Love my husband but feel like having an affair

[YourAquaLion]

I feel like the only person in the world to have this strange problem. Together over 10 years, have one 4yo son. He’s in his early 50’s, me early 40’s. I still think he’s gorgeous and fancy him, but since our kid was born things got very rocky. We had counselling which he hated as he considered the problems to be all my fault (and still does, I disagree, a relationship takes 2 people). We have been back on an even keel for almost a year now.

When our son was 2 he stopped sleeping thru the night and after a month of tag-teaming night wake ups with 1-2hrs spent putting son back in cot, I resorted to co-sleeping with son and husband went to spare room (of his own choice even tho large bed). Even tho now at school, our son still comes into me in the early hours every night. I’d like to work on him staying in own room over summer hols, but it seems cruel to foist this upon him while just starting school. Thats for a different post tho.

Husband will not ever start the night in bed beside me, and even when on the rare occasion we get a kid-free night, he still goes to the spare room. His reason is just that he’s too tired and just wants to go straight to sleep with no cuddle or chat, which is the thing that makes me feel loved, intimate and safe. He’s not too tired to exercise, do gardening or DIY, or work. The house and garden look lovely, but I’d rather live in an outdated house with a boring garden than him be so tired.

Daily, we have a kiss and a hug frequently, and in eve sometimes watch an hour of TV snuggled together and this is enough for him. I’ve told him (several times now) I’d like to be intimate or have sex more often. Last year I used to literally ask him if he’d like a blow job and he would say no he was too tired. In Jan it all came to a head and I said I’d have to ask him for an open relationship as I felt so rejected by him I couldn’t cope anymore if he was going to hold our rocky patch against me forevermore.

So now he doesn’t refuse if I say I’d like to be intimate but I have to book it in a day before so he’s not too tired. He never instigates it and says he’s just not that kind of person and won’t be ever. When we were first together we couldn’t even share a bed together without having sex we were that attracted to each other!

Are many men in their 50’s this tired with a young son? He is a fantastic dad who loves his son, is very attentive and plays with him loads, I have no doubts that I picked the right man on that score. He has a strong (too strong!) work ethic and good with money, kind, good sense of humour, we get on well most of the time, but why is he too tired to be my husband? I do the lion’s of the childcare organising/washing/schooladmin, I sleep every night with our son to give him a chance to have a good nights sleep, we both work full time and we both exercise a lot.

At certain times of the month (the pre period irritable ones! I get to the point where I think I don’t even want him to come to sleep beside me anymore. Or have sex with him. I just want to be wanted, and desired and loved in a sexual way. So if someone came along who I fancied, who also fancied me, I feel like I would just go ahead and have an affair. The problem is, deep down, I don’t want to have sex with other people - I just want my husband to want me! He’s the best at sex that I’ve ever had!

You can fill most husbandly-gaps with friendships, but not the sex one… maybe it is really now time to ask for an open relationship. We live in a nice house in a nice place and I don’t want to rip our child’s life apart. But I just can’t see this ever improving as he will just get older and older and presumably tireder and tireder.

Has anyone else come across this problem and does anyone have any other ideas about solving it? Of course I’ll talk to him again but he always uses the same reason - tired as he’s older than me.

Thanks so much if you even got to the end of this. I’d really appreciate some other opinions and insights. Sorry if I don’t reply immediately, I’m going to sleep now so I’ll check tomorrow. Thanks very much if you are awake and happy to advise! I don’t know any other woman in the world with this problem - my other girl friends are the ones not wanting the sex while their husband always does. Maybe I should borrow one of theirs… joking…

Whatever you do, dont have an affair. There's no going back after that. If you're a moral person, the guilt will become all consuming and eat you up mentally.
If the relationship isn't right then talk to him to see if there's any chance of making it work. If not, you separate.
If you cheat, you'll end up in a shit storm bigger than you can ever imagine. Colossal hurt for everyone involved, destroyed lives etc and you'll end up separated anyway.
If you love this man at all you will just be honest with him.

Please don’t have an affair. Worst case scenario is that you’ll lose someone you love.

You’ve become sexually incompatible.

Realistically, I think you need to work out for yourself what you want from your life. I think a minority, a small minority, have it all: sexually compatible, intellectually compatible, financially compatible, socially compatible, culturally compatible…all the things. Are you ok with having all the compatibles except this one? Or is this one so huge to you that without it the others are jeopardized or meaningless or simply not enough? Bear in mind, you’re thinking for two here, you and your child. You both are: this is a conversation you have with yourself before you have it with your husband (imo).

I should imagine loads of people are in the same boat with kids who don’t settle.
it is hard when kids are little and there is a transition from couple to family and some stuff has to take a backseat
I’ll be honest he sounds like a good man who’s just exhausted I absolutely wouldn’t have an affair - there is more to life than sex and good men are in short supply!

The one sentence that jumped out at me was: We had counselling which he hated as he considered the problems to be all my fault (and still does, I disagree, a relationship takes 2 people). This is a HUGE red flag. It suggests he won’t take accountability for his own actions and chooses to blame you.
My marriage was very similar. We ended up in separate beds for different reasons and he used it as an excuse to withdraw affection from me. We reached a point where we never spent time tougher. I think in the last year we were together we had sex maybe 4 times..even on holiday we didn’t share a bed (he had the single and DC shared with me).
I think if you’re fantasising about an affair, it speaks volumes about your marriage. I’d suggest individual counselling for you to work out what you really want. An open marriage won’t give you what you want. You want affection and intimacy from your H. It’s lonelier in an unhappy marriage than being single, believe me.

You’ve done all you can and he won’t make any changes or take accountability, you’ve also warned him of the direction things will go. I would ask for an open relationship officially rather than have an affair though to make sure it’s informed consent - like re contracting your marriage vows. Then get dating! I’m young ish and single and I haven’t met anyone I want to have sex with for over a year tho!

This.

My late husband's ex apparently wanted to know what it was like to sleep with another man. Well, she found out.

@YourAquaLion - unfortunately what you are experiencing is not unusual. And many men do become this way after 50, and it'll only get worse, as you already suspect.
Most men in early 50s do not have small kids to deal with, in addition to dealing with aging. So - this does not help.

What can you do, as you clearly have a higher libido atm, and have more energy as a younger person, even as you do more of the childcare?

Well - the pattern you fell into as a couple is not easy to change. He got used to sleeping on his own in a different room. Many people actually prefer it this way.
I think change works better if it's slow and done by nudging - rather than by forceful statements and ultimatums.
Have you tried joining him in the spare room, just for cuddles - and without pre-booking? Not necessarily to have sex there and then - but more to start re-building some of the patterns and experiences of togetherness before falling asleep. Who knows - maybe this would help bringing you closer so that you can start feeling a bit more sexual.

In addition - if he is always tired - he may have had a drop in testosterone. It's not an easy topic to bring up with him - but NHS does offer a health check for over 50s - maybe worth for him to do it?

Finally - I'd stop with talking about "opening up a relationship" as it does sound like an ultimatum. And in reality - you said you don't want to sleep with other people. So - it seems the only reason you bring it up is to force/shake him into something.

Try a different strategy, maybe? Not the counselling - where he is supposed to realise the error of his ways. In my experience - men hate that sort of thing. They are not big on questioning themselves or changing. But you can easily nudge them in the direction you want them to go - if you understand how they work and what makes them click.

Thanks so much, this is really good advice. I don’t want to have an affair but I feel like it would be very tempting if the opportunity presented itself. I’ll talk to him again. I just have talked to him so many times and nothing changes. He doesn’t seem to mind that this is a deal breaker for me in a relationship.

Thanks so much, yes I think you’re right. That’s why this is so difficult - everything else about him (well, mostly! You can’t have it all as we all know!) is really great and I’m lucky to be with such a nice guy who I still fancy after all these years. I just don’t think I can go on feeling so unloved. I’ll have to speak to him again.

He is, you’re right. I just really enjoy intimacy and it’s kind of a dealbreaker for me in a relationship. I didn’t sign up for a sexless marriage. And I also find it hurtful that he has enough energy for gardening, DIY and exercise but not a 20 min quickie.

I think it totally depends what the "rocky patch" actually was. Picking up on a couple of things you've said, it sounds like the "rocky patch" was actually something you did to him. A betrayal? If that's the case, you don't seem to be taking much accountability and it's coming off a bit "he should be over it by now - my priority is to have sex, and I'm willing to throw my family away to get it".

If the rocky patch was more of a mutual period of not getting along and being able to reconcile different viewpoints, then that shines a totally different light on things. Although having an affair is still a terrible thing to do and won't solve any of your problems.

Thanks very much, I feel like you understand my situation. I don’t think he will ever understand why I became so stressed out and unhappy after having our DS and he seems to not want to forgive me for turning into a massive bitch for like 2 years! I have fully admitted that it was hard and I didn’t deal with it super well, and apologised several times, and asked him if that’s why he doesn’t want to be intimate and is he punishing me this way - I think he defo was last year and just couldn’t bear to be with me in that way, so when in Jan I cried and said I can’t be in a relationship that is unhealthy for me and if it’s going to be like this forever then I’m going to have to leave it, he seemed to accept that and we seem to have moved forwards this year. Maybe he needs more time to recover from this. I have been having counselling myself too and it’s helped a lot, so that’s good. And maybe it’s why I’m paying attention to my feelings more now and saying I have a valid point in being upset about our current situation. He thinks I shud be fine about it because he is.

Thanks for replying! I hope you find someone soon! I really don’t want to go dating, I just want my husband to want me. And now I’ve read an article about how people are using Chat GPT to connect with people on dating apps it all fills me with horror! I’d be more likely to explore an old flame or something like that.

He has to work and someone has to do gardening and diy. Do you share that with him? Has he seen the gp about his tiredness in case he has a medical problem?

You are prioritising sleeping with your child over your husband, maybe he also feels unloved. You both need to do some work on this marriage if it continues and you start by getting your son to sleep alone.

I’ve answered this in a different reply but it was post natal depression after having our son. My career went down the pan while he got a new job. He never stepped up to do his half of the childcare while we paid the bills 50:50. I was constantly stressed and triggered about abusive parts of my upbringing which really came out in my relationship with my son. Husband also had a health scare that I did not have the bandwidth to be supportive enough about. I’ve apologised many times for this failing too. I know I let him down there, but I also feel let down by him and I’ve put it behind me. I’ve had counselling myself to address all these things. I would never cheat on him - I just said it would be tempting and I feel like it due to how it is between us.

Oh thank you this is very good of you to suggest all these helpful things. I will give each one a go, it does sound like much more like what would work with him. I have tried going to his room but he genuinely just wants to go to sleep and I do not feel welcome there at all! I just feel like a kicked puppy. And I’m kind of sick of it.

I’m glad you understand his experience of the counselling tho! That seems to be exactly how he felt about it! I will suggest some testosterone for him.

He’s a tricky person to help - he has now said he doesn’t want to eat an evening meal too - he sits at the table with us but he eats at different times or grazes throughout the day and I kind of think maybe if he ate more healthily he would also be less tired.

thanks for your advice!

He’s checked out of the marriage.

I think it’s time to put a stop to it while your child is still young.

It’s no way to live.

I think you need to prioritise getting your DS to sleep in his own room. It’s half term soon. Could you do it then? Waiting until summer is a very long time.

It sounds like your husband resents your son sleeping in your bed. A lot of men feel pushed away in that scenario.

I'm sure there's more to it but that really jumps out.

No one has to do the gardening to the extent he does, it’s his happy place though. And he is the one who wants the house to look like a show home so he has a vision and plans for it. I help where I can in the evenings but it’s impossible to do either of those things when our child is about, so my part of the teamwork is to take him away from the house for days out or weekends with my friends or parents. I’m fed up of solo parenting and never doing stuff as a family.

It is definitely him who likes to sleep separately and not me prioritising our child. Although you do have to prioritise kids I think! He can't sleep with him in the bed so I have to do it. I’d much rather be sleeping with my husband.

Could he be scared (on an unconscious level) to have Another baby?? Is he avoiding sex as it could end in a pregnancy and the PND issues arise again?
i wonder if rather than asking him for sex the day before, could you look at making sex a scheduled event twice a week? It sounds unromantic, and to be fair it is. But it is also practical and can be a nice anticipatory build up where you could encourage him to maybe message you during the day to build up? What worked before when you said you couldn’t keep your hands off each other? Maybe suggest showering together before bed? Or pop through to “his room”? If your son has commandeered the bedroom, you are now seen as “mum” there. And “mum” is who hurt your husband badly in the 2 years of PND- so he has withdrawn from “mum” but still wants “wife” or says he does. This split is common sadly for many men following the birth of a child.
The affair is not the answer, and you know that. But equally he can be expected to listen to you and make you feel more attractive to him and if he genuinely IS “too tired” he should see the Dr. FWIW my husband was 45/49 when we had our youngest two and I often coslept and was BFing etc. So sex was a bit sparse but we made efforts to keep it regular enough to have that connection and he’s now late fifties and definitely not too tired for sex so it isn’t an age thing at all.

Thank you so much, this is super helpful also, really great. I have asked him to go and see someone about his tiredness and how to sleep better but he says he’s tried everything and it’s pointless. It annoys me because he drinks a whole cafetière of coffee every single morning! I’ve suggested this might not help but apparently once 7 years ago he cut it out for 2 weeks and it didn’t make any difference so he isn’t willing to try again and this is just how it is.

I have asked him whether he is worried about having another baby but he says not. It took us years and a miscarriage to have this one so we’re not very fertile together it seems! We also can use protection obvs so that solves that issue. He refuses to have the snip as he knows people who have had complications from it.

I've name changed but have posted before about being in a similar situation. You are not alone. We have been together for nearly 20 years, teenage children. Same ages and age gap as you and same mismatch of desire.

We have had long conversations. He'd be fine if it never happened again whereas I'm devastated. Things have improved though after the conversations. We're now around every 6 weeks which I can live with given how good everything else is.

Have been extremely tempted by affairs but instead channel my excess energy into the gym, exercise, strength training, long walks, and work.