Apologies, first off, as I am a male poster but I find I want the opinions of mothers before I may become a father.
My wife and I have been together for 7 years, married for 5. I am a 36 year old male, working in a very dull financial crime job in a bank and she is 30, a secondary school teacher and very happy at her job. No children but I can honestly say I want them – I think life would be somewhat empty and pointless if you don’t pass along the torch.
I love my wife, I care for my wife. If a nuclear bomb hit our city whilst I was working on one side of it, and she the other, she is the only person I would push through the rubble to save. I try to do right by my relations but she’d deserve it more than them.
My wife is a lovely person. She’s a rare coin in this world. I hold the honest opinion that most “niceness” is actually just dressed up reciprocity and that humans are selectively evolved to be a disingenuous and self-interested lot. I try hard to do the right thing as and when I know the right thing but to put her goodness into context, she: A) Used to divvy up the tips she made as a barmaid to share among local homeless men B) If your kid has got a problem at school, she goes the distance for them. She’d always stand up for a bullied kid, helps disabled kids get the resources they need and, in short, does anything that anyone could ever hope their child’s teacher would do in all the terrible things that might befall a child out of their parent’s eye in the first big challenges in life. I just need to say the above. I want to be honest.
But the problem (for me, her, us?) is that I’m simply not attracted to her. Facially I just don’t find her attractive, and sort of never did. It’s only gotten worse over time, but around about September of 2022 when I was reconnecting with an estranged brother and helping him untangle his life I looked at her and realized I had little to no sexual desire for her whatsoever. I also thought about having kids with her and frankly, her siblings life outcomes are not encouraging. They have a lot of neuroticism, snarkiness, idleness and violence in them and no intelligence to boot and I thought “would our kids most likely just be unattractive, idle, neurotic, introverted, niche media inhaling machines? How are you supposed to get on in the world without something going for you? If you’re going to be dumb and ugly, you better be tough, or if you’re weak and ugly you better be smart etc”
I plunged into severe depression due in large part to the above because while that’s how I felt I just could not bear the idea of telling her any of that or telling her I wanted to leave (I’m not even sure now that I do). Money isn’t the issue, nor do we have children yet, but she really, really, loves me. She shows it all the time, hanging on my arm leaning in to kiss my cheek, and telling me that every day. When I see a photo of her as a smiling child, knowing she had a hard upbringing from a poor background, and got to her dream job and happy life (she tells me she’s never been happier) my hear t breaks for her. When she’s told me how a girl once spat on her at school I am violently moved by it, or how a bee stung her lip when she was five I feel and outpouring of love for that five year old. When I think about hurting her, by leaving, how little she deserves it, I could, and have, cried – and I haven’t done that since I was maybe 10. I want her to have what she wants.
I went on through the depression (interesting to note when people say “everything tastes like ashes” it's a real thing – food literally starts to taste like wood ash) managing to do what one has to do (i.e. work, eat, sleep) until eventually she knew something was wrong. I tried to fake out but she insisted we talk and, in the end, I had to tell her that I just generally didn’t find her attractive, and was worried about what any child of ours would inherit. She wasn’t happy to hear and I wasn’t happy to say it, but she said she was glad I was telling her.
I told her I didn’t know if the reason I felt like that was maybe some biological trigger (the seven year itch probably having evolutionary origins), or that I was bored out my skull by my job, or was losing interest in all the things I’d used to be interested, or friends had drifted away. I wasn’t entirely honest in telling her that really it all started when I realized I wasn’t attracted to her – but I certainly think it’s possible that those things are a part of it. I couldn’t bring myself to say “I’m not attracted to your face”. or "I married you mainly because of how sweet you were, and how much you wanted it and deserved to get what you want".
Where we are now is that we agreed to keep going along as we are to see if maybe changing up to a more interesting job, a change of interest and hobbies, being a bit more social, living healthier lives etc can solve the issues – bring a spark back or whatever, change my mind.
Whenever we’ve had sex she’s always orgasmed very easily, multiple times. Most of the time I didn’t and I told her “I just like edging” or similar. The very few times we’ve had sex in the past year or so I’ve rarely been able to finish and (I’m ashamed) mainly by thinking about someone else or imagining something that’s a particular turn on. She still can finish, but she’s now told me that the last couple of times she took a drive and cried in her car about what it means that I either don’t finish or wont finish inside her. I just tend to avoid sex now, but she seems almost as satisfied with being held and stroked (she's always been a hugger, even to her friends)
I want the opinions of women on this subject, particularly women who have had families (hence mumsnet).
Am I being a total fucking dickhead here by even thinking about leaving? I have a home, a partner with a a matched income, who would, without a shadow of a doubt, be a good mother whatever genes the kid would inherit. She’d never neglect them, never. She loves me and is attracted to me. Surely the thing to do is to stay and get over not being attracted to her? I can take something chemical or do some mental trickery required to do the deed, we can presumably move past the awkward confession and be happy(she’s much relieved since I said I wanted to try changing my life up in every way that viable, and that it might help me get over it. It has a little bit)
Is it my mind that needs changing here, and can we move past the situation do you all think? Is this normal?
I assume it is pretty normal for a lot of women, and my whining is only what a lot of women have put up with throughout history, because women do not need to become physically aroused to produce children. I’m reminded of a line from “bring up the bodies” by Hillary Mantel as Thomas Cromwell (councillor to the king) is interrogating Thomas Wyatt (anne boleyn’s former love) in the Tower about her alleged infidelity
‘ It’s more than any physical act He [the king] thinks Anne never esteemed his attention. Never loved him from the start in any real way, and when they went to bed, thought of others ‘
‘God save us, is this now a crime? Half married England would be in jail”.
I suppose what I’m looking for is assurance that it’s the love that counts – to look at someone and want what’s best for them, to admire their character and to have the benefit of their honest effort at life to complement your own, and to raise the children. Presumably, the sex just doesn’t matter at some point, and the greater half of life becomes your kids, and what you can do for them. What is Mumsnet’s opinion?