Boyfriend not sure he wants to marry me

[FtmS0ph]

Me and my boyfriend are both 29 i'm 9 months post partum and had quite a traumatic birth which has taken me months to health from.
In those 9 months me and my boyfriend have hardly had sex, mainly because my libido has completely gone and my hormones are still not back to normal and i've only recently started feeling like myself again.
Yesterday we were talking about marriage and he said he'd been reading something about sexless marriages and that they always end badly and then he said that he hasn't asked me to marry him yet because we don't have sex and that he's not sure if he wants that for the rest of his life.
It obviously upset me because for the first couple of months he was really understanding about it but now it feels like he doesn't care, i've also tried explaining to him why I don't feel like it but it's like he doesn't understand. I really don't know how to feel about this and I don't know what to do. I love him a lot and want a future with him but I feel like I don't have much of a choice in this.

Where did she say she may never want sex?

Nowhere. Why do you ask?

It is however possible so he’s right to wait and see before making any kind of decision.

You said : But equally he's thinking about whether he truly wants a future with someone who may never have sex again.

Why would you assume she may never want sex again? Why would he be thinking about that? Op has never said she may never want sex again, infact she said they are having sex but not a lot because she’s only just starting to feel like herself again!

Not feeling like sex currently is Not the same as ‘may never have sex again’

She may never actually want sex though so he’s right to wait and see if their sex life improves before making a decision.

There were no assumptions.

He may well be thinking it incase it happens.

No, the OP didn’t say it.

Not sure I can make my post any clearer.

The pill decreases circulating levels of testosterone in women.

They don't tell women that, do they? Most GPs are clueless about it, so don't expect them to respond well if you mention SHBG and free testosterone. Testosterone doesn't translate to increased libido in all women, but it does relate to positive mood and sexual sensation.

Also, if you're on the mini pill, your body basically thinks it's pregnant all the time. You're not getting any high or libido as a result of ovulation. That's on top of birth injury history, breastfeeding, and tiredness of looking after a baby. No wonder you're not really feeling like it.

That aside, was your baby an accident? Because if not, your charming boyfriend was perfectly fine using your body like a slot machine / genes incubator without giving you the security of marriage, and that makes him a calculating user in my book.

I don’t think either of you are wrong. You said originally that you have hardly had sex in 9 months but later say that you do have sex just not regularly. I think it’s difficult to say whether your partner being unhappy about your sexual relationship is unreasonable without proper context.

But I will say it took me almost two years to get my libido back after all my children. I also barely had sex with my DH in that time so I’m not judging you, I completely understand. Right now you are totally justified on focusing on healing your body and your young child who needs you the most. If your BF is pressuring you to have sex or moping and sulking about it, it’s a red flag and won’t get better once you’re married.

If he’s not made you feel bad until now, then I equally think he is right not to get married when a key part of your relationship still needs work. That doesn’t mean you need to rush to ‘fix’ it as long as you both agree that you want to get there and to get married in the future.

A time will come where you will feel back to yourself and you can connect with your body again. In the future your baby will also need you less. When that happens you can begin to focus on intimacy with your bf. Not because he’s sulking or refusing to marry you, but because you want the benefit of the connection it brings.

Can’t believe how many people think 9 months PP is a long time. It really is not after birth!!!

I also think more men need educating on pregnancy, birth, hormones and the post partum period!

A few of the messages on here are wild!

Op just like your partner, they can fuck off.

And to the poster saying 9months is a long time and everything should be back to normal is just being a bloody troll.

In the long run, if your sex life is still nonexistent then one or both of you have every right not to be happy. But fucking 9months after you've given birth is not long at all. He sounds unsympathetic and honestly I would tell him to sling his hook. Especially, as he could definitely do more to ease your workload at home to make you feel less tired.

I’m really surprised at the people saying 9 months is a long time. Especially with a traumatic birth. It took me two years before I got my sex drive back and from the conversations I had with my peers and health professionals at the time (this was 30+ years ago) this wasn’t particularly unusual.
We certainly didn’t consider it our responsibility to push ourselves before we were ready. The bloke I was with at the time did push, and I capitulated occasionally just because I thought I should and it was good for the relationship and all that crap.
Unsurprisingly he’s now my ex of many years past - the reasons were many.

Not all men are like this. Some men are decent, intelligent and can just about compute that the mother of their child my not be particularly up for it while she’s recovering from trauma and in the weeds of parenting a baby.

I wouldn’t talk to him about marriage any more, and don’t force yourself to have sex if you don’t want to, that is never really ok.

If he was decent he would be making the most of just sharing affection with you, without putting you under pressure, and dealing with any frustrations using the time honoured method of new fathers everywhere.
When are you due to go back to work? I would be making it a priority to ensure you can be financially independent at some point in the future, because he is not behaving like a decent man currently (more to the point, does he have form for this lack of empathy?).
He may grow up quickly enough - there is often a bit of a time lag with the blokes, but in case he doesn’t, make sure you have options and hopefully you’ll never have to use them (and frankly when women have options, many men behave better as they know the woman doesn’t need to stick around unless she chooses to).
I’d echo what others have said about progesterone based mini pill.
It’s not known as ‘sad in a pill’ for nothing!
Maybe worth a chat with your GP about alternatives (a mirena would seem ideal as it’s a far lower dose of progesterone using in situ, but I don’t know if they are recommended for all women).
Make an apt with the Gp, relax, enjoy your baby, this is a him problem, not a you problem. Hopefully he’ll come to his senses soon.

It’s a bit late for him to decide he might not want to commit to you, when you already have a baby.

I’m sorry he’s not more understanding.

I read a book written by a psychologist called “mind the gap” about the gap in sex drive that often exists between men and women and Id highly recommend it, it’s not judgmental for both of you, and offers advice to try and address the mismatch in drive.

One thing I’d add is that these things can be temporary - having young children can destroy your sex drive and sex life for longer than a couple of months but it comes back when things settle down a bit.

actually one more thing too….there are other forms of contraception. If your BF wants sex but the pill is destroying your libido then you can always use condoms. He understandably wants a sex life but it often doesn’t occur to men that you are having to pump hormones into your body in order for him to enjoy this carefree and that has a real impact. He’s a bit young for a vasectomy but he can’t in one breath say he doesn’t like condoms and in the other expect you to have a libido when pumping hormones into your body (not that I know what he has said about condoms…he might be fine with it!)

This!!

I cannot believe that a bunch of women, most of which are mums, cannot have sympathy towards a new mother who's libido has left the building.

This place is bonkers.

There are other contraceptive methods @FtmS0ph. Surely you know this.

I don’t think 9 months is that long at all. A 9-month-old baby is still small and needy, and it’s understandable that some mums (myself included!) find it difficult to be in the mood after a long day of mothering, and knowing that there’ll be a long night ahead too.

Some of these comments are very unsympathetic. Of course having a baby changes things, often it’s just temporary. I think couples counselling might be helpful.

I'd reccomend individual counselling op. There's too much missing information here for anyone to really understand. I'd spend some time thinking about what you want and need right now? What the ideal relationship to you would look like does it include sex or not does it include an environment where that might naturally occur because you felt loved and cherished/supported. Or do you need absolutely no pressure and to know your partner is happy to wait because you're both in rhe exhausted state of a young baby.
Your partner also needs individual counselling to figure out what he wants/needs and what's going on for him. Has he heard "horror" stories from the blokes at work been given awful advice. Maybe he is too immature or lacking in empathy. There's so many things that could be going on for both of you that's worth exploring right now.

Thank you! I completely agree

Thank you for being understanding

And that's all ok. Your libido isn't huge at the moment and he respects that. He doesn't try to coerce you. But equally, he has told you he doesn't want to be in a marriage that involves very little sex. That is reasonable. There is no point in getting married just to experience frustration & resentment.

So both of you need to wait it out, your libido will return, normal relations will resume and he will be reassured.

Is he prepared to switch to condoms instead? Might be worth trying.

This man couldn’t be bothered to get married before having a baby. A lackluster sex life in the first year of an infant’s life is hardly unusual. This is just another excuse to avoid commitment. Placing the blame on you is particularly cruel.

I would really like us to have a future together but I really don't want to feel like the only way i'm going to get that is by giving in to sex, especially when I'm not in the mood.

Hmm, I just noticed this innocuous little “especially”.

Which makes it sound to me like your mismatch in sexual appetite might extend beyond the postpartum.

Not sure how you've worked that one out, I used to have a high libido before having a baby and many people on here have told me already that it will return to normal eventually.
I know now that I need to get off the mini pill and try another contraceptive method

It’s a really bad idea for either parent to make any big decisions within a year or two of having a baby. You both need to give it time. Your lives have completely changed.

This is the first time you’ve mentioned you used to have a high libido in any of your posts.

Shocked at these replies.

Yes sex is important, but so is having an understanding partner who doesn't make it the central point of everything. Many things can happen in life to destroy people's sex drives (his too btw!!)

you have a child together so are as good as married to this man and yet even the child can't guarantee his commitment to you? So if you don't get married, is that because he's planning to walk out at any time, whenever you don't feel like having sex?!

Nine months post partum is not that long (despite the shock horror of these posts - I'm guessing many of these 'mums' commenting are actually men) and he's not doing any night nappy changes or feeds, or any of the day time ones come to think of it, so while his life merrily ticks along as usual, you're doing all the physical and mental load, tired and wired and on another planet, looking after HIS child. You are probably inwardly resentful about his lack of understanding of your position and feelings. Rightly so. This is the biggest turn off in any woman's book tbh.

So what do you do? Leaving him is not really a good idea as you have your baby to think about. Talking to him about it clearly hasn't helped. Lie back and think of England would probably make everything fine for him, but that's vile for you. if you're both open to it then maybe couple's counselling could help.

I just want to say that, despite many of these comments, you're not being unreasonable and you are not alone.