No affection or intimacy.. dying inside

[StayorrGo]

Regular poster, name changed.

I am mid 30s, married with DC. My DH does not touch me. No kisses, no hugs, nothing. When I go to touch him he shrugs me away. It is soul destroying. We have had lots of talks about it and he says he doesn't know why he doesn't have the urge to be affectionate anymore (last few years). I have cried and begged and seen no improvement.

The sex has dwindled to every few months. I feel I'm at my sexual peak and wasting my best years.

Physical touch is my love language and I honestly feel like I'm starving.

I am ashamed to say I have recently met someone who is making me feel adored and tells me how attractive I am etc. I did not want to step outside my marriage but the feeling is so good after years of nothingness. He hugs me and I could cry from the release it gives me.

I am deeply unhappy and don't know what to do. I don't want to break up my family but I know I can't go on like this.

Hi OP! Have you sought the services of a therapist who can help you both? To understand love language and management of differences?
Ive only read the first page of this thread but seems like a good man and a good woman struggling with one important aspect of marriage which is worth a fight

Open to interpretation. She said she doesn't care if he has good morals, is a good father etc... she's just looking for physical affection. So basically it's lust. She wants to feel a physical pleasure and doesn't care about the other things the man can give her or a relationship. It might as well be a holiday romance. All these people on here saying divorce him etc are really saying wreck your family for a hug.

So she gets her fling... what if he's a dick, the sex is crap and he just said all those things for a quick shag?... what's left?... broken family, resentful husband, angry kids, miserable OP and wondering how it all fell apart?

There seems to be a lot of emphasis on the husband promising sex and then ruthlessly denying it... why did he lose interest? What has she done to rekindle it? Is the love gone or just the attraction? For all we know she could have gained 300 lbs and there's a (despite vows saying orherwise) fairly reasonable reason why his desires are muted and he's too nice to say it erring for "I just don't feel it these days". I'd be interested in his side.

No, he doesn't agree with therapy. Maybe I need to spell it out that if he won't give it a try I'm done.

Wow.

I have not gained any weight in fact I've never looked better and I'm getting compliments from everyone except him.

He doesn't give me much of anything, he puts me down, he's moody, he doesn't show love. What more can I say?

I'm sorry you are going through this too. Sending hugs.

This fills me with hope. Thank you for sharing and I'm sorry you went through this.

That's what is heartbreaking. I have to ask for a hug and am usually met with no. Or a "quickly then" and stiff as a board, clear he isn't enjoying it half hug.

@MMmomDD

Your libido is allowed to fluctuate, but basically gatekeeping libido changes by saying you've had babies and it's been cut open, when his fluctuations MUST be down to to infidelity or a closet asexual etc is unfair.

Who cares why his libido has changed? It's allowed to! He is just as allowed to say he does not want sex as you are to your man, for whatever reason. So he doesn't have a uterus and hasn't squeezed out babies through (or not through) them means he's not allowed to say no?... and if he does, there's some sordid reason? ... If you stopped putting out or hugging and this was on Dadsnet, how would you feel if the majority of responses were "she was clearly always asexual, or she must be getting it elsewhere... it's understandable for us men to lose interest as the strain of peeing standing up is real! (Or some other men-only ability that women wouldn't understand)"...

I think you’ve tried hard to fix the intimacy issue. You’ve given it time, you’ve tried to talk, you’ve suggested therapy - and he’s stonewalled you the whole way. He’s clearly not interested in sorting out the emotional or physical intimacy, so what is left to save?

I understand your concerns about breaking up the family but as they say - it’s a broken home if it’s broken, whether you remain together or not. It’s not really necessarily better for kids to grow up seeing their parents in such a loveless and cold relationship, and certainly not with such a deeply unhappy mother.

Others may choose to martyr themselves in a relationship where they are not wanted sexually, emotionally or in a romantic way any longer (and post diatribes here to justify their bitterness) - but you don’t have to! It’s not ‘just’ sex, is it (though that’s plenty important for many), it’s the lack of regard for your feelings, the stonewalling and the attitude that the other person isn’t really a partner in life anymore because they have zero desire to mend what has broken between you.

But it's not affection is it? He's not "affectionate" at all because he probably feels zero. And having sex with someone like that is just empty and terrible and pointless, and embarrassing. Nobody can be that desperate for sex that they'd have it with a husband like this.

He's probably lying as well. I'd get the hell out OP.

@StayorrGo thanks OP. My case is complicated by me being pregnant from the one single time we've had sex in two years. But I'm financially independent with great support and will leave when baby is a few months old. We'll be able to co-parent very well, it's just the romantic/intimate side of our relationship that is dead. But it's so hard, waiting it out, especially when feeling so fat and vulnerable right now. Imagine not hugging the woman who is having your baby. It sucks.

@C1N1C

I’ll try to womansplain since you aren’t getting it, or pretending not to.
Of course anyone is allowed to not want to have sex. And libido can fluctuate.
I wasn’t gate-keeping that.
What I did say - and contrasted it with OP’s H’s situation is the following:
… when women can trace their libido changes to child bearing/rearing - the other partner knows the causality, and there is a potential solution to it
…. a man in his early 30s loosing libido isn’t common. Young men are full of testosterone and don’t lose their drive until much later.
So - a man who loses libido and is not at all concerned about it and pretends it’s normal is obviously not being honest about something. So - yes, he has either always been that way and pretended; or checked out of the relationship due to [smth we don’t know about]; or is keeping faithful to a lover; or he is hiding a medical condition; or something. There is some explanation, and he is not engaging with OP about it it.

And my point is - given that her H isn’t really fully in this marriage And not treating her as a full partner - her obligation to be faithful is void.

It feels like you made a decision to stay in a sexless marriage and need to justify your decision and make it the only acceptable one. It isn’t, People’s situations differ.

Man doesnt want sex or affection or even a cuddle And then woman is asked if shes put on weight. Same old same old

@MMmomDD
You're actually trying to womansplain (your own words) a man's psyche to a man? Ballsy! (Enjoying the irony in that word!)

So the men you know have high libido doesn't mean that all men in their 30s do. Just because women can generally trace their libido fluctuations to events or hormone levels doesn't mean that there are parallels in men. More often than not there are deep-seeded justifications to asexuality and/or impotence that may never be found. He probably doesn't even know why he's lost interest. You're right, sex is sex and most men crave it, but sometimes you just switch off with no idea why.

You're still trying to push your agenda... he's lying, he's hiding something, he's checked out... no! Just because he's lost interest in being physical doesn't mean he's lost interest in her, just as those women above and mentioned in other posts that hit have menopause and have lost their libido may not have fallen out of love with their husbands.

Just because he's not giving one aspect, doesn't mean he's checked out. The OP hasn't said she's fallen out of love with her husband, or that she wants anything more with the friend... she just wants a physical release (akin to a night with a prostitute (snuggling, caressing sex...)???). I don't have the answer, but I wouldn't be trying to break up a marriage regardless.

@C1N1C With respect, I imagine you have had to convince yourself you are ok with the situation in your marriage. Enough to stay in it, despite how you feel. It doesn't give you the right to project this narrative about onto others. Its not simply some base selfish desire and you know it. It is everything that comes along with it. Affection. Intimacy. What do babies cry for outside of food? Being held. It is such a basic requirement in love and while OPs husband is under no obligation to give it, a life without it is not something anyone should be expected or persuaded to live with.

Your point about testosterone isn't valid, male testosterone is the lowest it's been for generations. The problem with affairs is, they become a go-to behaviour when times are tough.
Typical double standards on Mumsnet, being in a relationship with no intimacy isn't pleasant for anyone. It's interesting, how one becomes the pursuer and the other runs away. The problem with leaving is one doesn't know why it happened. So many couples become trapped in the power struggle stage.
So sad to see.

There is nothing wrong or selfish about needing physical affection, intimacy and touch, and don't let projecting PPs make you think there is.

if this relationship is dead in the water then put it out of its misery.

I’ve said it on here before and I’ll say it again. Unilaterally taking all touch and affection off the table with no discussion in a marriage is a form of abuse.

It’s particularly difficult for you, OP, because it’s not as if you can talk about it with your friends, if, like most of us, sex is a private matter. You are the wronged party here.

@C1N1C

The irony of me (formerly depressed and peri) using the word womansplain is completely lost on you….
I was of course not getting at the cause of asexuality or low testosterone in general population, etc. It isn’t about other highly sexed men.

I was specifically talking about OP’s situation.

He didn’t enter this relationship being open about having no libido. He withdrew physical side of their relationship, with no explanation and is gaslighting her into believing it’s normal. A sudden disappearance of sexual drive in a young and healthy male isn’t normal, and there is a cause. And the fact he isn’t concerned is telling.

(The fact that you tried to put it on the OP suggesting she might have put on weight is quite interesting here. You also think there must be a reason for the change. You just chose to absolve him of responsibility)

I am sorry about your own situation too. You seem to have decided to convince yourself that sex is just lust and some short release. Clearly a way to deal with your W’s situation and lack of sex in your marriage.

100% this.

@MMmomDD

As I said, you seem to think he's hiding something. He might not even know why. And "normal" (statistically) is one standard deviation from the mean, meaning about 68%... this means that approximately a third of men will not have a 'typical' sex drive, so if he doesn't, that's allowed, he's just in that third... and a third is a pretty big percentage, so he shouldn't be chastised. I chose weight as an an example because we were only getting one side. His libido dropped oh he must be cheating or must have always been a closet asexual. No, for all we know she could (and here I chose massive weight-gain) become unattractive to him for a known or possibly unknown reason. But this could still be physically only. He might still be madly in love with her!

I just find it hypocritical how many women (you included) in here would be up in arms if a man said he wasn't getting his 'expected' sex because his wife has hit a certain age, had a baby, hit menopause etc etc. You'd be shouting that women are not objects for sex, he's emotionally pressuring you, he's a sex pest... how somehow a woman's decline is considered normal and acceptable, when an equally justifiable decline (say hidden testosterone decline in a man) is somehow not. Imagine if all the men suddenly went "I joined this relationship and got it every day... but after marriage it went down to 3/7... after a baby it went down to 1/7... this was not as per the initial terms of the man-sex contract!!! I'm leaving!!!" It is statistically natural for women's libido to drop at certain times of her life and we accept it, but ARE chastised for being upset with the decline... but with a man, it's closet asexual, cheating, closet gay or (the wonderfully ubiquitous for some reason on MN) 'death grip' sorts of ideas... I'm sorry there is less intimacy, but if men stick around and support their spouses through their 'natural' (statistically likely) lulls, it would be nice if women did too for their men.

@C1N1C

As I all ready said - if I lost my drive, I’d open up my marriage - I’d not force my partner to be celibate. As I think your W should do - rather than blame her depression/cultural background.
On some other thread you waxed lyrical about you guys being child-free and hence enjoying a great carefree life. Not sure how this ties with depressed W and sexless relationship.

But if you want to believe that she loves you deeply at the same time as not caring about your very normal and healthy need for intimacy - then this is what you chose to believe.

And NO - the OP should not be supportive of her H’s natural loss of need for sex.

Her H is abusing and gaslighting her.
He isn’t asking for ‘support’ due to his medical condition, or MH issue, etc. He is just treating her as a nanny/cleanser/cook. It’s not a marriage.

I do not think that sex is the main issue here. It is the absence of touch, which is an important part of a relationship. As a widow, I watch this - the glances of mutual understanding, the touches on the shoulder, the little exchanges that indicate a bond - I miss these with a physical ache and sinking spirits, so I can imagine how the OP must feel if these are absent but her OH is present. So sad.

I am not surprised she is struggling to understand, especially when her OH does not want to discuss this at all. She is bound to struggle to find an explanation, because her OH is not providing this - he is choosing to pretend that nothing is wrong.

I do not think there is any difference, whether the OP is male or female - the pain is the same.

That’s nonsense. There was a similar thread the other day about it, I think entitled “no compromise” or similar abd the wife was told in no uncertain terms that to unilaterally change the very basic terms of their marriage, and not even investigate why she felt like that, was letting her husband down very badly.

Sex is an intrinsic part of marriage. If it wasn’t I’d have got lesbian-married or something. I’m a slave to my heterosexuality!

Totally agree. Imagine having a child and never ever showing them affection or love and dismissing them harshly every time they tried to hug you - we'd all be horrified by that and it would be neglect/abusive pure and simple. This isnt just about sex (although I agree thats important) its the total lack of support, touch, love, affection and basic need for a partner's care that is lacking here. It IS abusive and you didnt sign up for a marriage like that when you got together. He has changed the rules without even talking to you about it. He wont even discuss it like an adult either. Leave him. You deserve so much more than this and so do your kids.