DH and sex issue

[ChitterChatter1987]

Me and husband are late 30s and have 3 young children, youngest is 10wks old.All are lovely of course, but all very demanding in their different ways.

I have never had a very high sex drive (despite husband keeping going on about how things were 'different' with me in that department years ago 🙄) we are lucky that we conceive very easily.However since having children it has decreased more and more over time.I have been a mum for over 9 years now, both my older children have never been great sleepers, and out of that time have spent probably 18mths not breastfeeding which obviously does impact sex drive too, although that isn't the full story, as also I don't like being naked, having my body touched, and this has increased as i've got older.I'm abit overweight and have wobbly bits but don't 'hate' my body, quite the opposite as i think it is more amazing than before I became a mum, as it has grown and birthed my babies! However it does make me feel self conscious him touching me.
Sounds wierd i suppose, but I just feel like I have 'grown out' of sex, like me and DH have been together long enough that we just tick over, with abit of affection when time allows and I find connection through sharing experiences and conversation.I don't feel comfortable without my clothes on and find sexual acts and the mess etc all quite gross.

HOWEVER husband does not agree.
We haven't had sex much since before I was last pregnant....DS was conceived after just one episode of unprotected sex (which was great for me, not so much for husband!) During pregnancy I felt too tired by the time the kids were in bed.
We last DTD in April as we had a night away together (first since having kids) I know this is awhile ago, but there are very little opportunities other than 10/11pm at night when all 3 are finally asleep and by then I just can't be bothered with the faff of it all.
Now, i do still feel tired after having them all day (summer hols) and also i personally just don't feel comfortable doing it with DS sleeping next to us.

Husband tried to initiate sex when baby was 7wks (so I was barely past the point of even being able to HAVE sex going by NHS recommendations) I declined and he got all moody and started trying to guilt trip me which I didn't rise to and put him firmly in his place about.But same thing happened last night (baby now 10wks) when i didn't want him hugging me without a bra on as I know it would turn him on, and i want my boobs off bounds whilst breastfeeding which has always been the case so he knows that.He got all moody and actually said he feels like it's getting to the point where he doesn't want to share a bed with me and also he keeps calling me 'cold' which feels really unfair! I'm not cold i just don't want sex!
He says its not about 'getting his kicks' more the emotional connection, but then has said it's a 'physical outlet' for him which makes me feel used.
When I decline it he says things like 'well you're clearly not attracted to me then' etc despite me telling him on countless occasions that it's not that (i don't want sex in general, not just not with him)
I just feel like i can't be doing with his demands, neediness, pressure, making me feel bad etc and have told him that its putting me off even more.I will admit I don't kiss him much either, but that's because he then always wants it to become sex.He doesn't have any adults he is emotionally close to other than me which probably doesn't help but I feel it isn't my fault or job to pick up the pieces from that.
I say that it's not forever, but at the moment i'm just not feeling like it and won't be forced to do something i'm uncomfortable with, then he says all sarcastically 'No i don't want to anyway now it's fine, let's just forget about it' etc.
(Then brings it up again afew weeks later!)
We also have issues with contraception as hormonal contraceptives cause me to have PMDD symptoms so I have to avoid them, and he won't get the snip, however I want to use 2 methods doubled up now that we have both decided we have had enough children, as we are very fertile and personally I could never have an abortion. The coil is the only thing on offer around here that isn't hormonal, but ive had a couple of friends who had horrid experiences with it and have heard it's painful having it put in. To be honest, I feel like if DH wants sex so badly he should get a vastectomy and use a condom, as i would only really be doing it for his benefit...I feel like I could live without it long term if he wasn't fussed.

I get it's abit frustrating for him but I have no issue with him masturbating, and if the kissing etc didn't always mean expectation of sex, I would be more keen to show him more affection in other ways.I don't know how to resolve the situation.He is a great dad, practically hands on and a supportive and caring husband in many ways.

@ChitterChatter1987 and @busylizzie87 - my situation is not too dissimilar. This thread has been so useful. Some posters have had balanced, compassionate and genuinely useful answers that have served as bit if a wake up call.

Many have completely lacked any nuance and have mostly made me feel sad for the posters, but I've just ignored those.

This blind belief that he won’t cheat shows how you take him for granted and are minimising the importance of sex within a relationship. Maybe he won’t cheat, he’ll leave. Maybe he’ll become more and more miserable and resentful being forced to be celibate. Or maybe he’s already cheating. Ultimately, things can’t go on as they are indefinitely.
Would you consider an open marriage OP?

Firstly, are you seriously suggesting this perfectly reasonable man just sucks up the elements of marriage that he perfectly reasonably desires within his relationship? Only, you make no suggestion to the contrary?!

Secondly, the first part of your post is just utter bullshit. Women on Mumsnet who have the audacity to admit to enjoying sex multiple times per week (especially if they’re over 50), enjoy kinks, anal, or anything ‘out of the ordinary’ are routinely told they must be men or lying or in my case ‘gross’, ‘coerced’ or a ‘cool wife’.

Well he has to have a right to go if the situation is extreme, right? And this situation could be extreme for him.

But I can see there's a risk of coercion here, which would be wrong. Basically there's a paradox. On the one hand, surely if this guy is not getting the sex he wants, as a last resort he has a right to leave - but, he should warn her about this possibility before he actually leaves. On the other hand, it doesn't seem he can warn her without threatening a kind of harm. And that’s coercion (threatening a harm to incentivise a certain action). So it seems that in exercising his rights, he's doing a wrong.

So, how can he warn her that he's thinking of leaving without falling into coercion?

There’s a difference between a threat - I’m going if you don’t have sex with me -and a discussion - can we both talk in an adult way about how you see our sex life going forward at a time that works for you. It’s also how you frame it: I love you but I see marriage as including a sexual relationship and it’s too hard for me to carry on in a relationship forever without affection. Or, come on now it’s time we had sex, I’m fed up with you dodging it.

The OP has said she never enjoyed sex and was delighted that she didn’t take long to get pregnant because she didn’t have to have sex (she’s now saying that it’s because she’s grateful she could get pregnant but that’s not how the earlier posts read). There are a lot of women as well as men who enjoy sex and wouldn’t see a sexless marriage as a complete one.

I agree that just after having a baby is usually a time where women are less interested in sex generally and that’s fine and right to be respected. But to imply that he has to just suck it up and stay in a sexless marriage permanently is not reasonable in the sense that he has the perfect right to leave it long term. That doesn’t mean he has the right to sex or the right to demand sex but he has the right to leave the relationship for whatever reason as does the OP.

Yes, you have to avoid an aggressive tone. Plus, I can see there's a blaming element in "I’m fed up with you dodging it." which could be avoided if you say "it’s too hard for me to carry on in a relationship without sex".

But not sure that solves it. You can be coercive without blaming someone, so if one statement is coercive, then the other is, no?

I agree
my husbands ex was the same she didn’t think he would leave her because they had kids and they both wanted children

I think they were together from 18 -29 and he said that it was approaching his 30s he realised he didn’t want to go into his 30s in a sexless marriage

like a lot of people have said she was blindsided by him leaving even though he told her he wasn’t happy

and no - he didn’t have an affair and I wasn’t the other woman either

he left stayed with his sister for a few months before getting his own place

I think you can have a measured conversation without being coercive. My DP did this with me, and I have changed as a result. I make more effort because I do love him, he loves me and our lives are better with each other in them. Things ebb and flow, but on the whole, we have found a good compromise and I do think we’re both happier now. I’m glad he was honest with me, even though it was extremely difficult for both of us at the time. I think people have given the OP good advice. I was complacent and assumed he was happy because I was, but I was wrong. Don’t take him for granted OP. You don’t have to force yourself to do anything that you really don’t want to do, but you do have to realise it’s an important issue and potentially a fatal incompatibility for your marriage.

I know someone who left his wife and there wasn't another woman. He was just terribly unhappy and felt that he'd rather be unhappy alone for a while. Once he got used to it he found he liked it better. Women I know have done the same.

Right, interesting. So maybe it is about the tone, and about being concerned for your partner's wellbeing even though you're not happy.

It certainly seems your husband avoided coercion, somehow. I'm interested how though, vs the traditional definitions of coercion as threatening harm to get someone to do something. Maybe the difference is your husband's motivation - he wasn’t saying this in order to to get you to do something, since he'd have fully accepted it if you didn’t do it. Therefore it's not coercion.

Yes, he didn’t give me any ultimatums or anything, and he acknowledged this issue; i.e. he wanted to be honest about how he felt, but he didn’t want me to feel under pressure. It had been difficult for him to bring up (after a long time of being increasingly unhappy) for that very reason; he knew you can’t make someone want something they don’t want, but he couldn’t understand why I didn’t want it more often, because it was always great when it did happen! We then had some constructive conversations which really helped us understand each other better, particularly in terms of spontaneous vs reactive desire, which I think is the crux of it for us really. It may be more difficult for OP, as it sounds like there are other underlying issues there, but I think it’s so important to communicate. If one person is fundamentally unhappy, brushing it under the carpet is not likely to work out well long term.

This is why we should be cautious about importing safeguarding language intended for eliminating the risks of abuse, exploitation, and harm against minors and vulnerable individuals into the personal lives of adults. As you point out, it can sometimes inadvertently pathologize the mundane frictions of everyday life, replace negotiation with categorisation, and removes mutual accountability - none of which fosters dialogue, which is the route to maintaining a healthy marriage.

Would your opinion about him being able to leave change if the OP couldn’t have sex?

Marriage is meant to be in sickness and health- not when the man stops getting his rocks off.

Maybe I am just a more evolved person than some of the women here as I view sex a part of a relationship, not the be all/end all.

Ain't gonna do much more evolving without sex 😂

I'm not sure that's quite true, in that there's a big asexual movement and people know about asexuality. I do agree thought, that there's little talk about how libidos ebb and flow over the years, and also how things like the contraceptive pill, breastfeeding, peri and menopause also change these things. There's another thread at the moment on vaginal atrophy and I'd never heard of that til my late forties by which I'd been carrying on feeling more and more uncomfortable for about a decade during sex. Turns out this is quite easily remedied and there's lots you can do, from pretty easy 30 second a day pelvic floor exercises, to GP prescriptions for oestrogen, to just using a basic moisturiser suitable for that area. Much of this is taboo, and not talked about, and so people assume their libido is dead. It might be, but it might not. At least if we had conversations about these things and if everyone knew there were some solutions, you could rule that out.

It's also worth pointing out that men's libidos often change in mid-life and ED is pretty common at that stage, so the idea this is just a woman thing is false as well.

Well that would be a completely different conversation, but what a strange comment! That’s exactly the kind of toxic attitude that could poison a relationship - one person thinking their feelings/point of view are somehow morally superior to another’s. No one is better than anyone else based on how much they value & prioritise physical intimacy in their relationship. Everyone is different, with equally valid perspectives. In a loving relationship, you’d navigate things together with respect. Viewing someone with contempt because they feel differently to you is not an ‘evolved’ position.

Maybe I am just a more evolved person than some of the women here

Maybe so, if your evolutionary goal is hyperindividualism.

The evolved comment is in regards to the amount of people who say they’d end a relationship over lack of sex. Of all the things to end it over!

He knew OP wasn’t that into sex and yet had children with OP, which was likely to make it even less likely she’ll want sex.

Op is a person and yet the advice is telling her she’ll loose her husband if she doesn’t put out. So she either puts up with sex she doesn’t want or has her husband leave her. How sad.

There are women who “suck it up” when their partner has ED or they are crap in bed because they accept there is more to a relationship than just sex. Would you tell someone to blow up a life over the above?

Actually yes.

I think it's perfectly valid for a woman to leave a relationship if the sex is crap or if the sexlife ends & her partner isn't interested in reviving it.

It's up to her what her dealbreakers are, how much it matters to her and how she wants to live her life.

Op is a person and yet the advice is telling her she’ll loose her husband if she doesn’t put out. So she either puts up with sex she doesn’t want or has her husband leave her. How sad.

Whereas your advice to OP's husband is to suck it up because he should have known better. How sad.

What people are actually telling OP is that you can't expect to treat someone as if they are a friend rather than a husband, and still expect them to remain a husband.

Are you new to Mumsnet? What you describe here is completely standard advice.

And if a man came here and said he wasn't interested in satisying his wife, would you just tell him "That's perfectly fair enough -- she knew you were a selfish lover when you got together, so what can she expect?"

It's interesting because my experience is the opposite - I think in society in general, and especially on Mumsnet, women who claim to like sex are viewed with deep suspicion - the assumption seems to be that they don't REALLY enjoy it and are just pretending to to please men.

(This is not the case at all. I am a woman and I genuinely love sex!)

I also think you are wrong about kinks - I don't think anybody could for examples admit to enjoying incest and get a positive reception. Not that incest is a "kink" - it's a crime......

I think this is way more normal than people are making out. Women do go off sex.