DH constant demands for sex

[Onefootforward1]

I really need some help and to know if IABU. My DH of 5 years is constantly harassing me for sex. I have 2 children under the age of 3 and it seems to have gotten worse since they were born. This is pretty much the only negative in our relationship but it’s really wearing me down.
He gropes me while i’m doing the kids breakfasts and makes constant sexual innuendos. He says i’m lucky that i have a husband who fancies me so much and jokes that i signed a contract saying he can do what he wants to me sexually.

We’ve had serious arguments, one when i was 8 months pregnant about how i don’t make an effort in the bedroom. Our younger son doesn’t sleep well and was up all night with a high temperature. I’ve had 3 hrs sleep, looked after the kids all day and DH’s family arrived for the BH weekend this afternoon. The younger DC has been clung to me crying all day and all DH has done since he got home is make sexual advances towards me. I asked him not to several times and eventually lost it and shouted at him in the kitchen and his family heard me. He’s now in a mood and said all i have to do is “be nice” but i feel like he doesn’t listen to me or respect me when i say no.

I now feel really embarassed and am left wondering whether i am just a horrible person for snapping at him all the time. I don’t know how to fix this or how to speak to him so that he understands that i’m exhausted and don’t want to have sex every day. Please help!

We as Dads are expected to carry on all the time

So are mums and they don’t make such a bloody fuss about it.

it feels like rape.

My ex was like this, no respect for me as a person, it went from constantly harassing me, to trying to undress me in my sleep, to accusing me of having an affair because I didn't want sex with him.

I did the 'giving in' to make him leave me alone, it was like playing cat and mouse, avoiding being alone with him, waiting until he was asleep to go to bed, trying to get into bed without waking him.. counting the days until his harassment ramped up so much that I would just 'give in' to start the cycle again.

It won't change, he won't get better. These men think they're entitled to your body just because you're married.

Leave him.

and when I say it feels like rape, i'm not denigrating those of you who've been through it genuinely.

I mean afterwards I didn't feel loved, fulfilled, euphoric. I just felt dirty, used and ashamed and empty, like something was very wrong with what just happened.

Any man who is so immature he feels jealous of his own child who is an infant and/or young child is a cunt.

I suddenly feel very depressed that my marriage appears to be doomed. I’ve only just returned to work and started up my hobby again in the evenings. I’m not really sure what to do next or how to start the converstion when his family leaves. Thanks for all the helpful replies and different perspectives. I have a lot to think about.

Left/right abso-fucking-lutely.

OP did he always behaved like this? Even before you got married? Did he suddenly become more "sex obsessed"? Are you just realising how obsessed he is since you have children and have less time for him? (My H has always been more into sex than I was-I must say that he never ever imposed himself upon me-neither before we got married nor after .and certainly not when the kids needed/need us...) I think a honest answer to these questions can help you evaluate the chances of him changing and controlling his sex drive

The 'we dads are expected to carry on' comment is fucking hilarious. What the fuck do mums do? Sit around waiting for their grapes to be peeled? Why why why are men so utterly pathetic?

I'm sorry you feel so bad Onefoot. As a start, could you just refuse to let him touch you at all? So completely out the barrier up?

Why doesn’t he just masturbate?

This is pure and simple abuse. It's clear he doesn't see you as a person who is tired and stressed out or who deserves some consideration and respect.
He has zero respect for you and groping when you say no to the point that you get angry and upset is sexual abuse.
He sees you as his legal chattel who should say yes at all times.
I divorced by last husband for exactly this as in the end I felt so degraded by his behaviour I was no longer able to function at work and out of work like a normal human being.
I can't tell you how wonderful my life is now without him. I used to think I had the perfect marriage but my ex husbands behaviour killed it.
Try calling the police next time he does this and see if he thinks it's ok when they arrest him for sexual abuse.

Sqidgee I totally agree, being emotionally battered into sex is rape. I was raped as a teenager and my husbands behaviour towards me felt WORSE than the rape. Mainly because he was supposed to love and honor me yet treated me like a blow up doll and didn't care if I had any pleasure or not.
I too crept about waiting for him to fall asleep, then was tired all day at work as I'd been up at 2am just prayng I could go to bed soon.

Even if we have PND or are healing from birth injuries we can't just stop being a parent, we don't get to clock out.

That a man feels put out that he's expected to 'carry on' is laughable and fucking ridiculous.. what the fuck do you think your wife is doing?

Shes tired, touched out, unlikely to have had another adult to talk to all day while her entire life is turned upside down caring for a new human while healing from birth, and you feel put out that you're not the fucking priority?

Grow the fuck up.
And I say that as a mother to a disabled child who's ex never understood that he wasn't the priority and likely never would be.

@kidsneedfathers He has always had a higher sex drive than me but i don’t remember him persistently pestering or groping before the kids were born. Maybe it’s because my sex drive was a lot higher than it is now though so i wanted to more.
I just feel so tired all of the time at the moment that i only want to do it at the weekend and i feel like it’s one of my many chores during the week just to keep him happy.
Interestingly, none of my friends think it’s a big deal and one of them admits she behaves the same way towards her DH, pestering constantly until he gives in. It generally gets laughed off as unequal sex drives. I think that’s why i’m having difficulty accepting it as rape.

one
Please don’t decide your marriage is doomed based on some folk on the internet who know virtually NOTHING about you or your husband. In the real world, people are human and have feelings - rightly or wrongly - and make mistakes. And often say and behave in stupid ways when they are hurting/sad/confused/angry. MN is so very black and white with no shades of grey. Apparently we should all be perfect human beings and behave perfectly all of the time!

Do you love your husband? Do you enjoy his company? Does he make you laugh? Is he a good dad? Do you enjoy your family time? Is your relationship worth saving?
If so, then get talking. Proper talking - make time and not when tempers are running high. Ask him what he thinks is happening when he’s groping you and listen to his answers. Try to then explain how it is making you feel. Explain how you want to show intimacy and love. Try to get away from him just trying to “defend” his actions and actually get him to talk his feelings through. The one male poster who explained that he felt pushed out by the baby and saw sex as his way of expressing his love was just told he was wrong. (Interesting, I’ll try that next time someone says they are feeling depressed/anxious/confused/angry - apparently it’s ok to just say nope you are wrong! Grow up?) But human frailties and anxieties happen (except on MN where only perfect men are acceptable) and it needs addressing if your husband is willing to accept that his actions are wrong and damaging and do something about it. He needs to learn to deal with how he feels differently - either through talking it out with you or with the help of a councilor. If he can and you are willing, then do try. If he’s not willing or it is the case that he feels he ‘owns’ your body and you owe him sex, then that’s different and you may need to rethink your relationship. But perhaps don’t go off some angry words said in a conflict.
Perhaps try to discuss it with him rather than decide, based on some keyboard warriors who know all they know from 3 paragraphs, that your marriage is doomed.
Good luck x

I think you’re right. He sees him desiring me as a loving positive aspect of our relationship and thinks i’m just mean
No he doesn't. I tell my five year old when he is playing with his younger brother, that it is only playing if you are both enjoying it. If only you are enjoying it, DS1, then there is another name for what you are doing.
Same applies to you and your DH OP.

When he jokes about the contract he is warning you that eventually when his current form of coercion doesn't work (pestering and bullying) he'll go a step further. He is making sure you feel you have to give in. This.

Effic.

None of that will work. BTDT, got the T-shirt. Sexually Abusive men don't change.

What happens is you do all that, they change for a while, then they start again.

So you have the conversation again, they stop it, less time this time though before they start it again.

You go around and around and around and nothing ever fucking changes..

Suddenly you find yourself 20 years into a relationship that makes you feel like a prisoner in your own home, married to a man who has no fucking respect for you as a person, and you realise how much time you wasted rather than leaving.

Hmmm my DH was always persistent at initiating virtually every night and when the DC were young it did get very irritating! If your DH isn't helping enough around the house/DC I would be livid!!!

I would not tolerate the groping and nagging during the day.... that is just pressure and inappropriate IMHO.

You need to agree boundaries with your H which he then respects.

Daddy you are peddling myths that have been created since time memorial to justify men's selfish behaviour around women's pregnancies and childbirth. So WHAT if you feel left out. So WHAT if you want intimacy with your wife and it's the only time you feel close. So WHAT if nothing around pregnancy and childbirth is about YOU. It's not even about taking a back seat it's just knowing that for a while you have to let the pregnant women, new borns and small children have what they need as far as you are able to give it to them.

In the real world, people are human and have feelings - rightly or wrongly - and make mistakes.
Continually pestering someone for sex, groping them, having 'serious arguments' with them for not having sex with you, and telling them they need to 'be nice' to you, is not a mistake. It's a strategy.

Do you love your husband? Do you enjoy his company? Does he make you laugh? Is he a good dad? Do you enjoy your family time?
I used to answer yes to these questions and used that to paper over the lack of respect my husband had for me, wanting to see that as an aberration rather than who he was. Oh, and I thought the fact he did lots around the house was a plus too. Really, really wish I had listened to those mumsnet strangers who could see through the crap when I couldn't and told me to leave. Things wouldn't have got as bad as they are now if I had.

OP you do not have to accept it as rape, as some posters seem to be urging you to do. Only you know the full context of what is occuring here in your marriage and how big a deal breaker it is to you; and whether you are prepared to put up with it.
To all those who are so adament that this is rape, why are you not urging the OP to go to the police?

There are other things I see as red flags OP.

Firstly, his statement that he makes 'no other demands of you.' Just step back and think what this is saying about his attitude to marriage and to you. A good marriage is based on two people, of equal worth and value, mutually supporting each other through life. Yet here he is clearly stating that he regards himself as entitled to 'make demands of you'. And that you are fortunate that he only has one demand to make. No. Especially not when that 'one' demand is 'on demand' penetration of your body.

Secondly, he pushed and pushed you with his pestering for sex, despite you being clear that you didn't want to. You snapped and yelled at him (whilst his parents were there). But instead of seeing you snapping as a sign of the distress he had put you under, he feels entitled to be angry with you. Thus shifting the responsibility and blame away from him and his behaviour and onto you instead. That's pretty manipulative. He can behave as he likes, but your reaction to becomes a stick to beat and guilt you with. My abusive DH does that too.

I became a master at pretending to be asleep. You have to drop your breathing rate right down. I wasn't allowed to stay up after he went to bed but I was allowed to go to bed before him so I'd go up while he was messing around on his computer watching porn and try to go to sleep or at least pretend to be asleep.

That's when you realise it's not right on so many levels.

Not once in our marriage was sex about intimacy. It was about copying what he had seen in porn and getting himself off.

What I dont understand is this belief some men have that they can't function without it. That sex is the be all and end all of a relationship. I often wonder what would happen if their wife had some illness that meant she could no longer have sex. Would they walk out?

There are some really frightening sharing of predators on this thread