Has anyone been able to salvage a sexless marriage?

[Bea8809]

I’ve been married to my husband for 5 years..we have a 17 month old son and a baby on the way. We never had an amazing sex life (well I think my husband was happy) ...we used to have sex a lot at the start, every day at least and I liked it but after a while felt it lacked variety and my husband was never up for trying anything different, he very much likes familiarity and routine I think because he’s had trouble finishing in the past. He no longer has trouble finishing but still likes the routine.

I always thought eventually he would open up / relax more and I loved everything else about him and still do. However the problem has gotten worse and worse..I think because I expressed dissatisfaction with the current way of doing things (kindly) I put him off wanting to it all together over time. I nearly didn’t marry him because of it but he assured me it’s something we could work on and everything else was perfect.

Then it got worse because my husband found trying to conceive very stressful and not very sexy..then we didn’t do it much in first pregnancy because he doesn’t find pregnant woman attractive..then sleep deprivation, back to trying to conceive baby 2, miscarriage, trying to conceive again, pregnancy. All very unsexy things...we haven’t done it since we conceived 4 months ago.

I recently started therapy for childhood issues but actually have spent more time talking about my marriage than anything and feel deeply unhappy with the lack of sex and intimacy. As I know he doesn’t find pregnancy attractive it feels like such a long time till we can even work on things. He said he will see a couples therapist but he doesn’t see the point while I’m pregnant.

I love him and he’s a great dad and husband otherwise but I feel so undesired by him. I have daydreams and actual dreams of amazing sex with ex partners and feel so sad the next day. I think my husband is quite sexually repressed and I know it’s caused problems in his previous relationships so I don’t think he even knows what he’s missing and how good it can be.

I feel really low and like I’ve made a terrible mistake as no matter how much I love him I don’t want to never have sex and intimacy again. I don’t want to get divorced and have to live apart from my children...I would also miss him terribly but I worry that it’s not salvageable. On the other hand he’s the only partner I’ve been in love with and I spent a long time looking...I was very promiscuous and sexually open when single but I feel like the person I’ve chosen to be my life partner is the worst sex I’ve had.

Has anyone been able to come back from this?

@Seadad

What specifically sounds so bad in what I said? There were no judgements - and I didn’t imply that the men were male equivalents of what you define a ‘hoe’...

OP herself stated that she was ‘promiscuous and open about sex’ when younger but ended up picking her H because he clicked all the other boxes, which those other partners didn’t.
So - if OP, say, had ONSs or went to sex parties - of course those men weren’t potential partners to settle down with.

And if this is the kind of adventurous sex she is missing - no amount of therapy will turn her H into a better sexual partner for her.

Given OP’s description of her H - I don’t think he can change much. And I am not sure it’s fair to force him to do so.
I do think the only way to keep the marriage is for them to open it up.

I’m in a sexless marriage now it’s tablets and I means loads some heavy duty stuff also he has Parkinson’s. I’m arthritic now but even in the early days even then I think he just wasn’t bothered I said about it he just said it was the meds, so as the years went by sex got less and until seven years ago he’d got jealous over one of crushes I just snapped and said “Well I’m sick of being a housekeeper” he tried for a couple more years. We moved to our now present home my arthritis dreadful now also my inverted womb in the end it just died, I’m lucky I do love him very much, he must know I do diy and have crushes otherwise I’d go nuts, but he never mentions that, I mean the diy. So that’s how I survive not everyone can though, I really hope you get a good result from this.

OP I think that you could talk the situation over and over again for a very long time with your DH but to get the situation resolved I would suggest that you be bold and show him this thread.

This will either encourage you both to be more open.

Good luck OP