Do all men want it all the time?

[Justaquestionplease]

DH and I have been together for 15 years...we probably have sex 1-3 times a week. Occasionally less, rarely more. I'd happily have more but I'm absolutely fine with this....he is also happy with this.

However all I seem to read on posts here, in the media and amongst other women is how their husbands want sex all the time and can't leave them alone. My DH doesn't want sex all the time. He is not constantly all over me. All these things I read now just make me insecure. Why doesn't he when all other women's husbands want sex all the time? Am I ugly? Is there something unattractive about me? Now I know objectively I'm not ugly... I'm conventionally attractive and still get chatted up by men if I go out. But I just can't help but wonder what is so wrong with me compared to all these other women who have rampant husbands? It really gnaws away at my self esteem.

So I guess my question is...do all men want sex all the time? If you're in a long term relationship is your DH more like mine? I feel like a freak as a woman.

@LastOnePlease @Justaquestionplease i don’t think it matters if you are male or female to be honest, the only thing i would say is that i don’t feel ashamed, for me i would describe it as a feeling of not knowing if you’re wanted or not, it’s not actually about the physical side of things, it’s more about the not knowing why.

If your partner sat you down and explained it or they had a physical disability that mean’t they couldn’t be intimate it would make it easier to understand, i think it’s one of those weird subjects where often intimacy stops in silence leaving people with more questions than answers and causes them to try to seek some sort of validation.

Yes I try to talk to him...I just ask him to tell me the truth but he thinks there is not a problem. I say to him, am I ugly? Do you find me hideous? He doesn't reassure me...he refuses to answer the question at all. So I'm left doubting. He is on medication for high blood pressure, I ask him is that the problem...I just don't know

I would class 1-3 times a week "all the time" 😂

If you're peri-menopausal and he's got high blood pressure, you must be 40s/50s?

Are you not allowing for age at all? Are you expecting him to keep up the level of sexual interest he had at 20? It's just not reasonable.

You're acting like he never touches you when you have sex multiple times a week.

You're not making it easy for him to talk to you about it if there was a problem, because you're taking it as a personal insult and being nasty about it.

FFS. So you ask him if he thinks that you're hideous. How, exactly, is he supposed to answer that in a way that would be acceptable to you?

Eg, if he said (what I suspect is probably not far from the truth) "No, you're gorgeous, but I'm not a fucking sex toy that you can switch on whenever you want and expect instant attention. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood. It's not a personal slight. More importantly your incessant neediness, pestering, unpleasant passive-aggressive comments and weird mind-games are seriously putting me off. I mean, yesterday you told me that you wanted to go off and fuck other men. How do you think that would make me feel?", how would you react to that?

I want him to fit the stereo type of the rampant always up for it man.

You get that that man likely doesn't exist thought right?

We're not a stereotype, we're humans. We have ups, we have downs. Sometimes we want sex a lot, some times we don't want it at all.

Those men you're thinking of, the ones who "always want it, 24 hours a day, will never turn it down". They only exist because they're the male version of you. They're not getting as much sex as they feel they need, and so they'll grasp at whatever they can get from their partner. If they had you as a partner, someone who also thinks they need it daily, then one or both of you is soon going to find that actually, you don't need it as much as you thought you did.

If the frequency of sex with your partner isn't good enough for you, then by all means leave him. But don't do it on the assumption that the next bloke is going to be any more frequent. 1 - 3 times a week is a good sex life compared to the vast majority of couples.You may look back wishing for the days with your current partner where you had a regular sex life.

You've been together 15 years. I think it's pretty normal for a man not to want it all the time 15 years in and/or when they get out of their 20s. 1-3 times a week is enough, there is no need for him to be all over you wanting more.

If my DH was asking them questions it would put me off him. I wouldn't want to reassure him either, I'd be telling him to get a grip.

Comparison is the thief of joy

@Justaquestionplease

Do you actually enjoy the sex you're having? From a place of no judgment your so focused on the validation sex gives you and the way you look that I can't imagine you can get out of your head enough to actually enjoy it.

Your fella will also feel this. I would imagine you take in every look, every thing he does, and interpret that also, which in turn will put pressure on him to perform, which won't be very enjoyable for him either,

I am pains to say it, but from my male prospective Id take a sexually confident, sexually open woman over looks every time. Obviously, if you can have both, that's a bonus, but the best sex I have had has most definitely not always been with the most conventionally attractive women.

Confident women happy in their own skin are hot. Also, I focus on quality, not quantity

Obviously I'm not going to go into detail about what I'm like in the sack...but no it's nothing like your description.

As for my confidence.. I'd probably be far more confident if i felt the man I'm with found me attractive.

It is actually weird looking back...when I first met him, he never ever paid me any compliments. He chatted me up, asked me out and all that but never said anything about what I looked like. Even at the time I remember being very confused and thinking it was odd. I'd had plenty of boyfriends prior to him who always would say how pretty I was or how sexy or whatever. I used to really doubt if he liked me from the start

Why oh why did I settle down with one who can take it or leave it.

Did you, though? Or has it ebbed and flowed since then?

If you do actually genuinely appreciate @CountryGirlInTheCity's post, read it again, because you clearly missed the point she was making.

It sounds as though you're looking for a way out of your relationship but I doubt this is the best way to go about it.

Thought I'd post an update

Well he went out the other night after work...he messaged me late saying he was on his way home...I decided to, very unlike me, take a photo of myself and send it to him... nothing too rude, just a bit suggestive of me in lingerie and wrote underneath it, can't wait till you get home. His only response was to message back with his age... I messaged back saying what do you mean...he said just remember my age . I was upset so he then messaged back saying he was joking and definitely wants it when he gets home. When he did get home we had a row...I was so upset that his first response to a suggestive photo of me was to tell me how old he was in an attempt to avoid sex with me.

Very childishly of me, today I purposely googled a dating app for married people and left it on my phone and "accidentally" left it next to him on the sofa. He just rolled his eyes at me.

You're behaving incredibly badly.

🥱🥱🥱

You’re right, that is very childish.

Grow up

If your husband was posting, I'd advise him to leave you due to your behaviour.

Being sexually coercive is not OK.

And there's nothing sexy or arousing about being pressured, nagged, verbally attacked, manipulated and threatened for sex, so I don't understand what you think you'll achieve by all this rage and spite.

If you're unhappy, if you don't feel wanted, if you don't feel loved - leave the man - don't do this. You can't possibly feel good about yourself after acting this way. Do you want to be this irrational, angry person? If this relationship is not healthy for you, get out of it.

Seek help with your mental health.

My DP says he’s never had a particularly high libido. He married his first wife without ever having slept together only find out that she didn’t want it at all.

I definitely have the higher drive of the two of us, but I certainly don’t think it would be different if I were more attractive. He still wants to hug and kiss me ALL the time, which is lovely, if a little inconvenient when I’m in the middle of doing stuff! But he’d be happy with once a week and can’t manage 3 days in a row.

Yeah that’s not cool. I get that you’re hurt that he rejected your advances but the dating app thing was a low blow. Have a conversation with him when it’s blown over to apologise for being so childish and suggest that his communication needs a bit of work if he actually did want to have sex when he got home.

It sounds like the type of thing my DP would do, or he’ll stop kissing me and say “we’ll miss the film!” etc like there isn’t an option to press pause. It does sting a bit but there’s better ways to deal with it.

You’re behaving like a lunatic.

Do you want this man to leave you? Then you can plop into the dating pool as a sex crazed perimenopausal middle aged woman in desperate need of male validation. I’m sure that’ll go well.

If this is real, get counselling.

It seems that you are very well matched in terms of libido??
Assuming the sex is good and you both feel desired by each other and satisfied, then I think you might be over thinking this!!

In my experience, the pestering tends to be when sex is inconsistent or drives are highly mismatched.

However, if you think your dh isnt showing you how much he desires you in the way yoh need, this is potentially something to discuss and change.

LTB

I haven't read the whole thread but I've been with my partner 14 years and once a week on Saturday was as much as he could manage, even then he frequently either couldnt get an erection or quickly lost it. We even tried Viagra which didn't really work. I would have liked to have sex about three times a week but that was never going to happen. I think he's been watching porn throughout the relationship and it has had a negative effect on his sex drive. Due to health issues we haven't done it for over four years now but still have a good relationship in other ways. He's not particularly affectionate and I just get a peck on the lips and a hug but I can cope with that as I wouldn't want a man pestering me or feeling smothered.