Not how I expected it to be

[Namechanged006]

Been with my wife over 12 years, married 7 years and when we got together the sex was incredible and mindblowing and nothing like I’ve ever experienced. Underwear was always sexy and it was all brilliant. I know people will say it’s the honeymoon period which I get but it’s genuinely like the woman i dated and the one I married are polar opposites.
She mentioned recently that she hates giving blowjobs, hates wearing thongs or dressing up and finds toys pointless and she only wants sex In missionary and my hands can’t move anywhere near her hair or face or even be on the pillow and must be basically by her side and we now only have sex once a month/6 weeks.
we have busy lives and our youngest child comes in our room every night.
Ive mentioned it in the past that I need regular sex and it’s always been the same response of ‘well if you don’t like it then split up’ but I just feel like I could never end my marriage because of that and i would feel so selfish and embarrassed but at the same time we are only here once.
I genuinely feel like I was sold a dream with my wife and i don’t really know what to do. If I knew she didn’t like sex and is happy with it once every so often I don’t think it would have progressed to where we are now.
is anyone else in a similar position?

And people wonder why we choose The Bear over An Unknown Man. They “joke” about murdering their wives.

I think you underestimate how horrifying the prospect of divorce can be to a man; the expense, missing out on precious childhood moments, the embarrassment, the isolation, amongst all the other fallouts. Which is worse? That, or the prospect of a sexless marriage? It's so difficult. At least he is getting some sex. In this situation, of course most men will cling to any glimmers of hope at all. At least it used to be good, right?

Going from an adventurous, satisfying sex life, to missionary only every six weeks. That is not "what she enjoys sexually". That is a woman who has put severe boundaries in place because she would clearly prefer not to have a sex life at all with her husband. She doesn't feel no sex at all is realistic for whatever reason, so this is her compromise, and what she is prepared to tolerate.

Like you say, take it or leave it. No wife owes her husband a great sex life.

I think that something spouses do owe each other is honesty. Why has this changed so much? Does she still love him? Does she want to stay married to him? If yes, why doesn't she care about how miserable he is? Is there anything specific either of them could do to improve it?

I don't think it's really fair to just leave him guessing about all of this.

I doubt anyone man or woman takes divorce lightly. It's horrific for all involved

From her perspective it may be that she still loves him and really doesn't know why her libido is so low or if it will return. Sometimes we don't know why we don't feel hungry even at dinner time? We just don't. They have young kids which I'm sure explains a lot. It may be that she is still having sex to see if it will return (and hoping) or because she loves him. I bet she wishes she did have the same desire for him as she used to. How much easier would her life be then!!

I'm not saying this makes things easier for him. But also... it's just as hard for her. Life doesn't always work out perfectly

So you agree she'd be far better off without the commitment. She could have just walked away without any problems at all.

Well. To say "he just needs to make his choice" as if he were deciding between an Oreo and a Malteser McFlurry is to minimise the gravity of the situation, to say the least.

To answer your original question "What more can she do?!", she should think about everything you have speculated in your second paragraph, and tell him what her reality is.

I don't agree "it's just as hard for her", she isn't the one whose sexual desires are going unfulfilled, because she doesn't seem to have any.

If there are other needs of hers that are going unmet, and the sex situation is some kind of low-key silent protest against that, then she should think about what those needs might be, and (here's the tricky bit), communicate them clearly to her husband.

"What more can she do?!"

Perhaps whatever she did when TTC, when I'd bet good money that the mysterious lack of libido completely went away and all of the impossible to meet preconditions for sex became needless. (Maybe I'm guessing wrong, but I bet I'm not.)

To be fair, my TTC sessions weren’t fun/sensual/etc. The sex she’s having ATM is probably not dissimilar to her TTC sessions.

I think ultimately though he does need to make a choice @MerlotMisery. Or doing nothing is also a choice. It's his life. He has agency. It's not easy. But life often isn't.

(And actually I'd disagree and say having sex you don't want to is a hell of a lot harder than unmet desire)

Yeah, that was quite a dumb thing to say, apologies.

Having occasional, reluctant sex that you don't want, in order to shut your husband up and try and stop him from moaning too much, is such a terrible strategy. It will never have the desired effect and will cause more problems than it solves.

If your earlier speculation is the reality, then simple words such as "I still love you. I don't know why I feel this way. I wish my libido would come back. Please know it's nothing you've done. Let's get through this together", along with some potential positive ideas of strategies, would make it so much easier for the man to deal with.

Yes he needs to make a choice. But that choice would be much easier if he had honest information about the reality of the situation, instead of being strung along by his wife who's supposed to love him.

I'm not speculating at all. Just pointing out that at no point in this sort of situation is a woman tricking a man!

How individual couples solve their issues is up to them

Your spiel above about "it may be that she still loves him" was entirely speculation.

And fwiw I do have sympathy when the words "bait" and "switch" come to mind for a man in this situation.

Yes sorry I meant I'm not speculating on the wife of the OP and her reasons. Just in general there can be many factors

Obviously women aren't tricking men into marrying them 😂

I lost my libido after a few years of marriage.

I didn’t “opt out” of having sex, I didn’t know why it had happened. I enjoy sex, definitely more than cleaning up sick!

I tried discussing it but when I suggested it might be my age my then husband just got angry. The sense of entitlement that I somehow owed him sex didn’t help at all (and fwiw for the year that he lost his libido after I had dc1 I was very sad but didn’t blame him or get angry at all)

I didn’t “trick him” into having kids - I was perfectly prepared to go it alone when I found out I was pregnant and I also was by far the higher earner so none of the rhetoric in pps applies.

My libido miraculously reappeared after I got divorced and I know now that the problem was the dynamic between myself and my ex.

I think libido is very often the canary in the mine of relationships and viewing it in isolation will not fix the problem.

"My libido miraculously reappeared after I got divorced" --- I'm not sure that's helping your case!

This is the kind of post young men need to see. It should be taught in school.

Sounds like you are enjoying post divorce life 😉

Is that you, Andrew Tate?

My libido miraculously reappeared after I got divorced

Riiight. Did you discover this by getting together with a man whose ex-wife's libido had vanished?

And your ex-husband finally found satisfaction with a woman who rediscovered her own after getting divorced 😂😂

Far cheaper to actually work on your marriage.

You're not actually contradicting anything I've said.

I divorced for other reasons; with the benefit of hindsight I realise that it was his behaviour (abusive) that impacted on my libido, but at the time I couldn’t see that. My point is that the loss of libido is often a subconscious thing.

If there is no abuse I absolutely agree that working on the marriage is the right thing to do but it does need to be the whole marriage and not just the libido.

@PTown I think these men are claiming to be 'betas' who no woman would ever truly be attracted to.

Sounds like they need lessons in self esteem 😂

Interesting. My instinct was that shrugging your shoulders and saying "dunno" is a complete cop out, but it's food for thought. Thanks.

Obviously there was abuse in your case, but I do think that the very act of the man making a substantial commitment to a woman in itself can in many cases make her libido vanish too. She's got the man, why does she need to bother giving blow jobs any more?

Thanks again for your contribution.

Women give blow jobs (or do anything sexually) because they enjoy it. A lot 😉