A sex one...

[AvocadoOodie]

My partner and I have been together for 3 years and recently got engaged.

We used to have sex 3 or 4 times a week. Dropped to once a week and, over recent months, it's dropped to once a fortnight.

I've read similar posts on here that say it's nothing to do with attraction but how can you be sure?

I don't feel he finds me attractive. I've tried talking to him about it and he says he does but those are words that are not backed up by actions. He's affectionate but in those two weeks, I get used to there not being any sex in the relationship and it feels awkward when it happens and i feel unattractive and reluctant.

Without the interest from him, I lose interest in it myself. I just cant go from being someone who doesn't have sex to someone who then does have sex once a fortnight. I feel like he is just having sex with me to scratch an itch or because he's aware it's been a fortnight and so feels obliged to rather than wanting to. I just don't feel attractive or like a sexual being at all anymore if I'm honest.

I dont understand how it can go from 3 or 4 times aweek, to once a week to once a fortnight without there being a reason for it (eg he doesn't find me attractive but feels horny once a fortnight or he's meeting his sexual needs in other ways during the rest of the time and he's having 'maintenance sex' with me - neither of which makes me feel particularly in the mood!)

If he's getting his sexual needs met elsewhere the majority of the time, why not just do that all the time? If he doesn't find me attractive, why do it with me at all?

I'd rather not have sex at all than only have it once a fortnight tbh.

Any words of wisdom?

Ah, I think this is a big part of the problem. You are feeling shit about yourself sexually. Did you feel like this before he turned off the tap?

I’m sure you haven’t become unattractive but it’s how you are feeling.
You should make an effort to make yourself feel and look good for you. I think it will really help you. It feels like you are self sabotaging at bit. You are longing for the sex but when it happens you are tense and worried about the length of time it happens instead of losing yourself in the moment. Or is it his lack of passion that’s making you feel this way? You do sound sad and resigned to a sexless future. why do you feel it’s acceptable? Is it because you live him
so much or something else? Are you in your late 40s op?

Sorry meant “love him”!

That's what I meant, really.

I obviously dont look any different but I just feel so unattractive. There's a reason for my username - it's become my second skin! 😫

I actually feel worse when I've made an effort. It doesn't make me feel good about myself for me. At least if I'm lolling about like a troll, I can't expect someone to find me attractive or whatever. I don't feel 'validated' or reassured if someone else compliments me because I'm not interested in receiving compliments.

I don't really feel I'm self sabotaging. I feel shame, embarrassed, self conscious, awkward. I try and get lost in the moment but I just feel unattractive and reminded of how if it were genuine, I wouldn't feel like that.

Why do I feel it's acceptable? Tbh, I was in a long term sexless relationship. This is the longest relationship I've had otherwise. I've no experience of sex in a long term relationship. I don't know what expectations are really or whether I'm being ridiculous. Whether it's me, him or 'us'.

I do love him and I know he loves me.

Part of me thinks its quite arrogant to assume/expect someone to find you attractive or desire you sexually. I read threads on here where women talk about being together for 20/30+ plus years where they still fancy each other etc and it blows my mind a bit. I wouldn't assume or expect that at all.

Did you feel like this before he turned off the tap?

No. I mean, I've never been hugely confident but he made me feel attractive and I believed that he found me attractive and so it didn't really matter what anyone else thought and I at least felt confident that he desired me. It was a blow to lose that tbh.

I think that's also why it's worse. I knew my ex and I weren't really interested in each other sexually but I believed he was. Until he wasn't. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say I feel I was 'tricked' but I do feel stupid for believing him or allowing myself to believe it was possible.

Other than this issue, yes.

Everything is really good otherwise but I can definitely relate to the previous post about when sex is good it's 10% of the relationship and when it's not it's 90%.

It really is the elephant in the room.

We'll have a night in the house to ourselves - have a lovely evening maybe watch a film or chat, cook together, have a bottle of wine, laught go up to bed together and then he'll get his book out and read in silence for an hour or so. Or we'll go out for the evening and have a nice evening. Again, chat loads, laugh, dance, whatever and come home and he'll announce very clearly that he's tired and is going to sleep.

It just feels like such a definite STOP ✋️ it doesn't matter how good the evening has been, it puts a dampner on it. If it was just a case of sex wasn't happening for x, y or z reasons but it might happen tomorrow, it wouldn't matter so much. Its the fact it's communicated loud and clear as a boundary every time we're in a situation where sex might naturally occur.

If that makes sense.

It just feels like he's blocking it.

You’re going to have to speak to him, there’s no other way!

I think that your previous sexless relationship is weighing on you very heavily, and is making this fairly typical occurrence - of sex dwindling a bit a few years into a relationship - into a much bigger deal than it otherwise might be. I’m sure your partner is very aware of the stress you are feeling around it and that creates pressure, which is a huge libido killer.

I think you need to try and remove your own assumptions from the situation, because they are making you feel a lot worse than the actual facts. You assume your partner finds you unattractive now but there is no evidence for that at all - it is very unlikely that he suddenly went from finding you attractive enough to have sex 3 times a week with to not. Much more likely that other factors (sex DOES dwindle over time for virtually all couples, his age, and now the difficult dance you are both engaged in around it) are affecting him. You assume that when he does initiate sex, because it’s less frequent than it was, that he’s doing it out of a sense of duty. This is a HUGE assumption that is having a massive impact on how you feel, therefore no doubt how you respond, but it has no basis in fact.

It’s possible that your partner has gone off sex with you for whatever reason and isn’t communicating honestly about it, yes. But you can’t control that, you can only control how you respond to the situation, and what you’ve written here looks more like a mutually destructive sexual dynamic than a case of one person just withdrawing. It isn’t healthy to base your whole sense of attractiveness on how frequently a partner initiates sex with you - it’s too fragile a metric and that creates much too much pressure between you. I really think you should speak to a therapist about how you feel about the situation and about your previous relationships and see if that helps your feelings around the issue, which might in turn then change things. Good luck.

I agree with @Crossornot.

It's telling that you say that you're definitely not self sabotaging, but also that one of the reasons you like being in your hoodie all the time is that you assume that he won't be attracted to you when you're wearing it, and that you therefore feel safe from experiencing feelings of rejection due to being more attractively dressed and still not getting sex.

That's self sabotaging in a way. But it's worse than that, because you feel that whether you are attractive or not to him depends on how you look to him based on changeable things like clothes. I'm always struck on these threads how women do focus on their mental picture of what they think their partner is seeing when they (partner) looks at them (woman). There is frequently no mention of what makes you feel that you would like sex with your partner. It's about the partner's gaze. No wonder we get tangled up when trying to decode sex.

@Crossornot @PermanentTemporary

Thanks for your replies. It's given me a lot to think about this week.

It happened again the other night. I've lost track of the days, but it was around a fortnight since we'd last had sex. He initiated it and then not only didn't finish but just seemed to lose interest halfway through.

The last couple of nights, we've gone to bed and, despite making a few comments about how tired he was, he scrolled through fb after getting into bed until I was nearly asleep. Not that I'd have expected sex but it just feels so cold and distant.

There is frequently no mention of what makes you feel that you would like sex with your partner.*

I do understand what you mean but I suppose that women posting know how they feel so it isn't really relevant to talk about it?

I think most people would be less attractive in an oodie than wearing something nice. For me, it's more about signalling thar I don't expect to he found attractive so there's no expectation of anything resulting from that. It's probably no different to what you're saying but most people would want their partner to find the attractive and to find their partner attractive.

It’s possible that your partner has gone off sex with you for whatever reason and isn’t communicating honestly about it, yes. But you can’t control that, you can only control how you respond to the situation, and what you’ve written here looks more like a mutually destructive sexual dynamic than a case of one person just withdrawing

Thank you and yes I agree that the situation has become dysfunctional. I feel I've responded to his lack of interest by withdrawing. And when he does initiate now I just feel awkward, self conscious, reserved, unattractive and stupid which obviously does impact on how I respond.

I feel I just want it to be over.

It's a week since I last posted so don't really expect any replies to this but I didn't want to leave your posts unanswered after you had taken the time to reply.

I know the answer is to talk to him but that feels like I'm opening a can of worms I'm not really in the headspace to deal with right now because of a couple of other things I'm dealing with. The problem is that all of it together is knocking my confidence which is impacting on how able I feel to deal with any and all of it.

Problem is @AvocadoOodie that this is obviously not a sustainable situation. So it's either you put a bit of time aside to actually address it, or you make plans to move on. Which seems to be jumping the gun if you haven't tried to sort it! If you leave it as is, it's just going to carry on making you miserable.

I wouldn't normally advise this, but would it help if you communicated about this in a different way? Write him a letter or even god forbid, a text message? Send him a link to this thread?
I think he needs to know how you are feeling.

I was thinking this as well.
the way the OP said she was dreading sex and also stopped him, sounds more like the OP is having issues

How can you have a relationship without being able to discuss this?

My hubby much younger and once a month but nothing stops the loving relationship we have just because we are shattered and don't have sex often doesn't not make it a loving relationship

We can't can we?

I tried again last night.

We went out yesterday evening with family and friends. It was a lovely evening. But this was still in the background like the elephant that was so huge it filled the room. I felt like I was mentally squeezing around it all night.

I feel I'm constantly looking for 'evidence' that I've got this all wrong. Not evidence that he isn't attracted to me but evidence that he is. And last night, I didn't see any. All I could see around was other couples who looked like couples. Anyone who didn't already know, wouldn't even really assumed we knew each other very well.

I don't want to be joined at the hip - we're both free to talk to other people, do our own thing but even when we were together, there was no sign we were together. He hugged me once in the evening but it was outside in a corridor where no one else could see us. This might be normal for some people but he's a very tactile person and so that level of distance wouldn't be usual for him at all.

I broached it with him when we got home (neither of us had been drinking so it wasn't a bad time or worse than any other). We went pretty much straight to bed because it was late and despite it having been an (otherwise) brilliant evening, he got his phone out and spent 20 mins scrolling through fb in silence again. So I told him straight out that I didn't think he was attracted to me anymore.

He was surprised - where had this come from? He asked. Except that I've tried to talk to him about it before and he always reacts in the same way - confused. And then he pointed out to me that he's always the one to initiate anything. Which is true but only because I feel so shit about everything and so unattractive now that I physically can't. He asked me how I think that makes me feel. I took a moment to formulate my answer and by the time I had, he was asleep.

I'm even prepared to accept that it's actually me and my dysfunctional thinking that are the problem although, that's not how I feel right now.

But it's the complete inability to talk about it that is more of the issue.

I've tried and I just feel like I'm being deflected.

I take that to mean either I'm completely barking up the wrong tree and I'm so far away from the truth that he doesn't even know where to begin to address it.

Or that I'm right and he doesn't want to admit it so deflects instead.

There was a woman there last night who was really attractive. I started to think that the reason he wasn't interested in me was because he fancied her and I had just become an irritation to him/he wanted her to think he was single.

The thing is, that's not like me at all. But I'm at the point of thinking, he doesn’t find me attractive and isn't interested in sex with me but I'm not so naive as to assume he isn't interested in sex with anyone and doesn't find anyone attractive. He must fancy someone!

And I can't even say that to him because he shuts the conversation down before I have the chance

And then he pointed out to me that he's always the one to initiate anything. Which is true

^^ If this is true, he might be feeling the same as you. ?
if he is really the one doing all the initiation maybe you should do that for awhile?

I did.

We used to initiate equally. If anything, it was more often me.

But he started to rebuff my advances. Push my hand away. Got his phone/book out which I took as a clear sign he wasn't interested. Or he'd respond positively but then lose interest or stop me and tell me he wasn't going to finish. Sometimes he just completely ignored me.

So I stopped. Because no one wants to be that person.

I decided to wait for him to initiate so we only had sex when he definitely wanted it. But it's just dwindled and dwindled and now.

I have initiated a few times over the last few months but the same happened. He either wasn't interested or wasn't able to finish which is when I realised he either just wasn't attracted to me or was meeting his sexual needs in other ways.

I just don't feel desired or desirable at all. I've just stopped seeing myself as a sexual person.

I'd be fine with a sexless relationship if the affection and intimacy was there otherwise. But the fact it can't even be talked about is just too big. If he just didn't have sexual feelings at all - fine. But the thought that he's with me and looking at other women he'd want to have sex with if it weren't for me is just destroying me.

I'd rather he just said he wasn't attracted to me anymore than all this faux confusion and deflection

Listen op this is not going to be resolved unless you both see a professional counselling- you are looking for signs that he is not attractive to you - you’ve also been in a previous relationship that sex stopped - It’s not you - I understand your thinking - you self esteem has been eroded over the years so you feel “it’s your fault” - if you don’t address it you will destroy yourself - you want more sex - that’s fine - over time sex settles into a routine - you see it as he doesn’t fancy you - he’s not maintaining an erection = again you feel it’s your fault -
You both need a full open conversation - maybe your fear of ending up in another sexless marriage is the fear - hence when he’s wanting less you fear it heading that way - have you asked him if he watches porn?
You could see a therapist by yourself to work out what you want firstly - good luck.

Hi OP

I really think you should take sex and conversations about sex off the table with your partner for a while and spend some
time unpicking these things for yourself with a therapist. I think it’s a red herring to say that he just won’t talk about it but you’re willing to, therefore he’s the problem, because the terms in which you’re talking here are very intense and I don’t think it would help me to engage with a partner talking this way either. Things like: he must have SOME sexual feelings about someone (why?). Imagining he’s finding other people in the vicinity attractive and that thought “destroying” you. Imagining he must have some sort of sex life somewhere (why?) and you’re just a barrier in the way. These are all huge assumptions, in fact they’re just imaginary scenarios, which all rest on the idea of you being either desirable and validated or rejected and worthless, and they’re actually nothing to do with the sexual relationship between the two of you as equal partners with equal agency. It’s very dysfunctional. Put it another way. If I turned down a partner for sex, or we were in a dry spell, and then they were accusing me
of finding other people we encountered attractive because I CLEARLY don’t find them attractive and it’s destroying them…. Does that strike you as a healthy and reasonable scenario?

What I see here is a man who has had occasional inability to perform (not unusual, very stressful) with a partner who has rock bottom self esteem which she relies on their physical relationship to prop up. That combination is not a good one. Of course there might be more going on - he’s lazy, he’s got his own sexual hang ups, maybe he is just bored - but I don’t know those things from this thread. I do know you need to work a bit on your own patterns of thinking though, before trying to fix anything else. I’m sorry, I know situations like this are really tough.

@AvocadoOodie on Friday when you added your update about your DP initiating sex and then losing interest… I did think if he was getting vibe you weren’t into it ( for the reasons you haves shared ) that he’s picking up on it. The conversation you had last night confirms this .. seems like a bit of a vicious circle . Though I am not putting this in you - as him withdrawing from emotional intimacy ie phone in bed ect has not helped.
I suggest a follow up conversation today, not one which is questioning him but one where you talk about these missing touches, cuddles and pdas and this is worked in as well as emotional intimacy before sex is back on the table.

Also, the attractive woman last night, did he give you any reason to believe we would be interested in her?

You are wayyy overthinking this, him not being able to finish is simply him not being able to finish nothing more nothing less & has nothing to with how he feels about you sexually or otherwise, the pressure put on men (by themselves and their partners ) to be able to perform or be seen as a “failure “ is ridiculous.
it sounds like he is avoiding sex as much as you are