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[quote=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! [/quote]

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