Husband’s constant touching and comments are putting me off intimacy and making me feel resentful

[Thatneedyduck]

Hi all, please help!!!

Is there something wrong with me or is what I feel valid?

So my DH who i have been with for 16 years is great and I love him dearly but he is irritating the hell out of me to the point I don't even want to think about been intimate let alone be intimate with him!

I have some sensory issues and do not like been touched much, he knows this and tries to kiss me or hug me or feel me anytime he can or when we pass each other in the house, it really irritates me if im in the middle of doing a task or just busy and having to break of what im doing to passify him or sometimes I just want to be left alone, he can see the irritation it causes me and then jokingly tells me im being mean for not wanting to hug or kiss! While this is frustrating its not the worst of it for me, he is constantly telling me how beautiful or gorgeous my body parts are while trying to cop a feel as if to emphasize his words and the worst time he does this is when we are being intimate and he will sit back and look at me like he is viewing a top side of beef in the butchers and tell me how beautiful my a*e or fa*y is, I don't think I can put in to words how much of a turn off this is and how much I cringe and dry up quicker than a puddle in the desert! I have now got to the point where I am becoming avoident of him and situations I am not happy with, obviously this is not good for the relationship and my sex drive has plummeted to none existent, he is now doubling down like a horny teenager trying to give me constant affection and compliments which has made everything 10 times worse as all I do now is snap at him whenever he comes near me as I just feel like hes doing it just to get intimate with me. I also have some pain related health conditions which he knows about but still it feels like his only objective is to get me in to bed (it might not be but my mind thinks that way now) it now feels like a chore and if he's gone more than a week without intamicy then he sulks with me and i feel guilty. I don't know how to approach this with him without making him feel rejected and hurting his feelings as he is genuinely a great guy!

Any advice welcome please x

Yes I've never being very touchy feeling and since perimenopause it has changed how I feel now x

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. This man is actually abusive towards you. It’s no wonder you’re getting sick of him and no longer want intimacy. He’s revolting quite honestly.

State your boundaries very clearly, so he’s absolutely clear about what is acceptable. If he ignores you I’m afraid your marriage is over. 🌺

If you are concerned about hurting him and presumably want to stay with him, perhaps you could approach it as 'this is what I would like you to do instead' so he can still let you know how he feels but it's more focussed on what you want.

This can then be an easy way to approach what you DONT want. 'when you do that I feel like a piece of meat/you are only interested in sex' etc

Am I the only one who doesn't see this as him being a bad guy?

He clearly adores and admires you which is lovely.

You should speak to him properly though, and say you feel a bit touched out and to tell him to tone it down a bit.

His reaction should be complete understanding, if it isn't and he protests THEN he is a bad guy.

You aren’t abnormal OP, many women feel like this but don’t like to admit it because most still want the relationship - having discussed it with friends , none of our husbands/partners seem to go off it , although clearly some do as per posts on mumsnet -

Can u write it down and literally spell it out for
him? He is maybe just genuinely thick and not taking it serious how bad it is making you feel. Actually reading it in writing might hit
home about how much of the ick he is giving you.

I completely changed after giving birth too. My DH luckily is genuinely an amazing husband and he does love me to bits. However when he started pulling that kind of shit the thing that made it stop was me just completely snapping that is had enough. I wanted to be able to have a hug or a kiss without it being thought of as a prelude to sex. I was so fucking angry and probably was way OTT in my reaction but as OP has said, it literally does the opposite of what they intend. Thankfully my DH realised that it really was killing the intimacy for me and stopped doing it. OP I think you've just got to tell him straight up that he's turning you off him with the constant sex pest behaviour. Yes he might feel rejected at first but if he really does love you then he'll get over himself and change his ways. I hope you can find a way to stop it🤞

I get the same especially after a long day. Seriously just let rip and tell him know in no uncertain terms you need alone time. It helps to burst in flames of anger so he'll really get it. (It's a male thing they only understand) and assuming he is a great guy, then he'll back off and leave you to it. Hopefully then he'll work out the best times to approach you (or not).

Honestly, it explains trope of the older guy eyeing younger women though... i feel a little bad for DH sometimes but that's how it is.

I'm another one who dislikes being touched and groped , It contributed to me ending the marriage .

I felt like my body wasn't my own and I began to dread being near him . If you love him and want to stay I'd really try to have the talk , he will probably sulk but better than suffering in silence .

I think what you have said there is spot on, im having changes with my hormones which is changing me, as our sex life was quite spicy before so my husband is just doing the same he has always done but now its repulsing me so we need to find our new rhythm going forward. Thank you x

I still want the relationship with my husband, I just feel like what was alright and the norm for us before perimenopause isnt right for me now, we need to find a new way that works and hopefully we can have that difficult conversation and come out of it stronger and on the same page x

Thank you, I know he will be mortified to hear he's made me feel that way but I have changed and all the subtle hints in the world have not landed so just need to be open and honest and find a way that works for us both x

Thank you, think this is exactly the direction we need to go and have a good chat about things x

He really isn’t going to be mortified is he? You already told him to stop sexually molesting you at every opportunity.

He really doesn’t give a shit.

Maybe I need to recap the rules with him lol, he used to work away on wkends a couple of times a month so I used to have my alone time and miss him but due to his ill health he had to stop doing that so I think that has contributed to feeling suffocated, he still works an so do i but its not thw same as having a couple of days to yourself lol x

Only one way for me to find out and thats telling him x

Yes - I think many men find it hard to understand that you still like ‘them’ and care about them but you don’t have the same desire for any affection/complements/care to be constantly sexualised and it’s actually a turn off -

Oh he's thick alright lol, Im here replying to your comment and he's asking me how long to warm some f-ing custard up for in a microwave🤦🏻‍♀️ maybe writing it down is a good idea as I use to write letters in the beginning or our relationship to change things i didnt like x

Nothing wrong with you @Thatneedyduck I feel so sorry for you, and I think that quite a number of women have had (or still do have) husbands who are the same (or were...)

For a couple years my DH was like this... (When we were in our late 20s/early 30s... so like about 25 years ago...) I couldn't walk past him without him slapping me on the arse, and I couldn't stand at the sink washing up without him coming up behind me, grabbing my boobs and kneading them like a dough ball, or pinching my nipples, (apparently he thought I'd be hugely turned on.) Was I hell turned on! I found it irritating and stressful. I was like and then

He kept telling me to lighten up, and that I should be GRATEFUL that he fancies me. I couldn't walk from the bathroom to the bedroom without getting dressed first (well, putting my underpants and pyjamas on anyway,) because if I was naked, and he was anywhere near me, he would grab me and push me onto the bed for sex. He'd be like 'fucking hell I'm horny!' and just grab me. Thought it was wild and passionate. It fucking wasn't! He wasn't like this for the first 5-6 years we were together, he just went like it all of a sudden. It was so oddl

I did complain and protest a few times, but he went into a sulk, and said 'fucking hell, am I not allowed to touch my own WIFE now?' And 'God forbid a man is attracted to his own WIFE!' He got on my nerves so much that I started to put my hands on my bum when I walked past him, (with my palms facing outwards) so he couldn't slap my arse. I also (as I said) always got dressed while I was still in the bathroom, so he wouldn't see me naked, so he didn't have the chance to go 'PHWOARRH! and grab me and push me on the bed for sex.' And I started shutting the kitchen door when I was washing up so he couldn't come up behind me and grope my arse and boobs. I found it incredibly repugnant and off-putting, and yes he was a sex pest. He couldn't see it though. As I said, he thought it was a turn on, and exciting, and passionate, despite me telling him I didn't like it.

I started making excuses to not have sex: period, headache, feel sick, any excuse, and it got to the point where we only did it 2-3 times a month. We were only about 29-30. He started to become pissed off. I told him I was not attracted to him like I used to be, as he is a sex pest, demanding sex when he wants it, and groping me, and saying shit like 'no man's wife has such fucking fantastic tits as you!' and 'I love slapping your arse, you've got a fantastic arse!'

For some reason, he thought all of this, along with the groping, arse-slapping, and 'phwoarring' and grabbing me for sex by pushing me down onto the bed or couch, or pulling me on top of him and forcing his tongue down my throat was a turn on. All it did was repulse me.

After a couple of years of this, when he was just getting the cold shoulder from me, he stopped. He finally got it, that I found it repulsive, and was not turned on.

Why the FUCK do some men do this? It's disgusting. If he had not stopped, I would have divorced him.

.

To be fair you've been married a long time so you surely should be able to have a chat with him about this situation...it always amazes me with all the intimacy of sex we can't seem anle to just talk about these sort of issues...

It’s an important message, that we need to check in with our partners regularly and check the same things are still ok. Consent isn’t one and done, it’s an ongoing process.

If partner responds to various touches with enthusiasm and reciprocity, great! If they are swatting you away or saying stop it, don’t do that, not right now… then for fucks sake, stop doing it!

Don’t use the thing you read in a book/newspaper that ‘women really like/need compliments/to know how much you fancy their arse/tits…’. It’s not a one technique suits all!

@BatchCookBabe I'm 😱 at the you should be grateful. Cheeky bastard! I'm glad you finally got it stopped. It really is ridiculous what some men think a woman wants. Like how could we be anything but ecstatic that they want to grope us and fondle is at every opportunity. Oh and especially when the woman is doing something domestic like washing up FFS 🙄 They're completely oblivious aren't they? As I said in my post, me completely losing my shit is what stopped my DH and I'm so glad it did. It's a fucking awful way to live all the time. You know it's a huge problem when you're genuinely dreading your own husbands touch

I’ll brace myself for the hate here..
no, he should absolutely not be touching you up when you’ve made it clear it’s uncomfortable for you, that’s issue number one, no grey area there.
the other issue seems to be a mismatch in needs, he’s clearly a very tactile person and he isn’t wrong for having these feelings so I guess you have to consider if there’s a future for you guys with such apposing feelings on physical affection.

Yep - it’s a bit like I posted on the thread about what you used to eat as a kid , but just wouldn’t eat now, women change, hormones change, childbirth changes many women and yes stuff we used to be ok with or enjoy - we may no longer do so - but a lot of women don’t speak up I think for fear of rocking the boat Asa lot of men take it as a personal slight and lots of men it seems don’t ’check In’ to find out if you still like certain things

Grabbing someone’s body parts with zero encouragement constantly makes him a good guy?