Wife no longer interested in intimacy

[Parker1984]

Myself Male 40, wife 44. We have been married 13 years and together for 20 years, we have 2 children aged 14 & 10.

Basically my wife thinks any sexual activity once per month is enough and has no interest in anymore (note it probably is closer to 3 weeks as an average & it becomes a problem after a month without for me) We have this argument every 6 months or so after she is reminded its been over a month without and its not fair.

I get told if i dont like it find someone else, which just to clarify i haven’t and never wanted to. Her responses are im unreasonable to want it 1-2 x per week as thats not normal.

We have a fairly comfortable lifestyle, she works part time 3 days a week which is her choice and she doesn’t need to. I do the majority of the school runs & we share out the cooking. Also i do all the kids sports clubs in the evenings and weekends. We have a cleaner for 8hrs a week (Monday & Friday) so the house is never really untidy and she doesnt have to do much (this added for the people who will say i dont do enough).

I am made to feel like there is something wrong with me for wanting sex 1-2pw & that i am the issue.

This has been an ongoing issue since second child 10 years ago. She did try many years ago to go for tests and hormones. All came back normal & stopped using that as an excuse to not want it.

I am now at the point that i think i am going to leave. So frustrating

The thing is, when it gets close to a month without sex and you "have the argument" as you say in your OP - what you're really saying is that you want her to service you in the full knowledge that she doesn't want to. You want her to perform a sexual act she does not want in order to avoid an argument, ie your anger. That's unacceptable and it certainly won't make her desire you any more.

Do you actually want sex with a reluctant woman? Because that's the best you can expect by arguing and sulking about the lack of sex. You have the right to leave the relationship if it doesn't meet your expectations, but you don't have the right to erode her boundaries or pressurise her to do things she doesn't feel.

Unfortunately that is not the case

Can only speak for myself but I had a v healthy libido until after I had three DC under 5 years old (bloody hard work).

When youngest was about 6 months old, my DH (very unwisely) had obviously decided he wasnt getting enough and started to keep count of the number of days inbetween 'sessions'. What a bloody turn off that was. It really didn't help and probably delayed my drive coming back years because it dawned on me that this was another job expected of me and everything sex ever was to me, died there and then.

Just because my libido had tanked, didn't mean it had disappeared. It just needed resurrecting and some patience!! Last thing I needed to hear was "we haven't dtd the deed for 19 days and I'm horny".

Speaking for myself and I'm sure billions of women, I need to feel close or a desire to be close my partner in order to want to have sex with him. If my DH had said to me, "right sex is off the table, you're not getting any! I just want to spend time with you, cuddling you, laughing with you, strengthening that bond we used to have with no pressure," he would have seen me respond a whole lot sooner than he did.

I think it's worth sitting down with her and suggesting it. Tell her you miss her but you respect her too much to ever feel she should have sex with you just because that's what you want so you're taking it off the table, and would just like to spend time with her, maybe give her a massage with absolutely no pressure. Woo her again. You've got nothing to lose by trying this. Best of luck OP

OP, do you know what Unwanted Consensual Sex is?

You said you did/do lots of reading about the issues surrounding your problem, but your responses here make me suspect that you're only reading - or absorbing - the messages that validate your feeling of self-pity that you're not getting your leg over as much as you think you 'deserve'.

Read up on unwanted consensual sex.It lies between true enthusiastic consensual sex and coercive rape. It can have serious detrimental effects on the mental health of the person who is having it.

Either your wife is genuinely happy with every 3 weeks. Or she thinks that if it's just every 3 weeks, she can tolerate the impact on her mental health - because she knows that if she doesn't surrender her vagina, you'll get stroppy, self-pitying, and martyrish and threaten her comfortable life.

From the way you have been talking here and responding only to the posters who validate your self-righteousness and self-pity, I think the latter is true.

Look you need to ask for a trial separation

See if that gives her a wake up call

Or she should see a sex therapist on her own

Give her a wake up call to frighten her into sec with him?

Sexual intimacy in a committed long term relationship is an expression of desire, love, respect and is a response to external factors in the relationship. If the relationship has genuine communication - verbal, physical, emotional, sexual - than enjoyable sex will be a natural progression of this (unless there are health issues).

From what you have said, you don't have this relationship with your wife. She seems to have no interest in such a relationship with you. Therefore a satisfying sexual relationship with her is unlikely.

Without knowing her opinion on all this it's impossible to give practical advise. From what you have written, it ain't going to get any better and will most likely get much worse for you. That means a dead bedroom, zero communication, no physical or emotional intimacy. She may want this (that's her choice), you'll be living with it.

Wake up call for what? She's content with 3x a month sex. Him blackmailing her isn't going to increase that.

If he is not happy with 3x a month sex then he leaves.

I've been your wife in this situation and believe me it's horrible, if she really has gone off you sexually then it's going to be very difficult for anything to change that. It's a big no-no word on here but the 'ick' definitely describes it well. Doesn't mean you're suddenly a horrible person or you've done something really wrong either, but even having the slightest sulk/moan about not getting sex is the very worst thing you can do. It's just awful to feel like the person who loves you feels so entitled to your body and is willing to make you feel shit cos they didn't get it

The ONLY way past this is for both of you to have a proper open and HONEST conversation about what you both want, if she says she doesn't want sex then you have to respect that and make your choice to stay or leave.

You are NOT entitled to sex with her just cos you're married though, no matter what, you are entitled to leave or stay, end of!

@Muthaofcats
@JimHalpertsWife fe
I suspect “wake up call” relates to how disinterested she is in resolving the fact the relationship is not functioning.

He is being ineffective at communicating just asking about the one thing that is bothering him.

But he clearly is also is useless at communicating too. This is clearly a major issue in the relationship and simply saying “go find someone else” is not effective communication, I don’t think anyone on here would be taking a comment blurted out like that as permission to cheat. If she really knows she has lost all interest and is only doing so out of obligation (as so many here assume) then she needs to communicate that in a serious manner.

They can then have the conversation about if she would actually prefer splitting up or she really is fine with him having another woman too (and presumably how that would even work).

Both of them need to actually engage with the issues here. @Quitelikeit likeit was obviously referring to people taking it seriously not some threat. If you have to take an excessively uncharitable interpretation perhaps reconsider how useful any contribution is going to be.

Maybe she's getting sex elsewhere.....

My husband went off sex at 45 due to poor health, he told me find someone else for sex but didn't want me to leave him. I did and have an arrangement with an old friend, it worked well for a few years but my fwb now says he has feelings and wants more so it looks like I will have to end it with him. I don't fancy trying to find someone else to do this with so it looks like I'm back to a mostly sexless life sadly.

just gong off my own experiences, how’s your personal cleanliness? Do you brush your teeth regularly, ie everyday twice a day, do you use deodorant? Do you ask her if there’s anything wrong, would she like to talk about it? Could you both (ask her) go to counselling to see if it would help? Maybe she’s starting the perimenopause,and she may need to see her gp. That would explain the lack of interest on her side, some women do go off sex, it can come back but you, as her husband, have to be understanding about it.

@schtompy that's the thing isn't it - on posts like this we can only go off words and one side- it may well be the posters wife simply no longer fancies him in that way , however does care about him and likes the lifestyle. I'm sorry if that is indeed the case but it's quite common and it's bloody hard mentally having to have sex remotely regularly with someone you simply aren't attracted to in that way , however much you may like them

People have different sex drives. It doesn’t make someone ‘boring and spoilt’ if theirs is lower than their partners, what a weird thing to say. If anything I’d say it’s op who sounds like an spoilt child since ‘she is reminded its been over a month without and its not fair’ is something he actually seems to think is a reasonable thing to say to his wife.

If she doesn’t even like kissing then what’s the point? She either doesn’t fancy you or just isn’t into intimacy at all. Time to get your ducks in a row and then find someone else.

I also just think women are conditioned to swallow their own needs in favour of their children; so they get used to repressing that side of themselves because they put the kids need for a stable unit first.

Running a home whilst working and raising kids with another person is hard going and can naturally dampen passions even of the most compatible couples. But am I seriously going to blow a hole in my kids lives (making them move house, schools , leave friends etc) jus because I’m missing that physical input?

I just think social conditioning has led to a status quo where women are better at tolerating not having their needs met and ignoring their own instincts to survive than men. Which is why OP’s complaining that it’s unfair is being given short shrift here because you don’t find us doing the same…

Are you sure she’s faithful to you? Absolutely, unshakeably certain?

A few people have suggested she is cheating and I think this is an unnecessary reach, and likely to make the Op paranoid and further erode intimacy. It’s most likely that the blind spot for her needs or experience that is apparent in his posts is to blame for her disinterest. As I’ve said in previous posts; most women are committed to maintaining the family unit at their own expense so whilst I’m sure some women cheat; that’s not the experience I see of the women I know. They’re more just sucking up their own disappointment for the sake of the children.

One more time for the people at the back

the OP and his wife ARE sexually intimate, on a regular basis

It just so happens she wants it every 3 weeks and he wants it weekly+. There's no official amount of sex that a healthy marriage should be having, instead it should be a frequency which both parties accept.

In this case, he wants more. She doesn't. The ball is in his court as to how to proceed, but this is not a celibate marriage this is not a sexless relationship

Maybe the op got a bit since he’s disappeared from the thread 😂

Exactly.

Bar a few select posters, the majority of responses here are unbelievable.

The Op is 40, his DW is 44, so not old at all.

As a few others have correctly noted, if this was the other way around and a 40 year old wife wasn't getting much sex, she'd be told to leave, told he's having an affair, told he's addicted to porn and told not to waste the best years of her life in a sexless marriage....

Yet when a man comes on here, it's almost always his fault, always victim blaming and assuming he's a shit husband and it's nothing to do with her sex drive but instead its all to do with him.

Sex with someone you love, and have loved for many years, once in every 3 weeks in not acceptable in most marriages. I can guarantee, before OP and his DW got married, sex was much more frequent, and as soon as the wedding cake was eaten, and the kids were born, her job was done and suddenly sex comes off the table.

once in every 3 weeks in not acceptable in most marriages

How can anyone actually say this though? We all measure normality based on our own experience, and no one knows what other marriages are like.

@smithey855 victim blaming? Who's the victim? I'm confused.