Husband constantly wants sex

[SnackRussell]

This isn’t a great one but I need some advice on how to handle things.

Been with DH for well over 20 years. We are both 40s. Constant ups and downs. Last 10 years have been horrendously torrid. We have teenage DC. Deep down I’m really not happy. I can’t leave though, for various complex and financial reasons. We have many issues.

DH is constantly after sex. He doesn’t sleep well and so wakes me from sleep by groping me and I feel that mostly I have to oblige otherwise he gets really annoyed with me and then I feel like shit. I’d say it’s most days. If I oblige then I generally get a day or so that I can sleep well and relax. He has to have me help him relieve himself mostly. It’s not often actual sex. I feel that if I shut him out it makes things impossible between us so it’s easier for me to go with it. But sometimes I find that hard. He’s incredibly sensitive and if I ever say anything negative he just gets very offended and it’ll ruin the day and carry on.

Sometimes I do feel like it, and those times are fine. Our sex life has always been very one sided, but it doesn’t bother me hugely. I’ve been with him so long and I know he’s the only person who I am likely to ever be with, so I just get on with it. He has a very stressful job. He doesn’t have any hobbies or activities apart from looking at his phone and he rarely, even on a non-Covid year, sees any friends. Me and DC are all he has. I am the total opposite to him.

I’m increasingly nervous and anxious in life in general partly, I know brought on through our relationship. But like I say, leaving really isn’t an option at the moment. I have been on ADs a few times before and they kill my sex drive dead completely! He’s never too empathetic about this, I don’t think he understands it.

I just don’t really know what to do. I sometimes dread going to bed because I know he’s going to spend all night keeping me awake when he really wants sex and I’m going to be exhausted all day. If I turn him down I just know then I’ll spend it feeling guilty anxious and tense!

I can never win.

@dottiedodah

When you say you cant leave .Do you mean you will not be able to find a similar home ,or be stuck in a bedsit or something? Quite honestly I would be unable to cope with this.It sounds like he is totally dependent on you .Even leaving aside the Sexual Abuse (because that is what it is)You need good quality sleep! What happens when you hit the Menopause FFS!

I’d be very very stuck. I have to think about the DC. They are the absolute priority.

@Casuffit

I have been where you are. It is horrible and soul destroying. It took me years to leave but I have finally. I am now in my mid 50s. I wasted many years wrestling with the situation. You will know when you are ready to go and you will make it happen. I am only a few months into being in my own home and there are difficult days but my teenage children are happy and settled. We are ‘amicable’ though that is increasingly hard. I am SO much happier.

You will be one day too. He will not change. It is not you. These were the things that got me out.

Your post is so encouraging. Everything you say I absolutely want to reach for. I’m so glad you’ve managed to do this and I hope you have the most amazing new life, because you deserve the happiness.

If you’re anything like I was then you probably feel guilty coming on to MN to express how you feel about him. It’s hard to give advice as we don’t know the backstory (I also name changed loads when I was thinking of and subsequently leaving), but there is no reason at all that you shouldn’t be centre stage here and make decisions that put YOU first.

I honestly thought I was in a hopeless scenario but I broke free, and do you know what? All the things I was imagining would happen didn’t happen. It hasn’t been all plain sailing but on the whole life is so much better.

If it is guilt holding you back, try to think about why that may be and work on these feelings. Nobody really needs to stay if they don’t want to and it sounds like you’d be so much happier separated. Nobody is responsible for another grown adults’ feelings. Including you!

Good luck 🤞🏻

If you are determined to stay OP, why not set some ground rules. Allocate certain days where you are available for sex (say 4 per week) and some that you absolutely are not. Then that's a compromise and you know that on the other days you can sleep. If he still pesters on those days then he has to sleep elsewhere. See Esther Perel on Ted Talks. She advocates set sex in LTRs.

I know I’ve painted him to be some kind of evil sex monster, which he isn’t, he’s very complex and extremely sensitive.

I'm so very sorry for the situation in which you find yourself. If what you describe (disturbing your sleep fir sex that you do not want) then yes he is abusive. There is nothing you can do to show him in a better light.

if I were to leave than I fear that he would harm himself

I also get that you honestly believe this. This too is a way to control you. In fact, vanishingly few people go on to carry out that threat. Much, much more usual for them to move onto another partner, who is then in turned groomed to believe this and so. controlled in the same way.

I'm so sorry for you caught in his web in this way. I hope you found some help and find the strength to access help.

https://www.freedomprogramme.co.ukk*

https://www.womensaid.org.ukk*

why not set some ground rules

Isn't the whole issue that OP feels that has no power to set ground rules ? She is so caught up in his drama that it seems impossible.

Congratulations on finding the strength to post here. It's a great step forward.

You can do the rest. All the very best

I'll talk about just one aspect of this, as I don't have personal experience of such awful abuse. But I do have personal experience of my exh ending our marriage, so can paint a picture of what it could potentially be like for your husband if you leave. My social life was very, very restricted for various reasons, and I had a history of anxiety and low self-esteem since my teens that I was just about managing. When my marriage ended, I became so depressed that I had to face my problems properly - I got medical treatment and psychotherapy for the first time in my life. As a result of that, I started working on my social life, made new friends and simply did more out of the house; and I sorted out some of the things in my life that I'd been avoiding. Because I'd relied on my marriage as a crutch, I hadn't done those things before. I'm glad things changed in my life.

The crutch you are providing involves coercive sexual abuse. It's awful for you, and not even doing your husband any good. Nobody is benefiting from your staying.

I was in a relationship like this. I couldn’t leave and put up with it. What happened to me is that I cracked! I couldn’t stand it any longer and I told him to go. He wouldn’t leave but slept on the sofa downstairs for weeks. I could hear him sobbing every night. One night he came upstairs and told me he’d taken an overdose. I had to take him to hospital, with three young children in tow. He was okay. The staff were incredibly insensitive and put pressure on me to take him back and look after him. I felt guilty and I’ve had guilt feelings for years because I couldn’t have him back, I’d completely cracked.

It was awful at the time but it had to be. I just couldn’t go on. This is what I think will happen to you @SnackRussell. You will crack.

I think you can leave this abusive relationship before you crack and I absolutely recommend that you do. Please speak to Women’s Aid for perspective.

My heart goes out to you. ❤️💐

This is abuse.
Please speak to someone to get your head round that
He's not sensitive, he's abusive.
Keep talking to people on here and keep getting support.

He is vampirising you. Sucking the life out of you to feed himself. Staying in a one sided relationship like that is doing your DC no favours. It teaches them that women must sacrifice themselves to men and their wants.

"It’s just really, really not possible for me to leave"

You are wrong in that very important respect. No obstacle to leaving is ultimately insurmountable. You are stopping you from leaving him. Staying with him does not help him and you and in turn your kids are also being dragged down with him. He feeds into any codependency issues you already have and uses all that against you and your children as well.

He could well be using MH issues as a cover or excuse to further abuse you. You are not responsible for him and his choices at the end of the day. The rotten apple that is this man did not fall far from the rotten tree that is his family; they are likely to be abusive as well.

What about your children in all this?. What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?. You have a choice even now re this man and they do not. Would you want this sort of abusive marriage for them as adults, no you would not.

You are not responsible for him you go to bed at night stressing because he'll grope you for sex . You can't leave because he might harm himself and he's no one else? This is a horrible way to live OP. Do you have someone to talk to?
If this was your sister/daughter /friend what advice would you give her?

What did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?. Did you meet this man in your late teens?.

He's made you over the years feel responsible for him but even now you are not. Verbal threats to harm are often purely made to keep their victims in line, they are truly master manipulators.

If your children are indeed your absolute priority here then further go onto show them through both word and deeds that they are rather than your H. Their dad ultimately has to be out of their day to day lives as well as your own. Abusive men like described also take a long time, years even, to recover from and your own recovery from his abuses of you and in turn them has not even started yet. But you have taken a small but significant step by writing on here.

This sounds horrendous. Is he literally waking you up in the middle of the night and expecting you to wank him off just so he can go back to sleep?

You must find your inner strength to leave this man. He sounds grim.

OP, I don't understand. Is it the timing of his sexual advances you find off-putting or having sex with him in general? What does he say when you talk to him(not right before sex) and explain you don't want to be woken up and prefer sex at different times?
You don't explain why you can't leave, but no sex in a marriage is a deal breaker for a lot of people. However you absolutely shouldn't have sex if you don't want to, you will end up with a rather complex mental health issue to deal with. You need to do something

Whats the worst thing that would happen if you said you dont want to be woken for sex ever again? If you cant say that or tolerate his behaviour following that you are not only be sexually abused then you are being psychologically abused as well or experiencing coercive control. You need professional support to help you work out your safest options to leave. There is no such thing as cant leave, but it can feel like that when you are trapped. Is there financial abuse as well, i assume from your post he is working and therefore has a duty to provide for the children and if necessary he should be the one to leave the family home. Please contact womens aid and or a solicitor.

While the dc are your priority, (and I'm guessing they're at a critical stage in their schooling?), you also have to consider what sort of model of relationships you're providing them. Would you want them to recreate the same sort of relationships in their futures? What sort of environment is it for them with him?

Could you explain a little more about the obstacles to leaving?

no sex in a marriage is a deal breaker for a lot of people
OP's husband gets wanked off or has sex almost daily and does not seem to have any plans to end the marriage.
The issue is more that OP does not want to be in the marriage but feels obliged to stay.

OP it sounds like your OH has never learnt to manage his own mental health issues or to self soothe. So you are the person that makes him feel better and reduces his anxiety, albeit temporarily. It can only ever be temporary because it doesn't address his underlying mental health issues.
And if you refuse, his anxiety ramps up and he makes your life miserable so that you give in and soothe him.

You are not responsible for his health and well-being apart from not exacerbating it by being abusive. I certainly don't think you are abusive. It just means his issues are HIS issues, not yours.
And he will never actually address them while he is using you to soothe himself.

I understand you are feeling trapped and that you can't leave. I don't think you need to stress about leaving at this point. But I do wonder what would happen if you established some boundaries: therapy to address his mental health issues, no more waking you up and demanding sex, having a respectful relationship.
You ARE well within your rights to set boundaries. You don't HAVE to live this way. But to change it, you may have to have some hard conversations with him - and the way these go will likely inform what you need to do next.
As a previous poster said, if you did leave and he was forced to address his own issues, it might be the best thing that's ever happened to him! And you'll be happier than you imagined

I don't think anyone is suggesting that OP is abusive.

I feel bad because I know I’ve painted him to be some kind of evil sex monster, which he isn’t, he’s very complex and extremely sensitive

oh please. Complex and sensitive my arse.

Maybe because you've never been with anyone else you don't realise what an arsehole he is. You're not happy but you think it's your duty to make him happy. If you asked him to leave would he?

If you can't leave right now, get him on antidepressants. It will kill his sex drive and possibly help his mental status. Make an appointment at the GP for him.

If you cant leave then you need to sit him down during the day and tell him it just isn't on. It isnt on for him to keep you awake pestering you for sex and it isn't on for him to throw huffs and be a dick the next day when you say no. So you need to set some ground rules.

If he apologises and works on some ground rules with you and changes, great, problem solved. If he doesnt take it well and he bulldozes the rules at the first opportunity then you'll see that he truly is abusive. In which case you would really need to go.

@RantyAnty

If you can't leave right now, get him on antidepressants. It will kill his sex drive and possibly help his mental status. Make an appointment at the GP for him.

Worth a try.

Mental health should never be used as an excuse or justification for sexual abuse. Take care OP