Sex

[AsLongAsIHaveMyTea]

Is it easier just to have sex with your husband so that they don’t sulk the next day? My husband and I haven’t been getting along great and the last couple of nights he’s come to bed and wanted to have sex. I haven’t been in the mood because we haven’t getting along and also I’ve been getting over an illness. Now I’ve had to go through a day of awful sulking, bad temper and snappiness. I think it would have just been easier to have sex!

How do you manage the sulking and silent treatment? By carrying on as normal. I'd certainly not be tip toeing round him and making him cups of coffee. Let him sulk

You do realise he's doing this to train you to give into having sex with him. If he punishes you, then you are less likely to turn down his advances the next time - he's abusing you!

Being with an entitled man like this absolutely broke me. I left him

I realized one of these was a rapist in the end. He would also shag me while I was asleep, or drunk enough to go to bed for a lie down. I did not consent to this.

Have you got children? Whether or not, I'd be planning my exit.

Having sex you don't want to have not only destroys the relationship but it starts to destroy you as well. It will feel like rape, because that is what it is.
Your feelings of panic at his anger are an abuse response. You are not in a good or safe relationship.

Why are you grovelling to him and apologising? You are perfectly entitled to bodily autonomy. Sex should be a mutually enjoyed intimacy. Please change your perspective. You are not hurting him or ‘denying’ him - he doesn’t ‘need’ sex. He’s a coercive prick and a sulky sex pest.

Men only need three things to be happy in a relationship: food, sex and respect.

He wants to make you feel panic, he's trying to make the experience of not agreeing to sex when he wants it really unpleasant, so that you say yes in future.

A man that wants to have sex with a reluctant partner whether she wants it or not, is a problem. He's showing you clearly that you do not matter. You deal with it by getting away from him.

Don't be nice to him, in the long run he will respect you more if you don't grovel. If he wants to ignore you, ignore him back. Make it known that the less you get on, the less you want it with him, so if he can't be supportive of you and be nice, he will be going without for a long time.
You probably counselling if not getting on. There's no way forward without sorting your other problems out.

Women don’t exist just to make men happy.

So?

Men only need three things to be happy in a relationship: food, sex and respect.

@Luckydip1 Women need (sex is not a need BTW) at least one thing in a relationship- not to be raped or sexually coerced.

If not wanting to be intimate with your husband is the exception rather than the norm, and he's reacted thus, then your husband is an arsehole. If not wanting to be intimate with him is the norm, then it's undoubtably time to consider if you can/should stay together. Both people in a marriage are entitled to be happy; if you both want different things from the relationship, it's unlikely you'll be happy.

In my experience men are actually not the cardboard cutouts this would imply.
But even if they were, "respect" includes your partner respecting your feelings. That's all OP is asking of her partner.

If not wanting to be intimate with your husband is the exception rather than the norm, and he's reacted thus, then your husband is an arsehole.
If it is the norm, and he's sulking and snapping at you instead of having an adult conversation about what's going to happen next, then he's still being an arsehole. But if that's the most you can expect from him, then it's up to you to be the adult, OP.

Why are you being nice to him and making breakfast etc when he treats you like this?

CALL THE HANDMAIDENS TO THE MENZ. FEED THEM, FOR THEY ARE INCAPABLE OF FEEDING THEMSELVES. RESPECT THEM, EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT WORTHY OF RESPECT. HAVE SEX WITH THEM, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT WANT HAVE SEX, FOR THEY ARE THE MENZ AND THEY ARE ENTITLED.

Bloody hell

If not wanting to be intimate with him is the norm

@LaffTaff If OP doesn't feel like sex with him much anymore, a large part of that is probably due to the pressure, coercion, and essentially rape.

Life shouldn't be spent walking on egg shells. Or kissing some guys arse.

Sex is for mutual pleasure. If you don't want it you don't need to do it.

Sulking is abuser behavior. That panic feeling you have is because you are veing abused and worried how he will 'punish' you next for not bowing yo his every whim.

He is a rotten person. See it and believe it.
Get yourself free of him. He will never change.

My partner is a man and to be happy in a relationship he 'needs' his partner to be happy too, otherwise he wouldn't be.

He would hate for his partner to feel they should serve his needs even if they conflict with hers. He compromises and talks like an adult.

That's the same for all decent men I know.

You don't know that. At all. It's 100% conjecture/cognitive bias.
And the glib way you're throwing the word rape around is both unsettling and inappropriate.

You don't know that. At all. It's 100% conjecture/cognitive bias.

@LaffTaff Yes I do know that. Of course with how he's acting, it's going to have an effect on OP.

@LaffTaff Do you think a man stropping if they don't get sex is a turn on? It would make any woman be less in the mood.

Maybe he's sulking because he's become very miserable in the marriage, misery which may or may not (without nuance) be due to being in a wholly desireless marriage?

I'd absolutely agree that sulking is an unacceptable way of expressing your emotions; maybe he lacks good communication skills (maybe they both do)?

The devil is in the detail, thus one would (clearly, imo!) need significantly more context before concluding he's a rapist!