Dad here. 44yo. My wife of 13 years weaponises sex, and more recently, touch. She always has to some degree I guess but it has gotten unbearable. She’s aware I have a need for touch and have a high sex drive compared to her. She basically keeps it from me in a controlling way. She knows I need contact like occasional cuddles too.
To start with (before marriage) we had more frequent sex and straight after marriage it seemed to be only when she had the desire to. My advances would be regularly and firmly blocked in no uncertain terms.
Since then things have gotten much worse, with certain acts being withheld indefinitely, and frequency diminishing more and more.
Now, we have vanilla sex only, very limited foreplay (again, her choice) and probably once a month or often less, for 20mins or less - only when she chooses, and when we do it seems to come with reluctance, and ‘conditions’ attached.
“Let’s be quick” or “we have a 10minute window” or “no not here” or “not like that”
She never talks about sex with me or has any reference to sexuality in our daily lives (literally never). She has never expressed any fantasy to me, much to my frustration. “I don’t have any”
Over the years basic intimacy like cuddling has been taken away. I like a cuddle at night and as I sleep, but this has eroded to even just the hope of a two minute cuddle before we sleep (only).
Just last night we almost had sex but when I started to gently play with her breast and nipple, she got visibly annoyed and shouted at me for doing it the wrong way. It was “too sore” although I wasn’t rough.
This lead to her storming out and preferring to sleep in another room rather than engage when I was trying to talk to her and express I feel she never has time for me.
Anyway, I was unusually angered at work today - just as much about the refusal to talk about it and the assumption she’s right (again), as about the no sex thing.
I decided not to go straight home after work for a change, opting to go for a meal by myself and then an evening showing at the cinema after and thought to myself I won’t talk to her during this time.
It’s now 10:30pm and I’ve had 6 texts and 20 missed calls.
What has my life become? I feel utterly unwanted and deeply unsatisfied and alone.
I still love her and find her very attractive but my awareness of all the other selfish sides of her and ignoring basically all my needs (I think deliberately) makes it like ongoing torture to want to continue on like this.
I’ve tried the communication thing repeatedly - both sit down and chat and also things like ‘couples quizzes’ and things like that. Each time I’m shut down quickly as if I’m the problem, it strangely that there’s no problem, or the issue is deflected and an argument about an unrelated topic begins.
Help and advice needed please! In particular from a woman’s perspective, thanks