This will probably be long, but I'm so confused and I need to get it all out.
I'm about to turn 24 and my husband will turn 33 just before my birthday. We got married 4 years ago on Thursday.
I have a fantastic life: 2 horses, 2 cats, the giant rabbit I pined for (no euphemistic thoughts please!), a house with no mortgage which we are about to extend (which we don't need to borrow much to do as we have capital there) so we can have a child and maybe foster (which I want to do, not him as much), I had a brand new car last year which wasn't a biggy because it is so inexpensive to run that it leveled out cost wise with the running of my old Laguna. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, so he's just had a new vehicle as well and we've had a new horse trailer and are going to sell the horse lorry and old cars. If I need new clothes/shoes/essential jewellery/toiletries, he will initially nag about the expense in an 'if we don't spend it on that, we will have it to spend on this' kind of way, but I usually get all that stuff because he will take me to buy it after I have forgotten about it IYSWIM - my parents were apart and money was tight, whereas his have always been comfortably off because of money left in wills, big properties etc... So we have very different views as a result, in that I would rather enjoy the money we have than regret not spending it when I die; he would rather save like fucking squirrel nutkin saving nuts!
I am maybe giving the wrong impression. I like to save - for holidays (which we have some really lovely ones in the UK but he will not travel abroad, although we are going with mum this year), for days away, for children, xmas, allsorts. But I also think 'sod it', I work 60 hours a week and am about to embark on my career as a teacher; he works his fingers to the bone and is fantastically talented craftsman. We both earn less-than-paltry salaries and have money saved, no mortgage etc, so if we see something we really like and still want it a week later, I see no harm getting it if we can save the money somewhere else. Anyway, back to the point... Told you it would be long!
The very first time I spoke to him he had romantic thoughts about me, but I can remember thinking what a whiney voice he had... not whiney but not very manly! Then I remember the clothes he was wearing which made him look like he was a mix of 'old before my time' and 'couldn't be arsed to make an effort'. He wore glasses that wouldn't have looked out of place in the early 90s, but in 2002 looked a bit weird as they covered almost half his face (because he said he didn't see the point changing them at such a cost!!!!). His hair was a mess as he refused to pay to get it cut very often and used the cheapest of cheap shampoos. He used to complain about the way his mum eats (she has had a massive stroke), and I really don't like eating noises so I told him he was being a bit rich considering every time he eats I expect half of it to come spilling on out! So he changed that and eats really nicely now, apart from the odd time I find him eating his meal with a spoon or from a saucepan (he says he can't be bothered to wash so many things up so saves on washing up!). He has always had the tendency to go on and on like an old lady (most of his life spent with two old ladies - his mum and gran), and also takes after his mum in that everyone else's grief and suffering has the tendency to become HIS (she goes to funerals of people she only knows through friends of friends lol - it's THAT kind of faux grief!).. he isn't that bad, but he will pull these faces and maybe shed a tear if something happens to someone else. Some may say that is nice as he is empathetc; I am empathetic but within my own world as I see no point walking round miserable and taking on other people's woes would surely do that to me! Right, so then he proposed to me but the way he proposed to me made me want to pmsl! He went back to his parents to get something and I thought 'ring, brooch...', but when he came back he had this china doll dressed as a bride which he had kept at home til he met someone, and handed it to me. She was really ugly and I just thought 'what a wet thing to do'. He did buy me a lovely ring but there was an upper spending limit lol. Actually, our first kiss was also awful. He kissed like a fish! Reading this, I am wondering why I said yes. But I have to say some things...
After we met and discussed why I wasn't attracted to him, he changed his glasses and even tried contacts for a while, which he couldn't bear so fair enough - he tried at least. He bought new clothes - not too trendy, just normal, contemporary clothes and a better pair of shoes (not the old man shoes he was wearing), and after 5 years I have just managed to convince him to change his workout shoes! He changed the way he ate (apart from eating with spoons and saucepans!); he changed the deodorant he used (from manky, rank smelling Sainsbury's own, to Sure), because I hated the smell of the one he used; he even bought a nasal hair trimmer!!!!! He bought a set of hair clippers, thinking that kind of haircut would look attractive, but later started going to the hairdressers to have nice, trendy cuts! I even taught him how to kiss nicely (or how I like to be kissed), although he still doesn't have it even 80%! I started to find him attractive and that together with the fact we had always got on, made a recipe for a relationship.
He was the first and only person I had told I had been raped a year before I met him; I told him things I just didn't tell other people and felt 100% comfortable in my own skin when with him. Gosh, I even walked round the house naked in front of him!!!!! I did miss my family when I moved 150 miles away from them to be with him (even though i didn't have the best homelife), but that soon wore off when I found full time work for my year out before uni, met some of his friends and started meeting new people, got another horse to concentrate on. Then he told me about his financial situation about 4 or 5 months after we met and I realised that for the first time in my life, I was happy, content, safe, looked after, would never really need for any material things... little did I know how tight he can be!
We were initially at it like rabbits, but I wasn't working and he was (I had just finished A levels), so he got tired before me so it just dwindled into a 'regular' sexlife. We even bought the kama sutra and became particularly fond of one position!!! But I wouldn't say there had ever been any butterflies, fireworks or spark there. I enjoyed the sex and loved being with him, but I have never found him a huge turn-on or anything. Preparing for the wedding was stressful for one reason or another, and our sex dwindled until at the time of the wedding it was very irregular, and we didn't have sex on our wedding night, but it was partly the way I was feeling about myself and sex at the time. In January 2004 - a few months after the wedding - my granddad died and my world turned upside down, and I started contemplating life more seriously and in a more mature way... whether I was happy and how I got to this position. We were probably having sex about once a month at this point and then in August 2005 I was taken seriously ill with a physical illness which then left me listless when I was better and led into a severe bout of mental illness linked to that and things from childhood. So I came off huge doses of antibiotics and straight onto huge doses of antidepressants (lots of different ones), had social worker, CAT therapist, CPN, crisis team, time on a ward. I'd become withdrawn and suicidal and harming myself, stayed in the house, could get violent - not towards anyone, just in general. So from August 2005 to May this year, I'd always been 'ill' and always been on these tablets. So in September 2005 we had sex when away, but from then until June this year there was nothing and that was even hard for me, the person who didn't want it! It was like I wanted it but not with him. I stopped taking the tablets and stopped being so tired and non-plussed. We had sex again in June and then again a few weeks later, but I am now back in a position of contemplating my life and how, at 24, I want it to proceed. My head is clear and I have my new life ahead, but I have so much to consider.
He never forgets a birthday, anniversary etc. He takes us to lovely places for anniversaries sometimes, and we go away on nice UK holidays, sometimes to France (where we honeymooned), we are NT members and enjoy going to those places, and we occasionally go to the cinema or the pub or an Italian. We get on as friends really well and I like my life - financial security, feeling safe, my horses etc..He bought me flowers when we first met, but since then it has only been for birthdays and stuff, and it is never spontaneous, never any lingerie or little bits of jewellery, never surprises me with a meal out, never just opens a bottle of wine and says sod it to the world. Then the other day I saw his school leavers book and realised that he was one of those people (which I did know deep down), that everyone else laughs at and sniggers about. This doesn't essentially bother me because that is their baggage, not his, but it did highlight some issues in my own head about me not finding him uber attractive and not being turned on by him, not thinking of him as what I would consider a 'real man'.
My thoughts scare me, because I can hardly bear him to kiss me as it leaves me grossed out and he always wants it to lead somewhere else. Having sex with him leaves me feeling sick and thinking how mechanical it all is - wham bam thank you mam and then roll over and off to sleep. He doesn't offer cuddles much anymore as he says he has to switch off from thoughts about sex, but if he does then it always has to be about something else. We bicker about silly things a lot; we can go a week without any arguments and then we'll be bickering for weeks on end, I think because of resentment, maybe on my part. At 24 do I really want to consider a life of no sex because I can't stand it with him. I don't know if I am off sex or off him, because the thought of it with someone else in my fantasies, does kind of turn me on and I am still a sexual person. Can I face no affection or physical intimacies for the rest of my life? The sex has never been earth shattering and I had to teach him a few things, but the thought of oral sex on him or anything like that, makes me want to gag!
He is a lovely man and I can't think of anyone I would rather have children with, rather be friends with, rather share things with. But I find the whole issue of fancying him and not wanting sex with him that much, really worrying. Is it because I was raped in 2001 that I am off sex? (Wouldn't I, in that case, be off all sex, not just with him?). Have I come to resent him because he treats me like a child, giving me £10 a week to spend as I wish, he doesn't surprise me with things...? Have the tough times we have been through with me being ill, switched any of those feelings towards him off, because he had to be a different kind of rock when I was ill?
I'm just so confused. I don't want a life with no physical contact or affection, but I can't see myself wanting it from him. I just can't get past these thoughts about him. But another man has shown interest, and although I haven't done anything as I know it is wrong, I am sorely tempted and find him amazingly sexy - he's intelligent and talks about the things I like to talk about like politics and things my OH finds boring; he keeps fit and in good shape and he's funny and sexy. I find myself increasingly turned on by him, but know I could never do anything with him as he is married with children and I am married. I could not do that to two other adults and 4 children - not after the life I had because of similar. I just keep looking at flats to rent but then talk myself out of it and tell myself I made my bed and have to lie in it for the rest of eternity.
Am so confused and stuck. Just don't know what to do and really needed to let all this out.