Date night

[NewStickers]

Dd is 3.5 and I have had a low libido since she was born. Dh is very understanding but also says he doesn't want a sexless marriage. We agreed to try having a 'date night' once or twice a week where we have dinner together and have sex. I am hoping that my libido will come back with practice.

The problem is it hasn't. I dread date night. I fancy dh and love him but I am rarely in the mood for sex. Dh makes a fuss of me on date night days, which is lovely, and I know he's doing it to make me feel relaxed and comfortable. But it also feels like I 'owe' him something so I end up resenting what he does. In general I would like some intimacy but am scared of anything because it always leads to full sex / giving him a blow job and so we can't just have a kiss and a cuddle.

I love dh and don't want to deny him an important part of a relationship. I don't know what is wrong with me. Perhaps the anti depressants I take (although he problem pre dates them). Perhaps that I have put on weight and don't like my body. Perhaps that dd is clingy so I spend all evening being touched. Perhaps that I'm tired ... But the main thing is I don't know how to get my libido back and am worried for the future or my marriage. I'm hoping some other people have faced similar and can tell me it gets better?

I can't offer you advice from experience but maybe you should talk to a professional about this. I think the issue is that you aren't feeling comfortable in yourself. Talk to your DH as well. Tell him how you feel about all the touching. Tell him that you would like to just cuddle sometimes without it leading everywhere. I'm sure he'll understand.

Have you tried just snuggling down to watch something vaguely sexual together, or lying in bed and read some erotic fiction. I often feel completely NOT in the mood but find myself actually in the mood after doing this. I think date night for the purpose of feeling horny is a bit contrived and the expectation and pressure would be more likely to turn me right off!

It's not a date night though, is it? It's an 'I'm going to be nice to you because it's guaranteed you're going to put out night.' I can't think of anything less likely to put me in the mood.

I think you need to break a few things down and talk honestly. Date night isn't working for you so it needs to stop. Once that pressure is off, you need to work together to come up with an alternative solution, perhaps with the help of some counselling. I think a wee trip to the GP wouldn't be a bad idea either, just to check it isn't your anti-ds or anything hormonal.

One thing you could try is a sex ban for a month, where you have lots of kisses and cuddles, lots of intimacy, on the understanding it won't lead to full-blown sex.

TBH, 'sex by appointment' did work for me in terms of getting my libido back, but the point is it isn't working for you, so you have to stop it. Having sex you don't really want to have will crush your libido and end up with masses of resentment. I'm surprised your husband isn't picking up on this - is getting his rocks off more important than his wife actually enjoying it?

He does understand and doesn't want me to do anything I don't want to do. But at the same time it's been over 3 years and we are both stumped as to what to try next.

It is date night tonight and I am in tears at the thought of it. I feel like such a bad person because I love him, I just don't know what's wrong with me.

Don't feel bad because you aren't giving him sex all the time. Twice a week is more than a lot of people would do, especially with a 3yo DC. Talk to him tonight and say that you are getting really stressed about it all.

Maybe suggest that the two of you go away to a spa or something. Somewhere you can just relax and be for a couple of days. You might feel more in the mood after you have had a break.

Does he know you are in tears? Have you told him how you feel?

Please don't have sex you don't want to have. It's like some sort of aversion therapy gone wrong, expecting something that is making you cry to make you like the thing that's making you cry in the first place.

it is ok to not want sex. It is ok for DH to be unhappy about it, but that doesn't trump your right to say no.

Maybe going away would work. But there would still be this feeling of anticipation/ dread.

I've never watched porn or read erotic fiction so maybe that would be worth a try. How would you start looking for that kind of stuff?

I thought regularity would work because irregularity certainly wasn't!

Thanks everyone for your suggestions!

Try a Mills and Boon book or if you are feeling the need to lower your IQ, you could try 50 Shades.

lonny I know .. And so does dh. But we're at an impasse - one of us has to do something they don't want to do. To be fair, he wants to have sex a lot more, so we are both compromising. When dd was a baby I was more comfortable saying no, end of, but now this looks like a long term problem and I can't just expect him to give up sex.

I think you are building it up in your head and it is making it stressful for you. Maybe you could try and make it more spontaneous, rather than a fixed event.

No, actually. You do get the right of veto here. You don't have to have sex if you don't want to. His right to sex doesn't trump your right to bodily autonomy. Thats a very slippery slope...

Essentially you are forcing yourself to have sex to keep your relationship. Can't you see that isn't a healthy dynamic?

diy that's an interesting idea - maybe I could talk to dh about spontaneously doing intimate things that don't lead to full sex. But I don't think I would ever spontaneously want sex!

lonny you are absolutely right. It is a slippery slope. And sometimes I get angry because it is always framed as my problem. But I have also read the threads on here by people in sexless marriages who feel rejected and lonely and I don't want dh to feel that way. I honest can't imagine things staying as they are but I also don't know how to change them.

Having that view that you will never want sex will fuel itself. You need to have an open mind about it all if you want to maintain a sexual relationship with your DH IMO.

I'm trying to understand your issue with sex. Does it hurt? Make you feel self conscious? Does your DH do much in terms of foreplay? (Don't feel you need to answer these things publicly if you don't want to.)

Are you sexually attracted to your DH? I was in a relationship with someone that I never wanted sex with because I wasn't attracted to them. Now, I think my DP is very sexy so I want to have sex with him.

Ok, so if you don't have sex DH will feel rejected and lonely. That's a fair enough assumption I think.

When you have sex that you don't want to have, how do you feel? Because your feelings are equally important.

As for framing it as your 'problem' - well that's not going to help, is it? its no-ones fault, it's just something that happens occasionally in a long partnership. It can be overcome, but only with lots of support, lots of talking, and in the context of a relationship that is otherwise loving, kind and supportive. Whining about not having sex isn't going to help anyone.

It doesn't hurt but I rarely orgasm. I think the main problem is that I don't feel comfortable with my body. I gave up breast feeding 2 years ago but I still don't feel comfortable with dh touching my breasts. I think it comes down to the fact that dd is very very clingy and is always touching me and clambering over me and I have sort of turned off the sexual feeling in my body, if that makes any sense. Also, I'm about a stone overweight and look hideous. My body used to be my own - I was healthy and athletic and in control - but I don't feel that way anymore

I find dh sexy, partly because he is very big and strong. But he is also very heavy! And sometimes I feel a bit trapped ... I never used to feel like this.

But I think you're right about the idea of not wanting sex fuelling itself. Perhaps it's the full on sex thing again - I guess also because I don't orgasm I feel like I'm letting dh down every time (he does try!) it all just feels like a massive failure

lonny yeah the framing it as my problem is a bad thing. I guess that's where the resentment comes from - I feel like I have to try so hard at everything, and even my evenings/ bed time/ sleep time isn't my own.

But both our feelings are equally important, and I don't want him to feel bad. I can't assert my feelings without sublimating his.

Do you have any time to yourself. Literally no one else and no responsibility?

diy no! But who does? There is always more to do...

Good point, though. Maybe i need to carve that out.

Ask him to have DD for a day and take her somewhere so you can chill for the whole day. Maybe try and make it a weekly thing.

It's normal for women not to orgasm from PIV and perfectly understandable not to want sex if you don't get any pleasure from it. It just becomes something else that you are doing for someone else rather than yourself, doesn't it? And the more you do it, the angrier and more resentful you become which will kill any tiny bit of libido stone dead.

I think that's what you need to be looking at together. What do you want and need in order to enjoy sex? If that's mutual masturbation once a month and lots of non sexual cuddling in between then that is your starting point to rebuilding a full sexual relationship.

OP I want to post to say it really IS a slippery slope. You are already having sex you don't to have. Can your DH really not tell at all that you are not enthusiastic? Because if he can he is already on that slippery slope too.

Please do not have sex when it makes you feel tearful.

Sorry I don't have solutions but what you are doing isn't working and I think is ultimately soul destroying. Whether you work things out of not you feeling like you do is not an answer. I wish I had known NO sex was an option, albeit with its own fallout.

I wonder if i had talked to DH more about same issue could our relationship have been saved. For me I think not - as sex wasn't the only thing I couldn't say no to. Many areas of my life were not in my control.

If you feel everything else is good talk to your DH and listen to the advice from others here about better ways you could work on this.

I also don't think date night is working for you and you need to be frank about that. I'm sure your husband would be horrified to find out that you have been crying about it ☹️

What would you like to happen? Do you think you could happily never have sex again? Would you like to feel better about yourself and have time to exercise maybe? I know my feelings of sexiness are very much linked to how I feel about myself, they go hand in hand. So if I look unkept and have hardly any sleep or feel fat, I don't feel sexy. If however I've had a chance to do my hair and make up, got some sleep and feel as though I'm eating healthy, I'm more likely to feel sexy. Last night we had sex after a long long drought. I needed the lights off as I felt fat and I wasn't knackered. Plus it was my idea as DP never puts pressure on me. It was great but there is no pressure for it to happen again next week or next month, it depends how we feel and who initiates and who says yes or no. I think it's expectations that can really fuck things up and in this case 'date night' is turning into one big expectation for you.

I can't assert my feelings without sublimating his.

You know that's not true. Both sets of feelings are equally valid. It doesn't mean they are in opposition or that one set trump the other, but they are both absolutely equal.

Anyhoo. Instead of date night, I think you should have New's night off night. Where you can go swimming or go to the gym or the cinema or the theatre or even just sit in a bar with your book and get some time to yourself. That's what's needed here - not more demands. I found your comment back to diy to be quite telling. I get time to myself, of course I do, and I always did even when DS was tiny. It's essential for my mental health.

Is he as lovely to you on other days as he is on date night..or Does he only treat you like a Queen when there's a chance of a shag. If so I don't that would get me in the mood either. Surely you're going to feel under pressure when it's scheduled. I mean me and DP have what you call scheduled sex as we only see other a few days a week, but it's always been like that so our relationship has never known any different.
You can't rush these things. If you're not in the mood very few things will put you in the mood. I know it's no consolation at the moment but it will come back. But. It'll be back when you least expect it.
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