Husband’s Low Sexual Drive

Hello,

I had a post about this while I was pregnant. I thought our sexual life would get better after delivery, but boy i was wrong..

 

It has been 10 weeks since I gave birth and he only initiated sex once after a fight over lack of sexual intimacy at our relationship. This same person is around me all the time. He even almost follows me to the bathroom when I am not around. His hands are always on me, he wants to kiss and cuddle all the time. However, no kiss or touch ever leads to anything more.

 

When I finally asked him he said my attitude turns him off. Well, he had been turned off for a year now. I thought i would have a regular sexual life when i got married, but I live in total disappointment. He used to be a lot better...

 

And now I resent him so much about making me feel unwanted. I am starting to fall out of love and see him as a roommate. Moreover, I started to fantasize about other potential sexual partners I might have in the future, my second marriage... yeah i am married and am thinking about making a better marriage with someone else (totally hypothetical person) already.

 

What do I need to do? Obviously I want to save my relationship, but i feel like we are in danger zone

Was he in the room during the delivery? I have heard that some men kind of "freak out" seeing what once was their favorite place be stretched out to kingdom come. He may not be sure how to handle it.

I would suggest a calm quiet talk about it ( if possible). Might be a good time to get a therapist involved as well

Well, it depends on whether your husband's problem is due to your pregnancy or if it pre-dates it.

 

There are some pregnancy sites on the Internet where women have discussed the problem of husbands not wanting to have sex after birth. There's the feeling that in back of the husband's mind they now see their wives as a mother of their child and not as a sex object. Meanwhile many women report that they start to get horny after birth at the same time their husbands are shutting down. The husbands are also worried about whether you've healed enough to have sex and whether the plumbing has changed down there. It's a common problem that usually works its way out.

 

However, if this was happening before your pregnancy, well, a lot of times it means something is bothering your husband. Maybe you need to spice things up in the bedroom. Have you tried role-playing or introducing sex toys? You want him to see you as desirable. A lot of women think their men can just turn it on whenever and wherever, but it's not always true. And, of course, fighting over sex is not the way you want to tempt him to bed. You need to find out what's wrong with him for the sake of your marriage. And you need to discuss it quietly and not yelling and screaming at each other. I hope you two can work it out.

 

P.S. - I just read through a thread of yours from earlier in the year, and you're very demanding. You also said you're quick to anger and a year ago you were having arguments with your boyfriend. I don't know the entire situation, but that might have something to do with it.

Some men have issues having sex after their wife gives birth. It is pretty unfair that after all you went through you have a husband who is resistant to having sex, but he likely can't really control the way he feels either.

 

I would try to very calm express to him how big of a deal this is and that you need intimacy. Don't get too critical, just reinforce the severity of the issue.

 

If you aren't expressing the importance in a way he understands than you might benefit from some marriage counseling.

You two have a history of problems, if I remember correctly.

 

I would strongly suggest marital counselling. The latest issue with sex is one of several you and he have encountered, and it sounds like they've never been resolved.

Sorry to hear this but it has been fraught with problems and reluctance to make a commitment from the start. Now that you insisted on getting married you'll have to seek annulment or divorce. Ask him which he would prefer. Since he never wanted to get married in the first place, he will most likely be very agreeable to whatever terms you choose. Move back home and work out a visitation and child support agreement. Divorce may be less complicated since it's such a brief and forced marriage.

I told him how my parents would despise me, and how i wouldnt be able to proudly tell anyone of my side that i am pregnant. I asked that we get engaged. And he said he doesnt want to rush into things and just because i am pregnant he doesnt want to go ahead and get engaged. His lack of support to me in this sense made me feel very unloved.

It has been 10 weeks since I gave birth

... which means you have a 10 week old, obnoxiously dependent, and likely obnoxiously loud baby. When I stayed with my sister to help with each of my nieces, it was a constant "on alert" feeling, even when all was calm before the storm. And they're not even my kids. I could only imagine if I were the one primarily responsible for those lives. A lot of people, whether they're the mother or father, have a really, really hard time kicking the libido back into gear the first several months after having come home with the baby and are perfectly justified in it.

 

When I finally asked him he said my attitude turns him off. Well, he had been turned off for a year now. I thought i would have a regular sexual life when i got married, but I live in total disappointment. He used to be a lot better...

Lady, what? Almost exactly one year ago, you were admitting to having drinking problems and anger issues. It shocks you something like that has left him less than keen to bump uglies with you?

 

In your previous thread, you even acknowledged the pretty crap history you guys had but pretty disturbingly tried to brush it off with this:

 

The thing is, all my threads revolves around mebeing insecure and jealous and being afraid of getting hurt. I gave him a lot of hard time about all of those and the thing is, he took all the hard times, adjusted his behavior, and so we continued.

So rather than you changing, he ended up being the one to adjust his behavior so as to avoid the fallout of jealousy and insecurity. You may have seen your emotional bullying as a success after that, but it's obvious he's, at the very least, unhappy with the lopsided arrangement, if not all out resentful of it.

 

What do I need to do? Obviously I want to save my relationship, but i feel like we are in danger zone

You've been in the danger zone for the greater portion of your entire relationship. What you do is grow up and stop treating sex as the new mechanism to placate your insecurities and make an active effort to improve yourself. Your drunken anger and emotional badgering got him to adjust his behavior to your tastes. You pushed marriage on him under the premise of your parents otherwise despising you. Now it seems you're in a rush to move onto the next emotional manipulation by guilting the guy for not prioritizing sex within this entire mess.

 

If you want to save the relationship, you should be looking into your own therapist and also suggesting marital counseling. No more shortcuts and no more games. Forget about sex right now. The bridge to it is burned and that bridge needs to be repaired first. And if you want any hope of sexual intimacy progressing to that level, shaming him for expressing the level of physical intimacy he's comfortable with at the moment certainly isn't going to help. "I thought marriage would fix the sex issue." "I thought the baby coming out would fix the sex issue." Stop depending on arbitrary milestones and things to happen. You need to take responsibility.

 

I'm sorry to say, but MissCanuck's input last October when you were lamenting your then boyfriend not playing into your guilt trip to get him to marry you is looking increasingly prophetic:

 

Unfortunately, making him marry you when he doesn't want to will end one way: divorce.

When I finally asked him he said my attitude turns him off.

Can you elaborate on that ^^^ What about your attitude turns him off. You asked him why and he told you why but you've not let us know what he meant. Perhaps if we knew, what it was that he thinks the reason is, we could give you some advise on helping him to help you get what you want.

 

I don't think his comment should just be side stepped. Its his feelings on the matter and his reason for you not being sexually fulfilled so lets talk about that.