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?

There was a time when the situation was reversed, and as a result we had s lot less sex than I wanted to. This was about ten years ago though and when I brought it up dh said that he couldn't remember, and that we were different people back then. To be fair we didn't really talk about it. That's just the way it was.

Yes, as a result you had a lot less sex than you wanted to. Because you are a decent human being who wouldn't impose a 'sex minimum' on someone not enjoying it.

You weren't 'different people' back then, you were at a different stage in life. Now you are in the stage of life of being a parent, currently being unemployed and worrying about it, having a partner with bad breath who hasn't tackled it though you've asked him to. But now you are the one with the lower libido, your partner hasn't chosen to react in the same way you did.

It's very convenient that the past doesn't count. I think your relationship needs a radical resetting of boundaries if it's to survive, or if it's to survive without becoming abusive.

"Different people" concerns me.

Now that you are married, have had children, and are not working, there is something of a status differential for people concerned about such things.

10 years ago he had far less reason to be complacent about you being stuck with him.

Good luck with you talk tonight. You sound lovely. But I think your husband already knows all of the things you want to tell him/ discuss. He just doesn't care enough to do anything about them.

As long as he gets sex he does not care. He is getting what he wants with very minimal effort so why change? I mean, he can't even be bothered to sort his bad breath but still expects sex.

I feel really angry at the thought of him telling you you must have sex on Wednesday even though you don't want to. (isn't that rape?)

Please do not have sex with him.

Take care of yourself

OP, what do you think would happen if you refused to have sex with him? Could you ask him bluntly, "What do you intend to do if I do not have sex with you on Wednesday?" Ask him why he thinks it's okay to coerce you into having sex when you don't want to. Ask him how, as a decent human being, he could actually receive pleasure from putting his penis into someone who doesn't want it there. Ask him why he isn't bothered that him forcing himself on you makes you cry. Ask him if he's okay with you actually living in dread and fear of date night.

People can tie themselves into all kinds of mental knots to convince themselves that their unacceptable behaviour is actually okay. You need to spell it out in absolutely no uncertain terms that from your perspective it's sexual abuse. If he isn't mortified when you hold a cold hard mirror up to his behaviour, run. It's an old line but absolutely true: when a man tells you who he is, listen.

What Ofelia said. Exactly.

Well, that actually went a lot better than expected. I told him all the things that I wanted to say and he listened. He talked to me about his point of view too. I insisted that we reframe this as our issue, not my problem. And he agreed. We also talked at length about the issue of coercion or feeling obliged to have sex and I asked him to tell me clearly what he meant by the perfunctory comment. He apologised and said that was not what he had meant, although he could see why I thought it was. he said that if we never have sex again that would be better than me feeling forced to do it. He said he felt sick at the idea that I had felt like that, and that he thought I was crying because of body image issues that he thought might be helped by some intimacy. I said that the date night situation was not working and had started to make things worse. We agreed that we will make time for each other but remove the expectation of sex.

Anyway, obviously it's not all plain sailing from here but I feel like we have had a breakthrough of communication. Afterwards, I felt much closer to him and (surprise surprise) more attracted to him too. We both said that we have been feeling lonely and the conversation seemed to bring us closer together than we've been in a while.

I know there is a long way to go, but I feel like I've just spent the evening with the wonderful man I married, not the person I thought he had become.

Thank you all for your comments. You made me realise that the situation was completely unhealthy and untenable, and gave me the tools to talk about it in very clear, strong terms with dh.

What a lovely update. I hope you continue to build on this. I can't imagine the relief you must feel for discussing this