Husband just walked out- intimacy issues

[Newstart2024]

Bit of background, me and DH have 3 kids aged 7,4 and 2. My libido always been a bit lower than his but okay, we talked about it before marriage and with our vicar in wedding counselling prior and dh said he couldnt live in a sexless marriage. Which is fine by me I agreed.
Since then and with the children our sex life has been up and down and on a down patch after our second we had some counselling where husband says he doesn’t feel desired, touch is a love language and he always initiates which makes him feel like he’s pressuring me. He basically said if things didn’t improve he’d leave because it’s so important to him. we talked it through (though counsellor wasn’t great and part of her advice was to stop breastfeeding??!!!). we were okay for a while.
Recently I’ve changed contraception and after sorting it finally my husband suggested we try for intimacy once a week and he didn’t always want to intiate.

This was fine at first but last few weeks we haven’t and I didn’t think anything of it. Then last weekend he did suggest we go upstairs but I’d hurt my neck and told him it might be worth waiting a few days which he was annoyed about but he knows it’s true!

Cut to mid week last week and after we did kids bedtime I came down and he had packed a bag! He told me he had arranged a room through air bnb and was moving there. He was very calm saying he had always been clear about intimacy and he couldn’t see the marriage continuing. The air bnb is 10 minute walk away and he left.
I have been left overnight with kids and doing breakfast in the morning. I normally do this but sometimes he is here working from home or sometimes he has left for the office. I do the childminder drop off for youngest and school runs. We both work, then one of us will pick kids up from childminder at 5:30-6. He has come here after work to help with bedtimes then off back to the air Bnb!!!

Last night he sent an email saying this weekend he would be back home with family (they live 150 miles away) and then he would look after kids next weekend. He said we can discuss a longer term solution. He has the money to rent a room I’m sure but that money we have been putting towards our holidays etc. He earns more than me.

I am totally blindsided and don’t know what to do next?! When I’ve talked to him he said he hasn’t ruled out reconciling but doesn’t know how things are expected to change when we’ve already discussed and had counselling about this issue before. I’d be willing to make more of an effort but it’s just not on my radar as much as him.

Ideas? He’s really calm and just seems a bit sad and in “I’ve got a plan” mode?! I’ve been frustrated upset and shocked and asked him to stay and talk but he’s just been going back to air bnb and wants to talk when situation a bit clearer and calmer? Kids are okay but confused their day is pretty much the same.

@Merrygoround8 it's a reverse, read the updates

Wise up, working on the intimacy issue is not rape!!! A shit sex life then, if you're going to be pedantic about it.

I couldn't live with leaving my young children, but whatever.

So I've been the OP and I did end my marriage because of sex. My boys were primary school age when this happened and now they're obviously older, the eldest is a grown man with his own sex life.

Me and the eldest had a pretty similar conversation recently and far from not being able to fall in love, he's got a girlfriend who he adores and she adores him, and when I was honest with him about why me and his dad split up, he actually said he didn't blame me and was amazed I'd put up with it so long. He hoped that I didn't stay so long in an unhappy marriage because of him and his brother. I did, but I didn't tell him this.

OP, take it from me there's no way back from this because he'll never change. I'm so sorry, but don't make my mistake and waste your life on a half relationship.

Ok calm down 🤣🤣🤣
Look, if it were me, I’d not walk out on the marriage because of this - but I frankly couldn’t be arsed with sex. It’s nice, but it’s not a need like food, water, etc.

However, for OP, it clearly is a huge deal. By pointing out the facts that they’re not compatible, I’m not handing her her already packed bag. I’m just pointing out the facts of the relationship so OP can read it and think on it.

I’m not going to judge someone just because they might potentially make a choice I personally would not.

Yes we both do they’re at the childminders or school in the day he’s not mrs doubtfire. He has two meetings a day and is a software developer. I’m basically in meetings all day and lucky if I get lunch. I don’t think asking him to do breakfast in the week and a Friday afternoon with the 2 year old after he’s had the morning off is a massive difference in our overall workloads.

I think you need to ensure you try everything possible before you leave the relationship, especially with such little children. I also think from what you have posted that the two of you need to communicate more in general.

Working on intimacy is not rape, no. Forcing the man to compromise and have sex when he doesn’t want to, despite him proving time and time again that he does not want to have sex, IS rape. It’s literally coercive rape.

Imagine a man walked into his living room, looked at his wife and said “right if you don’t have sex with me more than you want to, I’m leaving you and our kids.” He’d be slated on here, called all kinds of abusive. OP has expressed to him she wants more sex, he has shown he does not. Forcing him to have sex with her when he doesn’t want to just to keep her happy, is rape

I personally wouldn’t leave this relationship either as I couldn’t care that much about sex either, but OP already has her bag packed. That’s her choice.

'This was fine at first but last few weeks we haven’t and I didn’t think anything of it'

Why didn't you think anything of it and why are you now blindsided?

I think too many people expect sex to be spontaneous. Here, the issue over who initiates what, when and how often has resulted in difficulty in getting anything started.

Posting this article from Mariella Frostrup a few years back about scheduling sex in the diary. Do you think that if it were a fixed 'date night' activity - with each taking the lead on arranging the date night on alternate weeks - that this might work?

Maybe for your husband it'll be just like going to the gym - once you both make room in your schedule and fix a regular date and time, it'll become a habit.

Also like going to the gym, maybe you're not in the mood when you go, but once you warm up a bit and get into it, you're glad you went.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11809155/I-mocked-putting-sex-husband-diary-works-says-Mariella-Frostrup.html

I am absolutely floored in some of these tesponses

i wojld be running the other way. His behaviour is disgusting and I’d want nothing to do with him. I would and am worth way more than that!

I think you’ve had a super lucky escape.

Final thoughts here. If you genuinely feel he lacks interest in having sex with you & basically doesn't enjoy it, could he be secretly struggling with his sexuality. If this is the case I'm sure nobody would question your decision to end the marriage,although he would still deserve support.

Your not sexually compatible and it's no ones fault. We have a 5 month old and a 4 year old and we average twice a week. Twice a month would make me feel rubbish and undesired. I was in a relationship like that before and I couldn't stand it (no kids). I always felt forgotten about and unwanted.

The reveal changes nothing in my advice. To marry someone, take them off the market to keep them all for yourself, and then refuse to have sex with them is cruel and unreasonable. Not for nothing is lack of sex grounds for divorce in every society, including ours, and always has been.

I despair of all the posts making out that the high-libido spouse is breaking up their marriage over nothing and being selfish. Those are the words of people who have absolutely no idea how psychologically damaging and how despairing being rejected and unwanted in marriage can be.

This feeling is unique to a committed relationship. I haven’t yet lived with someone without being married, so I don’t know if being in a sexless partnership is as bad as being in a sexless marriage, where you’ve declared your commitment before everyone and tied yourselves together legally, but I cannot describe how horrible it was to be longterm unwanted in marriage.

I felt so rejected, unwanted, under-valued, unseen, disposable, and invisible. Nobody else but my ex-h could make me feel those things, as I never considered cheating, so I just existed in this grey, bleak space of despair.

If it hadn’t happened to me, I would never have believed how utterly depressing and psychologically challenging it could be, to be so rejected by the one person on earth who’s meant to want you, and when no one else is permitted to meet those needs. I don’t consider myself to be a very high-libido person, but being in that no-win situation was one of the worst things that’s ever happened to me. I say that as someone who nursed both my parents through three terrible illnesses that took both of them, and as someone who’s husband walked out suddenly too.

Posters might say OP is selfish to break up the marriage over sex. Well, I say that her husband has done plenty of breaking of this marriage.

I’d get out if I were you, OP. You’re flogging a dead horse, and nobody should have to spend their lives in this purgatory. It’s sad but it happens.

Yes that’s what we’re trying the once a week at a weekend and the last time I tapped my watch (not literally) the sore neck appeared.
when you’ve scheduled it and it’s still a no where do you go from there?… to an air bnb!

@Newstart2024 I think there is an awful lot to unpack here. He’s not wrong to want more intimacy and you’re not wrong to feel utterly exhausted by life. It’s a hard road to navigate and you feel embarrassed and a bit shy about having a proper conversation. When you do have a conversation, it’s often easier to give in to his suggestions to get the whole issue off the table. I’m adding a picture of an article in today’s Times about sexless marriages…..it’s a short paragraph but sums it up for me! Ultimately, do you want the marriage to work and what will it take to make it work while getting both of your needs met. No one can answer that question for you and you need to discuss what happens next as a couple.

I would try really hard to ignore any post that says ‘ a man who wants sex and intimacy with his wife is abusive/a bastard/selfish’ because he really isn’t. It’s way more nuanced than that. You are a couple. Couples show love in many, many different ways and one of his ways is intimacy. It’s difficult to go from mum/housewife/worker to sex-kitten 😅

I’ve been where you are.

I read today that no one thinks you can live a child properly if you refuse to touch them.

But lack of sex in a marriage is the same how can you love someone and not really touch them?!

He made it clear before marriage.
During marriage as well.
Attended counselling
Set a compromise of once a week which you still couldn't put the effort in for. Which is a real shame. It's like you've not tried at all.
You haven't mentioned that you love him though. Just that the relationship works well. So maybe that's the issue? Maybe you'd be interested in having sex with a man you love.

Saying that, I don't agree with how he handled it, he should have given you and the kids more warning. But he must have been very frustrated and sad.

The more you are opening up about this OP the more I understand what you are feeling. What a predicament.I hope it ends well for you,whatever the outcome.

I had no libido whatsoever when l was with my ex husband. I'm pretty sure that was down to his behaviour and how he was towards me.
He'd go sulky (so attractive in a man) for no reason, would say nothing was wrong, but then not speak/completely ignore me for days on end, then behave as everything was fine, and initiate sex.
Because of that (and abusive behaviour, including trying to have sex with me when l was asleep, and carrying on when l told him to stop) and when we did have sex it went on for hours on end with no conclusion. More than once he was still at it at 3am when l had to be up at five for work. So l'd refuse the next time.
I got to the point where l couldn't stand him touching me.
We went to marriage guidance and our counsellor actually wiped the floor with him about him carrying on when l'd said no. He even admitted it, but kept saying he was 'entitled' because we were married. She said l was entitled to be treated like an adult and a human being.
He divorced me on the grounds of my unreasonable behaviour, he actually said l had 'refused him his conjugal rights and access to the marital bed.' Which was fair enough, but no explanation as to why. He was entitled to want sex, l was entitled not to want sex with someone who treated me like that.

I could have counter argued, but quite frankly l was past caring by then.
The day after we split up he turned up at my new house crying at 8am, saying he was sorry. Way too little too late.
You and/or your situation sound incompatible with him, OP. As someone else said, it sounds like he's already checked out. I honestly don't know if you can get your libido back with him once you're at this stage. I never could.
I hope you can work things out for all of you x

Logically (assuming communication, counseling etc doesn't help) at the end there are 3 options.

1. put up with feeling physically unwanted

2. pressure him into faking it to keep you happy

3. go to the Airbnb

(1) doesn't seem an option for you (not saying it should be but different people feel differently) and (2) is ick so that leaves (3).

@Newstart2024 you said 'But lack of sex in a marriage is the same how can you love someone and not really touch them?!'

I'd agree but you seem to be the one who resists showing signs of affection, like hugs, cuddles and kisses. Or so you said earlier.

I wondered this.....

I couldn't live like this. I've been with men with low drives before, and it made me lonely, frustrated, and miserable. DH and I both have very high sex drives and even with two kids, life, health issues, injuries, etc., that's never dropped below 5 days a week at a push.

Twice a month would be devastating, especially when you do love someone. I don't think you should have married to begin with, or should have jumped ship far earlier. But, you can't change the past.

I don't think there's an issue with leaving. You both deserve to be happy and feel loved and comfortable - life is far too short for an abysmal sex life and constantly feeling rejected. Resentment will brew on both sides. It probably frustrates him too, if he doesn't want it. Personally, I think he should see a Dr about low testosterone; lots of women go to a GP if their libido drops.

Either way, you'd be better off co-parenting as amicably as you can.

Also, one of the exes of mine who were like your DH turned out to be gay.

Yup. Exactly.

So was the bit about him talking you into a third child also reversed, and that was really you? Or did he want another child but not sex?