How do I make myself have sex I don’t want without crying?

[Cellophanepianist]

It’s a really not great and difficult situation but I don’t want to sleep with DH and I don’t think I will ever want to sleep with DH but I care about him and love our dc so I have to do it else my marriage is over. And that’s reasonable, it’s reasonable to expect sex with your wife or long term partner, it’s not his fault.

How do I make it better? How do I manage it so it doesn’t feel so dreadful?

This is untenable and dysfunctional and you need to take a massive step back because you clearly can’t see how damping this situation is.

You’re not a hostage.

I don’t blame DH because it’s reasonable to expect sex with your partner. We very rarely have sex, but I do have to make myself do it and I’m choosing that because I have to or it will result in a split.
I know it’s not good for me but I don’t know what else to do.

You say 'years of neglect' do you mean within your marriage or when you were younger growing up?

Has your husband threatened to leave you over this? People are calling it rape because the legal definition of consent is when you agree by choice and have the freedom and capacity to make that choice. You are allowing your husband to have sex with you under duress and he knows it, so he also knows he doesn't have consent from you according to that definition. I would seriously consider leaving him.

We don’t really talk about it and we never have. It’s rare we have sex but I feel that I have to every so often otherwise DH would understandably leave. It’s really difficult, I don’t quite know how I’ve ended up here and it all feels a bit hopeless.
By neglect I mean neither of us putting much into the marriage, I’d say he was neglectful first and then I’ve fallen into it and feel checked out as well. DH says that having sex makes him feel closer to me. He also says he’d never make me if I didn’t want to, but he says that sometimes as I’m clearly upset so I don’t feel it’s true even though he’s saying it.

Why are you scared of not being married?

I think we are going to have to split up and I don’t want to. I try and avoid having sex for as long as possible and then have to give in. It makes me feel violated.

Why don’t you want to split up?

Divorcing is scary. When we have children we feel an obligation to remain in the family unit and not disrupt their lives.

But I am asking what specifically scares you enough about the idea of divorce that you would rather live miserably like this?

Money?
Confidence to be independent?
Child access 50-50?

And you do not have to ‘give in’ to sex that makes you feel violated.

Ever.

The fact the he does it when you clearly aren’t into it is not great.

But him continuing while you are crying is a huge red flag.

Why do you cry? Why do you feel violated?

I can understand doing it when you don’t want to just to keep him happy,
(I would do that, but that’s me)
But having such a response as to cry and feel violated makes me think there is a lot more going on here.

My DP would never do this. If we are having sex and he even gets an inkling that I’m not enjoying it or don’t seem into it he immediately stops and flat out asks me if I’m ok or if I want to stop.
IMO the fact you DH isn’t means he’s incredibly selfish and possibly abusive.

Darling, think about what you are asking..

You're asking on advice on how to be raped and be ok with it so you don't have to split up from someone who has neglected you for years and makes you feel like shit.

Does that sound right to you?

Can you elaborate on why you don't want divorce?

You'll have to talk to him, if you haven't already, and explain that you've totally gone off it. It's not fair to expect him to be chaste though, just because you don't want sex any more. For some reason, us women go off having sex with a particular man, but would be completely different with a different man. So would some form of open marriage work? In France it's taken for granted that people will have affairs. They're more realistic than we are.

This relationship is dead. This is soul destroying.
You need to talk. You cant go on like that. This is no good for either of you.

You shouldn’t be sleeping with someone if it makes you feel that way. But equally your husband shouldn’t have to stay in a sexless marriage. Time to split me thinks

*Darling, think about what you are asking..

You're asking on advice on how to be raped and be ok with it so you don't have to split up from someone who has neglected you for years and makes you feel like shit.

Does that sound right to you?*

This poster has hit the nail on the head.

You don’t.

He probably doesn’t want to have sex with someone whose not interested in him either.

Talk to him.

@GryffsMum

Darling, think about what you are asking..

You're asking on advice on how to be raped and be ok with it so you don't have to split up from someone who has neglected you for years and makes you feel like shit.

Does that sound right to you?

This might be tough to hear OP but it's absolutely spot on.

Have you seen lots of us explaining that our partners physically couldn't continue having sex with us if we were visibly upset / unsettled / uncomfortable?

And that they aren't extraordinary for that, it isn't a brag - it's what a normal, decent man is like. Normal, decent men don't have sex with women who are crying or upset, they really don't.

OP, it's quite possible that you are choosing to believe that you are making a free choice here because the alternative is too hard to bear. I get that. I feel the same way about what happened to me. It was my fault not his, I was the one who was broken etc etc.

The problem you have (one that he is unhelpfully creating for you) is that you will come to associate sex with discomfort, pain and as you say, violation. The more you are put in this situation, the stronger that association will be and the stronger your aversion to it.

You really need to talk about this with him because how things are now are only going to get worse. You can't create a safe and pleasurable sexual experience by yourself. In the very least you will have answers to questions such as does he really care about me? Is my wellbeing and safety important to him? Although I understand that this is information you might rather not have confirmation on and it's quite possible you know the answer to this already.

@Cellophanepianist

We don’t really talk about it and we never have. It’s rare we have sex but I feel that I have to every so often otherwise DH would understandably leave. It’s really difficult, I don’t quite know how I’ve ended up here and it all feels a bit hopeless. By neglect I mean neither of us putting much into the marriage, I’d say he was neglectful first and then I’ve fallen into it and feel checked out as well. DH says that having sex makes him feel closer to me. He also says he’d never make me if I didn’t want to, but he says that sometimes as I’m clearly upset so I don’t feel it’s true even though he’s saying it.

It makes him feel closer to you when you're visibly upset and crying? I'm sorry but that's sick.

The sex is the symptom of him withdrawing himself emotionally.

This isn't your fault. He will blame you for the lack of sex rather than himself for withdrawing and neglecting the marriage.

Many women and in fact people need to feel close to their partners in order to want sex with them.

It’s so hard and it feels a stupid thing to split up over when there are children involved, over the years I’ve asked if we could just kiss and not have full sex - take the pressure off and just see what happens - but he’s adamant that it’s frustrating to not have penetrative sex so he won’t do anything else either. He’s never been keen on giving oral sex and I don’t expect him to do it if he doesn’t want to, so that’s always been out even though I know I like it.
It’s always been all or nothing, few minutes of foreplay and then sex.

He wants to 'do' sex to you, not 'have' sex with you.

Good men don't behave or think this way OP, I promise you they don't.

So he's never put effort into sex either...