confused about sex

[OneFucker2Many]

i have been with dp for 5 yrs now and we have 3dc. we have our ups and downs but one thing at the minute is really confusing me and i cant tell anyone in rl.

sometimes if he tries to initiate sex and i am tired etc i will pleasure him but decline the sex. sorry if tmi. anyway recently i have been asleep to be woken up with us actually having sex. its really confusing me as i would have previously said no already but not that time as i was asleep. sorry to ramble.

is this normal any1 else experienced it?

Alouiseg, you and your DH have given each other expicit consent for this though, I meant that your view that sleeping in the same bed was giving a level of consent was a worrying one.

I would hate to be woken up by my DH trying to initiate sex, I see it as hugely disrespectful. Being unconcious is hardly a turn on.

Onefucker, according to the book Living With The Dominater there are several types of abusers. One is known as the Sexual Controller and here is a breif description.

He wheedles and nags and tells us we dont love him if we dont want sex. He tells us we must be frigid or abnormal in some way. He sulks and slams doors so we fear he might wake the children. He may threaten to go elsewhere for sex. He either ejaculates prematureley or not at all, and blames us for this.

He demands sex all day and night , whether we are ill or tired. He will interrupt whatever we are doing and harass us for sex and makes us feel dirty and used. The sexual controller rapes us while we are asleep, effectiveley reducing us to a silent peiece of meat.

The sexual controller expects for us to remain sexually perfect after childbirth and may insist we do not breastfeed. He will insist upon sex despite having stitches after childbirth and risking infection.

He also sounds like King Of The Castle , another description of men who expects you to be their unpaid servant.

OF2M, please ring Women's Aid - 0808 2000 247.

Abusive men aren't abusive all the time - it very often is this jekyll and hyde kind of persona. This is what makes it hard to leave for many women - but you're not alone, there are thousands of women who have left abusive partners, and you can too.

FWIW I really don't think it's chance that this only happens on the nights you have said no beforehand. You don't have to explicitly SAY the word "no" or "stop" - if he knows full well you don't want to have sex and goes ahead and does it anyway, it IS rape and I don't know why anyone is insinuating otherwise.

Please go and read this thread quickly, or ring Women's Aid, or both. You and your children deserve better.

I am left wondering what you are getting from this relationship?

The earlier responses to this issue terrified me. My question "Am I an abuser?" was absolutely serious. I went off to find out about sleep sex because this has been a feature in almost all my relationships. It looks as though I may be the one initiating it, since I do have parasomnias. If so, then according to many MNers, I am a rapist: an alarming thought.

OF2M, the more you say about your relationship, the clearer it becomes that your partner is a selfish bully who's taking advantage of you in many ways. I know that's a scary thing to hear. I'm sorry.

What you wrote here: "sometimes he will be a loving caring man and then in a split second he can change and flip becoming nasty and aggressive about the minimal of things" is the classic picture of a dangerous kind of bully - he's not 'out of control', he's controlling you by keeping you on pins all the time, waiting for the next flip. No wonder you're exhausted!

Just a thought: have you mentioned any of this to your doctor and your HV? Might be worthwhile.

Here's an extract from this page. There are more questions on the page, why not have a look.

Do you:

• avoid certain topics out of fear of angering your partner?
• feel that you can?t do anything right for your partner?
• wonder if you?re the one who is crazy?
• feel emotionally numb or helpless?

Does your partner:

• humiliate or yell at you?
• criticize you and put you down?
• treat you so badly that you?re embarrassed for your friends or family to see?
• ignore or put down your opinions or accomplishments?
• blame you for his own abusive behavior?
• see you as property or a sex object, rather than as a person?

Grace, I think if you are unaware of what you are doing then that is probably a completely different issue, and whether it is a problem in a relationship would probably depend on how well your partner recieved it. If they like it then no problem - but if they don't and it's entirely unconscious then I suppose it's just something you'd have to work out a coping strategy for, but it's not like you are consciously making a decision to have sex with someone you know is not interested, so I don't think that it could be described as rape.

I doubt very much that the OP's husband is unaware of what he is doing since it doesn't sound random - she has identified that it only happens under certain conditions.

Alouiseg you are an example of the first type of relationship I posted in my PP.

I've just had this discussion with my partner. We're also like that, we're quite light sleepers and will often either initiate a conversation in the middle of the night or sex. We've started and I've started to fall asleep, I've been OK with him carrying on if I'm just sleepy, although he gets put off by it.

He said if I had already said no he would not try anything and he knows where my knee would go if he did.

A relationship like that is not implied, it's not part and parcel of being in a relationship. It's an amazing amount of respect and understanding to be able to do that, to know when and where your limits are and not push past that. It's built up to and built on. It is equal in all things - maybe not loving because I'm sure you can be like that and just "friends" but there's still that level there. It never leaves someone questioning whether it was right.

It's also not hard to get someone to that stage without waking them. Gentle touches won't wake them but their body will respond, gentle entry...

ItsGraceAgain, it's not necessarily rape and certainly not if you had no control over it. Rape is about power, not just getting sex and if you don't know you're having sex (as the person initiating it) you're hardly in it for the power. If the other person isn't complaining (and often if it's a man he's not going to!) then it's not. It's certainly not the case with this thread, although if it was and I didn't like it I would be telling him that if he didn't get help I would be charging him with rape because he knows he's doing it and not doing anything about it.

Thank you for your kind replies I very much agree it's FAR more likely that Mr OF2M knows exactly what he's doing ... and that it hurts her

There is so much more to this than the "sex confusion", OP. I know it's horrid to be asked to think about whether your partner's being cruel to you. I'm sure people here will understand if you need to take time, think about what we've said and maybe come back with a few more questions.

Please do come back though! It'll be good to hear from you.

sorry have not posted earlier, just am still trying to come to terms with all of this.

just trying to take one day at a time for the minute, as suffer with anxiety and i really dont want it to get out of hand again. i need to be able to cope with this.

thankyou for all your very kind replies.

itsgraceagain thanks for your list of questions. to nearly all of them i answered yes .

its strange though as ive always thought of abuse as being beaten up or violently raped.

the emotionally numb part has worried me the most. this time last year i would have been in tears now. but its like i cant feel a thing. not sure if this is good or bad or if it will suddenly hit me?

Thank you for posting

It's quite likely you're becoming 'numb' so as not to accept what's being done to you. As time goes on (if you let it), that numbness takes over and you start to feel as though there's nothing to life but varying shades of grey ... and that's all you deserve. Depression, in other words. Your feelings of outrage, resentment and frustration don't go away, they get buried ...

Those feelings do find their way out somehow, of course, it's just not always easy to see what's going on. Some people find themselves drinking way too much; some start having temper tantrums; some people get anxiety disorders and some develop pain conditions. At the end of the day, all this makes you look like the one with the "issues" and that plays right into the bully's hands.

I want you to know about this, because it happened to me but information wasn't widely available then. You can find loads of good information on the Web now - and I'm quite sure posters to your thread will be pleased to give you some links!

Take care of yourself. Have treats, you need them just now

are you not very dry when he enters your vagina as you sleep ?

if you are anything like me, I need a certain amount of "warming-up" and lubrication before it becomes a pleasurable sensation

someone just sticking their dick in with no warning would be most unwelcome and would get a very negative response !

don't put up with it...he is bullying you and using sex as a weapon to control you

thankyou itsgraceagain. i have got a chocolate twist in the cupboard might just go and get it!
back to the numbness, yes it is completely taking over. like when im with friends, family i am just numb. i smile and nod accordingly but i cannot hear what they are saing, as the numbness takes ove and it is very depressing. is this what you mean by the numbness taking over??

anyfucker yes i am dry and still sore from delivery of dd3 atm. it does hurt but have not said anything.

i am pretty sure if i said it was sore he would stop although sometimes after we have had both had consenting sex and it hurts he must be able to tell as when we have finished he asks me if he has hurt me. but suppose he cant read my mind.

no, he can't read your mind

my biggest concern for you, however, is that you feel unable to tell him that he hurts you and that his use of your body is unwelcome

you must start telling him how you feel

I noticed a post of yours on another thread though...you are frightened to rock the boat, aren't you ? Are you coming to the realisation that you are in an abusive relationship ?

I left an abusive relationship that I stayed in too long because he never hit me. Abuse doesn't have to be physical, it can even be physical without you being hit.

A man shouldn't have to be told if you're dry or sore or if he's hurt you, doesn't take a mind reader. It takes an attentive partner. If you're dry he has to work harder to get in and to thrust. If you're sore or in pain you will show signs and not be enjoying it.

He doesn't care that you're in pain, he cares about having power over you and his own needs.

anyfucker what thread do you mean about rocking the boat?

yes i am struggling with this

If you haven't already "checked out of this relationship" and are thinking of rebuilding, then best to have this conversation in the middle of the day when he isn't gagging for it. Put your arms round him or do something affectionate and deliver "the straight message" about the pain, tiredness, and everything else.

You both must make a list of the top 3 to 5 things that you want each other to do without argument or interruption and then take stock/revisit weekly for 4 weeks and then monthly for a year, until it is second nature. No blame, just feedback.

But your DP sounds a bad case and you may need external intervention of some sort.

A complete aside,OF2M......
Is there a surestart in your area,that can help with families that heve 3 children under 5.

This won't solve any of your other problems,but might help with the children.

Also from personal experience,sometimes 3rd degree tears although are operated on,don't heal weel, and cause problems later on.....theres a thread for people who have had birth trauma injuries on here,if you search for it.

www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/manipulator/emotional_abuse.shtml

Oftm, i recognise what your saying about being numb , i sort of sleep walked through almost a decade of my life , not really experiencing anything , it was like i wasnt really here in the world. And i dont think i was, some part of me was missing.

People explain this in various ways , but i wonder if in order to just get through it , you have to live in a constant state of self denial , pushing down that part of yourself that feels things and bury it away somewhere.

I think this happens subconsciously, we dont want to see whats in front of us so we deny it and excuse it so we dont have to deal with it. People compare the " waking up " to post traumatic stress disorder.

You know somethings wrong when you dont feel anything apart from what they tell you you should be feeling. You dont react like others do , you feel differant to everyone else, like you dont fit in. Theres just no pleasure in life .

The good news is , you DO start to feel again , for whatever reason a chink of light comes in through the grey , and you realise that youve not been living, just existing. And you get fucking mad.