Loss of attraction in marriage or just burnout from carrying everything?

[DoubleBubbleNails]

I need to get this off my chest without any nasty comments or judgement please.

I'm fast approaching my 40's. I have been married for 11 years and with my DH for 14. We have one child together.

Things were great with us - especially with me - healthy intimate relationship etc. I had my daughter 3.5 years ago and she is Autistic. Since my daughter was born, my sex drive has completely packed up and gone - I have had zero interest in any form of sexual contact - not even the usual celebs that I would be like "oohh" for, there's nothing there for me! I've started to find my husband irritating at times through no fault of his own.

I've put this down to just being too much mum all day, and when it comes to night times, I'm running on empty.

I think it's fair to say I love my husband, but I'm no longer in love with him anymore if that makes sense?

So I've really focussed on this lately. He does little around the house in terms of food shop, cooking, laundry etc - it's all on me. He does feed our DD, but I cook the meal (our daughter is autistic and has developmental delays etc... we are on pathways with her and she is making great progress). We were on holiday recently and any meltdowns were handled by me. I would eventually get flustered and he would tell me that I'm too anxious and need to calm down, but he would do very little to help. Comments were made by people we were with, that he doesn't seem to help much. I spoke to him about it and he denies it. He does little in terms of nappy changes - whenever I ask him, it's always a moan.

I feel on edge a lot of the time as I feel everything falls to me to happen... If I stop doing the laundry - it wouldn't get done etc. It's tiresome, so I'm not surprised that I have zero sex drive. We have sex probably once every 3-4 months and it's me who makes the move as I feel bad for my husband that he would otherwise be in a sexless marriage.

Recently, I have taken up a new hobby. I am getting private 1:1 lessons and I find myself thinking about the instructor. I will say this now - there is absolutely no chance of me doing anything - I'm not like that, and I can hand on heart say, IF he were to do anything (which he hasn't and hasn't stepped out of line), I would shut it down, but it has had me thinking about my relationship. It's made me miss that whole butterfly feeling when meeting someone new, dating etc.

My husband and I have good jobs - we do have a good life. We are fortunate to be able to do good holidays a couple of times a year, do go to gigs, dinners out regularly etc, but it just feels like he's my friend now rather than my husband. It just doesn't feel romantic.

When I've tried speaking to him in the past about this, he says it's all on my side because he's still madly in love with me etc, but nothing changes in terms of helping out more. He spends most weekends washing the cars or doing things in the garden, but I just wish he would do more in the house to help me out a bit.

I just don't know what to do just now. The thought of leaving my husband hurts me, but at the same time, I yearn to have those butterflies again. I miss being turned on and wanting to have sex.

Am I being unrealistic and this just normal married life these days, or do I have a problem in my hands?

Edited for shoddy grammar...

I always say you should only leave if you are going to be happier on your own. Don't leave if it is because you think you will meet someone better or because you want the butterflies. That might happen but chanches are it won't. Might sound harsh but especially since you are a mum with a young child with a disability. It would be a lot for another man to take that on and who knows how involved her actual dad will be if he's showing such little interest now. I don't blame you for wanting to leave him, he sounds miserable and disappointing, but get to a place where you are happier on your own first.

Life can be hard at times.

Your instructor is probably used to some woman developing a crush. And will ignore it.

I wouldn’t leave to get that initial rush of lust - It fades. Life takes over.

Oh believe me, I'd never act on anything, plus I wouldn't even give him reason to suspect there's a crush.

I just feel another serious chat is needed, but I don't hold high hopes for him to pay attention to it...

Have you really spelt it out for him with him taking on more in the home and I'm guessing the mental load too? So he knows really clearly he needs to start doing the washing the xyz?

I'm likely audhd my child is diagnosed and my other two are likely adhd too. It takes everything out of me. I have a husband who if I reach burnt out will take over fully without missing a beat. He does more than his fair share even when I'm not burnt out. For me it's massively helped to keep the spark alive because we are connected and in it together. I'd still say my sex drive is massively effected by all the extra demands that additional needs throw up. But I do want to have sex so there is that.

If my husband wasn't pulling his weight or didn't "get it" There's zero chance I'd be having sex with him.

Would you consider your partner having therapy or couples therapy if he is struggling to grasp what you need of him?

I would absolutely do therapy... it's convincing my husband that is the big problem as just cause he's still madly in love with me; he can't see the problems.

I was in a similar position last year OP, two kids married for 13 years, together for 17.

Since the birth of our second child I had been asking then begging and pleading for more help with day to day tasks and the mental load. Things would improve for short periods - and I’m talking slight improvement ie cooking a meal a week, making the packed lunches, but everything else fell to me; all life admin, parties, buying gifts, medical
appts, food shop, kids when he went out or played sport, paying bills etc etc. I made lists, ironically adding more for me to do, I pointed out stuff that needed doing, asked him to use his brain. Nothing changed.

In the end I asked for a divorce. Despite being a solo parent 95% of the week I can honestly say I have no regrets. I have one less child in the house to parent and no one whose going to regularly let me down or take advantage of me. The resentment I had towards him over the last few years ruined any chance of reconciling for me. It’s all very sad but ultimately mainly of his making.

Resentment is very corrosive to relationships, and there’s a lot of it building up for you. I recommended fair play cards on another thread, which is a “game” where you each take the card representing a job you do. It includes the obvious chores, and also the invisible ones. It’s a very tangible way to show the unfairness in the labour division. There’s a book too. Another approach to the same issue is Sam Notice and Do But if he’s determined to bury his head in the sand, and ignore the problem, it may not be fixable.

Ester Perel wrote Mating in Captivity about the strain of trying to balance intimacy with familiarity. I’m not sure if recommending all these books to you is any use though if you have no time to read them!

There seem to be lots of women in your situation OP and I find it puzzling. If I had to do everything in the house I’d have kicked off loooong ago - I just wouldn’t have allowed that level of unfairness to establish itself as the norm. I don’t think someone (man or woman) can be described as “nice” or “kind” if they’re only willing to do 10% of the tasks that keep their life/house running (notwithstanding SAHP set ups) - the two things are mutually exclusive. If he has no initiative to work out what needs done (🙄) and do them without being asked, what does he say when you go eg “I’ve cooked the last two nights, it’s your turn” or “I’ve cleaned downstairs, can you do upstairs?” or “please deal with this meltdown, you need to get better at dealing with them so you can share the burden more” etc? If it’s straight no or moaning and you’ve laid out that this going forward is a boundary for you and you’ll potentially end up divorced and he still doesn’t improve his actions, I call bullshit at the “madly in love” line.

Unfortunately for the penny to drop you may have to contemplate divorce and ask him to leave. Unfortunately unless faced with real hard consequences many men don't change or understand the severity. Only when faced with hard consequences did my husband commit to consistent change earlier on in our relationship. Obviously its not a guarantee but either you lose the dead weight or the dead weight changes.

Look at your OP for how you describe his input to family life:

He does little around the house in terms of food shop, cooking, laundry etc - it's all on me.

...but he would do very little to help.

Comments were made by people we were with, that he doesn't seem to help much.

If I stop doing the laundry - it wouldn't get done etc.

My husband and I have good jobs

he's still madly in love with me etc, but nothing changes in terms of helping out more.

but I just wish he would do more in the house to help me out a bit.

Why do you see him not helping?
Are you seeing food shop, cooking, laundry etc as a woman's work?

Do you both work full time?

Your attraction to your instructor seems to me to be due to it being he's paying attention to you (as he should because he's your instructor), whereas your DH treats you as a housekeeper.

In what sense is he in love you with if he leaves you to do all the work?

This is not a rhetorical question.

Probably the reason he is in love with me...

Before you had a child did he do any housework?

Yes, he did so without being asked - particularly in Covid - he was cleaning constantly!

That’s not love.

I hate the term “helping”. This implies that even you think it’s all on you and if he lifts a finger, he’s helping you.

A grown adult should be pulling their weight with chores and parenting. This is your problem. You have two kids.

It shouldn't be "normal married life" that one person carries much more than the other.

Your husband not changing anything after you have explained how and why you feel that way is another problem.
Can you live in the same way for the years to come?
You deserve better.

In that case, you need to be brutally honest with him. Tell him that you are considering leaving the marriage, tell him that if he doesn't step up, start doing more around the house and/or go to marriage guidance counselling with you that you can't say you didn't warn him.

There was a bloke who came on MN a month or two back who was bemoaning the fact that his wife had done just that - warned him, told him about the problems, told him that he needed to step up at home and agree to couples counselling and she eventually left and he was devastated! So be honest - at least then if he doesn't step up and things don't change you can say 'I warned you this would happen'.

I would definitely look at redressing the balance in the relationship.

DH and I also included our kids in chores from a very early age especially our children with autism so that they could learn the day to day tasks that many grown men seem to struggle with.

As teens my kids would put away laundry and clean bathrooms, hoover, mop floors because they’d been learning to do it since they were tots so maybe try to involve your daughter too.

I’d be resentful as hell of your DH if I was married to him and I definitely would not tolerate his awful lazy toddler like (in my home at least) attitude to household responsibilities.

Thread after thread of OPs complaining that their partners don't 'help'.

Do these men get help in wearing their clothes or in eating food or in doing things like using the bathroom? They're not toddlers so why are they doing naff all housework and parenting and why are they being enabled?

Another here who thinks you need to change your vocabulary - using the word “help” suggests it’s just your job to parent your shared child. But it’s both your jobs to parent your shared child. It isn’t that he’s not helping; it’s that he’s not parenting.

And as for him being madly in love: as a PP said, if that’s true, why is he so happy to let you struggle on? Madly in love and butterflies - that’s teenage stuff. All being well, it evolves into a deep and mutually supportive love. That doesn’t seem to be what you have. Fatherhood seems to separate the men from the boys. Have you let him know that his laziness as a father is making you love him less?