. She's told him this but he's not listening to her. I suspect because like many on this thread, he thinks it's his right.

I agree. Regular sex and being told you are loved makes most happy. Constant rejection from a woman who he loves will not make him feel good at all.

Sex, not Alex!

Regular sex makes me happy. But it is no one's responsibility to give me that, and it is not ok for me to behave badly if I am not permitted access to another person's body

LyndaNotLinda - that one made me chuckle :P

I definitely have sexual needs. I feel like im going nuts if i go without sex for longer than a week or two, and then have sex and feel all rebalanced. When I WAS in a sexless relationship it was absolutely fucking awful for my mental health. I wish id been confident enough to just leave.

If you give someone the gift of monogamy and the ultimatum of its expectation, then go off sex and rather than actually work on it and try and regain intimacy, just shout about how you dont have to do anything you dont want to, then, youre well within your rights, but id be very surprised if the partner with a higher sex drive doesnt get fed up eventually. Thankfully we're not all forced to stay in unfulfilling marriages anymore

If sex is part of your relationship when you marry, it is not fair for one Partner to declare, some years after taking their vows, that sex is now "off the table". And furthermore, to expect that the person still wanting sex, has to just "suck it up", not complain and just accept that. It's moving the goal posts. Changing the deal.

Sometimes the person who is refused sex won't be too bothered, if their own sex drive is low anyway. For others it would be a deal breaker.

I could not be in a sexless marriage. For me and DH it's extremely important and if one of us took it off the table, it would be the beginning of the end.

In this case, young kids and tiredness is the reason, and hopefully Op's desire will return when this phase passes. I hope so anyway. If not, I suspect that after a few more years of rejection, the relationship will collapse.

Naicehamshop yes I have read it, posted early on (name switched) and I wasn't saying the OP should try hugging I was backing up Keyboardmum in saying that without physical contact my husband said he feels lonely and rejected.

The OP does have a problem with a man that's threatening affairs and demanding his needs get met, Very very wrong. But there is always two sides and I never take anything at face value because we're talking about children's lives.
Either the OP goes into therapy with him or leaves him. To take the option to work in her marriage she will need to understand him and he will need to understand her because it can never work if it requires bending one person to agree 100% with the other.
The OP shouldn't be forced into sex, that's illegal for good reason. She also shouldn't expect her husband not to desire sex or try. He tries to escalate hugs, which is normal. If she rejects him he sulks, not normal. But I was pointing out that sulking could actually be something worse. We haven't heard his side.

I would not be happy in a sexless marriage either. But I also don't think anyone owes me access to their body in order to maintain my happiness or mental health, nor do I think it acceptable for my lack of access to another human's body to cause me to behave badly towards them, as the OP's husband is doing

He hasn't changed. You have yes, because she has young children to look after, and diddums...her dh isn't her priority anymore.

He needs to grow up & stop sulking, maybe op will want him more if he acts like an adult, not a teenage boy!

this is the whole problem with societies monogamy fetish isnt it. Puts all the pressure on one person to meet someone elses needs. As soon as one person changes the goalposts, its the other one thats some sort of arsehole

I'm really wondering what all those people, men and women, who have usch high sex drive that they can't cope with 3 weeks wo sex will cope when they are single.

Because they will all have been single at some point in their life right. So what happened then?
Did they die, become depressed, irritable, impossible to live with?
Did they just look out for ONS every week to calm their urges down? Did they hook with whoever was coming by and was sort of willing for it?

Somehow I don't think so.

The OP has never said she will NEVER want sex or NEVER want sex more than once a month. She said at the moment she doesn't.
And very likely, her DH pestering her is killing her libido completely too, which isn't helping (being there, done that, got the Tshirt).
But somehow, she is the one who should be making the ffort for the sake of her marriage 'because it is completely impossible to live in sexless marriage unless you have a very low libido'... Right.

branleuse spot on

I don't see why it naturally follows that the person who wants more sex should be an arsehole, they don't have to behave that way

I really want to ask posters such as sunshinesummer or Branleuse who think that their sexual needs are so important what would they do if their partner was suddenly unable to have sex with them (illness, ED issue, whatever)?
Would you leave your life time partner because they are ill?

If not, how is it different than the OP who is going through a life changing period of her life? (Her DH should do btw but somehow he seems immune to the tiredness and the relentless of being with yound dcs. Maybe he needs to be more involved to get it. But I disgress)

If yes, then did you agree with your DP?DH?DW when you got married that the 'in sickness and in health' didn't apply to sex and your sexual needs were to be paramount to anything else?

There seems to be a lot of expectations and implied stuff there. Married = regular sex life for example. Or married = sex even when you don't feel like it 'because you'll feel better for it anyway as you must be enjoying it so much'

I'm wondering if posters who write that have thought about the far away consequences of what they are saying.

Fwiw, I have been in the situation of the OP. And just as the OP, there was some undelying issues in the marriage. And just as the OP, I read MN and came accross similar posts.
So I did. I 'forced' myself to have sex with DH and hated every single minute of it. It wasn't fun anymore. It was a chore. But you see DH sexual needs were paramount and I had to do that if I wanted to have a marriage...
The result is that it took me years to finally get confortable again to have sex with him, even when said marital issues were sorted. Even when the dcs were older. It played with my mind, destryoed my confidence and maybe verty waery and unable to relax when we did have sex. Strange that isn't it? Having sex (even if you do say YES) but you don't enjoy it is creating lots of problems. Who wuld have thought?

Looking at things just now and the fact that for a while, he doesn't get his 'needs' for sex fully satisfied is taking the very short view. Ime, that's actually the best way to destroy a marriage. And is far remote from what I expect from my relationhsip, ie support from my partner whe things are good but also when things are crap. And the fact we are in there for the long run.

Hap I fully agree. There is absolutely no reason why a man or a woamn who doesn't get sex as often as they wish would become an arsehole.
Nor is it an excuse to behave like one.

IdealWeather there is a big difference between a sexless single life and a sexless married life.

My husband used to and still sometimes does work away on contracts, he can be gone for two months. So no sex for two months is normal. Due to having four children it can get hectic and we are both tired when he's here. But if we go for a week without I start to get irritable and he starts to get grumpy, it's when we argue. After 15 years we've seen a pattern we didn't notice before.

When each new baby arrived. Both of us lost our sex drive which I think is natural for new parents. But when our sex drive is back and fully functioning we can't handle no sex when we are living together, seeing each other, interacting.

I wonder if hormones play a part in this, like women whose periods go into sync when they live together. Couples who live together have chemistry, in that their bodies change as a direct result of being in close proximity to each other.

Agree branleuse

This situation has "Affair" written all over it. Even when they have sex, I think he will get the vibe that it's for him. I doubt he feels very desired. All it's going to take, is one attractive woman at work, to pay the DH some attention, make him feel attractive. Throw in an Office party and a bit of alcohol. He's already thinking along these lines, as he has verbalised so.

I don't agree with affairs (who does). I really, really hope they can compromise and sort this out, before he goes down this route, as once that happens it will be so much harder to fix. I do wonder, if there is already a possible OW in the picture, or why say such a thing?

you know what you are saying don't you?

"Women, service your man or he will look elsewhere"

That is coercive

I 'forced' myself to have sex with DH and hated every single minute of it. It wasn't fun anymore. It was a chore

IdealWeather I am sorry to hear this, that must have been horrible.

I would say, that in my view, you are not with the right man. I cannot imagine ever feeling this way about my DH. Not in my worst nightmares.

IdealWeather, I'd assume that single people with really high sex drives probably go out and get sex, or stay in and furiously masturbate. You don't have to be married or in a relationship to have sex. They probably have ONS, or regular people that they go to who are equally uninterested in what they see as the confines of a relationship. They might go to swingers clubs, sex parties or even go dogging perhaps - watch dogging tales on channel 4, it's hilarious.

I have a friend who is a sex addict, and she gets very depressed without sex, her mood dips, so she actively seeks it out. But I don't experience that.
To me, sex a few times a week is fine. But to my sex addicted friend, that would not nearly be enough.

We all have different appetites. In a relationship, a balance needs to be struck. If the balance can't be struck, that equilibrium vanishes and you get disharmony. We all react differently to disharmony.

At the moment, OP doesn't feel like sex. That's fine, it's how she feels and I think that a lot of us here can relate to that, in fact it's expressed in this thread quite a few times.

What she can do, is help herself to understand and address why she feels this way, which might help him to understand how she feels and also help him to open up about how he is feeling in a healthier way.
Then, they can seek a solution. Whether that be temporary - like a porn subscription whilst OP decides what channels of help she needs to help herself feel better (because then she's likely to be more in the mood for sex), or maybe seeing somebody, or just giving it time.

It can't just go on indefinitely like this, because it's promoting further disharmony in the relationship, which isn't any fun for both of them.

I agree with dizzytomato. Being sexless single is completely different to sexless married. You have your partner lying right beside you, in my case snuggling in.

Well actually, you are making big assumptions there. He IS the right man.
As I said, the situation was very similar to the OP. Poor DH who was getting grumpy because of no sex. Poor DH who was pestering and puishing for sex (Big difference though, he never insulted me or threatened to have an affair!) which really was normal and he surely was getting so frustrated by me saying NO like this.

That was MY choice after reading threads like this one where so many people were saying that a sexless marriage wasn't a marriage and I would loose everything because I couldn't even met this very simple need of sex.

This is what happens when people read these threads and the result when they are influenced by it. DH didn't forced me to do it. I choose to do it because I thought that was what I was suppose to do 'and I would enjoy it anyway wouldn't I?'. I thought that was the right thing because sex is such a human needs and how on earth can you live wo it??

This is what some people are saying here. Put that on the screen of someone who doesn't have her head so well screw on (like the OP) and this is the result.

IdealWeather, I'm sorry that you felt forced into sex. Nobody should ever feel forced into having sex.

OP, I think couples therapy is actually a good idea. It sounds as though your DH needs a neutral party to point out that the reduced frequency of sex in your relationship is pretty normal for this stage when you have such young children. It would also be useful for him to hear that pressurising and nagging you to have sex and sulking or threatening to have an affair are deeply unattractive and borderline abusive behaviours.