I cringe when DH touches me

[Anonymous]

PS- thanks for looking up the disorders- I will look into them.

[Anonymous]

my sex drive took a dive after 1 kid and breastfeeding, etc. With two within a year (!) and a husband wanting to get busy late at night, I'm sure I'd be suffering even greater loss of libido. However, the worrying part is the aversion (I don't cringe, I am just too damn tired to want sex a lot). But it could be related to you feeling like your body is everyone's property but your own.

we tend to have sex when its thursday (our housecleaner comes, the house is clean), near end of the week, DH brings take out and we are in bed by 9:30. its the combo of clean house, no cooking, looking forward to the weekend (when we are usually too tired for sex) and getting to bed early (no computer, no tv) that does it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my sex drive took a dive after 1 kid and breastfeeding, etc. With two within a year (!) and a husband wanting to get busy late at night, I'm sure I'd be suffering even greater loss of libido. However, the worrying part is the aversion (I don't cringe, I am just too damn tired to want sex a lot). But it could be related to you feeling like your body is everyone's property but your own.

we tend to have sex when its thursday (our housecleaner comes, the house is clean), near end of the week, DH brings take out and we are in bed by 9:30. its the combo of clean house, no cooking, looking forward to the weekend (when we are usually too tired for sex) and getting to bed early (no computer, no tv) that does it.

Very similar story here.

OP - you may have a sex problem, or you may just be exhausted and touched-out, with a husband trying to get intimate at a time when all you really want to do is sleep, which just furthers any underlying resentment and can lead to not wanting to be touched.

I can't tell from your post whether you are actually having sex at this point or not. But if so, my recommendation is to figure out some way to have a morning date with your husband - take a 1/2 day off work (if you work), or get a babysitter to come take both kids to the park for 3 hours. It can just be worlds easier to connect (emotionally as well as physically) when you're not extra worn out at the end of a long day. And it also sounds like you're in the midst of sleep troubles - ALL these issues are so very much worse when you're severely sleep deprived. So go easy on yourself - from your post and the close spacing of your kids, you are very much still in the trenches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP
1. Counseling ASAP.
2. NEVER tell DH he repels you sexually. He will be devastated and no good will come from it. Ever.

And he doesn't really repulse you. Your body is just turned off because of what you have been dealing with . As PP said counseling. hang in there

[Anonymous]

Same boat here, OP.

I see DH act in ways that make him look ugly physically and otherwise.

He is also "enthusiastic" in bed without the more subtle skills of an experienced lover. I hate the way his tongue just thrashes around inside my mouth, etc.

I wish he were a little "smoother" for lack of a better word.

[Anonymous]

OP,

There are things you can do before going to counseling. I'm not anti-counseling, but if you drop the "we need counseling" on your husband when you're already avoiding sex, you may scare the hell out of him. So at least try a few things first, including an open and honest conversation with him. As others have said, obviously you're not going to say "your touch repulses me." But I do think you need to acknowledge that your libido has dropped way off and that you are very worried about it and that it's not his fault.

Of course, like everything in a relationship, it's never any one person's fault, so don't beat yourself up too much either, OP. Before you said you were done nursing, I was thinking that it was to do with the nursing / pumping. But even without nursing, you do a lot of touching with two really little kids. I'm no armchair psychiatrist (ok, yes I am) but my diagnosis of you is that you had a child, were probably already feeling the demands on your body, then unexpectedly had another baby and maybe had some buried resentments of the way YOUR body was the one who made most of the sacrifices. And it can get hard when you feel like your body is everyone else's property.

Are you a stay at home mom? I'm not, I work from home, but am with my son all day even while working (we have someone come in now) and I was home for 6 months maternity leave.

if you can't tell, I felt like this for a little while. I'm still nursing but not as often, and only one child. However, he was a pretty high needs kiddo and always wanted to be held or nursed. I never had a moment when there wasn't a child in my arms or at my boob. I had a hard time going to the bathroom; if I put DS down, he screamed so even taking a poop meant bringing a baby in with me or listening to wails outside the door. Then my husband would get home and we'd do family time. Then we'd do bedtime, which would take AGES with our son. And then what? Husband's overtures just felt like one more demand on me. His loving touches felt like he was pawing me. I wanted him to almost ASK me before touching my breasts or my rear end. I felt not repulsed so much as very proprietary over my body. Like, "who do you think you are that you can just come up behind me and grab my ass?" Which was so ridiculous and out of character in our ordinarily playful, loving relationship. If he tried getting busy right after we got baby down, I felt like I needed time to myself first. If he tried getting busy later, I was too tired.

No matter how much a husband helps, it's still hard. It's still your nipples, still your lower back that's killing you from the clinging, etc. So it's not that you don't love your children, but it wears on you. And if you are the one spending most of your time with them, it's harder still. Not to say it's completely bad, but it's a stage of life like anything else and you have to be wise to it.

What helped me were three things. First, being honest with my husband, telling him as honestly as I could what it felt like to have such little body integrity (meaning, there were hands on you all the time). Some people use the phrase "all touched out," which is fitting but I don't like it that much because it sounds too flip. The second and maybe more important thing for me was making myself take time for myself. I was so in love with my son that I couldn't imagine needing time away from him, and when my husband came home I really wanted family time for us all. But sometimes what I needed was to escape for a while. I discovered this because I was MUCH more ready to connect intimately with my husband when my business called me out of my home office for a few days in a row. So I started doing lunch out of the house twice a week, no kids, and although I was too tired to go out at night, one day a week my husband did bedtime while I completely disappeared, took a nice bubble bath with a book. The third was viewing sex as an act of generosity. This is probably very controversial. But I told myself that to protect my marriage and take good care of my relationship, I needed to "give" my body, no matter how reluctant I might be. So even when I'm not in the mood for sex, I still make time for it, once a week, and I initiate. And I also initiate a BJ or HJ once a week too. I know, i know, long-term, this is not a great strategy. But once I make myself make time for it, I enjoy it.

I'll be honest, it's not a silver bullet, but it did help tremendously and I'm slowly getting my libido back, too. Obviously, you also need to identify any relationship issues that you're bringing into the bedroom, and you should address them. One more thing: my sexual needs changed a bit after I had sex. I needed a much firmer touch, etc, to enjoy myself. It's VERY common for a woman to need a different approach to climax after sex. (Want to keep this PG13). But if your husband isn't changing it up to suit the "new" body you have, you have to gently lead him there.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

OP, I think this is normal. But not good.

I think that with all the kids, you get "touched out". And maybe it has something to do, deep down, with not wanting to end up with MORE kids

If you value your marriage you need to work on this, and get yourself genuinely interested in intimacy. Do whatever you have to do. Read romance novels, talk to the doctor, go away for weekends. The best thing for your kids is parents who are in love and stay in love. Intimacy is an important part of this. Act now.

[Anonymous]

OP, w/ your crazy schedule, have you been able to reconnect with your body since the kids? I wonder if making more time to exercise mindfully (whatever you enjoy) might make you feel more comfortable in your own skin and more aware of what you want sexually.

[Anonymous]

The third was viewing sex as an act of generosity. This is probably very controversial. But I told myself that to protect my marriage and take good care of my relationship, I needed to "give" my body, no matter how reluctant I might be. So even when I'm not in the mood for sex, I still make time for it, once a week, and I initiate. And I also initiate a BJ or HJ once a week too. I know, i know, long-term, this is not a great strategy. But once I make myself make time for it, I enjoy it

I am totally with you OP! I view it as part of marriage. DH does things that he doesnt necessarily feel like (laundry, washing the car) because he knows it will please me. Not that I am thinking of sex as a chore, but I am thinking of it as something important to marriage and to our intimacy. And I like it, once I get over the intense desire to just. go. to. sleep. It helsp that DH is a gentle and generous lover (even if, in my heart of hearts, I wished for something more exciting).

[Anonymous]

OP--does sex still hurt even after stopping the pumping? I had some issues with this and the obgyn originally just gave me the estrogen cream which didn't help at all. I ended up going to a physical therapist who helped me "stretch out" those muscles impacted by labor and also taught me how to isolate and relax those muscles (trying not to be too explicit). Once sex stopped being painful, I found it easier to engage...but it took over a year after my son's birth.

[Anonymous]

I'll be honest, it's not a silver bullet, but it did help tremendously and I'm slowly getting my libido back, too. Obviously, you also need to identify any relationship issues that you're bringing into the bedroom, and you should address them. One more thing: my sexual needs changed a bit after I had sex. I needed a much firmer touch, etc, to enjoy myself. It's VERY common for a woman to need a different approach to climax after sex. (Want to keep this PG13). But if your husband isn't changing it up to suit the "new" body you have, you have to gently lead him there.


I think you mean that your sexual needs changed after KIDS and I agree completely.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I'll try to shed a little more light on the situation.

No, I'm not a SAHM. I work full-time; we live at the end of a metro line and work downtown, so long commutes for us.

I realize I worded things that made it sound like I birthed our first child, but I was trying to not give away too much identifying info due to friends who also read here. So people don't attribute this issue to something that's not correct, I might as well set the record straight (and if I give myself away to my friends, well, now you all know!). We actually adopted our first child as an older infant; when she was home for 3 months, I got pregnant. So while my children are close in age, they're 2 years apart, not 1. Part of what has been very hard for us as parents was that we were going through stages that were brand new to us with our 2nd child. Because our first child was almost 1 when we got her, we had no experience with newborns and I think that really hindered us when one year later, we were dealing with a toddler and a newborn, and had no idea what to do with either, if that makes sense. So I wasn't dealing with 2 births within a year- no major demands on my body other than the pumping. The adoption, unexpected pregnancy, and exclusive pumping all combine to make a very unique situation so I'm sure I've outed myself to my friends.

Yes, we still have sex, but not often, and DH almost always initiates. It's still painful, but getting much better. Thanks for the suggestion of a physical therapist, PP. I had a very easy delivery (though I did have a 2nd degree tear), but who knows what really happened down there. As it is, I have an OB appt today and I will bring up this issue again.

When the 2nd child was born, the first one was VERY jealous (and still is). And the 2nd one is now getting jealous in return, so I have two clingy whiny kids hanging on me a lot. We keep reminding ourselves these are the hard years and that it will all get better at some point. DH and I did have a day to ourselves recently and we had a fun day- we had nice sex (no cringing), a nap after, a lunch where we didn't have to pack a diaper bag and worry about what the kids would eat, etc. It was nice to reconnect.

[Anonymous]

OP, I had four children in under six years. I breastfed. I worked until after my second child was born. I'm currently a sahm for the time being. For a while I felt just like you. We didn't have time for counseling. With my husband working long days and me caring for kids all day, the last thing on my mind was getting down and dirty. But our youngest is now a year old and my husband is superman around the house. He helps do the dishes, he did seven loads of laundry on Sunday, helps vaccuum. Now that I'm a few months out from breastfeeding and I don't have to wake up at a set time to get two kids off to school & preschool, we're having sex 3 times a week again on average. Good Sex! Once your kids get a little older and things settle down more, I'm sure things will pick back up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question: Does it irritate your skin when your children touch you, or only your husband? Does any touch of his repulse you, such as holding hands or a hug, or only more intimate touches? Does the thought of giving him a bj repulse you or only being a recipient of his advances?

It seems like your body got bombarded by so many unpleasant physical sensations after your kids came that it is a conditioned response now to dread intimate touches even when the nursing is over. Also with the painful pumping you were turning your body into a milk producer without the wonderful physical and emotional sensations that come with breast-feeding. And he's not attuned to your sleep needs and concerns.

Yes, seek counseling. There is a name for what you've got... I forget what it's called but it's a very real psychological condition. A friend's husband had it so badly they never even consummated their union after ten years. The right sort of therapist who is knowledgeable about this disorder might be helpful and also might provide guidance about how to communicate your difficulties to your husband.

Not the op, but this was an interesting response because I sometimes do feel repulsed when people touch me. Or get too close to me. this does not happen all the time but is very strange when it does happen. Does anyone know what could be causing this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question: Does it irritate your skin when your children touch you, or only your husband? Does any touch of his repulse you, such as holding hands or a hug, or only more intimate touches? Does the thought of giving him a bj repulse you or only being a recipient of his advances?

It seems like your body got bombarded by so many unpleasant physical sensations after your kids came that it is a conditioned response now to dread intimate touches even when the nursing is over. Also with the painful pumping you were turning your body into a milk producer without the wonderful physical and emotional sensations that come with breast-feeding. And he's not attuned to your sleep needs and concerns.

Yes, seek counseling. There is a name for what you've got... I forget what it's called but it's a very real psychological condition. A friend's husband had it so badly they never even consummated their union after ten years. The right sort of therapist who is knowledgeable about this disorder might be helpful and also might provide guidance about how to communicate your difficulties to your husband.

Not the op, but this was an interesting response because I sometimes do feel repulsed when people touch me. Or get too close to me. this does not happen all the time but is very strange when it does happen. Does anyone know what could be causing this?

As I'm the person whose response interested you, I tried a quick web search on aversion to being touched (in a broader sense, whereas before I heard searched on sexual aversion). I'm sure there are any number of triggers, but I quickly came upon a page for people for whom a possible aversion to being touched is just one relatively minor aspect of a much broader state. http://empathcommunity.eliselebeau.com/forum/topics/aversion-to-being-touched Reading this page and then following some of the links at the top of the page introduced me to a world of people I had never known of, empaths. It's a complete digression from the OP (sorry) and it's only one of what are surely a multitude of explanations for aversion to touch or personal space invasion, but it might *possibly* be helpful to someone here....