Are my expectations too high?

[corriefan]

I'm married with 2 young children, ds3 and dd2. My dh is a great father and we always take turns to put them to bed and get up with them in the morning and with lie ins at the weekend. He works full time and I do one day only. We get on well but I keep feeling like I would like him to be more affectionate and have sex more often. We do it about once a week on average but I'd like it more and to try new things but he does reject me quite often and I feel very hurt. i also feel like he tries to shrug me off a bit when I try to cuddle him and so on. I said to him a while ago it would make a massive difference to me if he would text occasionally from work or something saying something nice or sexy and if he touched me more often. He agreed to do it but he hasn't.
We have been together for 6 years and neither of us had had long relationships before and I can't help but feel a bit sad that this is it for me now in terms of love and passion. Should I just be grateful for what I have? Is this normal for long term relationships?

It sounds very normal to me, although probably more normal for the roles to be reversed. I think he's probably just tired and not feeling in the mood. I expect that things might improve when your dc are a bit older (at least that's what I'm hoping, mine are similar ages!). In the mean time I think you need to try to pick times when he's not too tired to initiate things and you might be more likely to meet with success. It sounds like you have a good relationship otherwise and it's a shame if this is spoiling it for you.

Was he romantic and passionate in the past? IF so, you can probably get a bit of it back by making time to have fun together (get a babysitter, go clubbing or out for a meal or something). If he was never very passionate in the past, then he's one of those not-very-demonstrative people and it will be difficult (and not entirely ethical) to force him to change.

we had the obvious passionate bit when we first got together, after being friends for 2 years. We decided to try for a baby after just 3months, everything felt so wonderful and we couldnt' keep our hands off each other we and we moved in together and would lie about naked all the time and stuff. Then my brother died so it was a difficult time for me and also I wasn't getting pregnant despite lots of trying so sex kind of changed a bit then. After year I did and then had a miscarriage but luckily got pregnant almost straight away. He went off sex when I was pregnant with my second and with 2 tiny v young children it didn't happen much. So I think what I'm trying to say is I never really got chance to see what just me and him would be like after the first flush of love because of all the other stuff going on. Now I've stopped breastfeeding and am going out a bit more as both kids are sleeping I feel like I have my body back to enjoy, I want to feel close to him and appreciated as a woman not just a mum! The other thing is he says he's tired but stays in front of the tv, often falling alseep or reads in bed. The other day he was reading and i just stroked his leg and he said in a whiny voice "I don't want to do it darling" and it just really annoyed me, i was being affectionate. He has watched porn occasionally without me as it's been on the address bar. I don't have a problem with that but would like to be part of it. I do arrange nights out but it's always me arranging it. Last night i said I wanted to go out for my birthday maybe to the theatre and he said I'll have a look tomorrow so I said so can I rely on you to book it then? because he is very forgetful and often says I'm going to do 2this and that and doesn't at all and he said what does that mean? and I know I'm a shit head" really aggressively. sorry for rambling

My partner is a bit like that, more with the not being overly affectionate bit, he doesn't do much hugging and saying I love you is not on his agenda much lol. I do find it disappointing sometimes as he used to be far more attentive and complimentary.

However, my ex boyfriend was full of I love yous, compliments, hugs, kisses, basically mountains of affection. However, he was a complete twat, it was a front and he was a selfish git and a bit of a headcase to boot.

My (nearly) ex husband was kind of good with the affection thing, but he was also mean mouthed with erratic mood swings. Personally, I just think that blokes are very different from us women (unless they're very emotional, which does sometimes happen lol), they don't need all the little lovey text messages, hugs, compliments etc and they presume that we don't either. The only thing you can do is keep talking and hopefully it will eventually sink in.

Good luck!