My husband and I have been together for 11 years, married 4. We have a 2 year old son and he’s basically raised my 14 year old daughter from a previous relationship.
I’ll start off by saying I am NOT perfect. We always had an amazing relationship and sex life, never fought, always were on the same page, etc. and I’m not giving this backstory to justify things I’ve done. Just how things have managed to get where they are..
2.5 years ago when I was 8 months pregnant and not being very intimate due to general uncomfortableness and just being insecure, I caught my husband sneaking off to the bathroom for an hour at a time to shower at ridiculous times of the night. I figured he was just taking care of himself because we hadn’t been too intimate for a few weeks. When it kept happening though I started to get frustrated by it and even got up a few times to listen outside the bathroom door to see if I could confirm that was what was happening.
Well it was; but not in the way I thought.
He came back into the bedroom one night and slid something under the bed before getting back in and didn’t realize I was awake. I checked in the morning to find a dildo. I wasn’t sure what to think as this wasn’t something I was aware he even owned, let alone knew he was into. It really upset me that I didn’t know this about him.
I finally worked up the courage to say something and the only explanation he gave was “I just like how it feels, my ex and I used to use them”. This really hurt. I’d shared a bed with him for 9 years and had no idea he was even in to this, and he clearly wasn’t comfortable enough to tell me.
He never spoke on it again, and I didn’t know how, but I felt so betrayed. It didn’t help that he continued to do it, only this time moving to the basement, which is how I knew to go looking. I probably shouldn’t have, but I was curious, and I instantly regretted it. He had a whole collection, all shapes, sizes, some the width and length of my forearm, some with suction cups (explains the showers). There was something about the mental image of my husband engaging in this, down in the basement and in the shower that completely turned me off. I hated feeling like I was kink shaming, but it went much deeper than that.
Our sex life fell off after that. I started building up resentment, and then he’d get frustrated, not communicate that in a healthy way, and I’d only close up more.
And then the pandemic hit, newborn baby, not sure if I had a job still, and him working 10-12 hour days. My mental health was incredibly poor, and so was his. We stopped being us.
I stopped being able to communicate with him and he didn’t give me room to feel like I could anyways; he’d come home in bad moods, complain how stressed, exhausted and “underfucked” he was. He would drop comments about us not being intimate, but they were always snarky or meant to make me feel guilty, which only made me close off more.
Fast forward to last year, I stupidly joined a chatting app. It was innocent at first, just a way to feel like I could vent and communicate, feel like my voice mattered. Until this past March, that’s all it was. But then I met someone, and we hit it off right away. I didn’t even realize I was engaging in an EA until we started getting flirty. He was someone I confided in, and as awful as it was, I vented about my partner too. He was understanding and made me validated in the way I was feeling and it felt good to be heard.
Meanwhile; my husband had given up on trying to be intimate, and we had gone into an autopilot routine for the kids. A few times over the last year he asked about what I was doing on my phone, but never pressed too much. I had mentally checked out.
A few weeks ago he was spying on me and caught me texting my EA, and went ballistic. I was honest, I completely came clean and this opened the door to conversations we should have been having for months.
He had never brought up the kink of his until then, and even admitted he knew that was a turning point in our sex life and ultimately our marriage. And the passive aggressiveness didn’t help either.
I learned he had installed spy cams, but took those down when he realized the quality was shit. He just wanted to know what I was doing on my phone, but I felt so violated when I learned this, and guilty for pushing him to do this.
He had been crying for help for so long but I had mentally checked out. I questioned if how much of it I ignored was because I felt like he was being passive aggressive about it all (a lot of the time he was), or if I genuinely just stopped caring.
We’ve tried to reconcile since. I’ve started therapy, but he gets upset when I go because I don’t open up to him about it after. He’s also called during sessions to make sure I’m actually there.
I’ve made a lot of efforts since we decided to reconcile but sex for me is still off the table right now. I’m just not there yet. He on the other hand is back to making the passive aggressive comments (“guess I’ll go dream about my wife having sex with”).
We just went through something huge, and there’s still things that need to be talked about and sex just isn’t at the top of my list right now nor do I even want to right now.
The pressuring me for it though, and getting mad when I turn him down only pushes me further away and he doesn’t get that.
He’s placing so much of his happiness on wether or not we’re being intimate and it doesn’t feel fair at all.
I just don’t know what to do..