How do you make yourself ‘do it’?

[HotMessMama]

Maintenance sex, duty sex, whatever you call it, how do you make yourself ‘do it’ when you couldn’t be further from in the mood?

Myself and DP have been together for 9 years, we have 2 children, a 4 (almost 5) year old and a 14 month old. DP works Mon-Fri, I’m currently a SAHP but would eventually like to return to work. I stopped working to care for my now 4yo who we suspect has SN, ASD or ADHD, maybe even both. He has just started mainstream school, we’ve started the assessment ball rolling so now it’s just a waiting game. He is intense and exhausting on his own then added to that my 14mo STILL doesn’t sleep well.

As a SAHP most of the household duties fall to me, I don’t have anyone to help with childcare and have no time to myself. The only ‘me’ time alone I get is in the shower, exhausted doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel. Myself and DP don’t get to spend any quality time together, we have maybe an hour at the end of the day when, by some miracle, both children are asleep at the same time. By then I’m depleted and don’t want to be touched, I just want to enjoy the brief stillness and silence.
I know I should just get on with it for the sake of our relationship but I just cannot summon up the energy or enthusiasm. DP is a good man, he doesn’t pester or sulk but it’s becoming the elephant in the room. I really feel like I would be ok to never have sex again for the rest of my life, it feels like another chore I just don’t have time for but that isn’t fair to him.

How do I fix this?

@MrsTesfaye

I just shut my eyes for 2 minutes and think of something else. I imagine I am lying on a beach, with the hot sun shining on my face. I imagine I can hear the waves lapping the shore. I can hear birds calling overhead. I imagine looking around at the golden sand, and the crystal blue sea. Or i imagine i am in a shopping mall, and I go around all my favourite shops buying new clothes, shoes, makeup. I think of all the things I would buy if money were no issue. Or I imagine I am walking the streets of the town I grew up in, and I picture all the houses etc. It passes the time really quickly, however he is usually done after 2 -3 mins anyway.

You could maybe call it meditation?

That's one of the saddest things I've ever read on Mumsnet. Surely you can see that's no way to live your life?

“As a SAHP most of the household duties fall to me”

This is wrong and needs to change. As a SAHP, your job is to parent, not housekeep. It’s different when children are older and need less intensive care but you’re parenting a 14 month old and a very high energy pre-schooler. Your partner should be sharing the household duties equally and sharing the parenting load properly at weekends.

No wonder you're mentally and physically touched out you poor thing it sounds exhausting...

You still find your husband attractive and want to rekindle? it's unclear from the opener.

If you do my advice is to remove yourself from the home environment both with friends and together in the form of date nights, weekends away, dinners out etc and have some time to be yourself away from the grind and responsibilities of motherhood - be you as woman and as part of a couple.

This 'disconnect' is a very common problem. Do you have relatives, friends or a trusted sitter who could mind the children?

*I know I should just get on with it for the sake of our relationship but I just cannot summon up the energy or enthusiasm. DP is a good man, he doesn’t pester or sulk but it’s becoming the elephant in the room"

That is literally the worst thing you could do, it will lead to resentment and eventually disgust.

it's the root cause that needs addressing here, this is not a sticking plaster type issue. These are complex emotions and need to be addressed openly and honestly if you want this marriage to work.

@MrsTesfaye

I just shut my eyes for 2 minutes and think of something else. I imagine I am lying on a beach, with the hot sun shining on my face. I imagine I can hear the waves lapping the shore. I can hear birds calling overhead. I imagine looking around at the golden sand, and the crystal blue sea. Or i imagine i am in a shopping mall, and I go around all my favourite shops buying new clothes, shoes, makeup. I think of all the things I would buy if money were no issue. Or I imagine I am walking the streets of the town I grew up in, and I picture all the houses etc. It passes the time really quickly, however he is usually done after 2 -3 mins anyway.

You could maybe call it meditation?

This is the saddest thing I've ever read.

@BrendaBubbles

Maintenance sex, duty sex, whatever you call it, how do you make yourself ‘do it’ when you couldn’t be further from in the mood?

You don’t. This isn’t even about chores or all the rest, because if it is then it becomes a trade of sorts which is.. not a good road to go down. You don’t want sex, you don’t have to have sex, it is as simple as that. If he can’t put up with it, he can always leave.

No one should have sex they don’t want.

But, if one is not willing to try to fix the problem and find a solution, it’s a bit unfair to expect the partner who still wants a sex life to just put up with it “or leave.” What a terrible attitude; it’s almost as bad as expecting sex without question.

Any man who was prepared to see me on my knees with exhaustion and do nothing to help would make my vagina slam shut too. He's made himself a chore. It should be 50/50 division of labour outside of working hours.

@MrsTesfaye please seek help. That’s not ok. I’ve actually gone a bit faint just reading your message.

I find once you get going it's enjoyable. A bit like going to the gym - the thought of going is the last thing I want to do yet I've never regretted it was I've been.

You do need open communication though.

I know I should just get on with it for the sake of our relationship but I just cannot summon up the energy or enthusiasm.

No, you shouldn't just 'get on with it'. Sex between two people who love each other should be mutually joyful and enthusiastic. Anything else is a 'cheat' to both parties.

How do I fix this?

You tell your DH that you are bothered by the lack of sex but do NOT put 'blame' on either of you. Tell him that in order to 'get your mojo back' you need help with the family-work so you have more time and are less tired in the evening. Just because you are a SAHM there's no reason to not to expect him to pitch in.

Op if you have a 14 month old that means you gave birth during lockdown. I have a 3 year old and a 15 month old so I was in a similar situation and know just how tough it has been so really feel for you.

You say your 14 month old isn’t sleeping well, to me this is likely to be the cause of your problems and is the reason you’re not wanting sex. I’d honestly say we’ve only started having sex again in the last couple of months, since we cracked dd2s sleeping.

Dd went from no naps and being awake every two hours all night long to two naps totalling 3 hours in the day and sleeping through 7-7. It wasn’t easy to get there but I started following just chill mama on Instagram and used her free tips to sleep train.

Lots of people are against sleep training but I don’t understand this. We have to teach babies EVERYTHING, why wouldn’t we teach them how to sleep? It also didn’t involve any leaving her to cry it out. If you could get them to nap you’d have time to yourself during the day.

Something we’ve also recently started doing at weekends is spending time separately with each child so we have quality 1-1 time and then making sure we both have time for ourselves and then time together as a family. Would this be something you could achieve? Perhaps your husband is craving time to himself as well, I know my husband does. As he works hard all day and then rushes home to help with the kids before bedtime.

I don’t think you need to speak to your husband about the lack of sex. I think you need to speak to your husband about making your life more manageable, giving you a break from the children and then the sex is likely to happen naturally.

@MrsTesfaye

I just shut my eyes for 2 minutes and think of something else. I imagine I am lying on a beach, with the hot sun shining on my face. I imagine I can hear the waves lapping the shore. I can hear birds calling overhead. I imagine looking around at the golden sand, and the crystal blue sea. Or i imagine i am in a shopping mall, and I go around all my favourite shops buying new clothes, shoes, makeup. I think of all the things I would buy if money were no issue. Or I imagine I am walking the streets of the town I grew up in, and I picture all the houses etc. It passes the time really quickly, however he is usually done after 2 -3 mins anyway.

You could maybe call it meditation?

You could maybe call it marital rape?

Op, communicate with him, discuss the elephant. We all understand how you feel and we're not there, I'm sure he does too. This was me and dh 7 years ago. We kept the lines of communication on it open, we acknowledged the difficulties which got in the way and talked about how we could connect in small manageable ways (like even more eye contact kind of level!). We discussed the fact that personal mental health had to be supported before a good sex life was going to be possible.
I'm back to jumping his bones when I fancy it again now. But where you are now I couldn't even imagine it.
Communication got us through. Properly listening, respecting feelings both ways and doing what little you can to show you have noticed the other person, even just making them a cuppa kind of level

Increasingly the only fucking round here is fuck it. If dp wants a mutually satisfying sex life (which he very much does) then he needs to put in some effort supporting me in family life. Being overwhelmed, exhausted, singlehanded and parenting two kids and a fully grown man is the single most unsexy experience of my life. I haven’t found a way to have this discussion without it somehow seeming transactional-‘you do more in the house, I’ll shag you’ -which is absolutely not what I’m on about. I need caring about, then I might feel sexy; until that happens, it’s the Atacama desert in my pants.

I haven’t found a way to have this discussion without it somehow seeming transactional-‘you do more in the house, I’ll shag you’ -which is absolutely not what I’m on about.

The thing is, it can’t be transactional even if you’re the most pragmatic person in the world. He could do all the housework and be the most attentive respectful DH in the world and it will not guarantee you wanting to have sex. Chores enabling someone else’s libido has no reasonable basis, although if there’s an artificial sex “ban” based on contempt, that’s another story.

I would advise against finding ways to 'do it' when you dont want to. I found ways to get through it a few times as my relationship was breaking down and honestly its definitely damaged me psychologically in some ways.

I never did. There would be periods when I wasn't feeling it (depression, meds, stress) and he was, and then when he wasn't feeling it for similar reasons, and I was. We just talked about it and accepted that it wouldn't be forever. Sometimes it could last a couple of months, once nearly a year. No cheating or bad feeling because we were open and knew where each other was at. He wouldn't have wanted me to submit grudgingly or out of duty, and I can't think of anything less sexy if he had done that either.

One thing that comes up in a lot in the resources on topics around sex in long-term relationships/when stressed/when libido crashes is 'windows of willingness' where you just have time set for being in bed together, at the level of dress you're comfortable with, and just seeing what happens. Esther Perel and Emily Nagoski have a lot of things on this, I was watching something recently on sex and executive dysfunction (which being shattered as you describe can cause, even if it's not the extent of neurodiverse or trauma conditions) that covered this as well.

Sometimes it's ends up just laying quietly together, sometimes it's talking through issues, sometimes it's cuddles - I'm in the middle of bad flare up health wise and recently I've just been laying on my spouse for a bit in quiet. Sometimes it leads somewhere sexual, sometimes it doesn't, but it's space for us, for me to feel like an adult rather than the adult, if that makes sense.

Your kids are little and you're going through the roughness of diagnosis for your son, you have all the home stuff on you, and this seems to be weighing on you too. Try to be kind to yourself, hopefully your partner is understanding - can maybe lighten some of your burden, which can make things easier.

@MrsTesfaye your husband is happy to rape you regularly then ?

Does your husband know you feel this way? Is he picking up on your feelings at all? He must be completely ignorant or completely insensitive to your feelings.

@BrendaBubbles
You don’t. This isn’t even about chores or all the rest, because if it is then it becomes a trade of sorts which is.. not a good road to go down. You don’t want sex, you don’t have to have sex, it is as simple as that. If he can’t put up with it, he can always leave

But I do my share of chores... well, because they're my share. But I do know it increases my chances of my girlfriend being up for sex. It's not transactional, just a reality that the less tired and touched-out from the kids she is, the more likely she is to feel in the mood herself. Not in gratitude for me doing the acceptable minimum I should be doing, but simply because she has a little more energy left in the tank.

Her libido is fine, but if she feels that the kid's bedtime is the first hint of autonomy she has over her body that day, I totally get why she'd coil away from sex at that point.

I do see that it's a fine line though, because once you've sunk into the groove the OP has, it's hard to suggest it would help without it sounding transactional. Because it's obvious still not a promise. Just something that might possibly help. The second he does a decent bit of the chores then glances up with a look of "am I getting lucky then?" the whole concept becomes what you say.

I do see that it's a fine line though, because once you've sunk into the groove the OP has

The OP's situation seems a bit different to yours though. She said "I really feel like I would be ok to never have sex again for the rest of my life" which implies she does not really want sex whether or not he does all the chores or not - otherwise she would say that - she is instead seeing it as a worthwhile cost if he did put in a bit more effort which is a bit grim really.