Do you ever have sex when you don't want to?

[FortunatelyUnfortunate]

For your OH?

I'm struggling with this at the moment. I'm pregnant and my sex drive has completely left me and moved to Mars for the time being.

But I feel bad..?

I've done it a few times because I know DH would like to but I've not enjoyed it and have essentially been internally wishing it over as quickly as possible.

To clarify, he doesn't make me feel guilty, he doesn't even ask. I just know that he's missing intimacy though and so have gritted my teeth a few times and pretended I want to.

Has anyone else done this? I see a lot of people on here who seem like they'd never in a million years have sex they didn't want but is this really true?

@cherryblossomx3

I do now. I used to have a really high sex drive, especially when we were TTC, but not anymore. That is down to the fact I have a still breastfeeding 1 year old though and spent majority of last year pregnant. I am not sure if breastfeeding lowers your sex drive or if it is the fact that my body still does not feel 100 percent 'mine' and I get cringed out a bit (I think it's hard to switch from mummy mode into sex driven wife mode) but I do try atleast once a week as my partner enjoys it. I don't hate it but atm it wouldn't bother me if we didn't do it for a while. I like to go to sleep when I get into bed these days more than anything else!

One hundred percent this! Also the feeling that baby might wake up half way through means I can never really relax into it. Still usually get into it mostly...

I was definitely not having sex at 33 weeks pregnant - ugh

Most of the sex I've had would fall into that category. Unfortunately I have zero sex drive.

My ex would make me feel guilty if I didn't though. I would get it out the way on a Saturday morning so I could enjoy the rest of the weekend. It also ruined holidays cos he associated them with shagging whereas I just wanted to go lie on a beach!

When I let him get on with it, it wasnt even me showing him love. It was more about avoiding the argument. I would lie there resenting it and feeling annoyed with him for still wanting to. Yuck. I feel sick at the thought.

Best thing about being single is not having to go through that performance.

Maintenance shags absolutely a thing! And a normal part of many relationships. But I think there’s a difference between doing it when you’re just not really feeling it, and doing it when you really actively don’t want to. The first is ok, the latter is potentially not ok. I could count on one hand the number of times we had sex in my second pregnancy!

DH and I have very mismatched sex drives (I could go months without sex, and he would like it several times a day), so I do the ‘maintenance shag’ thing too. Sometimes I get into it and enjoy it, sometimes not.

I didn’t for the last trimester of my pregnancy though, or for 6 months after DD was born. I was just too uncomfortable or in pain, and he understood and our marriage survived.

I did do a few ‘maintenance blowjobs’ though

Yes.

I find if I don’t have sex for a while (sometimes happens as I work shifts and we’re both women so between times of the month and us working opposite hours, occasionally there can be a few weeks break!), I can lose interest in it. But I make an effort to do it as it makes us feel so much closer and I do always get into it. If I’m not super into it, we use toys or something to speed things along. But this only works because there’s never any sulking or coerciveness when we don’t have sex for a while.
My ex sulked and started rows about sex and it was the biggest turn off.