My fault DH had affair because of my low sex drive

[LanesdownGutted]

I found out a few weeks ago that my husband has had 3 affairs over the past year or so and has said its because of my low sex drive. Simply put he told me I might not want sex anymore but he certainly does.

Since we met 11 years ago, I’ve always had a very low sex drive, but always had sex when he wanted it. No I don’t initiate it, but because he’s so highly sexed he would be like a dog on heat and weekly I’d “give in”. I want to make it very clear I have been the same the entire duration of our relationship (actually my entire life) – he met and married me with my low drive.

Over the years and after 2 children my willingness to “lie back and think of England” has diminished. I work and manage the house and family life, I take the entire strain of the mental workload of managing everything as well. He can't do anything without being asked. He can't heat up his dinner without asking how long for. I've never once just been made a cup of tea out of the blue - he always asks if I want one. He might empty the dishwasher occasionally but that is literally all he does. I ask him to help more around the house over the years and he says to me that if I “put out more” in bed he’d help more around the house so we got into a vicious cycle.

Every day for 11 years he’ll make some sexual comment or innuendo or suggest “cuddle” … every single day and for someone with a low drive, its been exhausting. I try to be intimate, not particularly hard you’ll say, and I’d still lie back and think of England fortnightly or so!

About 6 months or a year ago he stopped having sex with me, but stupidly I thought it was an age thing, maybe his drive was lowering to mine, happy days … how stupid of me, no, he was getting it elsewhere. We’ve never been sexually compatible and I said to him in our early days this might be a problem, I wish he’d have ended our relationship before the affairs. Or told me our situation was about to drive him to an affair what was I going to do about it.

I take my share of the blame for his affairs, but the devastation hurts a lot. His outright lies over a year, his wooing other women whilst sitting next to me cuts deep.

Should I try and make this work because it was partly my fault? Or is it never going to work because of our sexual incompatibility?

Maybe if he’d put the time and effort into wining and dining you instead of the women he cheated on you with, and you felt valued, loved and an equal partner in your relationship, you’d have wanted to have sex more with him?

Instead he left you to do everything in the house and with the DC so he could spend time, that he should have spent on you and your family, getting other women to have sex with him.

Why on earth would you want to waste another moment with this scumbag, let alone try to blame yourself for his choices. He could have spared you pain and humiliation and told you your compromise wasn’t enough so he wanted out of your marriage but as a PP said he still wanted his house elf to service all his other needs. He has no respect for you at all.

Get shot OP and don’t look back. You may well find you just haven’t found the right partner yet to develop a healthy sex drive. Better to extricate yourself now and move on to the possibility of a better future. Don’t fall into the sunken costs fallacy.

I dont get the posts about if he made more effort etc

OP has been clear from the very start she was not fussed about sex.

Doest excuse cheating but for sure sex has been a pretty crap experience for both of them for a very long time

cut him loose, he thinks he's god's gift to women, let him find out the reality

I'm not sure why you care, you clearly don't love him.

[quote LanesdownGutted]@Sssloou, you are spot on, the constant pestering, groping and innuendos, plus the complete lack of help at home and with DCs has had a major impact on any desires I might have had, however low they might have been initially.[/quote]
Or however high they might have been initially.

You could have a massive sex drive but this behaviour would make your fanny clamp shut.

@Wherearemymarbles

I dont get the posts about if he made more effort etc

OP has been clear from the very start she was not fussed about sex.

Doest excuse cheating but for sure sex has been a pretty crap experience for both of them for a very long time

Exactly.

Yeah there are people who have libido dips with a specific person & are raring to go with a different partner but this wasn't a libido dip. This was OPs baseline.

Sometimes there is a tone on these threads of "I bet you would have been giddy for sex if X/Y/Z"

Is it not OK to be asexual? Or extremely low libido in general?

This was a fatal incompatibility. Her DH dealt with it very badly. Arguably, the OP did too, by thinking lying there and gritting her teeth for years on end would placate him like he was just a rutting beast.

But it's imo a big patronising to say that he was the sole cause of her low libido. Plenty of people are very low libido for their entire lives.

In fact if it was accepted more, then maybe low libido people wouldn't get married to high libido people and feel resentful for the duration of their marriages.

I think it was partly your fault, which seems to be a minority opinion on this thread. For all the stuff about "he knew you were like this when he married you", that goes both ways. Why on earth would you marry him then keep up this weekly schedule when you hate it so much?

What is it that you object to about the affairs? You were happy enough with them when it meant your weekly 'obligation' was over. Would you be OK with him carrying on the affairs, if you never had to have sex again?

@DriedIris

When the fuck will men learn that being a nagging sex pest WILL NOT get them laid. Innuendos and being hassled is the opposite of a turn on.

And that actually women might be more up for sex if they were less physically and mentally exhausted from carrying the mental load of all household running.

A man that contributes to the running of the house, cooks and cleans, and pulls his weight = more likely to have a partner willing and eager to have sex with them.

Nobody with a low sex drive is going to be eager for sex.

I guess asking, hinting, talking would be construed as "being a sex pest" but what other way is there if a guy wants sex, and his wife just isn't remotely interested?
They'll either be deemed a sex pest, or an adulterer.

Helping around the house isn't really a guarantee of sex, not if the wife just isn't interested.

@StamfordHill, except the OP has never been asexual....
The issue was that her DH thought it wasn’t enough which very different.

@GertietheGherkin or they could talk to their partner instead? You know like an adult?

Making sexual comments, innuendo, flirtation, asking for a cuddle is talking like an adult when you're in a relationship. What is he supposed to do, email her a proposal for sex in the upcoming quarter?

He sounds awful especially the tit for tat comment of that he’d help more if you put out more. As if he was doing you a favour by helping clean the house he lives in! He created the viscous cycle - he could have helped around the house more and your libido may have gone up / you may have become less tired, without demanding he gets it to bother to lift a finger!

I don’t think it’s sustainable to continue on with you literally putting out to avoid him having affairs. It really will not work. You will understandably feel absolutely awful doing it and he’ll also know it’s under obligation so will prefer doing it with others who seem more into it.

@Hont1986

Making sexual comments, innuendo, flirtation, asking for a cuddle is talking like an adult when you're in a relationship. What is he supposed to do, email her a proposal for sex in the upcoming quarter?

This is so true. When you’re on the same page, flirting, innuendo, groping is fun and part of being in a relationship. If you don’t want sex with that person, it feels like you’re being harried by a sex pest.

@Hont1986. I don’t agree — maybe if he was under 25 , but everyone is different and some adults just dont go a bundle on constant sexual references day to day beyond the first few years— I know some do- but everyone’s different.

[quote KeepingTrack]@GertietheGherkin or they could talk to their partner instead? You know like an adult?[/quote]
They could indeed, and instead of the OP being deliriously happy that he'd finally aged and wasn't wanting her to grit her teeth and "lie back and think of England" anymore. Instead he'd have sat her down and said he was leaving and she would have been a single mum bringing up two kids.

@Hont1986

Making sexual comments, innuendo, flirtation, asking for a cuddle is talking like an adult when you're in a relationship. What is he supposed to do, email her a proposal for sex in the upcoming quarter?

Well yes, pretty much.

@Hont1986

Making sexual comments, innuendo, flirtation, asking for a cuddle is talking like an adult when you're in a relationship. What is he supposed to do, email her a proposal for sex in the upcoming quarter?

Errr.... that’s not what I was referring to.

But about the fact that with such different libido, they should have communicated around that subject, talked about their differences and how to handle them, set expectation etc..

Also innuendos etc... are fun when both people are on the same page. When it’s clear one person isn’t as keen and the other is always ‘asking’ for sex through that sort of ‘communication’, it feels like harassment.
Mainly because it’s not communicating, which is a two way system, but asking/demanding (depending on how insistent they are with the ‘hinting’)

@Nyorkie500

He sounds awful especially the tit for tat comment of that he’d help more if you put out more. As if he was doing you a favour by helping clean the house he lives in! He created the viscous cycle - he could have helped around the house more and your libido may have gone up / you may have become less tired, without demanding he gets it to bother to lift a finger!

I don’t think it’s sustainable to continue on with you literally putting out to avoid him having affairs. It really will not work. You will understandably feel absolutely awful doing it and he’ll also know it’s under obligation so will prefer doing it with others who seem more into it.

I don't think running the hoover round or washing up would have had the OP chomping at the bit for sex... Not after never really wanting sex even before they were married.

@GertietheGherkin, well the OP is clearly heading towards being single anyway.
But she would have avoided the hurt from beeing cheated on.

They might also have found a better way around the issue. Or decided much earlier on to separate and they could both have found partners more suited to them.

[quote KeepingTrack]@GertietheGherkin, well the OP is clearly heading towards being single anyway.
But she would have avoided the hurt from beeing cheated on.

They might also have found a better way around the issue. Or decided much earlier on to separate and they could both have found partners more suited to them.[/quote]
I'm sure over the span of 11 years there would have been talks, suggestions, compromises and such. If a guy asking his wife for a cuddle is unwanted what does the guy do?
There's only so much talking that can be done, and the OP could just as well have said to him she couldn't handle the sexual side of the relationship and left him. It seems it was all OK having the marriage, the kids, but no sexual relationship or intimacy. So he didn't rock the boat for the OP, or the kids and went and had affairs. It happens, not many people would have stayed that long, but he did and for whatever reason so did the OP... It's a two way street.

[quote KeepingTrack]@GertietheGherkin, well the OP is clearly heading towards being single anyway.
But she would have avoided the hurt from beeing cheated on.

They might also have found a better way around the issue. Or decided much earlier on to separate and they could both have found partners more suited to them.[/quote]
The OP could have just as easy have ended the marriage, and done exactly the same. There was nothing stopping her saying she didn't want to have to be stressing about sex and told him it was over.

Time to consult a solicitor

All the best op.

TBH the whole setup from the beginning sounds grim. It sounds like you view sex as something a man does to a woman, and a woman gives a man, by just laying there and taking it. It's amazing this relationship ever got off the ground.
I'd say it only did because you both have issues. He's a man who doesn't care if a woman is enthusiastic, which means he's happy to use someone as a recepticle for his urges - that's one grim notion. The other is that for 11 years it seems you've just gone along with it, or is that wrong? Did you ever get into it, enjoy yourself and feel glad you did it after the fact?
If you end this, you might find that actually you develop some drive as it could be that he is the problem. Any man who expects a woman to 'put out' for him, is most likely crap in bed because they are selfishly focused on their own pleasure when they should be trying their best to get their partner excited.
If the only sex you've ever had has been with men who please themselves, rather than you, no wonder your drive is low.
You should end this, you are already 11 years late in that. This relationship would not have got off the ground with a credible man, it shows a lot about him that he stuck with it.