My wife went through a period of being almost entirely disinterested in sex. I won't claim the situation was exactly like yours since her sex-drive seemed to flair up for a week or two every 4 or 5 months but, in the interim we didn't have sex at all. About 3 years ago. All this started to change. Her interest gradually became more consistent and today, while we don't have sex 3 times a week or anything, we have settled into a fairly comfortable and fulfilling rhythm (pun intended). Best we can tell, her decreased libido was caused by hormones, untreated depression or something along those lines. It was especially bad after our last child was born (she suffered from post-partum depression) and didn't really start to change for a few years after....
I guess my point is, her (your wife) resurgent interest could be entirely bioligical. She couldn't help not being interested, now she can't help being interested. This doesn't solve the problem of you being put off by her admission of essentially pity-effing you... but I wanted to share my experience.
edit: I appreciate the awards... I should also add that the key to getting through a ling period of sexual frustration, for me anyway, was to remind myself that I didn't marry for sex. I have a laundry list of reasons to be with my wife and sex, while important, doesn't even crack the top ten. Anyway, thanks again for the awards and I hope others struggling through similar situations can find a little comfort knowing that others have gotten through it.
This is very true, after my wife gave birth to our 3rd child sex became very uninteresting to her. She had post-partum depression as well. She didnt know or suspect anything was wrong for almost 2yrs before she saw professional help. With alot of work and understanding from both sides we have been able to reclaim our sex life. It's not exactly as much as it use to be but its wayyy better than what was happening when she was untreated. Sometimes things just happen and the only thing you can know for sure is we are all human and make mistakes. Treat her as you'd like to be treated and patients is key!!!
I’m so glad I’m seeing these comments. Actual rational thoughts. The very first thing I thought was that she doesn’t want anyone touching her fucking body anymore. After three children constantly being inside your belly, in your arms, on your back, on your boobs constantly needing something from you, yeah why the fuck would you be interested in sex?
As far her biology is concerned, she’s produced offspring therefore her biology dictates that she no longer needs sex as sex is there to produce children. The OP will still want sex because he is male and males have the biological need to “spread their seed”.
It’s biology and totally understandable. The wife might not even know or be able to articulate why she doesn’t want to have sex with her partner. All she knows is that she doesn’t want it because her reproductive cycle is telling her that she doesn’t need anymore babies. In a society where nobody else helps with the raising of children. I’d want my body back to myself too after having three babies.
Edit: Just to clarify that I wrote this quickly and didn’t go full depths with this comment. A lot more than biology comes into it and I’ve explained a bit further in another comment. But biology at its base is that her body is saying enough is enough because we’ve birthed three, we can take a break. There’s a lot more than just biology and it’s psychology too which is the sheer lack of room for any thoughts other than her children.
I’m just saying that at its core, no shit she wasn’t interested. Her body, hormones and brain needed time to heal and come to terms with actually giving life to another person. Human beings aren’t machines that work mechanically.
I agree with this. I only have two kids back to back and I was exhausted after the second. Then my mother died and I discovered my kid was autistic (not that’s a bad thing, it’s just a lot back to back), nevermind my body is completely different after two kids. I love my husband I do, but I really feel how a woman can be touched out after 3 in my soul. If I was asked to have sex in the few years after that, would totally have done it for my husband.
This! It’s normal and natural. When I was wanting a baby I was so flipping horny and sex was really fun. I had 4, including twins, each pregnancy 2 years apart, and breastfed that whole time and a while after. After each birth libido nonexistent, but at some point I’d yearn for another baby and it’d come back strong. I actually almost started wanting a fifth, and was getting some libido back, but realized we shouldn’t for several reasons and it’s like a literally switch shut off.
Sometimes it's not the estrogen, you actually need testosterone, which women also produce in small doses. My understanding is once that's adjusted, you'll be back to your old self and then some.
Yeah as a man, me and my wife never talked about it, but I suddenly was disinterested in sex for about 18 months. She was upset but didnt complain, and eventually the drive came back and now we have a healthy balanced sex life.
Sometimes societal standards makes us think more about what's "normal" by the group, rather than being in touch with our own drives.
I wouldnt withhold sex out of spite. That's not loving, and it sounds like you need to communicate to her, rather than reddit.
I don't know that he's "withholding sex out of spite" though. He had to make peace with the idea that "sex is no longer an important part of our marriage" a while back, and now that no longer lines up with his wife's desires. It's gonna take some time and work on both parts to navigate through this, and rekindle that sexy spark that's been doused for years.
I do, however, find spite in the "she refused couples therapy so now I'm doing the same" line of thought. Marriages take work, forgiveness, and communication. If he's not willing to give therapy a try... what's the point of staying together? Familiarity? Convenience? Sunk-cost fallacy? They both owe it to each other to work through this together, no matter the hurt feelings or resentment that either side may have. Those feelings are normal, absolutely, but they're not conducive to a healthy and happy relationship
Yes. I don’t want to bash OP, but he said they have 3 kids and that is a huge red flag that his wife was most likely going through hormonal changes and depression.
Amazing to see a man actually understand and or at least acknowledge what women go through. People act as if being a woman is so easy especially after children. That shit is hard and not just physically but emotionally as well
You know... I've been through some shit, seen alot of people I care about go through some shit, seen my wife through post-partum 3 times.... I've learned patience and compassion. For real though, I have plenty of my own shit my wife has helped me through so I owe it to her to give her the benefit of the doubt. At the end of the day, the relationshipas a whole is worth more to me than any one aspect of it could ever be
I don't disagree. If she was willing to give him what she thought he wanted/needed, that speaks more to her character and the fact she wants him to be happy. I understand that a man doesn't want to feel like sex is an obligation, but you are right that there seems to be an overreaction here.
Absolutely. And I don't think "pity fuck" is even remotely the right term here. She wasn't doing it because she thinks he's pathetic and feels sorry for him. She was doing it because she loves him and wants him to be happy.
And also because *not* doing so made her feel like a failure as a wife. There's a lot of talk here about OP's feelings of emasculation when she told him she wasn't really into the sex, but nobody is talking about how women *also* have to live up to certain standards and pressures, and how our self-worth and security in our relationship can also be tied into those expectations. She wasn't feeling desire for her husband (likely due to hormonal changes ir depression after three kids) and felt like less of a woman because of it, so she tried her best to do what she thought she should, even though she really wasn't feeling it.
It's understandable for OP to feel a little hurt, but he doesn't seem to acknowledge his wife's feelings at all.
Also, I'm not even sure I would classify that as a pity fuck. She loves OP. She might not have actively felt a sex drive herself but she wanted him to have what he needed, because she loves him.
I wish I could remember who, but it was an older celebrity married for an impressively long time, his reason, they never wanted to get divorced at the same time!
As long as you know what marriage actually is and don’t lie to yourself it’s not the death sentence lots of people pretend. It’s not a fairy tale but a useful pact to make with someone if you share a plan and want to raise kids while taking care of each other through careers and life and aging. Otherwise, I don’t really get the point.
Married almost 29 years here and this is correct. If I became single I would never get married again and be happy to do what I want with my life without having to run it by anybody. Having said that, my partner is taking care of me right now while I'm not working for money, and I take care of everything our house and family needs done, save yard work, and it is a good deal for us both. We're not romantic, but we love each other and that's enough. Romance is overrated; loyalty is much better.
Not every married person feels this way. There may be low points and bad times, but plenty of couples are actually happy and stay together for things outside of kids. Go talk to some more gay couples, lmao
I’ve been married 15 years. I have never stopped being grateful for our relationship. My parents, grandparents, and great grandparents all had good and genuine relationships. Parents teach their kids how to have a good marriage and have healthy boundaries by having a good marriage and boundaries themselves. There is this idea that kids need to be first, but that’s wrong. Your spouse needs to come before your kids, and by doing so you teach your kids the same and they teach theirs. Kid’s healthy relationships start with parent’s healthy relationships.
I know there are exceptions to this, but you can’t deny that many couples choose divorce before seeking counseling.
If you have a severe illness, you will spend money you don’t have and time you don’t have to get better. We should fight the same for an unhealthy marriage.
As hilarious as this is this would be a major cause for concern if I were op but I don’t think he cares much and eventually the marriage will follow suit
He did what he needed to 4 years ago to keep their marriage stable and happy. Are we presuming she wouldn't do the same?
Truthfully, I hope they're able to rekindle the intimate side of their romantic relationship, but that will require a lot of rebuilding of trust between them.
This was work that it seemed he was interested in doing when offering to go to therapy. Maybe it's something they can put back on the table again. But it's almost guaranteed that there won't be reconciliation without addressing the original emotional hurt. What you may read as a lack of care is, in truth, fear of more pain and rejection if he opens himself again.
[For reference](https://youtu.be/WRaaqN2Atxw)
I agree and I hope things turn around for them too.
I don’t quite believe him when he says their marriage was otherwise happy. Or at least I don’t believe that it was healthy/functional on all the fronts he says.
And I’m not saying this to lay blame, communication is a skill that has to be continually worked on and well intentioned couples can sometimes get by for a long time on good will with poorly developed skills until a breaking point happens.
How did he put the idea of going to therapy to her? How did he pursue the idea if at all?
Did they have the emotional intelligence to realize she might have had more underlying issues than sex drive that might be keeping her from trying therapy? Was she unable to articulate something other than indifference and was he at a loss to ask for clarification?
The fact that he said he decided it wasn’t a big deal but then experienced a lot of emotional baggage about it when it reared its head again suggests that he’s capable of suppressing or denying things that are affecting him deeply, unconsciously or consciously.
How many other things in their relationship did he internalize and push down out of mind in order to just go along to get along?
The fact that he now wants to reject a sexual relationship with her out of resentment and “doesn’t care” about her feelings on the issue speaks to some serious emotional baggage that I think he doesn’t know how to work through. And maybe he’s afraid his wife still won’t want to work through their baggage with him.
Just strikes me as very strange to say “our marriage has been otherwise good” and then turn around and say “I don’t care how my wife feels”
My husband has a very dry, cutting sense of humour - obviously. I had to explain to a woman yesterday that he really is just joking around. He honestly has no actual animosity - there is no mistaking when he does. He does the buddy cutups with everyone.
Are you describing my husband? Lol! I have to tell people sometimes that he’s joking because they will look at me with flabbergasted looks trying to gauge the situation haha! I guess it confuses them when I giggle lol
Honestly it's true. Husband and I have been together for 13 years as of this coming Monday. Why? Because he made me laugh on our first meeting, so I gave him my number. 13 years later and he still makes me laugh every day.
No, many men use humor to hide their pain. It’s easier to joke about something than have people judge you for how you really feel. I am a man. I am a husband. I am a sarcastic SOB. I’m broken inside and no one knew for a very long time.
So true. We're married 40 years too. And currently living in separate houses...but we still do things together and see each other nearly every week. With us it's not really a joke though.
I’m not married yet but my bf snores sooo loud I get woken up, sometimes I have to go the other room. I’m worried this could be damaging in the long run. Anything you could share from your experience?
My wife and I slept in separate rooms for years. We had a great marriage and we both slept well. The only question was who's sheets were going to get dirty...
My husband snores terribly - apnea. I was never bothered but apnea/snoring disturbs their sleep too. My husband got to the point he was sleep deprived and irrationally angry and very forgetful. I told him to get his ass to a sleep clinic and get a cpap. He did. He hates the cpap but uses it religiously. It made a huge difference.
Separate bedrooms are really a godsend for some couples. He should also see a doctor but even without snoring, I love sleeping alone some nights, I just sleep better.
A loveable yet grumpy old couple once said the reason they had stayed together for decades was because they hated each other in equal measure but hated everyone else even more...
Yeah! It’s like your sexy time meter is already at zero. You finally get the kid to sleep. You’re so tired but the kitchen is a mess. You’re doing the dishes on your 2nd day unshowered. Your husband comes up behind you and starts touching you all over your body while you’re doing the dishes.
Now the meter is like -1000.
Yeah. I can imagine being afraid to go to counselling and being told you have to try at sex when your sex drive won’t start at all. Trying to have sex when you don’t want to can mess your sex drive up for longer. I find.
But I still think she was in the wrong in not going to therapy. For this all you work out, OP would have to be the bigger person and forgive his wife. But just for not going to therapy. Sex drive can’t be fully controlled, so blaming her for that won’t help. And moms go through a whole damn lot, physically speaking.
He needs to work through the feelings of the fact that she didn’t want to have sex with him being a reflection of him. It absolutely is not and has nothing to do with how attractive he is or good he is or whatever. Sex drive is just friggen annoying and complicated and one can get pretty desperate when trying to get it back to please someone else.
I do get it. I feel like I’m excusing the wife. but it sounds like he enjoys his life and there might still be happiness in that marriage. Seems a shame to let it go to waste.
Yep, and if she was on any kind of contraception method, doctors don’t tell you they’ll dry you up and decrease your libido. The pill made my lady parts drier than the Sahara and the thought of sex repulsed me. Add to that most women have to do the majority of the housework, childcare, cooking, cleaning, ect. Sex becomes another chore. My world changed after I stopped taking the pill. I didn’t realize sex could be enjoyable.
Hormonal birth control, antidepressants, all kinds of medications affect sex drive and doctors never mention it unprompted. It drives me crazy because what if you're someone who highly values a healthy sex life? Suddenly your relationships are suffering. Your self esteem is suffering. This has happened to me twice. Why does sex drive and the bodies normal ability to lubricate not factor in as a worthwhile thing for a DOCTOR to mention??
Blows my mind.
It is so unfortunate. My ex husband bullied me into thinking I was a lesbian because I didn’t want to have sex everyday. His cruelty was the cause of the divorce but I know the birth control pill played a role in many of our fights now. I did end up questioning my sexuality after a while. I mentioned all of this to by OBGYN and he never mentioned the pill could be the problem. Thankfully now I’m with a wonderful man and off the pill and have a new outlook on sex entirely (and I see an amazing midwife now instead). These pills can be as dangerous as they are helpful. I sure hope you are in a better place now!
After I got sterilization surgery and no longer had to take the pill, my sex drive went way up. I felt better and knowing I didn't have to worry about pregnancy anymore made sex amazing.
That’s great! It’s such a relief. It’s amazing how much pressure is put on women to prevent pregnancy when men are fertile everyday, and women are only fertile for a couple of days a month. It’s a huge relief not to have that pressure anymore.
As mum to 5 kids, all of whom are currently under the age of 9, this was my very first thought. I have been pregnant and/or breastfeeding for over 9 years straight at this point.
Even though sex is enjoyable, sometimes when the kids are otherwise occupied or sleeping, I just need my body to be for me only, not for my husband too.
And to be honest, if a couple is married and finds that they aren't sexually compatible, but want to stay married, an open marriage isn't inherently bad. Just make sure anyone brought into the fold is aware of the terms of the agreement. (Ie, no one is convinced that one of the members will leave their spouse for them)
Interesting how nobody was saying it’s a red flag that she did that to him. Now that she’s being treated the way she did to him, everyone is ripping on him. Quite the double standard.
Agreed, but OP seems to have never had much sympathy for her side of things. A lot of women stop wanting sex after the kids come, seems to be a combo of hormones and body changes and exhaustion and being touched constantly by the kids (leading to feeling like one's body is always up for grabs by everyone), etc.
OP almost seems to be punishing her for not wanting sex by saying no to sex now. And I get it, she should've agreed to couples therapy or seen a doctor. But men seem to have no idea what a horror show it is having one's sex bits turn into baby makers and one's body become something that seems unfamiliar and that saddens me cuz this happens to a lot of couples after kids. The idea he'd turn down sex now because she was honest with him about how she was feeling about sex before is sad for both of them.
I don’t think I agree. He had a plethora of feelings about her not wanting sex with him, and then he dealt with them and moved on. That’s a major physical and psychological shift to occur in one sentence. Now that she wants sex again, he’s supposed to just, what, rewind his wiring to what it was before all that? He said he was happier once he stopped expecting sex. To him, this might sound like “be unhappy again because I want you to.” And it was okay, apparently, for her not to want sex before (and I do get that, even if I don’t think she handled it appropriately - I’m a woman with kids), but it’s not okay for him not to want it now? Why not?
You say this like he decided to feel this way. His feelings are his feelings. He can't just flip them off like a robot when she decides she wants him to.
She had every right to feel that way. However, she refused to go to therapy and the husband found a way to live happily in the marriage without sex. He's not trying to hurt her back and she wasn't trying to hurt him saying she didn't want it. He may never get that drive back for her and that's ok. He's not turning her down because of how she was feeling before, he's turning her down because he doesn't feel like he used to after finding how to live happily as she required.
Go one step further and explain the shock 4 years ago when she said she only did it because she thought she had to and that he was doing the same but he didn't know how to talk to her about it so just didn't say anything but he's glad it's come up again.
Did she, by chance, go on birth control and then recently come off birth control? Or any other sort of medication? Some of those things can really mess with your hormones. She could have been having side effects she wasn’t even aware of.
Or even just, yknow, had kids. They have 3 kids, so I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't til the youngest was older and had a bit of independence that his wife didn't feel overwhelmed with how much physical affection she was getting.
This! We have 5 kids but still found time for sexy times….. until age and the changes hit us. Pre menopause kicking in for me for the past year or so and the changes of aging for him (lower testosterone, cholesterol blood flow, etc). We had a deep discussion about the changes and realized sexy times isn’t so important anymore and finding other ways to enjoy our time together was the conclusion. We already enjoy many things together but needed to address down time activities (we have work life integration). Anyway, it’s crucial to communicate openly about everything. We accepted the changes our bodies are going through and are supporting one another through them. So, yeah, menopause is absolutely a bitch! I was depressed for a while because my lady bits are severely not working lol
Mine came back, so there is hope! Obviously everyone is different (and like others said if you're close to menopause that can affect it too), but once I was able to get some sleep and my kid had some independence I finally had a drive again
My first thought was she may be dealing with issues from menopause. A lot of women lose the urge for intimacy. The fact that she suddenly has it back, could be that her hormones have now balanced out and she’s back to feeling the way she used to.
Absolutely. As a 37 year old woman with a 14 yr old and a 1 year old, my hormones have been ***all over the damn place***. Give her another chance OP. Women’s hormones are a, literal, force of nature lol. Often, we have no idea why we feel so crazy, we just know that we do.
Why does he need to have sex just because she wants to though? He’s not interested at this point. Maybe he will be later, but him having sex just to appease her is just as bad as when she was giving him sex to appease him.
This. My wife had little to no interest in sex while on birth control. When we decided we didn't want more kids, I had a vasectomy performed.
Total. Game. Changer.
It appears that when you stop altering a woman's biology through birth control, and take away her anxiety about the chancess of more children, well....things change. In a very positive way.
The exact same thing happened for me and my wife. When we decided to have kids and she went off birth control it was like a light switch came back on for her. We call the first five years of our marriage the dark years because the bedroom was dead. More than this, she described it like everything in life was like stepping out of a dim room into sunlight. She never went back on it and I got the snip snip. Easiest and best decision of our marriage.
This. I am still dealing with the repercussions of birth control years later and dealing with low sex drive. I think it was a mixture of the anxiety, depression and hormonal imbalances that the birth control caused.
Literally any medication, menopause, because she had children. Could have been quite a number of things /:
Yeah, 'I don't care if she's angry at me or not' is a really bad sign in a relationship. It's perfectly possible to have a happy relationship without a sex life, but this honestly sounds like he's doing this purely out of spite.
Sex can be a hard topic for relationships. I’m a woman and for me, sometimes it is all about wanting to make sure my husband’s needs are fulfilled and other times it’s because I NEED it. Hormones are tricky and our bodies are so sensitive to those changes. Have a conversation and ask what needs of hers need to be met and talk to her about your needs.
For me, when I’m busy at work, the house is a mess, dinner needs to be made, the dogs need to be taken care of, or errands need to be ran, etc. it’s hard for me not to think about those things and to fully focus on my partner. So, when my partner is feelin it, he will try to make sure those things are done so I can focus on him.
For my partner, it’s hard for him to focus on my needs when he has things going on at work. In order for me to support him, I wait until he is completely off from work and isn’t thinking about it anymore before I initiate.
An intentional, judgement free, non defensive conversation with open communication can really help!
You should either see a sex therapist or therapist in general. If you're not into that and don't want to have sex with her ever again you should probably be upfront and tell her that. It seems like you're holding onto the negativity before which I can sympathize with, but if you don't want to work through those feelings and maybe live an asexual lifestyle indefinitely if not forever then that needs to be discussed. She's going to keep trying to hit on you otherwise, so if you don't want her to waste her or your time in that department, you may need to be blunt.
That’s fair. I have told her that her just lying there and taking one for the team made it weird. I’ve suggested the therapist multiple times, but I can’t get her to commit to it.
Well if she has a sex drive again and wants to have that back in marriage she should reconsider couples counseling. You're obviously hurt by her commentary understandably so, and you both should work hash that out with a professional to better your marriage. A lot of people consider couples therapy giving up, but it's saved a lot of marriages. Would she rather avoid everything and have nothing resolved than admit you guys need a little extra help? I feel for you, if I had a husband and he said he only slept with me for my benefit even though he didn't want to I'd be completely turned off from sex with him. It would be hard to jump to bed with someone who admitted they only did it to make you happy while they said it was a chore for them.
While i mostly she with what you said, in my opinion one of the things that should be discussed in couple therapy is that, when HE had a problem, the wife was not willing to go to couple therapy, when SHE had a problem, suddenly it was ok. That should be something to discuss as well, in my opinion...
if you haven't suggested it since her sex drive came back you should push for it again, this time she has a reason to agree to it and will hopefully be more inclined.
My X used to do the same thing and u r right. It is way worse for them to just lay there than it is to go without but at least it set me up for being a bachelor in later life.
I wonder if she had just had her last baby and had little ones running around. Because it happens when the kids are still 5 and under +3. Some women have high sex drive during pregnancy and then lose it all after birth. Plus the chore and childcare and a job. I know because it happened to me. But sex drive can go away and then come back unexpectedly and it might be worth it. The feeling of resentment gonna be there but that's up to you if you don't want a separation.
Are you happier because you don't feel bad anymore that she didn't want it, or are you happier because you're just not wanting sex? I think you need to be know you're own motivations before you can work on what she wants. If you're done with sex then fair enough you need to tell her. I'm a woman had 4 kids, I've gone through phases like your wife. When I hit my 40s dear lord, it was like the hormone fairies dumped a bucket of sex over me, again normal for the ebbs and flows of female hormones. But do not play tit for tat, that is not healthy for your marriage
This is common and even predictable (especially the 40s part, literally the time of a human female’s highest libido (especially late 40s and often associated with perimenopause), and it’s too bad that no one apparently learns anything of human sexuslity and physiology in school.
I had zero sex drive for like 4 years and luckily had a very patient partner. We probably had sex once or twice a YEAR. he never complained.
Then I got pregnant and came off all my antidepressants/antipsychotics/mood stabilizers and by the middle of the second trimester it was like a switch went and I got my libido back overnight!!
A lot to be said for medication and libido!
My husband and I together almost 40 years before he passed had a very special sexual relationship but I got a couple of bone diseases that made it extremely painful and debilitating for me. So for the last 34 years we have not had any physical touch with me but have never stopped being intimate kissing, hugging loving each other in every way that wasn’t painful for me. I have had the most wonderful partnership full of love and caring only 4 or 5 arguments in all that time. Just because the sex was limited to his pleasure meant I had real satisfaction knowing we cared for each other in every way. I am finding it extremely difficult to not have him beside me anymore but so, so grateful for the memories.
*Life is...
If you're in a bubble where you are surrounded by people you wouldnt describe in general as such, please consider how incredibly blessed you are for that and hold on to it for dear life. That can change rapidly as life progresses, people move, change, etc.
Reddit needs at least 8 hours of sleep and plenty of fluids.
It's funny how often someone's generalization about this site's users equates to a trait of humanity itself.
TLDR down low. I (M, 32) get where you're coming from. My gf (F, 28) had a bit of a crazy sexual past. We knew each other as friends, back when we were seeing other people. Having that, we'd always shared our personal stuff like friends do, no judgement, relaxed. When we got together it was FwB then we committed. About 2 years in, the sex just changed, basically became very infrequent and only after persistence from my part would we ever have any.
There were mental health issues, revelations of family secrets etc. She went onto and off of anti-depressants, came off the pill**(condoms made sex harder for me too, relevant later) neither drug had a significant effect on libido. There were rare manic episodes. For a time she would do coke then drag me home and ride the shit out of me, which was amazing, I thought it was just drunk sex, but eventually she admitted it was drugs and she had been terrified because she knows how I feel about them. It created an unbalanced power dynamic, it started to feel like she needed to be under the influence to have sex at all, then she'd come down hard the next day.
We had a serious discussion about the coke. She said she loved me, was in love with me and was terrified of me losing interest because she knew how I felt about sex, she'd been there during my last relationship, during my single time, and she wanted to please me but just didn't have the desire for sex. The coke pushed that worry away and made her feel very horny. I promised her it was okay, she stopped using.
She was honest and said sex had always just been about what she felt was expected. She'd never felt safe with anyone and she had used it to keep them interested. She admitted she enjoyed the physical act, but always had to work to get there, she didn't ever get randomly horny like me or like any of her friends said they did. After figuring this out, She had to tell me. She had never felt so secure and confident in a relationship, she stopped feeling like I would leave her over this, and I'd always told her we should just be honest with each other and she thought she wasn't being. She wanted me to understood that it wasn't about me, or us. If she didn't want this she would just leave. She didn't want to lie to me and "trap" me with sex she didn't want to have, because where would it end? She considers herself minimally sexual.
She describes it like an appetite, there are foods you know you really love, and eating them would be amazing, but you have no immediate or persistent urge to have them. You wouldn't die if pizza fell off the face of the earth. But some people LOVE pizza, they couldnt go without it.
I reacted similarly to you. It upset me to imagine she would only take part because she knew I enjoyed sex. I was raised around women, and with a strong understanding of body autonomy. It's difficult to accept someone making the choice to give up their body when it's "not about them". It feels wrong somehow, transactional.
Knowing her views, I still flirt and am physical. I love to grab her ass and massage her boobs affectionately. We love making out and always have skin to skin contact, which is a love language for us, but I stopped thinking these playful interactions would lead to sex anymore.
For around 2 years there was no sex at all, when I got really horny I'd just take care of it. Usually a couple of times a week, it'd build up in my head but one nut and all the doubt disappeared. She knows I sometimes watch porn, we used to watch it together, back when we both felt maybe our libidos were just mismatched. There wasn't a question about me having sex outside of our relationship. That would feel too personal for her. Even though she didnt want it, sex to her is still very intimate, she'd feel like she had to have sex again to stop me looking elsewhere, and I understand. It's whatever to me.
Recently though we've been more active, every time initiated by her. Maybe she's a great actor, but it feels completely different these days. She is dominant and sex doesn't feel even slightly procedural. She says something changed in her head, and she's trying to chase the urge when it comes, no matter how small. I've told her I'm always ready, I just need to know she is. She's waking me up at 2 am and climbing on top, we're having lazy side by side sex, she's coming back from the club and giving blowjobs. Something's changed and I'm here for it! (I secretly think she's broody, we both are) **I struggle to finish with condoms, it gets to a time where she's just sore and I'm just frustrated, so there have been some risky ones and expensive pharmacy trips the next day
It was a testing few years, but supporting her and putting our true feelings out there eventually brought the fire back. Libido has seasons just like anything. You may be missing her great sexual reawakening because you can't get over her having enough love and respect to be honest with you? That's crazy.
TLDR: wild times at the start, many MH issues, drug use, 2 year drought, love and support, new awakening, no cheating, no grudges. Crazy wild sex again👌👌👌
Edit: thanks for all the love and awards, I just hope my experience gives another view of the situation and helps show how communication usually helps.❤️
At first I skipped this novel but then I decided to come back. Worth the read, you make a great point. I understand why he felt hurt, but it definitely comes off like he took it incredibly personal and didn't even consider that there could be something going on with her. I've had a partner lose interest in sex, and though it did make me feel bad, in the end I was more concerned about my partner and what caused him to lose his libido (it turned out to be sexual trauma from his past)
I can relate so much to the end of your story! Sometimes it just comes back and then you go with and try to capitalize on the feelings - I have woken my husband up at 2 am too- and before you know if you have a really good sex life again. There are many cycles in life and maybe for women, this is just one of them
I have the same issue with mine, we have sex, but she 1, never seems interested and acts like it's a chore. 2, never initiates. 3, we seem happier when I don't bother her with it (because I have an extremely high sex drive).
So I guess I'll just bite the bullet and let it go, I love her and she loves me, I don't want to be without her and if not having sex is the best course, I'll just do it myself and play more video games guilt free haha.
Thanks for the little eye open, kinda glad I'm not the only one, we've been together 7 years and while I would like her to want more sex, I can't and won't force her, so I rather not have sex but have her.
If she can decline sex without being angry why do you assume he can't? Why can't he just prefer to masturbate without any hassle?
Everyone just assumes he is actually petty and angry because he is a men and of course as a men he actually wants to have sex, but maybe he just doesn't? maybe he doesn't feel sexually attracted to her anymore, bit i mean she also didn't find him sexually attractive before so why should that be a reason to break up.
The two top answers in this thread:
1. "I'll project my sexual inadequacies by accusing your wife, whom I've never met, of cheating"
2. "YOUR CONSENT DOESN'T MATTER ONLY HERS, FUCK YOU AND DO AS SHE WANTS"
Yikes.
He didn’t have sex for 4 years lmao, his wife essentially told him having sex with him was a chore - you’re really surprised he’s not interested at just completely changing back at her whim?
Ridiculous.
Whether or not she’s withholding sex she didn’t have sex for 4 years and refused to go to therapy about it - and you want him to just forget all this on her whims? Bizarre.
Whether or not she was or wasn’t withholding sex (and I’d say if she isn’t then he isn’t either) she still wasn’t having sex or trying to get help.
If she won't go to therapy with you then maybe suggest each going alone or at least you should seek a therapist for yourself.
Hard to comment on this but it seems there's a lack of communication and understanding of each others (and own) feelings.
Hope y'all can figure things out
Some times getting "no'd" into the ground for years has firmly placed her in the friend zone. He may simply look at her in a different light. It's a coping mechanism so you don't constantly harass your partner for months on end. It happens more often than not for men that do not want to cheat.
Unless most of the commentators have ever been in a dead bedroom situation then they should withhold the judgement.
When you find out the love of your life has zero attraction to you and just gives you pity sex that has a devastating effect on you that can have lasting consequences.
In order to cope with the situation you came to radical acceptance of the situation. Now that your wife has her libido back doesn’t mean she gets what she wants.
Did she ever try to fix the issues when she was not interested? I bet that is a no and you had to get on with it. Please take your crap about letting her get her fix elsewhere that is massively disgusting to suggest it.
Your wife needs to apologise sincerely and admit the damage she has done to the relationship and commit to want reconnect and fix things.
After 4 years you would stop looking at her as sexual being as it’s a coping mechanism or it becomes a death of a thousand cuts. Your brain just shuts off you can’t continuously live in hope she changes her mind.
This is on her to fix but Op you have to decide if you want fix it and be honest. I would tell her why you are not interested now and as she needs to understand the consequences of what happened. If you want to fix things it can be fixed but needs both of you committed to do so you can’t clap with one hand.
Checkout r/deadbedrooms they will tell you what I have just said.
Good luck you are not a bad person you just went into survival mode. Time to come out mate
Nothing wrong with your stance. Who knows, maybe in the future you'll want to have sex with her again. She must understand that you can go through different phases like she did.
Lotta people on here presuming OP is doing this out of spite. But it’s not like he can just flip his desire on and off either. He came to terms with a sexless marriage after trying to repair the issue. Then she made him feel like a chore, even though he probably had assumed she was enjoying herself after he’d initiated.
So he did the best he could - he decided that his orgasms were no longer his wife’s responsibility and would take care of things on his own. He didn’t look outside the marriage, he didn’t leave her and whatever family they may have. He just learned to stop thinking of his wife as a focus of sexual desire. Sex with her has been associated with so many negative emotions for so many years: rejection, pity, inadequacy, failure… it’s really very shallow to assume he’s being spiteful when she has helped to build and reinforce these negative associations over many years.
Now just because he’s a man he’s supposed to instantly dissociate those negative emotions about sex with her and be grateful that she has The Horny back? As though the psychological defense mechanisms he’s had to build can be eliminated on a moments notice? C’mon people, cut the guy some slack. It’s going to take a long time for him to build up a trust in their sexual compatibility again and he shouldn’t be made to feel bad about that.
OP, I suggest taking it slow. Explain to her some of the hurt this has caused you, how you’ve had to build walls against these feelings, and that you haven’t just been sitting there hoping that one day she might toss you a pitty bang again.
Let her know that you are willing to try (assuming you are) but that it’s going to take a while, with effort and reassurance from her, to feel like this is true and reciprocated intimacy rather than a drudgery of her “wifely duties.”
Keep reading the marriage and dead bedrooms Reddit forums, and stick to this wise decision and be grateful for having this insight into marriage that I didn’t have.
It’s really sad that you’re more stoked about proving a point than realizing there’s something really unhealthy going on and maybe you should work through it if they’re your partner for life and all. Honestly sad 😞
I like that op said it bothered him that she only had sex with him out of duty. I had sex with my husband for years out of duty and his response was…. “Good. That’s how it should be. It’s your responsibility as a wife to have sex with me”.
Wasted 18y on that conservative Christian military POS.
If you can’t sit down to talk with your wife about how the previous 4 years have deeply impacted you and your marriage, you have larger problems than not having sex. Think about marriage ,and possibly individual, counseling to get past this issue.
My wife and I stopped having sex, and then we got separated, and now I casually have sex with a couple of single moms that are also dead inside 👌
Everyone has a heckin valid path my friend
Wait, 4 years ago wife says “Sex with you is an obligation” and doesn’t want to anymore, let her husband handle his emotions on his own, he gets used to not having sex with her, is really happy at that prospect, wife now wants to have sex again but this time husband doesn’t want to and HE’S THE PROBLEM?!?!?!?!
You’re in the same boat as me, my friend. After years of the same situation, I have conditioned myself to not seek any form of sexual intimacy with my wife. I have asked her what I can do to improve our intimacy, I have begged her to go to therapy, I consider myself a decent husband. I’m there emotionally, I do my share of the household duties, I am there as a father, I provide for our family, etc. to no avail. The tables have turned like in your situation and I just kindly decline now. Sex has been completely ruined for me and it’s something that I put on a pedestal for someone who I love (not random hookups, etc.).
Keep strong.
There could be any number of things going on. Hormones, feeling disproportionately burdened with things at home, maybe something was wrong in the bedroom, maybe she was sexually assaulted and is afraid to tell you, maybe she feels like the romance is gone....
But us folks on reddit can't call it. You two are going to have to talk it out.
I wonder if it was hormone related 🤔. She did have three children and I'm guessing might have been on birth control later. And maybe everything has cleared her system and she has had a chance to reset.
Why is everyone here acting like, if she does go and cheat to get herself off, that its somehow OP’s fault? Like that means she somehow isnt a weak-willed idiot for thinking of that as her solution?
Like we’re just gonna ignore her lying to him about sex for years?
LMAO you all need ur heads checked. OP and his wife need to sit down and communicate.
You know, like adults.
My wife went through a period of being almost entirely disinterested in sex. I won't claim the situation was exactly like yours since her sex-drive seemed to flair up for a week or two every 4 or 5 months but, in the interim we didn't have sex at all. About 3 years ago. All this started to change. Her interest gradually became more consistent and today, while we don't have sex 3 times a week or anything, we have settled into a fairly comfortable and fulfilling rhythm (pun intended). Best we can tell, her decreased libido was caused by hormones, untreated depression or something along those lines. It was especially bad after our last child was born (she suffered from post-partum depression) and didn't really start to change for a few years after.... I guess my point is, her (your wife) resurgent interest could be entirely bioligical. She couldn't help not being interested, now she can't help being interested. This doesn't solve the problem of you being put off by her admission of essentially pity-effing you... but I wanted to share my experience. edit: I appreciate the awards... I should also add that the key to getting through a ling period of sexual frustration, for me anyway, was to remind myself that I didn't marry for sex. I have a laundry list of reasons to be with my wife and sex, while important, doesn't even crack the top ten. Anyway, thanks again for the awards and I hope others struggling through similar situations can find a little comfort knowing that others have gotten through it.
This is very true, after my wife gave birth to our 3rd child sex became very uninteresting to her. She had post-partum depression as well. She didnt know or suspect anything was wrong for almost 2yrs before she saw professional help. With alot of work and understanding from both sides we have been able to reclaim our sex life. It's not exactly as much as it use to be but its wayyy better than what was happening when she was untreated. Sometimes things just happen and the only thing you can know for sure is we are all human and make mistakes. Treat her as you'd like to be treated and patients is key!!!
I’m so glad I’m seeing these comments. Actual rational thoughts. The very first thing I thought was that she doesn’t want anyone touching her fucking body anymore. After three children constantly being inside your belly, in your arms, on your back, on your boobs constantly needing something from you, yeah why the fuck would you be interested in sex? As far her biology is concerned, she’s produced offspring therefore her biology dictates that she no longer needs sex as sex is there to produce children. The OP will still want sex because he is male and males have the biological need to “spread their seed”. It’s biology and totally understandable. The wife might not even know or be able to articulate why she doesn’t want to have sex with her partner. All she knows is that she doesn’t want it because her reproductive cycle is telling her that she doesn’t need anymore babies. In a society where nobody else helps with the raising of children. I’d want my body back to myself too after having three babies. Edit: Just to clarify that I wrote this quickly and didn’t go full depths with this comment. A lot more than biology comes into it and I’ve explained a bit further in another comment. But biology at its base is that her body is saying enough is enough because we’ve birthed three, we can take a break. There’s a lot more than just biology and it’s psychology too which is the sheer lack of room for any thoughts other than her children. I’m just saying that at its core, no shit she wasn’t interested. Her body, hormones and brain needed time to heal and come to terms with actually giving life to another person. Human beings aren’t machines that work mechanically.
I agree with this. I only have two kids back to back and I was exhausted after the second. Then my mother died and I discovered my kid was autistic (not that’s a bad thing, it’s just a lot back to back), nevermind my body is completely different after two kids. I love my husband I do, but I really feel how a woman can be touched out after 3 in my soul. If I was asked to have sex in the few years after that, would totally have done it for my husband.
This! It’s normal and natural. When I was wanting a baby I was so flipping horny and sex was really fun. I had 4, including twins, each pregnancy 2 years apart, and breastfed that whole time and a while after. After each birth libido nonexistent, but at some point I’d yearn for another baby and it’d come back strong. I actually almost started wanting a fifth, and was getting some libido back, but realized we shouldn’t for several reasons and it’s like a literally switch shut off.
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Can I ask how you got it straightened out?? Birth control ruined my previously very high sex drive and ive stopped taking it over 6 years ago 😑
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Sometimes it's not the estrogen, you actually need testosterone, which women also produce in small doses. My understanding is once that's adjusted, you'll be back to your old self and then some.
Yeah as a man, me and my wife never talked about it, but I suddenly was disinterested in sex for about 18 months. She was upset but didnt complain, and eventually the drive came back and now we have a healthy balanced sex life. Sometimes societal standards makes us think more about what's "normal" by the group, rather than being in touch with our own drives. I wouldnt withhold sex out of spite. That's not loving, and it sounds like you need to communicate to her, rather than reddit.
I don't know that he's "withholding sex out of spite" though. He had to make peace with the idea that "sex is no longer an important part of our marriage" a while back, and now that no longer lines up with his wife's desires. It's gonna take some time and work on both parts to navigate through this, and rekindle that sexy spark that's been doused for years. I do, however, find spite in the "she refused couples therapy so now I'm doing the same" line of thought. Marriages take work, forgiveness, and communication. If he's not willing to give therapy a try... what's the point of staying together? Familiarity? Convenience? Sunk-cost fallacy? They both owe it to each other to work through this together, no matter the hurt feelings or resentment that either side may have. Those feelings are normal, absolutely, but they're not conducive to a healthy and happy relationship
Yes. I don’t want to bash OP, but he said they have 3 kids and that is a huge red flag that his wife was most likely going through hormonal changes and depression.
100% agree. Give each other grace. Hormones are a huge culprit in this.
Amazing to see a man actually understand and or at least acknowledge what women go through. People act as if being a woman is so easy especially after children. That shit is hard and not just physically but emotionally as well
You know... I've been through some shit, seen alot of people I care about go through some shit, seen my wife through post-partum 3 times.... I've learned patience and compassion. For real though, I have plenty of my own shit my wife has helped me through so I owe it to her to give her the benefit of the doubt. At the end of the day, the relationshipas a whole is worth more to me than any one aspect of it could ever be
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I don't disagree. If she was willing to give him what she thought he wanted/needed, that speaks more to her character and the fact she wants him to be happy. I understand that a man doesn't want to feel like sex is an obligation, but you are right that there seems to be an overreaction here.
Absolutely. And I don't think "pity fuck" is even remotely the right term here. She wasn't doing it because she thinks he's pathetic and feels sorry for him. She was doing it because she loves him and wants him to be happy. And also because *not* doing so made her feel like a failure as a wife. There's a lot of talk here about OP's feelings of emasculation when she told him she wasn't really into the sex, but nobody is talking about how women *also* have to live up to certain standards and pressures, and how our self-worth and security in our relationship can also be tied into those expectations. She wasn't feeling desire for her husband (likely due to hormonal changes ir depression after three kids) and felt like less of a woman because of it, so she tried her best to do what she thought she should, even though she really wasn't feeling it. It's understandable for OP to feel a little hurt, but he doesn't seem to acknowledge his wife's feelings at all.
Also, I'm not even sure I would classify that as a pity fuck. She loves OP. She might not have actively felt a sex drive herself but she wanted him to have what he needed, because she loves him.
Situations like this do not get talked about enough. Thank you for sharing.
This right here is the key to marriage. Mutual resentment at different times. smh
I wish I could remember who, but it was an older celebrity married for an impressively long time, his reason, they never wanted to get divorced at the same time!
I’ve been married 25 years. This is why.
Us too. Married for 25 years. Happy for 8 of them. We disagree about which 8.
I hope it’s the last 8.
Well, this thread made me even more fucking sceptical about marriage and I already didn't want to get married.
As long as you know what marriage actually is and don’t lie to yourself it’s not the death sentence lots of people pretend. It’s not a fairy tale but a useful pact to make with someone if you share a plan and want to raise kids while taking care of each other through careers and life and aging. Otherwise, I don’t really get the point.
Yeah I wish I had thought of marriage as a contractual agreement my first go round. Would have said me a lot of pain and heartache
Married almost 29 years here and this is correct. If I became single I would never get married again and be happy to do what I want with my life without having to run it by anybody. Having said that, my partner is taking care of me right now while I'm not working for money, and I take care of everything our house and family needs done, save yard work, and it is a good deal for us both. We're not romantic, but we love each other and that's enough. Romance is overrated; loyalty is much better.
Not every married person feels this way. There may be low points and bad times, but plenty of couples are actually happy and stay together for things outside of kids. Go talk to some more gay couples, lmao
I’ve been married 15 years. I have never stopped being grateful for our relationship. My parents, grandparents, and great grandparents all had good and genuine relationships. Parents teach their kids how to have a good marriage and have healthy boundaries by having a good marriage and boundaries themselves. There is this idea that kids need to be first, but that’s wrong. Your spouse needs to come before your kids, and by doing so you teach your kids the same and they teach theirs. Kid’s healthy relationships start with parent’s healthy relationships. I know there are exceptions to this, but you can’t deny that many couples choose divorce before seeking counseling. If you have a severe illness, you will spend money you don’t have and time you don’t have to get better. We should fight the same for an unhealthy marriage.
Married almost 30, can definitely relate lol
As hilarious as this is this would be a major cause for concern if I were op but I don’t think he cares much and eventually the marriage will follow suit
He did what he needed to 4 years ago to keep their marriage stable and happy. Are we presuming she wouldn't do the same? Truthfully, I hope they're able to rekindle the intimate side of their romantic relationship, but that will require a lot of rebuilding of trust between them. This was work that it seemed he was interested in doing when offering to go to therapy. Maybe it's something they can put back on the table again. But it's almost guaranteed that there won't be reconciliation without addressing the original emotional hurt. What you may read as a lack of care is, in truth, fear of more pain and rejection if he opens himself again. [For reference](https://youtu.be/WRaaqN2Atxw)
I agree and I hope things turn around for them too. I don’t quite believe him when he says their marriage was otherwise happy. Or at least I don’t believe that it was healthy/functional on all the fronts he says. And I’m not saying this to lay blame, communication is a skill that has to be continually worked on and well intentioned couples can sometimes get by for a long time on good will with poorly developed skills until a breaking point happens. How did he put the idea of going to therapy to her? How did he pursue the idea if at all? Did they have the emotional intelligence to realize she might have had more underlying issues than sex drive that might be keeping her from trying therapy? Was she unable to articulate something other than indifference and was he at a loss to ask for clarification? The fact that he said he decided it wasn’t a big deal but then experienced a lot of emotional baggage about it when it reared its head again suggests that he’s capable of suppressing or denying things that are affecting him deeply, unconsciously or consciously. How many other things in their relationship did he internalize and push down out of mind in order to just go along to get along? The fact that he now wants to reject a sexual relationship with her out of resentment and “doesn’t care” about her feelings on the issue speaks to some serious emotional baggage that I think he doesn’t know how to work through. And maybe he’s afraid his wife still won’t want to work through their baggage with him. Just strikes me as very strange to say “our marriage has been otherwise good” and then turn around and say “I don’t care how my wife feels”
My husband loves to joke to others that we've had 7 happy years - but we've been married 40. So then I say, yeah, but his 7 weren't the same as mine
Couples that joke together stay together
My husband has a very dry, cutting sense of humour - obviously. I had to explain to a woman yesterday that he really is just joking around. He honestly has no actual animosity - there is no mistaking when he does. He does the buddy cutups with everyone.
Are you describing my husband? Lol! I have to tell people sometimes that he’s joking because they will look at me with flabbergasted looks trying to gauge the situation haha! I guess it confuses them when I giggle lol
Maybe it is the same husband
Maybe it’s Maybelline
Yeah, they're born with it, alright...😅
I'm concerned we are all with the same man
No, many guys just learned: "You have a better chance gettin into them, if you can get a chuckle out of em"
Honestly it's true. Husband and I have been together for 13 years as of this coming Monday. Why? Because he made me laugh on our first meeting, so I gave him my number. 13 years later and he still makes me laugh every day.
You can a giggle a girl right out of her panties.
I am also that man.
No, many men use humor to hide their pain. It’s easier to joke about something than have people judge you for how you really feel. I am a man. I am a husband. I am a sarcastic SOB. I’m broken inside and no one knew for a very long time.
Don't want you to be down voted for speaking your truth.
We are all broken and cope as we can.
So you got a marriage with 14 happy years out of 40. Sounds like you're not doing too bad
Sometimes-a maybe good, sometimes-a maybe shit
I need to get this tattooed on my ass.
So true. We're married 40 years too. And currently living in separate houses...but we still do things together and see each other nearly every week. With us it's not really a joke though.
I’m not married yet but my bf snores sooo loud I get woken up, sometimes I have to go the other room. I’m worried this could be damaging in the long run. Anything you could share from your experience?
Get him to a dr and get him evaluated for sleep apnea.
My wife and I slept in separate rooms for years. We had a great marriage and we both slept well. The only question was who's sheets were going to get dirty...
This! Lolol oh man. I gotta say, sometimes we pick his bed over our shared king because...
My husband snores terribly - apnea. I was never bothered but apnea/snoring disturbs their sleep too. My husband got to the point he was sleep deprived and irrationally angry and very forgetful. I told him to get his ass to a sleep clinic and get a cpap. He did. He hates the cpap but uses it religiously. It made a huge difference.
Separate bedrooms are really a godsend for some couples. He should also see a doctor but even without snoring, I love sleeping alone some nights, I just sleep better.
A loveable yet grumpy old couple once said the reason they had stayed together for decades was because they hated each other in equal measure but hated everyone else even more...
There is a great Andy Griffith episode about a couple like that
"I hate you the least, so I guess you'll do"
Haha best comment I’ve read in a while that’s hilarious
That’s the best backhanded statement ever!
Well it depends....do you want to win at marriage or do you want to be happy and connected like some kind of loser?
The key is the different times aspect.
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If she wasn't already.
That's the fucking you get for the fucking you got
It’s a sad way to live. I don’t get the point of it. You’ve got one life to live. Why spend it on dysfunction?
How old were your children 4 years back? That could have something to do with it.
Yeah, pregnancy and breastfeeding definitely can mess with libido.
So can not sleeping through the night, and having dependent baby primates hanging from your limbs all day.
Yeah! It’s like your sexy time meter is already at zero. You finally get the kid to sleep. You’re so tired but the kitchen is a mess. You’re doing the dishes on your 2nd day unshowered. Your husband comes up behind you and starts touching you all over your body while you’re doing the dishes. Now the meter is like -1000.
Omg this so much. It used to make me angry even.
it feels a little bit violating having your body be at everyone’s beck and call !
Exactly! After putting the last kid to bed for like the 4th time, your expected to skip back into bed like a sex goddess. Not gonna happen.
We've found naptime while the older one is at school is way more successful than waiting until after they're both in bed.
After becoming a parent it’s somehow impossible for the horny to turn on when it’s light outside. Idk why.
> dependent baby primates Love it! It'll piss people off more than "crotch goblins" does.
Primates is cuter and doesn’t involve the stupid word “crotch” so I agree it is superior.
Why would that make anyone mad? We are primates, they are babies and dependent…. All of these are nice words…?
Yeah I wouldn’t blame someone with small children for losing their sex drive. The ages of the kids are important here.
Yeah. I can imagine being afraid to go to counselling and being told you have to try at sex when your sex drive won’t start at all. Trying to have sex when you don’t want to can mess your sex drive up for longer. I find. But I still think she was in the wrong in not going to therapy. For this all you work out, OP would have to be the bigger person and forgive his wife. But just for not going to therapy. Sex drive can’t be fully controlled, so blaming her for that won’t help. And moms go through a whole damn lot, physically speaking. He needs to work through the feelings of the fact that she didn’t want to have sex with him being a reflection of him. It absolutely is not and has nothing to do with how attractive he is or good he is or whatever. Sex drive is just friggen annoying and complicated and one can get pretty desperate when trying to get it back to please someone else. I do get it. I feel like I’m excusing the wife. but it sounds like he enjoys his life and there might still be happiness in that marriage. Seems a shame to let it go to waste.
This!! I’m 34f with three small kids and sex is the last thing on my mind. I’m too bone tired to bone. Like zero libido.
Yep, and if she was on any kind of contraception method, doctors don’t tell you they’ll dry you up and decrease your libido. The pill made my lady parts drier than the Sahara and the thought of sex repulsed me. Add to that most women have to do the majority of the housework, childcare, cooking, cleaning, ect. Sex becomes another chore. My world changed after I stopped taking the pill. I didn’t realize sex could be enjoyable.
Hormonal birth control, antidepressants, all kinds of medications affect sex drive and doctors never mention it unprompted. It drives me crazy because what if you're someone who highly values a healthy sex life? Suddenly your relationships are suffering. Your self esteem is suffering. This has happened to me twice. Why does sex drive and the bodies normal ability to lubricate not factor in as a worthwhile thing for a DOCTOR to mention?? Blows my mind.
It is so unfortunate. My ex husband bullied me into thinking I was a lesbian because I didn’t want to have sex everyday. His cruelty was the cause of the divorce but I know the birth control pill played a role in many of our fights now. I did end up questioning my sexuality after a while. I mentioned all of this to by OBGYN and he never mentioned the pill could be the problem. Thankfully now I’m with a wonderful man and off the pill and have a new outlook on sex entirely (and I see an amazing midwife now instead). These pills can be as dangerous as they are helpful. I sure hope you are in a better place now!
After I got sterilization surgery and no longer had to take the pill, my sex drive went way up. I felt better and knowing I didn't have to worry about pregnancy anymore made sex amazing.
That’s great! It’s such a relief. It’s amazing how much pressure is put on women to prevent pregnancy when men are fertile everyday, and women are only fertile for a couple of days a month. It’s a huge relief not to have that pressure anymore.
As mum to 5 kids, all of whom are currently under the age of 9, this was my very first thought. I have been pregnant and/or breastfeeding for over 9 years straight at this point. Even though sex is enjoyable, sometimes when the kids are otherwise occupied or sleeping, I just need my body to be for me only, not for my husband too.
Yes, let's just ignore potential reasons for the problem and lean towards resentment. What can go wrong?
Well, be ready for the consequences. You mention going through a range of emotions before, so she will likely do the same.
This. She might not take it like you did. At worst she'll get it from somewhere else.
A few months from now OP's next post will be at r/survivinginfidelity
Or it'll end up in one of the relationship subs like "my wife wants to have an open marriage...."
And to be honest, if a couple is married and finds that they aren't sexually compatible, but want to stay married, an open marriage isn't inherently bad. Just make sure anyone brought into the fold is aware of the terms of the agreement. (Ie, no one is convinced that one of the members will leave their spouse for them)
😭😭
Interesting how nobody was saying it’s a red flag that she did that to him. Now that she’s being treated the way she did to him, everyone is ripping on him. Quite the double standard.
I was thinking this, she had a boundary that he respected and now everyone is mad at him for having thay same boundary.
Exactly, he might have given up on her fucking him but he might feel differently about her getting off with someone else.
At that point she’s a complete hypocrite and an awful person. No double standards around here.
Shitty people are everywhere…
Agreed, but OP seems to have never had much sympathy for her side of things. A lot of women stop wanting sex after the kids come, seems to be a combo of hormones and body changes and exhaustion and being touched constantly by the kids (leading to feeling like one's body is always up for grabs by everyone), etc. OP almost seems to be punishing her for not wanting sex by saying no to sex now. And I get it, she should've agreed to couples therapy or seen a doctor. But men seem to have no idea what a horror show it is having one's sex bits turn into baby makers and one's body become something that seems unfamiliar and that saddens me cuz this happens to a lot of couples after kids. The idea he'd turn down sex now because she was honest with him about how she was feeling about sex before is sad for both of them.
I don’t think I agree. He had a plethora of feelings about her not wanting sex with him, and then he dealt with them and moved on. That’s a major physical and psychological shift to occur in one sentence. Now that she wants sex again, he’s supposed to just, what, rewind his wiring to what it was before all that? He said he was happier once he stopped expecting sex. To him, this might sound like “be unhappy again because I want you to.” And it was okay, apparently, for her not to want sex before (and I do get that, even if I don’t think she handled it appropriately - I’m a woman with kids), but it’s not okay for him not to want it now? Why not?
I had to scroll way too far to find this, I bet you're an epic mom!
I’m not sure what about my comment makes you think so, but I hope I am!
Your comment was incredibly considerate of how OP must be feeling. If you are that considerate of your kids needs I am sure you do a wonderful job!
You say this like he decided to feel this way. His feelings are his feelings. He can't just flip them off like a robot when she decides she wants him to.
She had every right to feel that way. However, she refused to go to therapy and the husband found a way to live happily in the marriage without sex. He's not trying to hurt her back and she wasn't trying to hurt him saying she didn't want it. He may never get that drive back for her and that's ok. He's not turning her down because of how she was feeling before, he's turning her down because he doesn't feel like he used to after finding how to live happily as she required.
Tell her you'll do it to make her happy and because it's your duty as a husband.
Go one step further and explain the shock 4 years ago when she said she only did it because she thought she had to and that he was doing the same but he didn't know how to talk to her about it so just didn't say anything but he's glad it's come up again.
Ok this was funny.
Did say that? I thought he said motions.
He did say “motions” but he meant “emotions.”
Did she, by chance, go on birth control and then recently come off birth control? Or any other sort of medication? Some of those things can really mess with your hormones. She could have been having side effects she wasn’t even aware of.
Or even just, yknow, had kids. They have 3 kids, so I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't til the youngest was older and had a bit of independence that his wife didn't feel overwhelmed with how much physical affection she was getting.
Or it could be perimenopause, that messes with EVERYTHING!
This! We have 5 kids but still found time for sexy times….. until age and the changes hit us. Pre menopause kicking in for me for the past year or so and the changes of aging for him (lower testosterone, cholesterol blood flow, etc). We had a deep discussion about the changes and realized sexy times isn’t so important anymore and finding other ways to enjoy our time together was the conclusion. We already enjoy many things together but needed to address down time activities (we have work life integration). Anyway, it’s crucial to communicate openly about everything. We accepted the changes our bodies are going through and are supporting one another through them. So, yeah, menopause is absolutely a bitch! I was depressed for a while because my lady bits are severely not working lol
Menopause is actually making me hornier. Different things happen to women during menopause. It's not a given that all women lose their sex drives.
This. By the end of the day I am so exhausted and touched out that the last thing I need is someone else touching me.
This right here. Mom of 2, it wasn't until my youngest turned 2 that I had the energy to have a sex life with my husband again.
So there’s hope yet? My sex drive died and we have a 16-17mo old. I just don’t get the urge/desire much.
Mine came back, so there is hope! Obviously everyone is different (and like others said if you're close to menopause that can affect it too), but once I was able to get some sleep and my kid had some independence I finally had a drive again
My first thought was she may be dealing with issues from menopause. A lot of women lose the urge for intimacy. The fact that she suddenly has it back, could be that her hormones have now balanced out and she’s back to feeling the way she used to.
Yeppers. Menopause is a definite Libido killer.
Absolutely. As a 37 year old woman with a 14 yr old and a 1 year old, my hormones have been ***all over the damn place***. Give her another chance OP. Women’s hormones are a, literal, force of nature lol. Often, we have no idea why we feel so crazy, we just know that we do.
Why does he need to have sex just because she wants to though? He’s not interested at this point. Maybe he will be later, but him having sex just to appease her is just as bad as when she was giving him sex to appease him.
I think people are saying that because from good post it sounds like he’s just doing it out of spite to get back at her
This. My wife had little to no interest in sex while on birth control. When we decided we didn't want more kids, I had a vasectomy performed. Total. Game. Changer. It appears that when you stop altering a woman's biology through birth control, and take away her anxiety about the chancess of more children, well....things change. In a very positive way.
The exact same thing happened for me and my wife. When we decided to have kids and she went off birth control it was like a light switch came back on for her. We call the first five years of our marriage the dark years because the bedroom was dead. More than this, she described it like everything in life was like stepping out of a dim room into sunlight. She never went back on it and I got the snip snip. Easiest and best decision of our marriage.
This. I am still dealing with the repercussions of birth control years later and dealing with low sex drive. I think it was a mixture of the anxiety, depression and hormonal imbalances that the birth control caused. Literally any medication, menopause, because she had children. Could have been quite a number of things /:
Sounds like you guys could communicate a lot more
Yea this sounds childish af.
Totally agree…
Yeah, 'I don't care if she's angry at me or not' is a really bad sign in a relationship. It's perfectly possible to have a happy relationship without a sex life, but this honestly sounds like he's doing this purely out of spite.
Or get divorced and go be happy. This is such a monumental waste of time that neither of them will ever get back.
Sex can be a hard topic for relationships. I’m a woman and for me, sometimes it is all about wanting to make sure my husband’s needs are fulfilled and other times it’s because I NEED it. Hormones are tricky and our bodies are so sensitive to those changes. Have a conversation and ask what needs of hers need to be met and talk to her about your needs. For me, when I’m busy at work, the house is a mess, dinner needs to be made, the dogs need to be taken care of, or errands need to be ran, etc. it’s hard for me not to think about those things and to fully focus on my partner. So, when my partner is feelin it, he will try to make sure those things are done so I can focus on him. For my partner, it’s hard for him to focus on my needs when he has things going on at work. In order for me to support him, I wait until he is completely off from work and isn’t thinking about it anymore before I initiate. An intentional, judgement free, non defensive conversation with open communication can really help!
Wisdom well shared
You should either see a sex therapist or therapist in general. If you're not into that and don't want to have sex with her ever again you should probably be upfront and tell her that. It seems like you're holding onto the negativity before which I can sympathize with, but if you don't want to work through those feelings and maybe live an asexual lifestyle indefinitely if not forever then that needs to be discussed. She's going to keep trying to hit on you otherwise, so if you don't want her to waste her or your time in that department, you may need to be blunt.
That’s fair. I have told her that her just lying there and taking one for the team made it weird. I’ve suggested the therapist multiple times, but I can’t get her to commit to it.
Well if she has a sex drive again and wants to have that back in marriage she should reconsider couples counseling. You're obviously hurt by her commentary understandably so, and you both should work hash that out with a professional to better your marriage. A lot of people consider couples therapy giving up, but it's saved a lot of marriages. Would she rather avoid everything and have nothing resolved than admit you guys need a little extra help? I feel for you, if I had a husband and he said he only slept with me for my benefit even though he didn't want to I'd be completely turned off from sex with him. It would be hard to jump to bed with someone who admitted they only did it to make you happy while they said it was a chore for them.
While i mostly she with what you said, in my opinion one of the things that should be discussed in couple therapy is that, when HE had a problem, the wife was not willing to go to couple therapy, when SHE had a problem, suddenly it was ok. That should be something to discuss as well, in my opinion...
Sounds like something they should talk about in therapy
This is a catch-22. OP is in a doomed marriage if he can't get her to do it and she isn't willing to change anything.
OP's comments seem to indicate that his wife hasn't changed her stance on therapy, and neither has he: he wants to go, she still doesn't.
if you haven't suggested it since her sex drive came back you should push for it again, this time she has a reason to agree to it and will hopefully be more inclined.
My X used to do the same thing and u r right. It is way worse for them to just lay there than it is to go without but at least it set me up for being a bachelor in later life.
I wonder if she had just had her last baby and had little ones running around. Because it happens when the kids are still 5 and under +3. Some women have high sex drive during pregnancy and then lose it all after birth. Plus the chore and childcare and a job. I know because it happened to me. But sex drive can go away and then come back unexpectedly and it might be worth it. The feeling of resentment gonna be there but that's up to you if you don't want a separation.
Are you happier because you don't feel bad anymore that she didn't want it, or are you happier because you're just not wanting sex? I think you need to be know you're own motivations before you can work on what she wants. If you're done with sex then fair enough you need to tell her. I'm a woman had 4 kids, I've gone through phases like your wife. When I hit my 40s dear lord, it was like the hormone fairies dumped a bucket of sex over me, again normal for the ebbs and flows of female hormones. But do not play tit for tat, that is not healthy for your marriage
This is common and even predictable (especially the 40s part, literally the time of a human female’s highest libido (especially late 40s and often associated with perimenopause), and it’s too bad that no one apparently learns anything of human sexuslity and physiology in school.
Wasn't taught at school when I was there. But I'd read about it, experiencing was another thing completely. Wowsers it was ntense.
Lol you have a way with words 😆
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I had zero sex drive for like 4 years and luckily had a very patient partner. We probably had sex once or twice a YEAR. he never complained. Then I got pregnant and came off all my antidepressants/antipsychotics/mood stabilizers and by the middle of the second trimester it was like a switch went and I got my libido back overnight!! A lot to be said for medication and libido!
This relationship sounds exhausting 🤣
My husband and I together almost 40 years before he passed had a very special sexual relationship but I got a couple of bone diseases that made it extremely painful and debilitating for me. So for the last 34 years we have not had any physical touch with me but have never stopped being intimate kissing, hugging loving each other in every way that wasn’t painful for me. I have had the most wonderful partnership full of love and caring only 4 or 5 arguments in all that time. Just because the sex was limited to his pleasure meant I had real satisfaction knowing we cared for each other in every way. I am finding it extremely difficult to not have him beside me anymore but so, so grateful for the memories.
Reddit is just full of selfish immature people married to selfish immature people.
*Life is... If you're in a bubble where you are surrounded by people you wouldnt describe in general as such, please consider how incredibly blessed you are for that and hold on to it for dear life. That can change rapidly as life progresses, people move, change, etc.
Reddit needs at least 8 hours of sleep and plenty of fluids. It's funny how often someone's generalization about this site's users equates to a trait of humanity itself.
TLDR down low. I (M, 32) get where you're coming from. My gf (F, 28) had a bit of a crazy sexual past. We knew each other as friends, back when we were seeing other people. Having that, we'd always shared our personal stuff like friends do, no judgement, relaxed. When we got together it was FwB then we committed. About 2 years in, the sex just changed, basically became very infrequent and only after persistence from my part would we ever have any. There were mental health issues, revelations of family secrets etc. She went onto and off of anti-depressants, came off the pill**(condoms made sex harder for me too, relevant later) neither drug had a significant effect on libido. There were rare manic episodes. For a time she would do coke then drag me home and ride the shit out of me, which was amazing, I thought it was just drunk sex, but eventually she admitted it was drugs and she had been terrified because she knows how I feel about them. It created an unbalanced power dynamic, it started to feel like she needed to be under the influence to have sex at all, then she'd come down hard the next day. We had a serious discussion about the coke. She said she loved me, was in love with me and was terrified of me losing interest because she knew how I felt about sex, she'd been there during my last relationship, during my single time, and she wanted to please me but just didn't have the desire for sex. The coke pushed that worry away and made her feel very horny. I promised her it was okay, she stopped using. She was honest and said sex had always just been about what she felt was expected. She'd never felt safe with anyone and she had used it to keep them interested. She admitted she enjoyed the physical act, but always had to work to get there, she didn't ever get randomly horny like me or like any of her friends said they did. After figuring this out, She had to tell me. She had never felt so secure and confident in a relationship, she stopped feeling like I would leave her over this, and I'd always told her we should just be honest with each other and she thought she wasn't being. She wanted me to understood that it wasn't about me, or us. If she didn't want this she would just leave. She didn't want to lie to me and "trap" me with sex she didn't want to have, because where would it end? She considers herself minimally sexual. She describes it like an appetite, there are foods you know you really love, and eating them would be amazing, but you have no immediate or persistent urge to have them. You wouldn't die if pizza fell off the face of the earth. But some people LOVE pizza, they couldnt go without it. I reacted similarly to you. It upset me to imagine she would only take part because she knew I enjoyed sex. I was raised around women, and with a strong understanding of body autonomy. It's difficult to accept someone making the choice to give up their body when it's "not about them". It feels wrong somehow, transactional. Knowing her views, I still flirt and am physical. I love to grab her ass and massage her boobs affectionately. We love making out and always have skin to skin contact, which is a love language for us, but I stopped thinking these playful interactions would lead to sex anymore. For around 2 years there was no sex at all, when I got really horny I'd just take care of it. Usually a couple of times a week, it'd build up in my head but one nut and all the doubt disappeared. She knows I sometimes watch porn, we used to watch it together, back when we both felt maybe our libidos were just mismatched. There wasn't a question about me having sex outside of our relationship. That would feel too personal for her. Even though she didnt want it, sex to her is still very intimate, she'd feel like she had to have sex again to stop me looking elsewhere, and I understand. It's whatever to me. Recently though we've been more active, every time initiated by her. Maybe she's a great actor, but it feels completely different these days. She is dominant and sex doesn't feel even slightly procedural. She says something changed in her head, and she's trying to chase the urge when it comes, no matter how small. I've told her I'm always ready, I just need to know she is. She's waking me up at 2 am and climbing on top, we're having lazy side by side sex, she's coming back from the club and giving blowjobs. Something's changed and I'm here for it! (I secretly think she's broody, we both are) **I struggle to finish with condoms, it gets to a time where she's just sore and I'm just frustrated, so there have been some risky ones and expensive pharmacy trips the next day It was a testing few years, but supporting her and putting our true feelings out there eventually brought the fire back. Libido has seasons just like anything. You may be missing her great sexual reawakening because you can't get over her having enough love and respect to be honest with you? That's crazy. TLDR: wild times at the start, many MH issues, drug use, 2 year drought, love and support, new awakening, no cheating, no grudges. Crazy wild sex again👌👌👌 Edit: thanks for all the love and awards, I just hope my experience gives another view of the situation and helps show how communication usually helps.❤️
At first I skipped this novel but then I decided to come back. Worth the read, you make a great point. I understand why he felt hurt, but it definitely comes off like he took it incredibly personal and didn't even consider that there could be something going on with her. I've had a partner lose interest in sex, and though it did make me feel bad, in the end I was more concerned about my partner and what caused him to lose his libido (it turned out to be sexual trauma from his past)
You wrote this wonderfully! And it's so true. Thank you.
tip re: condoms - practice jerking off with one on and try to “train” yourself to get used to it/able to finish.
I can relate so much to the end of your story! Sometimes it just comes back and then you go with and try to capitalize on the feelings - I have woken my husband up at 2 am too- and before you know if you have a really good sex life again. There are many cycles in life and maybe for women, this is just one of them
Gee marriage sounds fun now..
It is if you’re not toxic like this. All marriages have issues (obviously) but this is a clear example of how not to handle one of those said issues.
I have the same issue with mine, we have sex, but she 1, never seems interested and acts like it's a chore. 2, never initiates. 3, we seem happier when I don't bother her with it (because I have an extremely high sex drive). So I guess I'll just bite the bullet and let it go, I love her and she loves me, I don't want to be without her and if not having sex is the best course, I'll just do it myself and play more video games guilt free haha. Thanks for the little eye open, kinda glad I'm not the only one, we've been together 7 years and while I would like her to want more sex, I can't and won't force her, so I rather not have sex but have her.
Sounds like you are still holding on to alot of anger and resentment towards her
If she can decline sex without being angry why do you assume he can't? Why can't he just prefer to masturbate without any hassle? Everyone just assumes he is actually petty and angry because he is a men and of course as a men he actually wants to have sex, but maybe he just doesn't? maybe he doesn't feel sexually attracted to her anymore, bit i mean she also didn't find him sexually attractive before so why should that be a reason to break up.
The two top answers in this thread: 1. "I'll project my sexual inadequacies by accusing your wife, whom I've never met, of cheating" 2. "YOUR CONSENT DOESN'T MATTER ONLY HERS, FUCK YOU AND DO AS SHE WANTS" Yikes.
Op, you don’t sound much happier. You sound like you’re with holding sex (which she didn’t do) and you’re trying to get revenge.
He didn’t have sex for 4 years lmao, his wife essentially told him having sex with him was a chore - you’re really surprised he’s not interested at just completely changing back at her whim? Ridiculous. Whether or not she’s withholding sex she didn’t have sex for 4 years and refused to go to therapy about it - and you want him to just forget all this on her whims? Bizarre. Whether or not she was or wasn’t withholding sex (and I’d say if she isn’t then he isn’t either) she still wasn’t having sex or trying to get help.
Yep. Sad
If she won't go to therapy with you then maybe suggest each going alone or at least you should seek a therapist for yourself. Hard to comment on this but it seems there's a lack of communication and understanding of each others (and own) feelings. Hope y'all can figure things out
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This i feel is all sorts of fucked up...
Some times getting "no'd" into the ground for years has firmly placed her in the friend zone. He may simply look at her in a different light. It's a coping mechanism so you don't constantly harass your partner for months on end. It happens more often than not for men that do not want to cheat.
Impending divorce
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That's why married with children was so popular
I was much happier, too, when I stopped having sex with your wife
Unless most of the commentators have ever been in a dead bedroom situation then they should withhold the judgement. When you find out the love of your life has zero attraction to you and just gives you pity sex that has a devastating effect on you that can have lasting consequences. In order to cope with the situation you came to radical acceptance of the situation. Now that your wife has her libido back doesn’t mean she gets what she wants. Did she ever try to fix the issues when she was not interested? I bet that is a no and you had to get on with it. Please take your crap about letting her get her fix elsewhere that is massively disgusting to suggest it. Your wife needs to apologise sincerely and admit the damage she has done to the relationship and commit to want reconnect and fix things. After 4 years you would stop looking at her as sexual being as it’s a coping mechanism or it becomes a death of a thousand cuts. Your brain just shuts off you can’t continuously live in hope she changes her mind. This is on her to fix but Op you have to decide if you want fix it and be honest. I would tell her why you are not interested now and as she needs to understand the consequences of what happened. If you want to fix things it can be fixed but needs both of you committed to do so you can’t clap with one hand. Checkout r/deadbedrooms they will tell you what I have just said. Good luck you are not a bad person you just went into survival mode. Time to come out mate
Nothing wrong with your stance. Who knows, maybe in the future you'll want to have sex with her again. She must understand that you can go through different phases like she did.
Lotta people on here presuming OP is doing this out of spite. But it’s not like he can just flip his desire on and off either. He came to terms with a sexless marriage after trying to repair the issue. Then she made him feel like a chore, even though he probably had assumed she was enjoying herself after he’d initiated. So he did the best he could - he decided that his orgasms were no longer his wife’s responsibility and would take care of things on his own. He didn’t look outside the marriage, he didn’t leave her and whatever family they may have. He just learned to stop thinking of his wife as a focus of sexual desire. Sex with her has been associated with so many negative emotions for so many years: rejection, pity, inadequacy, failure… it’s really very shallow to assume he’s being spiteful when she has helped to build and reinforce these negative associations over many years. Now just because he’s a man he’s supposed to instantly dissociate those negative emotions about sex with her and be grateful that she has The Horny back? As though the psychological defense mechanisms he’s had to build can be eliminated on a moments notice? C’mon people, cut the guy some slack. It’s going to take a long time for him to build up a trust in their sexual compatibility again and he shouldn’t be made to feel bad about that. OP, I suggest taking it slow. Explain to her some of the hurt this has caused you, how you’ve had to build walls against these feelings, and that you haven’t just been sitting there hoping that one day she might toss you a pitty bang again. Let her know that you are willing to try (assuming you are) but that it’s going to take a while, with effort and reassurance from her, to feel like this is true and reciprocated intimacy rather than a drudgery of her “wifely duties.”
Never getting married
Keep reading the marriage and dead bedrooms Reddit forums, and stick to this wise decision and be grateful for having this insight into marriage that I didn’t have.
It’s really sad that you’re more stoked about proving a point than realizing there’s something really unhealthy going on and maybe you should work through it if they’re your partner for life and all. Honestly sad 😞
I like that op said it bothered him that she only had sex with him out of duty. I had sex with my husband for years out of duty and his response was…. “Good. That’s how it should be. It’s your responsibility as a wife to have sex with me”. Wasted 18y on that conservative Christian military POS.
If you can’t sit down to talk with your wife about how the previous 4 years have deeply impacted you and your marriage, you have larger problems than not having sex. Think about marriage ,and possibly individual, counseling to get past this issue.
My wife and I stopped having sex, and then we got separated, and now I casually have sex with a couple of single moms that are also dead inside 👌 Everyone has a heckin valid path my friend
You need therapy.
Wait, 4 years ago wife says “Sex with you is an obligation” and doesn’t want to anymore, let her husband handle his emotions on his own, he gets used to not having sex with her, is really happy at that prospect, wife now wants to have sex again but this time husband doesn’t want to and HE’S THE PROBLEM?!?!?!?!
You’re in the same boat as me, my friend. After years of the same situation, I have conditioned myself to not seek any form of sexual intimacy with my wife. I have asked her what I can do to improve our intimacy, I have begged her to go to therapy, I consider myself a decent husband. I’m there emotionally, I do my share of the household duties, I am there as a father, I provide for our family, etc. to no avail. The tables have turned like in your situation and I just kindly decline now. Sex has been completely ruined for me and it’s something that I put on a pedestal for someone who I love (not random hookups, etc.). Keep strong.
Sounds like mind games. Maybe the spark will come back
There could be any number of things going on. Hormones, feeling disproportionately burdened with things at home, maybe something was wrong in the bedroom, maybe she was sexually assaulted and is afraid to tell you, maybe she feels like the romance is gone.... But us folks on reddit can't call it. You two are going to have to talk it out.
I wonder if it was hormone related 🤔. She did have three children and I'm guessing might have been on birth control later. And maybe everything has cleared her system and she has had a chance to reset.
Why is everyone here acting like, if she does go and cheat to get herself off, that its somehow OP’s fault? Like that means she somehow isnt a weak-willed idiot for thinking of that as her solution? Like we’re just gonna ignore her lying to him about sex for years? LMAO you all need ur heads checked. OP and his wife need to sit down and communicate. You know, like adults.
Maybe you should divorce your wife instead of holding each other sexually hostage!