S/O What Do You Expect Your Sex-Starved Spouse to Do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if you're denying a lot because he's asking a LOT? My sister and her husband have an issue in that she wants sex about once a week and he wants it every day. They have two young kids and both work full time, but she does much more of the child care AND more house-cleaning. He's always had a higher sex drive. They made a deal where if he asks for sex more than twice a week he has to put $20 in a jar and if she doesn't give him sex at least twice a week, she has to put $20 in a jar. I'm pretty sure they use the money for booze. I found that pretty damn hilarious.

Why don't they use the money for a nanny and cleaning service? Then she'll be less tired and resentful.

[Anonymous]

"So, while I feel bad as the WS, what now? Regardless of fault, how do I get our relationship on track? As the WS, how much control do I have to help create change? I feel vulnerable and powerless right now. "

Get a babysitter and spend an entire day in bed.

[Anonymous]

WS here. I feel very similar thoughts. My partner lost interest because sex for me was uncomfortable, painful after the birth of our 1st child and for the duration of my nursing. It was very hard to please him (and me) during that time. Fast forward to the present, he is no longer interested in me at all, but admits to being turned on by other women. By the way, I look great. No baby weight here. We haven't had sex in 6 months. So, while I feel bad as the WS, what now? Regardless of fault, how do I get our relationship on track? As the WS, how much control do I have to help create change? I feel vulnerable and powerless right now.

you have all the power. seduce him.

[Anonymous]

If I was withholding due to a medical issue (undergoing some kind of rigorous treatment, had surgery or something), my husband would understand. It would suck, but he would understand, and would not stray.

If I was withholding as a punishment, or just because "I didn't feel like it," eventually, he would cheat. I know this without a doubt. I'm not sure how long it would take (more than 6 months but not sure how long after that) but eventually, he would. We were in agreement when we got married that it was not going to be a sexless marriage and we would each do our part to put in the effort to make sure it wasn't. If either one of us started withholding sex regularly and for long periods of time, we'd each consider it to be breaking a marital vow, basically.

[Anonymous]

If I was withholding due to a medical issue (undergoing some kind of rigorous treatment, had surgery or something), my husband would understand. It would suck, but he would understand, and would not stray.

Please don't attack me...but, what if it was like 3-5 years? or chronic, with no hope of ever having sex again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I felt like I was screaming "I need help!!!!" and he never stepped up. If he did try parenting, he ended up stomping around and yelling at the kids and being generally miserable and acting put upon. My desire for him was nil based on his complete disrespect for my needs.

Anyway, do I count as a withholding spouse? How much of withholding is which spouse's fault? I just think we need to be careful about saying to a spouse "you are signing your partner up for a lifetime of no sex and unless you let him/her sleep around you are a selfish horrible person." In many cases, I would suggest that the person who needs more sex is partly responsible for changing his/her behavior too.

Did you simply ask for more help at any point?

I'm the poster you're quoting, and yes, of course I did. I told him many many times how I was feeling and how that was directly related to our "lack" of intimacy. Keep in mind that it was still at least once or twice a week, so it wasn't a complete "withholding" situation. He would mostly say two things - "just tell me what to do and I'll do it!" and "you need to get away more - make plans with your friends!" And then feel like he was contributing totally. Here's how those two things would work out:

1. We both work full-time. Nightly, we'd both get home and he would say he was exhausted from work and needed some personal time. He would sit and read the paper or something. I would (with both kids) make and serve dinner, take them upstairs for a bath, put them both to bed, come back down and clean everything up and get ready for the next day, and then be totally exhausted and just plain angry, but finally feel like I could go up and have a moment to myself and then be greeted with - "so am I going to get sex tonight?" and then when I tell him that I'm exhausted and point out what just happened and that now *I* need some personal time, he gets all huffy and then I feel guilty. "Just tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it!" he'd say. Great, next night - "please clean up after dinner while I put the kids in the bath." He'd do a half-assed job of it and then sit down and be on his iPad until I come to tell him what to do next. "Please come put one of them to bed so I can put the other one to bed." He comes up acting like I just condemned him to absolute misery, 1yo would do something benign like not want to brush his teeth and DH would start screaming and then DS would start screaming and there would be total meltdown. DS would run to me, I would give him a hug and DH would accuse me of being a pushover and scream that I always make him the bad guy and then say "YOU do it then" and go back downstairs. And nevermind that putting me in the position of being the micromanager isn't really HELPING me. I want a partner - I wanted to feel like we were in this parenting/household running thing together and would share the ups and downs of it all, but that at the end, we would enjoy being a family. Having to assign him even the most obvious tasks and make sure they get done made me feel like a nag, but that's essentially what he was asking for. And DH just made me feel like he hated every minute of our lives when I asked him to do basic housekeeping and childcare tasks and that he wished he had never had kids so he didn't have to deal with this crap.

2. Second thing he would "offer" - "make plans with your friends!" Great, I'd make plans. As I'm getting ready, he makes sure I know that his next few hours are going to be absolutely miserable because he's going to be stuck taking care of the kids. He's stomping around yelling at everyone. Then after I'm out, he calls me every hour or so with the kids screaming in the background just to make sure I know what a huge sacrifice he's making. Then I get home and he's incredulous that I don't want to sleep with him after he did me such a big favor. Yeah, thanks. He travels frequently and goes out with his friends (or sulks because he wants to be out with his friends and I won't "let" him) and says he needs time "away from the family" to stay sane - which really makes me feel loved.

So he feels like these are his big contributions - "I always tell her I'll do whatever she asks me to do, but she just takes it all on herself! She just needs to get out more but she won't leave the kids!" After a couple of years of this (yes, I realize I should never have had kids with him, but it's kind of too late for that), I give up. Easier to just do everything myself and ignore him. We end up in a roommate type marriage for a good 6 months, simmering resentment under the surface. He probably feels like I'm withholding and that there's something wrong with ME for not being interested (keeping in mind that it's still 1-2x per week).

What ended up happening? He cheated on me. After he told me, I told him to get the f out of our house and to only come back when he can prove to me that he has done a complete 180. I made a contract of the exact partner that I wanted and told him that I would be initiating divorce if I didn't have that type of partner, period. He finally (I had asked many times previously) agreed to go to counseling with me (one of my terms was that HE find and schedule the counseling sessions). I think it scared the heck out of him and he has actually stepped up and been a wonderful partner for over a year now. And he got to explain to me how important sex and intimacy and affection was to him and we now both make a concerted effort to make sure that it occurs pretty much nightly.

A success story? Perhaps. But it took us absolutely hitting bottom and it took both of us admitting to how we contributed to the situation and making some major change.

[Anonymous]

I think I win the award for longest post ever and I apologize. I think to summarize - medical issues aside, if you are in a sex-starved (however that's defined) marriage, both spouses need to commit to taking a good hard look at all aspects of your partnership and figure out a cause for the symptom of lack of interest in sex. This will mean both partners being willing to take major steps to change their behavior and to apologize sincerely for past actions and commit to putting significant time and energy into keeping the marriage healthy. I dont think we realized until this year just how much hard work has to go into having a successful marriage and having a great sex life with someone who is also your roommate and business partner and friend and co-parent.

[Anonymous]

To long poster, don't apologize, that was one of the most honest, interesting and helpful posts I've ever seen on DCUM. Thank you for writing it.

[Anonymous]

I like the long post too but I have one question. Did you ever say to your husband:

1. When you say you will take the kids but you call every hour and the kids are screaming in the background, it makes me feel guilty and stops me from enjoying myself and truly relaxing?

etc and about the housework. What I mean is does anyone actually explicitly call out the guilt tripping/half arsed job stuff, specifically? Before the cheating/rock bottom time. When it happens, I mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like the long post too but I have one question. Did you ever say to your husband:

1. When you say you will take the kids but you call every hour and the kids are screaming in the background, it makes me feel guilty and stops me from enjoying myself and truly relaxing?

etc and about the housework. What I mean is does anyone actually explicitly call out the guilt tripping/half arsed job stuff, specifically? Before the cheating/rock bottom time. When it happens, I mean.

Long poster here. Yep, did exactly this many a time. I am a very good communicator (I'm actually in something similar to mediation as a career). So I know all the how to express your needs stuff. I think in my case, it was my spouse's complete unwillingness to accept the realities of married life with children. And my willingness to take on everything. I should have made up that contract long prior and demanded better for myself.

[Anonymous]

I also want to say that I suggested we try marriage counseling many many times. I said "I am unhappy and you are unhappy and our current ways of communicating that u happiness are not working. Let's try to go to a counseling session at least once or twice to see if we can improve our situations." he flat-out refused. He later told me that he saw counseling as admitting something was wrong that you can't handle yourself, that you have failed and that you are weak. Incidentally, he now loves it (we still go once a month).

[Anonymous]

And another thing - if anyone reads Dan Savage, he posted an interesting quote on his blog recently about compromise in marriage. How you tend to make an effort to compromise on where you live, where you go on vacation, etc with your spouse and you recognize in these things that everyone is different and that that's ok. But with sex, it pretty much defaults to the frequency of the lesser-interested spouse.

That's one thing I have committed to working on - I think I mentioned I'm a few times a week gal and I'm not really that affectionate. Sex, and to a larger degree, physical intimacy is very very important to my spouse. To the point where he feels seriously frustrated and deprived if he doesn't get it. I have had to accept that that's him and that that's ok and normal. He is a butt-grabbing while making dinner, stopping to kiss while passing in the hall, flirting over text, interested in sex nightly type. He is, compared to me, very hight-maintenance in terms of desire for affection. But he needs it and he loves it and once I have accepted that, I have begun to see it not as an imposition and getting in my space, but as a confidence booster and something I really enjoy too - he really really is attracted to me. He can't keep his hands off me. That's pretty cool. He meets me part-way too of course, like I'm not into that stuff in public and he respects that. But it means that sometimes, when I'd prefer just to be washing dishes, I need to stop and respond to him kissing my neck and kiss him back and THEN get back to the dishes. Because seriously, what's more important? And it means that sometimes, I get to say I need some alone time and he has to be fine with it and I don't feel guilty because we both accept each others needs and know that we are trying to meet each others needs most of the time. It's effort. It really is. But it's compromise and it's marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

If I was withholding due to a medical issue (undergoing some kind of rigorous treatment, had surgery or something), my husband would understand. It would suck, but he would understand, and would not stray.

Please don't attack me...but, what if it was like 3-5 years? or chronic, with no hope of ever having sex again?

I am that PP. Years, he could probably handle. No hope ever again? I would probably, as much as it would pain me, give him permission to seek sex outside of the marriage on the condition that he was discreet so that I/our friends and family would not have it in our face and he would not develop relationships. Just sex, nothing else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like the long post too but I have one question. Did you ever say to your husband:

1. When you say you will take the kids but you call every hour and the kids are screaming in the background, it makes me feel guilty and stops me from enjoying myself and truly relaxing?

etc and about the housework. What I mean is does anyone actually explicitly call out the guilt tripping/half arsed job stuff, specifically? Before the cheating/rock bottom time. When it happens, I mean.

Long poster here. Yep, did exactly this many a time. I am a very good communicator (I'm actually in something similar to mediation as a career). So I know all the how to express your needs stuff. I think in my case, it was my spouse's complete unwillingness to accept the realities of married life with children. And my willingness to take on everything. I should have made up that contract long prior and demanded better for myself.

You say you're a great communicator, but do you listen well? You didn't know prior to counselling how important sex, affection and intimacy were to your husband?

[Anonymous]

"To the point where he feels seriously frustrated and deprived if he doesn't get it. I have had to accept that that's him and that that's ok and normal. He is a butt-grabbing while making dinner, stopping to kiss while passing in the hall, flirting over text, interested in sex nightly type. He is, compared to me, very hight-maintenance in terms of desire for affection."

I'm like your DH, and you are like my husband. Let's switch spouses.