Forgotten what normal is

[DHtrying]

Could do with some insight into what might be going on here from a female perspective.

DH here, married fifteen years, in our forties, two teenagers, no material health issues.

DW doesn't like me touching her intimately outside of the bedroom and even inside the bedroom, if its me trying to initiate, she is very unresponsive and almost seems to clam up, making me feel rejected and awful.

If she initiates, its fine, no issues - the only problem being that she doesn't initiate very much. If I try to initiate it almost always results in rejection, which over the years has slowly eroded my confidence and self esteem. I made a mental note and for the last 6 weeks, I was rejected every single time, or if I touched her, was tolerated for a few seconds then made to feel like I was breaking a boundary.

It seems like sex is only ever on her terms and that she controls my sex life.

As an experiment, I completely stopped trying to initiate, or touch her intimately in the bedroom to see what happened. Nothing.

We have just returned from a two week holiday where again, I made a conscious decision not to touch, approach, talk or be in any way sexual, and we went the entire holiday without sex.

I've lost perspective of what normal looks and feels like, but recall in relationships when I was younger that it was 'normal' for either one of us to snog and touch frequently outside the bedroom and have some sort of sexual chemistry and mutual interest and desire.

For clarity, sex has never been great and there was never a period of 'rip each others clothes off' in the beginning, but sex was at least fairly frequent and mutual, desired for want of a better word.

I'm in no way suggesting my DW should have sex if she doesn't want to and fully respect that I have no right to be able to touch her body intimately, but as I reflect on the state of play, it just doesn't feel right.

I've lost perspective on what normal is and could do with some feedback.

She is a terrible communicator I've had little to no success trying to overcome the situation by talking to her.

There hasn't been a sudden change, this has just slowly crept up on me without me noticing over the years, the recent two week holiday without any kind of intimacy whatsoever was kind of a wake up call for me.

Appreciate any thoughts.

Obviously there is no normal but your situation sounds difficult/sad.
'Normal' in my marriage is to go through periods of lots of sex to almost none, depending on what's going on in life eg work, kids etc But it's always 'there' between us as a couple and sex is an important part of our marriage.
We don't hug or kiss etc as much as we did in the early days but it's still there and we'd be sad if it wasn't.
Dh, very much like you, has no expectation that I will want to have sex when he does. If I reject his advances, we talk about it and vice versa.
The lack of communication between you and your dw sounds like the biggest problem?

@DHtrying - you don't say how long this has been going on for, and I'm likely to be flamed for this, but I have one word for you - Menopause.

I'm not sure if you guys have discussed it, but menopause can have a huge affect on a woman, her hormones and her libido, and she seems to be the right sort of age.

My XW and I went through exactly what you are going through, and I simply couldn't understand what I was doing wrong, or how my "approach" had changed. It turned out I'd not changed anything, but her body had changed, due to menopause, and she simply didn't feel the same.

The hot flushes meant that she hated to be physically close to me (I, apparently, have a "hot body", in that I generate a fair bit of heat), and the change in hormones meant that she "suddenly" (or at least that's how it felt at the time) didn't like me to touch her, or kiss her.

I felt very lonely, very underappreciated, rejected, unwanted and undesirable. The worst thing we did was to not talk about it, and now we're divorced.

I highly recommend that you at least read up on the menopause, but preferably, you need to somehow get her to open up and talk to you about what's going on. Explain exactly how you feel. Ask her if she might be menopausal, and if that has changed her body, and how she feels about sex.

If that's not going to work for you, you can try couples therapy, but hey are very busy right now, and you both have to want things to change.

Good luck. I hope things don't get as far for you as they did for us...

I'm menopausal and again communication is the key!!
The recent Davina McCall programme about the menopause would be a good starting point to try understand how hellish it can be (if that seems to be a likely issue?)

@DHtrying

Could do with some insight into what might be going on here from a female perspective.

DH here, married fifteen years, in our forties, two teenagers, no material health issues.

DW doesn't like me touching her intimately outside of the bedroom and even inside the bedroom, if its me trying to initiate, she is very unresponsive and almost seems to clam up, making me feel rejected and awful.

If she initiates, its fine, no issues - the only problem being that she doesn't initiate very much. If I try to initiate it almost always results in rejection, which over the years has slowly eroded my confidence and self esteem. I made a mental note and for the last 6 weeks, I was rejected every single time, or if I touched her, was tolerated for a few seconds then made to feel like I was breaking a boundary.

It seems like sex is only ever on her terms and that she controls my sex life.

As an experiment, I completely stopped trying to initiate, or touch her intimately in the bedroom to see what happened. Nothing.

We have just returned from a two week holiday where again, I made a conscious decision not to touch, approach, talk or be in any way sexual, and we went the entire holiday without sex.

I've lost perspective of what normal looks and feels like, but recall in relationships when I was younger that it was 'normal' for either one of us to snog and touch frequently outside the bedroom and have some sort of sexual chemistry and mutual interest and desire.

For clarity, sex has never been great and there was never a period of 'rip each others clothes off' in the beginning, but sex was at least fairly frequent and mutual, desired for want of a better word.

I'm in no way suggesting my DW should have sex if she doesn't want to and fully respect that I have no right to be able to touch her body intimately, but as I reflect on the state of play, it just doesn't feel right.

I've lost perspective on what normal is and could do with some feedback.

She is a terrible communicator I've had little to no success trying to overcome the situation by talking to her.

There hasn't been a sudden change, this has just slowly crept up on me without me noticing over the years, the recent two week holiday without any kind of intimacy whatsoever was kind of a wake up call for me.

Appreciate any thoughts.

I can relate to that as that was the situation in a previous relationship although I think that it was a symptom of a deeper malaise. If your DW is not interested in a fulfilling sex life (from your POV) and you can't live with that situation (which I understand) and your DW is not willing to discuss the situation then I guess that it's going to leave you with some tough decisions as to your future. People will tell you that sex is not the be all and end all and that's fine if it isn't for them but it's your life and FWIW, I think that sex is an important part of a relationship.

It seems from your post DW has never been a particularly sexual person and age and familiarity just erodes this further.

Sadly in these cases sex will always be on her terms.
I think you need a fairly blunt discussion about how this makes you feel and how she feels about you always initiating.

What would happen if she initiated and you said no?

Thanks everyone so far.
Menopause is a good shout, but this has been going on for 10+ years, creeping up on me slowly without me realising.
We do still have sex at times, but as I say, only when she initiates, and if I say no because I'm feeling a bit resentful of the situation, she's fine with it.
I'm equally pragmatic if she rejects my advances, its not like make an issue out of it or anything, but over time I just feel like she's off limits - I can look but not touch.
We had a frank discussion about it earlier where I tried to explain how I was feeling and she's now just very sad, but nothing came out of it.
I can't expect her to, nor would I want her to engage if she wasn't in the mood, it just feels like unless we're officially going to have sex, in the bedroom and all the checks and balances have been met, then It's okay to touch her.
It just doesn't feel very good and all a bit one sided.
I've given her a few hugs and supportive words since, but she's just quiet and sad now.

DH,
The 'I'm withholding it, because you withheld it' approach is understandable and common, but I've never heard of it being successful. It was my approach and it has led to twenty years with no sex and ultimately no intimacy.
Many people assume that men are always 'up for it' while women are delicate flowers that need the planets to align and to be in the mood. Such generalisations are invariably wrong, but no progress is possible unless you are both able to communicate your feelings - between the two of you or with outside help from a counselor or therapist.
Good luck, if you're still having sex, there's something to build on, but let her know how you feel.

I was your DW OP, a mixture of reasons but the two biggest ones were DH's approach (essentially sulking as a means of communicating his dissatisfaction) and the contraceptive pill which killed my libido stone dead. Things that helped, changing contraception and finding ways to communicate which didn't make us want to curl up and die of embarrassment were the first steps, and then a totally new, honest way of communicating about sex.

Your first job is getting back on the same side as your DW, you both need to see this as a mutual problem which needs solving together rather than something to blame each other for. She will have feelings you're not aware of about the dynamics of your sex life and your attitude to and behaviour around sex, she will be feeling pressure and resentment even if you don't feel that's justified and it's important you understand that. Take the focus off sex and onto closeness and intimacy, emotional more than physical to begin with so lots of talking and then build on that with non sexual affection.

My marriage is completely different now, I always loved my DH but I ended up not feeling anything like close enough to him to want to have sex and I wonder if the same has happened to your DW. The not wanting to be touched thing is very familiar to me and was because it felt like the lack of communication/emotional closeness and the resentment that built up because of it formed a big solid wall between us that I couldn't break through. I can't think what else to tell you that might help but feel free to ask if you have any questions, good luck.