I need to canvass opinions on a delicate matter

[MyBug]

I have name changed for this.
I have been with DP for 2.5 years. He is a lovely caring man and I want to stay with him.

The issue is the many not so great aspects of our sex life, but there's one that I really need opinions on. I genuinely need to know if I am reasonable feeling upset about it or whether I need to give my head a wobble.
I've sat on this for a few days but just keep going round in circles.
At the weekend we were DTD and when I climaxed DP was kissing me quite passionately. At first I thought that it was lovely, a way of connecting more with me in the moment. Then I realised that he was in fact trying to stop me expressing myself vocally. He was kissing me so that I did not make noise.
I felt really shocked and talked with him about it afterwards. He said that he thought it was wonderful that I was really enjoying myself but he didn't want the neighbours knowing our business, so basically could I be quieter. The bed is right over the other side from the partition wall btw in a decent sized room.
I don't think I am that loud tbh. We are not talking middle of the night here, next to their bedroom. The partition wall is a stairway wall and the sex I am talking about happens late mornings at the weekend. (that's another issue all by itself). No-one else is in his house.

Now I feel ashamed and sad. I have told him that I can't enjoy sex if I am worrying about making too much noise,( finally after years of having kids and teens in the house I don't have to be quiet) that I won't be able to express myself fully and that the chances are I simply won't be able to relax enough to cum /easily/ if at all anymore.
I felt silenced.
I would really like views on this. Am I right to feel sad or am I being really selfish by not considering his views on the neighbours?
Has anyone else been in or is in the same kind of position? How have you resolved things?

Regarding blow jobs and that a man has no right to demand one ( true) therefore no woman has the right to expect some sort of stimulation. That is a fallacious argument

A fellatious argument, surely?

I so wanted to write it like that!

but seriously no one was making that argument - what you said hasn't been said here. People are saying you can't demand anything from him, and if you are unhappy you have choices. Just because you are having penetrative sex with him does not mean you can demand anything of him. You can however walk away.

You have the right to do what you want with your body and he with his.

I also think that your way of looking at things in relation to sex is very transactional.

Are you like that about everything? If you make him a cup of coffee you then expect one back? If you do him a favour you make it clear you have the right to expect one back?

I think that if you are going to be happy you need to let go of the rules and regulations a bit and try just being with him, see where your senses take you.

Anyway, bottom line is that no, you don't have the right to tell him what to do in bed, but you can walk away

but seriously no one was making that argument - what you said hasn't been said here. People are saying you can't demand anything from him, and if you are unhappy you have choices. Just because you are having penetrative sex with him does not mean you can demand anything of him. You can however walk away
Exactly this.

Nobody has to accept a terrible sex life, and female pleasure matters. If the sex is rubbish and a woman thinks her partner is lazy, selfish and inept in bed, she doesn't have to sleep with him and she doesn't have to remain in the relationship.

@brainlikepastry it’s interesting to me that your make the link with me being transactional. I think I am in a way simply because I have an unhealthy tendency to give far too much in a kind of co dependant way. In order to try and counter that I have to monitor my behaviour , my giving, against what I receive . In my life I have found that people are more than happy to take and I have found myself resentful and burnt out.
It’s useful that you have pointed that out and I shall be aware of that. Thank you.

@MyBug

This morning I suggested we knock sex on the head for a while. I couldn't imagine telling him how to express himself sexually.

I don’t think this is going to work OP, from what you’ve said earlier, you want to enjoy life for you now your kids have grown up, and clearly a good sex life is important to you,

It sounds like it’s dead in the water to me.

I think you sound great OP, but I definitely don't think he is the man for you.

Time to move on.

Thank you to all those of who who have taken the time to talk with me. It has really helped, even those posts that I initially baulked at, they have made me think and made me question my own behaviour and expectations.
It has helped me look at this from different angles and not simply get caught up in my own narrative -which is exactly what I needed.
I have to decide how much this is a deal breaker for me.

[quote MyBug]@brainlikepastry it’s interesting to me that your make the link with me being transactional. I think I am in a way simply because I have an unhealthy tendency to give far too much in a kind of co dependant way. In order to try and counter that I have to monitor my behaviour , my giving, against what I receive . In my life I have found that people are more than happy to take and I have found myself resentful and burnt out.
It’s useful that you have pointed that out and I shall be aware of that. Thank you.[/quote]
I have a friend who was in an extremely abusive violent relationship for several years. A decade later, she is still struggling to maintain a relationship for any length of time, because she often expects the worst of people and is reluctant to give emotionally and in other ways. This all comes from self preservation. Sadly, to others who don’t know her or her history well, she now comes across as a rather abrasive and unkind person. It’s a fine balance to tread between not being a victim and becoming bordering on coldblooded and abusive oneself. Unfortunately, even our friendship eventually suffered.

Will you have therapy to recover from what’s happened to you?

@MyBug

Thank you to all those of who who have taken the time to talk with me. It has really helped, even those posts that I initially baulked at, they have made me think and made me question my own behaviour and expectations. It has helped me look at this from different angles and not simply get caught up in my own narrative -which is exactly what I needed. I have to decide how much this is a deal breaker for me.

Hope it all works out for you @MyBug - whatever you decide. You deserve happiness after everything you've been through

In my life I have found that people are more than happy to take and I have found myself resentful and burnt out in case it helps, my rule of thumb here is that when I give, I give freely, without catches or strings or expectations of payback BUT I only give what I have, whether that is time or money or support or love or anything else. Most people I know are like this, which is why people are happy to take if they like you, they are assuming you are giving because you have it to give and you want to give. When I give like this, it always makes me feel good inside, so I get it paid back to me, anyway, I feel.

@SouthernBounce thankyou. I did have therapy ( also due to narc mother and ensuing codependent childhood/ adulthood) and it was very helpful.
However, as this thread shows there are aspects of my personality/ expectations that I am still uncovering that have been affected by the past.
Reading all the opinions on here has given me a whole new perspective on me and on relationships.
I am horribly co dependent. I am working on it. Most of the time I have no idea whether I have a right to act or feel as I do.

@brainlikepastry that is really helpful. I realise that I don’t do that and I should and that causes problems. Thanks

This morning I talked to him about it. I said I thought I had not been thinking of his needs and wants and that both our needs and opinions were equally valid. He visibly relaxed and said thank you. He was then much more passionate and attentive then he has been for a very long time. I also made an effort to keep the noise down.
Hopefully we can continue to move on from here in a positive way. I do love him. He is currently doing my gardening🙂.

@MyBug

This morning I talked to him about it. I said I thought I had not been thinking of his needs and wants and that both our needs and opinions were equally valid. He visibly relaxed and said thank you. He was then much more passionate and attentive then he has been for a very long time. I also made an effort to keep the noise down. Hopefully we can continue to move on from here in a positive way. I do love him. He is currently doing my gardening🙂.

That sounds like some good progress to 'fixing' things. Seems like he does know how to/is capable of pleasuring you. I got the impression that he was deliberately avoiding it because he found your resultant vocalness off putting, rather than being that incompetent that he couldn't stay in the right spot.

To play devils advocate though - it's not always easy for someone else to pleasure you physcially in exactly the same way you do to yourself, even if they're doing almost exactly the same as what works when you DIY. It's also not that easy to judge just how much noise you are actually making yourself.

As for the neighbours hearing/not hearing - it's his house, and they're his neighbours, so it's perhaps understandable that he's more concerned about them overhearing. I'm a very private person, almost introverted, and I wouldn't want my neighbours to hear my bedroom activities. But when I'm at my partner's house I'm far less concerned about her neighbours overhearing (she's the noisy one anyway, not me lol). Her bed can be quite noisy too, and I'll slow down or change positions to try and alleviate that, but it doesn't seem to put my partner off at all.

My partner also manages to keep the noise low when her kids are home, and doing so doesn't seem to stifle the pleasure. It may be that your partner has noticed that you can keep the noise levels down at your house when your kids are there, so at his place he thinks you should be able to too?

If he doesn't want to give you oral, then he doesn't want to, and you've either got to tolerate that or find someone else who does want to, if it's that important. If he did that just because you'd made him feel obliged to, you wouldn't probably wouldn't enjoy it anyway. Can't see an issue with him not being into oral, not unless he's expecting blow jobs from you? At the end of the day, there's plenty of other ways to pleasure each other.

This morning I talked to him about it. I said I thought I had not been thinking of his needs and wants

Oh OP. You are back to square one IMHO. What about your needs and wants which he had been entirely neglecting?

Then he was a bit more tolerable in bed afterwards (probably a one-off) because you had kow-towed to him.

@me4real I am trying to be a compromising grown up🙂

Bug this thread has made me angry for you.

He clearly is a won't rather than can't when it comes to your sexual needs, I am appalled that he is deliberately (IMO) avoiding giving you pleasure and equally so if not more that now on top of everything else he is censoring what sounds to me like your completely normal sex noises

No wonder he relaxed when you spoke to him earlier, he was all set for playing his usual game and instead was met with "what can i do for you dear? What are your needs that I have neglected? Lets forget about me and (continue to) make it all about you!"

Does he expect you to be an entirely silent receptacle?

And this is not a new issue, it's been ongoing for a long time (years?) and there has been no real improvement other than the slight uptick in quality after a discussion and then it's back to normal....

So he can do it, he just won't.

This is bad Bug, he doesn't care about your sexual needs! Whether he's brilliant in other areas or not this is a big deal.

I'll repeat it because it's important - he is capable, he just won't do it! And! Now he's silencing you as well as deliberately avoiding giving you a good time, and you've just asked him what needs of his you might not be meeting?

Um... what needs of his haven't you been meeting Bug? Coz it sounds like you've done everything in your power to keep his needs met and be balanced about this while he has done sweet FA for you

I am trying to be a compromising grown up

That is grown up when both people in a relationship are doing it. Only you are doing it here. That's not what grown ups do- that's what children frightened of being abandoned, or slaves do. That's what people do when they grew up in a household with an angry person, in my experience. Of course you might have other reasons for it. I became a people-pleaser and it got me in some very unpleasant situations.

If it was a matter of a relationship with mutual compromise, when you said 'what can I do to better serve you?' (effectively) or whatever, then afterwards he would've asked you back what he could do for you.

Instead, he probably though, 'ah, she knows her place.'

I said I thought I had not been thinking of his needs and wants and that both our needs and opinions were equally valid I don't think anyone said that you were not thinking of his needs and wants... so I have to admit I was a bit surprised about that too - I thought most of us were saying that you couldn't demand that he did anything in particular in bed, and if you weren't happy you had the choice of calling it a day, which is a bit different.... I am not really sure what to say, as the conversation then moved on to giving more than you have etc and you said that you thought you might give too much in a co dependant sort of way. I did wonder whether your latest move was slightly co dependant? But anyway - the result of the conversation was that you both relaxed and had a good time? I think pp might be a right, talking this through with a relationship counsellor might be worthwhile, as it would be easier to talk about boundaries (yours and respecting his) and assertiveness (not demands) in a conversation.

the result of the conversation was that you both relaxed and had a good time?

We see all the time on here that a bloke will improve occasionally in whatever sphere after a woman's asked him too, then backslide.

Also she'd just grovelled to him and so he was slightly better in bed as a 'reward' because he temporarily thought she deserved a bit of effort.

And as a PP said, this just shows that he can be less crap when he can be bothered.

Yup to all that me4real and the others.

All that did was tell him he was ‘right’ in the first place and that she will always modify her behaviour in line with his ideals.

I’d rather do my own bastard gardening.

*codependent not codependant

but it sounds like the 2 pps think ltb

but it sounds like the 2 pps think ltb

@brainlikepastry I think there are more than two, IDK. Life is too short for bad sex. Before you know it, you're old(er) and there's less chance of decent sex, as potential partners are less attractive and with more chance of impotence. Good sex (well, sex to your personal liking) is something you have to seize the day for, if you have a yen for it.

I spent a long time placating someone without really knowing I was doing it.

Relationships should be about being comfortable with each other. Not one holding his pipe and the other dancing to his tune.

Life is too short for not hearing your own music.