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.

Riddled, but I said, if there's no issue that they're willing to work on like stress or menopause causing the lack of libido, it's just gone or was never there, they need to split. If they won't work on it, ditto.
In a healthy relationship there's a sexual connection. If someone checks their hormones, try to reduce stress, work on intimacy & bonding outside sex, tries to get their drive going w extra stimuli etc & still nothing, I don't believe they can be in love. Sex is part of romantic love, if you don't desire your partner, it's not a romantic relationship anymore. If the person's libido was never there or really, w best efforts has gone for good, unfortunately I think the best thing is split. Otherwise where's the happiness in sleeping w someone who's not into you romantically but only doing it out of obligation w no desire whatsoever? How can that be enjoyable for either?

Def agree w this. The low libido partner should let them go.

Sex is different from parties tho, bc forcing someone to go to a party isn't a serious crime.
You should be enjoying it once you get in the mood, if you're gritting your teeth that's not OK.
But I think it depends w the party. If your spouse were really cruel if you didn't go, that would be coercive control. If they were disappointed, no. W sex, if your partner pressures you, that's not OK. If they let you know they'd like you to try to up your libido somehow so you want it too, that's not.

Go you the AirBnB, OP.

This is unfortunately not salvageable or things would have improved a long time ago.

Imagine yourself in five years' time, still married to him. What do you see?

I don't think that anyone in a marriage has the right to not want sex on a longterm basis. That's completely unfair to the other person. When you marry you promise to shag them and them alone, forsaking all others, and both partners have the right to expect regular nookie. The two solutions are to gird your loins and get into it, or to split up. If having sex with your own spouse is such a horrendous idea that there's no way you can possibly stomach it, then you have to let the person go. Having sexual expectations in marriage is completely reasonable. That's why lack of sex is grounds for divorce everywhere and always has been. The law recognises longterm sexual drought as unreasonable behaviour that no one should be expected to put up with.

Those are the unpalatable truths about marriage that no one talks about. If the issue of sexual expectations in marriage was talked about before, maybe people would think twice before moving in/having kids/getting married. You CANNOT grab someone all for yourself and then leave them hanging.

I agree about the party, but I was illustrating the extremist thinking in that post, where the poster seemed to think that a spouse has zero obligation to have sex and that making an effort to get yourself in the mood, and expecting that you'll probably warm up once you get going, is the equivalent to marital rape.

I agree with all of this. There's nothing worse in a marriage than feeling lonely & unloved & you do deserve happiness & sex Op.

Equally if he's not up for it, he's entitled to feel that way too & shouldn't have to have sex if he doesn't want to.

I'd go to the air bnb, even just for the break away. Good luck!

but he wasn't bothered about the child, she wanted it.

Denim, that seems really odd to me. Maybe bc I have a high libido myself. Why would people not consider the idea of having regular sex w their marital partner for the foreseeable future? Don't most people expect & want to do that? I know there are some who don't enjoy sex, maybe more asexuality awareness will help if this is why?

He is not entitled to feel that way and remain married.

If he wants to live like a monk, he can, but it will come at the price of his marriage.

I’m feeling angrier and angrier now.
I feel like he duped me. We talked about this before getting married he promised me we wouldn’t be in a sexless marriage. Yet unless I initiate anything I get nothing and not even then some times.

Why? Why have I been put in this situation when I’ve tried again and again.
The kids are the casualties of it but on the bright side I don’t think I would have met anyone better to have them with, not at the age I was and he’s a great Dad. So it’s a double edged sword.

I feel like going on a long drive and getting a cigarette and look out at the stars and having a smoke and wonder how I ended up here.
Haven’t smoked for 20 years.

Sigh.

Unfortunately I can’t turn to family my sisters delight in anything like this as “gossip” and my parents are uninterested. When this came up before and I was upset talking to my mum she just kept saying “don’t come here, stay with your children.” She has a point of course but leaves me feeling like there’s nowhere really to turn. I don’t even know if I’ll tell anyone about moving into an Airbnb even for a few days. How sad is that?
My brother is the best bet but he lives abroad.

Sigh.

I think your husband is the person you need to talk to about this. and if he won't talk you have your answer. he must have reasons for his behaviour and it would help you to understand them.

In one of my earliest posts, I literally suggested both OP and her DH let each other go, so I’ve already suggested that.

And for the record, I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do, whether it’s going to a party or having sex. I’ve been forced, throughout my life, to do many things I did not want to do, so I admit I’m very protective of my freedom of choice. I choose to stay single because of it. OP’s husband probably should have chosen the same thing, or OP should have chosen to not settle for a partner who wasn’t up to her needs. But neither of them made those choices, so reasonably, they should separate

It IS bordering on rape if OP stayed and forced her husband to have sex when he doesn’t want to, just to keep her in the marriage (not saying OP will do that of course).

What one calls extremist, others call “life lived experience resulting in passionate advocacy for people to have the freedom of choice over their own damn lives”. No one is obligated to give sex. End of story. If a partner wants sex and isn’t getting it, it’s time to leave - not force or guilt the unwilling partner into it due to archaic belief systems of marriage unwriting basic human rights

Denim, your point earlier about men seeking connection via sex is interesting. But they need to chat to partners to find out how they each express affection. So she enjoys hugs etc , and needs as prelude to intimacy, & he needs sex to express intimacy? He can try to enjoy hugs, touch etc for own sake, & also know this will get her to want sex, & that it's not that she doesn't want sex, or doesn't like his body, but just needs a broader form of intimacy to get in mood. I agree men see it as a rejection of their bodies, but empathy & talk should help them see this isn't so in many cases.
I agree longterm sexual rejection is really hurtful for both sexes, esp if partner is doing it to hurt you. I'm really sorry you experienced that.

& I think some men do like hugs etc for their own sake. Pp mentioned sitting w hubby on sofa w knees on his lap. It's healthy to keep touch going generally, not just before sex.

I think you know it's over. You don't have to leave tonight if you don't want to. But you can. You don't have to talk to anyone either, at least until you've worked it out yourselves. You don't have to stay in an unhappy marriage, and he shouldn't ask you to.

@Newstart2024 I don’t think this chat is helping you anymore if you are getting angry. You feel duped? Really? Maybe he loves you so much but can’t match your sexual need, wishes he could and wants to but he just can’t - it doesn’t make you or him a bad person, so maybe just speak to him rather than getting yourself worked up and angry on here.

I mean that we, as a society, shy away from the idea that anyone should be obliged to have sex. Which I get. But many low-libido spouses don't understand how soul-destroying it is to be unwanted by the one person that you want and who's supposed to want you. I was surprised by how important sex was to my husband. I was naive. You sound more clued-up.

I think as younger women, we get SO SO fed up with men wanting our bodies and no commitment, and seeing us as sex objects, it feels like. Then, when we find someone who wants to commit to us for life, we think "At last! Someone who loves me for me and not for sex!" But then it turns out that your own husband is just as sex-mad, and it's a shock, because you thought that marriage and the great love it represents transcended all that. Well, at least, that was my experience. Like I said, I was naive.

My ex always said that Gen X is the first generation to know less about men than their grandmothers did!

So it’s all bullshit, no one has walked out. Everyone is still together and it’s a reverse. And really you’ve no intention of leaving.

ok then

You feel duped but he showed you and told you over and over again he wasn’t interested in having as much sex as you were. Maybe not always with words but certainly with actions. You were not duped by him, but by the rose tinted glasses of blind hope.

That doesn’t mean there’s no hope left for you though. You still have options, both
together and apart.

I wish you both all the best

Did Username say that? I think perhaps there's been some misunderstanding. I def agree about trying to get in mood. I don't think any nice person, male or female, would enjoy sex w someone who really didn't want to be there. Getting in the mood is different & shouldn't be hard if you fancy your partner. It's worrying if it's a huge chore.
Op, you deserve a proper relationship. Rooting for you!

And on the flip side, many high libido spouses don’t know how degrading and disgusting it makes someone feel to feel that what they offer their spouse isn’t enough unless the offering is sex. Like they don’t matter as a person, and that their only worth is to be a hole (or penis)

But marriage comes with sexual expectations baked in to the whole deal, no? And no one is forced to make that deal. (At least, not in Western culture.)

I'm also single because I don't want to live up to those expectations.

It wouldn't be enough for me, and it wouldn't be enough for a lot of people. And yes I'm female and we have 2 DC, and we've always had sex more frequently than that, with the exception of short periods directly after the birth of both.

thank you, that’s exactly my point! It’s not that OP’s husband just needs time to get in the mood. When given the choice, he actively chooses to avoid sex. That means he does not want it, and is going along with it out of this notion of obligation. Why would anyone want to have sex with someone who doesn’t want to be having sex with them?

Really? I’m not meant to feel a bit resentful that before we even got married I was honest about not wanting to be in a sexless marriage and all he does… as all he ever does… is say yes of course that’s fine.

can we go to counselling, yes of course that’s fine.

can we try and have sex once a week, yes of course that’s fine.

can you try and initiate it when you’re in the mood so it’s not always up to me, yes of course that’s fine.

Except actually it’s not fine because nothing is ever really changing.

It probably was optimism and hope that made me believe it would be alright but I feel entitled to be bitter about ending up in the sexless marriage I explicitly said I didn’t want.

To book an air Bnb and pack a bag feels a bit dramatic though. I don’t know if he’s just trying to show me he’s serious about it being a deal breaker where I’ve just seen it as an issue that needs watching/bit of work.

This sounds like why he's had to leave. You're not taking this seriously at all. You're only blindsided by the fact her actually had the balls to leave, I suppose.