How long have you gone without sex and it been ok?

[Griffinsgetsoup]

We've had loads of issues over the last few years, major health problems, kids, long-term breastfeeding and we haven't had sex in over a year, maybe close to two. Is it salvageable?
We've not been getting on and we're seeing a counsellor. The health problems have been awful and I know that I need to feel safe and happy to want sex. My body doesn't feel the same after two kids, pelvic floor is not what it used to be!
He has been trying to say let's have cuddles more etc. he is supportive but not really in an emotional way, just practical. He doesn't like talking about emotions much.
I don't really have much of a sex drive right now but still have solo orgasms from time to time.
I don't want to split up but I feel better when I'm on my own with the kids.
Has anyone had this long break and been able to reconnect?

Just adding I also think I am in perimenopause at 40 and hormones feel wild...

Haha tough question for me to reply to without having mine removed.

It wasn’t something aimed towards you, it was just a comment to a male poster.

16 years and we're both perfectly happy.

Glad to say I will never have to endure it again.

I wouldn't feel safe enough and attracted enough to someone who didn't like talking about emotions or had high emotional intelligence. Do you feel this could also be a factor for you op?

I think in my Marriage we could go years without having sex because we have such a good foundation of intimacy in many other ways. Sex for us is the cherry on the cake but we are both very happy with the cake on its own. With illness and children/stress it's been many months without before but our intimacy hasn't changed.

Is the counselling helping op? Sometimes you have to go through a few to find the right one. Is your partner engaging with the counselling?

He doesn't like talking about emotions much.

yeah this is what leapt out for me op. Sounds like you have tried from the ‘doesn’t like’. Life is emotion. Relationships are emotional. Him not liking talking about emotions is him allowing his emotions to dictate what he does and doesn’t do. But he has decided yours are too much?

my ex would shut down my emotional world ‘just forget this exquisitely painful thing’ not because he thought that was best for me, and us, but because he just wasn’t able, for whatever reason, to dig about in the real stuff under the bonnet. In the early days he was better but rather than all the things we’d been through in life expanding our repertoire he retreated into work and news and I felt frozen out and lonely.

I’m going to disagree big time. The only reason to have sex is because you want to have sex. No one is owed your body. It doesn’t matter how “important” it is to them.

If the choice is between having unwanted sex or leaving him, she should leave him.

Women have been conditioned into this vile notion that sex is just another chore that we owe men. It is not. And a man having sex with you when he knows you don’t want it, is actually a rapist.

I tried HRT but it gave me migraines so I stopped.
DH is leaving me now. He didn't cite that as a reason, at least not the main one, but it must be part of it.

I am really pleased to hear your relationship is healthy. It sounds really strong.
I do feel less attracted to him because of the emotional freedom or lack of. He often will say well don't worry about it or thinks I'm complaining and should look on the positive side. I do have a rich life and can appreciate things. I feel lost wondering if I am a negative person and complain a lot or if he is a bit insensitive to my emotional needs.
I'm not sure if the counsellor is helping yet. He engages with counselling.

How do you feel about the split?

This

I agree with you. I need that emotional connection and don't feel it's really working at the moment. I can't tell if I'm being negative or if he's not accommodating other emotions than the positive ones. I think he thinks I need to just get on with things a bit, which I do but I also have feelings whilst 'I'm getting on with it.'
He's a good man in the sense that I don't think he would cheat, he is reliable, supports practically. I worry about getting too lost in my own head and not just appreciating what I have.

I think life is just too stressful for a lot of women for it even to be consideration in the grand scheme of shit to handle day to day. In my opinion.

Heartbroken and devastated, but like I said, lack of sex isn't the main reason I don't think.

when you have solo sessions, what do you think about? Is there a way to bring that into being with your husband?
i think it helps to be a bit selfish with it, tell him your desires and use him for your orgasms to an extent, I’m sure he won’t mind and obviously I’m suggesting you do this in a respectful way.
Remember that sex is wonderful, it’s not something that women should give up on just because we’re over 40 or have kids. I’m nearly 42 and do it multiple times a week, despite being chronically unwell and having 3 children!
You shouldn’t just accept that you won’t or don’t want sex. And neither should your husband.

For the longest time so far is a year.. I’m Ok with it. I have no interest whatsoever and the last encounter was a little fling, it was fun but disappointing. 😆 I’m single and happy after years of having sex with someone I hated. He’s now my ExH and I couldn’t be happier! I used to feel really connected to my ‘H’ until I discovered all his lies and cheating.. we’d have sex often and it was great - but it never ever recovered once I was aware he’d been fucking around. I was then used as an object- zero connection! I left in the end 👏

3 months after both births which was probably about our max limit for both of us. Although I breastfed both of mine for 18 months so that was 3 years he was banned from that area during sex and he was respectful but not happy about it haha

It was a number of years.

similar story to @merryoldgoat

truamatic birth, disabled / high needs kids, post natal depression, weight gain, financial difficulties which saw us both working two jobs.

we had sex once to conceive youngest child but apart from that it was maybe around 5 years.

We weren’t even nice to each other. We were exhausted and full of resentment.

He ended up looking elsewhere and got involved with an ex girlfriend. It was video sex, whether they actually met up for physical sex I will never know. He says no, but there was a lot of lying and the trust has completely gone.

we are about 6 years on from it now. We have some support in place for eldest son now, and both have new jobs and just generally feel a lot better. We moved to other side of the country for a fresh start and it really made a difference. We get on well and have a good sex life, around 3 times per week.

But the spectre of the cheating is always hanging over us and the trust has totally gone.

I do, however, see how terrible it was for him to be living in a totally sexless marriage for all those years. But I don’t think he will ever quite understand how much I just could not have faced having sex at that time. I was at my lowest ebb and I don’t think he’ll ever have an understanding of that.

i Will say though, we lived very rurally, and with young kids, I felt hugely isolated, especially in the winter. There was no public transport, no neighbours nearby, and a 10 minute drive to nearest shop. We moved to a city in order to access more support for DS but it actually made a difference to every aspect of our lives.

i feel like i went so long without sex and the less i had the less i wanted it. Whereas the longer it went on the more he wanted it and the more desperate he got.

now that i am back having sex, i can’t imagine not having it for years and can see how awful it must have been for him.

what im saying is, if there’s some way you could improve / change your circumstances so you caN get your sex lifE back, I would.

While the trust has gone from our marriage, we would all be worse off if we had divorced due to lack of intimacy.

I think it’s fine, it’s not like you just stopped for no reason, or because you stopped liking each other, there are other factors and you’re both interested in working on it and fixing it now. You work on being intimate and closer again and this is a blip in a hopefully otherwise long happy marriage. No one sensible is looking back at 70/80/90 and thinking gosh I wish we had broken up in our 30s/40s. There was a few months/a year/2 years when we didn’t have sex due to young babies and health issues, and I wish I’d been able to shag around more then, instead of working on the marriage.

Re emotional connection, I wonder if he thinks agreeing with you about your feelings makes the problem more real, and it’s better to tell you there isn’t one so it doesn’t feel as big. It’s like when you tell your toddler it’s fine you’re ok, when they fall over, instead of agreeing it looked pretty bad. It’s not necessarily the right thing to do, but we do it anyway and sometimes it helps in the moment.

No one sensible is looking back at 70/80/90 and thinking gosh I wish we had broken up in our 30s/40s.

I can think of many dreadful marriages that were legally intact until death but dead/unloving for decades.

For me it wasn’t sex drive it was the ‘who’. Changed the partner and it changed EVERYTHING. You can’t flog dead horses.

I think you’ve taken what I said out of context or perhaps I wasn’t clear.
my meaning is that you can repair this issue. I don’t think sensible people who both care about their marriage need to break up just because of a period of no sex when there’s young babies and health issues. They are both actively working on the marriage and that’s a great sign they both care. This ‘blip’ of however long doesn’t have to define the whole marriage forever. Life is hopefully long and there can be many ups and downs.

I certainly do not mean you should stay in an unhappy, dead, marriage. But that isn’t what op seems to be describing.

I think you’ve misunderstood what I meant.

When I say try to have sex I don’t mean just lay back and let him have it, that’s why I added a caveat to explain what I meant.

What I meant by ‘try to have sex’ was to put in the work, with her husband, to talk about the issues, have counselling, work through the boundaries they both have, understand what is going wrong with the relationship. All of that with the goal of wanting to have sex.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I did try with the caps to try to emphasise that I was meaning try to put it right so that you want to have sex and that you feel secure and comfortable enough to have sex. Not try as in give it a go and just let him do it…that is never ok and would not solve a problem.

@Griffinsgetsoup just tagging you so that if you also were concerned that I was just saying get on with it that you know that’s not what I meant. @Sodthesystem is absolutely right that we should NEVER have unwanted sex, ever. And I wholeheartedly agree with you on that.

100% agree. I do worry that my judgement might be coloured by having been with a load of sex pests so far. But how do you start a dating conversation with how often do you think you would want sex? Once a month fine, maybe twice, more than that, no thanks, I don't want another thing to add to my household chores.

I feel exactly the same. Sex was always a chore with XH and it just fizzled out with current OH.
If anything happens to him I won't be looking for anyone else.

I worry about getting too lost in my own head and not just appreciating what I have.

what leads you to think that you’re getting lost in your head as opposed to just wanting clarity? Have you good reason for thinking this, in that you have history of ending healthy relationships? Has there been anyone who chronically invalidated your feelings in childhood?

@Boreded i totally get what you mean about ‘trying’ to do it. We started by basically scheduling intimate time to be naked and cuddle and kiss with no sex. We had just lost the sexual bit of our relationship for a while and both needed to remember what being aroused was like. I’ve tried when not 100% and sometimes I’ve said ‘nah’ and sometimes I’ve been surprised to want to carry on.

@Griffinsgetsoup

I had times when I doubted how attracted my husband was to me but I never once doubted his love, care or dedication to me, our family and our relationship. It was his lack of drive and his performance issues that really stopped us having sex but we always talked about it and how we might need further help to restart our sexual relationship. My DH is very happy to talk and discuss feelings and emotions. He is also an equal partner, excellent father, and we have masses in common. Without that foundation I suspect we’d not have managed to sort it all out.