Husband just said this ...

[Ohthatagaine]

You are killing my feelings for you by denying me sex ... does this sound like a man who loves his wife? We have 3 kids and i admit my sex drive is not what it used to be. The last few years our sex life has dwindled but recently we've been getting closer and closer and committing to making time for each other. So one night this week, he blows up because i was too tired close to midnight. I get his frustration but this comment has made me look at him in a totally different light. I don't think he really loves me as a person. It made me question my whole marriage. Whats your take on it ladies?

Yy rumbling

OP I don't understand your position - your DH is telling you that the state of your marriage is going to result in him falling out of love with you because his need for intimacy isn't being met (and that is a completely acceptable base need that almost all of us have - the need to feel cherished, loved and physically close to another) and the lack of intimacy in the relationship is resulting in him withdrawing from you. I don't think he's trying to co erce you into sex, I think he's trying to make you aware of his feelings. If my DP said that to me I would be taking a long relook at our relationship and deciding whether it was worth salvaging and if it was putting real effort into fixing it. Many many women (myself included) have children and jobs and other pressures and still enjoy a tactile and physical relationship with the man I love - and if you don't feel that level of intimacy and affection with him then you need to decide if you want to make the effort to work at it at a level that matches his need. Clearly you saying you're trying to work on it isn't filtering through to the relationship, because the person you're in the marriage with doesn't feel it. Do you want to salvage your relationship? Is it worth it? Demonizing the man for having sexual needs or for expressing his negative feelings on the marriage and you won't fix your problems. He wont see your point because you won't bother to see his. Decide if you want to save your marriage - and if you do, then you both need to have a real hard look at what you're actually doing to save it. He isn't obligated to love you - it isn't your right to be loved by him. Love like that is earned and worked at and if you're not prepared to acknowledge his feelings don't be surprised if he can't be bothered to acknowledge yours.

Well HelenDenver - I was fairly obviously, talking about reciprocity in terms of 'feelings' for one another - not control over bodily autonomy - and trying to make it sound rapey is a little disingenuous!
But anyway - explaining why someone might have said something is not defending in anyway - and I think I did say it was shitty. OP was wondering what he meant or why by he said what he did.
And now I feel like I'm in a relationship with you - lol!

"I don't think he's trying to co erce you into sex, I think he's trying to make you aware of his feelings. "

By saying he will stop loving her if she "keeps denying him" sex? Even though they are having sex sometimes? Saying this at midnight when he has just asked for sex? Not coercive? A constructive expression of his feelings?

Err, no.

Wasn't obvious to me, Dadaist. Particularly in the context of a thread where so many posters are implying this is OP's problem alone to "fix"...

We're agreed that it was a shitty thing to say. I'll plump for monumentally shitty, in fact.

And as to our relationship - I don't mind if you want to see other people

She doesn't actually say they are having sex sometimes. She says recently we've been getting closer and closer and committing to making time for each other. That's not the same as saying they are having sex. And I still don't think he's trying to coerce her. Why is he not allowed to have feelings? Why is he not allowed to express them? Rightly or wrongly, the lack of intimacy in their relationship is affecting his feelings for his wife. He didn't say have sex with me now, he said your refusal to have sex with me is killing the love I have for you. I don't think that's wrong. I would feel the same if my DP spent years rejecting me and expecting me to be ok with it - it would make me feel worthless and unattractive. And it would make me feel even worse if I wasn't even allowed to express my feelings, instead I had to suffer in silence. Why isn't he allowed to express his feelings and make his wife aware that their marriage is now in jeopardy? I'm sure everyone would be jumping all over him if he said nothing and just walked out without trying to make her aware of how bad things are.

Exactly so Rumbling.

"Regardless of what is right or should be right, the result is a lot of broken marriages and children shuttling backwards and forwards for contact every weekend. They are the ultimate losers."

What I'm hearing here is: "women should put up with a lot of shit from men, for the sake of the children."

I know I keep saying this, but we need a new sexual revolution. That half a century after the last one, we are still in this place where women are being urged to eat shit from men because their marriages are more important than their lives, is a terrible state of affairs.

Children lose out from broken marriages, whether their parents live together or not. A marriage is broken, when the partners don't treat each other with love and respect and decency and role model that shit to their children. I thought that attitude, that teaching children to expect bad relationships is better than showing them they should expect good ones and have the right to leave bad ones, went out along with the right to rape your wife.

Apparently not.

zaffa, at midnight just after he'd tried to get her to have sex?

Is that really the right time and approach to have that conversation?

Come on.

OK, you might say that in the course of a sober discussion about where your relationship is going. But at that time of night, in those circumstances - nah, that's not reasonable.

AskBasil - he didn't force himself on her. He didn't say if you don't have sex with me now, then I won't love you anymore. He said, after what sounds like a long period of 'talking about' talking about it, that he felt that the problems in their marriage were affecting his feelings for her. I imagine given her response (which is to focus on her own feelings to his words and disregarding his feelings altogether) that if I were him, I would need to be in the heat of the moment to finally admit my true feelings too - his timing wasn't great but it's a far leap to paint him as a coercive sexual predator because told the OP how he really felt about his relationship

Zaffa

The op has posted further down the thread that they are having sex but not as often as he'd like

I expect the op is long gone. I would be in her shoes

You are killing my feelings for you by denying me sex .

. So one night this week, he blows up because i was too tired close to midnight.

Yes he did say he would go elsewhere if he couldnt get it from me.

Helen

Can you reference the post that says how much sex they're now having? Because if she does say that, and she's had sex once in two years, and expects that to make him feel intimately close to his wife (who it is quite logical you should expect to feel intimately close to by the vey nature of your relationship) then once again I can understand his point. The only two people who know the truth here are the OP and her DH and everyone else insisting that he is the one in the wrong without hearing or considering his side is simply pandering to the OP. She came here for advice about whether what he said was acceptable from a man who was supposed to love his wife. I don't believe anyone is supposed to love their partner, I believe it's something you work at - loving and being deserving of love, and like the OP's husband I am entitled to my view. Being offended by it or not liking it doesn't bully me into changing it, just like the OP can't bully her DH into feeling ashamed for admitting he doesn't get anything out of their marriage and his feelings for her are dying. She might not like it, but if she wants to save her marriage I'd suggest she listen to what he's saying instead of dismissing it because it offends her.

And Helen - actually she clarifies later that he didn't actually say he would go elsewhere, just something along those lines so he should accept his needs won't be met and he should stay in a marriage where he feels rejected, undervalued and as though what he wants is dismissed because it upsets he OP, rather than doing the decent thing, given that she isn't willing to address or acknowledge his concerns, and pack his bags and leave her and give himself the chance to find a woman who does value his feelings in their relationship? The issue isn't that he wants more sex, the issue is the OP is dismissing his feelings that he is clearly expressing because she doesn't like them, and is implying that him having those feelings clearly means he doesn't love her as he is supposed to. It implies a level of arrogance on her part and a dismissal of his feelings and their validity - as in because he isn't happy with their marriage it must be his fault, he is the one who isn't loving her as he should. So in effect she can dictate how he loves her but he can't (and quite rightly can't and nothing I have said indicates that I think he should be able to) dictate when they have sex? Double standards much?

Where is she dismissing his feelings? She's here asking for help.

does this sound like a man who loves his wife?

just felt totally selfish and self centred.
u ... was just so off.

Does any of the above quotes sound like she is considering his feelings openly? It sounds to me like she has already made her mind up about what he has expressed and nothing she says indicates she is acknowledging he has any right to his feelings....

I have a fairly strong sex drive and if dh didn't want to have sex with me I would really struggle. I can see how easy it would be to fall into a relationship that was just a friendship but I need more. I need to know I'm desired/desirable, attractive to my dh. This doesn't mean we have to have Sex but it does mean intimate moments of naked cuddling, showers together etc. If dh couldn't have sex then I wouldn't walk out but the other intimate moments would need to otherwise it's just friends, isn't it?
I think your dh is frustrated and feeling unloved. For me, sexual intimacy is about making the other feel good about themself. I don't think it's an arsey thing to expect sex in a marriage (3 days after childbirth that is arsey so clearly there are times but not long term).
Talk to each other and make a plan so you both understand the expectations.

"The issue isn't that he wants more sex, the issue is the OP is dismissing his feelings that he is clearly expressing because she doesn't like them"

I disagree with that framing of what the issue is.

I think the issue is that he feels entitled to sex and has expressed himself in the way he has, because of that entitlement.

I think entitlement underlines it all tbh. Although I do concede that you are right in believing that love isn't something any of us are entitled to either. I think you're wrong about it needing to be worked at, to deserve it etc., the nature of love is that it's a gift and cannot be earned. You can do things to bolster it or corrode it, but you can't get it by earning it or deserving it. Which may feel unfair, but there it is.

I disagree Basil.
I read the post that the OPs DH feels entitled to intimacy in his marriage. I feel entitled to intimacy in mine. If every expression of unhappiness was met with the response from the OP that he is selfish then Were it me I would start to feel resentful and angry - not because I wasn't getting sex but because my need to feel physically close to my DP wasn't being acknowledged or accepted as a valid expectation in a relationship. I don't think it's unreasonable for him to want to feel intimacy with his wife - if he didn't have that desire he may as well be in a business arrangement with his friend or family member. Intimacy and physical closeness is one of the things that separates a romantic relationship from other types and it's an important distinction. I agree he chose a bad time to express himself and probably bad words to do so. But if the OP is actually looking for advice on how to make her home life better and hold her marriage together, then she needs to focus on the fact that one half of her partnership doesn't feel valued or listened to. Her DP has expressed his feelings, and she has expressed hers with her response. If he doesn't feel valued or listened to, despite vocalizing what he is unhappy about and it being dismissed, then I can't see that he is going to make another first move to rectify the problems. The OP needs to acknowledge that her husband doesn't sound engaged in the marriage - and I don't interpret that as a result of a lack of sex, I interpret it as a result of his feelings being dismissed as irrelevant because the OP believes she deserves him to love her in a different way.

Truthfully though, only the OP and her DH know the truth and they both need to think long and hard about whether they want to be in this relationship any more. My view on unhappy marriages that can't be fixed is that you leave them - even if there are children. Because children deserve examples of happy couples who show love and respect to each other and of each other's feelings, not people who stay together despite their obvious mismatch or unhappiness because of how they should love each other and what the other party feels entitled to. And they also deserve examples of strong parents who can walk away from situations that are emotionally damaging to them - and it sounds like both the OP and her DH are in a relationship that's damaging them and neither can see the other's perspective (or is willing to) any longer

If it's intimacy he's missing then he should have said so - there's a big overlap between sex and intimacy but they are not synonyms.

And what some people call intimacy can be interpreted by others as overtures, leading to rejection.

JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER.

@Zaffa87

You make a lot of sense in what you've said. I've come across so many men (and some women), who have left their marriages because of a lack of intimacy.

Communication is the key.

Good luck, OP.

Askbasil has nailed it IMO

Helen Denver and ask basil sorry you felt a sarcastic comment was necessary because I agreed with a poster with different opinions to you, let's just have a certain type allowed to post on here I'm sure that will benefit posters looking for balance 🙄

Still don't understand the need to breastfeed a 2/3 year old. Especially when it means the Op is up during the night and exhausted. Just knock it on the head! Start to get some of yourself back, and get back to some sort of normality. Hopefully the rest will follow.

So your feelings for him have changed (in that you no longer want to have sex with him) but his feelings for you are not allowed to change?