Anonymous wrote:Marriages work better with a division of responsibilities, when one partner stays home to manage the kids and the family life, and the other is the breadwinner.

Everyone would be happier in the end.

I hear husbands of SAHMs complain about the arrangement. I imagine it's hard for them to digest that they could have double the income if she worked. Sometimes I hear comments that are outright resentful. I have a lot of SAHM friends and it makes me cringe when I hear male colleagues talk like this, so I say things like "I wish I had a SAHP!" etc. But you should know that there are pressures on traditional relationships as well.

Anonymous wrote:OP you knowingly married a Beta, hoping he would start acting like an Alpha. Not gonna happen. You knew what you were getting when you decided to buy the little helpless useless goat. I'm sure at some point you enjoyed being able to boss him around and probably thought it was cute, till you had kids and reality kicked in.

Now go fix him a glass of milk to go with his cookies and crustless sandwich.

That's not really the definition of Alpha and Beta males but we get the point.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sex is enjoyable for both people. I don't know women who don't enjoy it.

For a woman who is perpetually exhausted, given the choice between sexing the man-child and getting an extra 30 minutes of sleep, sleep will win every time.

Yes sleep wins, except I fall asleep much faster and sleep much better after sex, so even if exhausted and/or annoyed sex improves things all around.

Sounds like a win-win!

OP you knowingly married a Beta, hoping he would start acting like an Alpha. Not gonna happen. You knew what you were getting when you decided to buy the little helpless useless goat. I'm sure at some point you enjoyed being able to boss him around and probably thought it was cute, till you had kids and reality kicked in.

Now go fix him a glass of milk to go with his cookies and crustless sandwich.

Anonymous wrote:I don't have kids yet (married 4.5 years, going to start trying soon), but I worry about this happening with my DH. Since we bought a house he has gotten more invested in doing things proactively and seems to really love being a home owner (phew), but I still have my fears being a lurker of this board. I have been showing him posts like this regularly since we plan to have a kid soon. He always gets defensive but god I hope it seeps in somehow.

You sound like a horrible person to live with. Does your DH show you posts and point out women who have gotten fat and let themselves go after having kids? My guess is that he probably hasn't.
You're a lurker on a relationship board, so you aren't going to fine a lot of positive stories here but trust me, it's just a small subset of the real population. Many/most marriages are able to work it out.

Anonymous wrote:Marriages work better with a division of responsibilities, when one partner stays home to manage the kids and the family life, and the other is the breadwinner.

Everyone would be happier in the end.

This is so not true.

Anonymous wrote:A marriage is about a relationship between two people. It is not a relationship with the laundry, the kitchen, nor your finances. Prioritize the two people and their needs and everything else falls in place.

You didn't get married so that you can enroll another human being in a week long horse riding camp.

I got married so someone could take care of me and the house, and the kids while I work at the office. But I provide. Provide my paycheck.

I divorced my man-child. Our marriage got so bad that his responsibilities at the end were limited to taking out and bringing in the trash cans and putting his dirty dishes in the sink (they didn’t even make it into the dishwasher). He would literally sit in his chair on his computer while I was running around after work doing everything. In retrospect I allowed the dynamic to become what it was but it was such a gradual thing over so many years I just didn’t see it.

My house is much, much cleaner now and I have lots more time and energy with one less child to take care of. My complaints were that he never helped around the house and his were that he felt like I never had energy for him, as I’d also rather sleep than have sex- I was TIRED! What he was too dense to realize is that energy for him (and desire) would have returned if he made himself useful in any way. So we divorced and he immediatel got remarried to another woman who takes care of him. She’s kind to my kids so it’s win-win for me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sex is enjoyable for both people. I don't know women who don't enjoy it.

For a woman who is perpetually exhausted, given the choice between sexing the man-child and getting an extra 30 minutes of sleep, sleep will win every time.

I hear what you're saying, but here is where biology creates a disconnect. Guys like sex enough that most of them, even if exhausted and even if the woman isn't treating them very well, would still skip a half-hour of sleep to have sex.

That isn’t true. Men don’t want sex when they are exhausted either. I mean, no one was having sex in the concentration camps. What is more true is that men will not work themselves to exhaustion to take care of the children and family home, and women will.
Also, women tend to view the home as their work, hence the term “second shift.”
So, think of this more like the equivalent of working your butt off for weeks on something at work, staying there night and day, and you decide to take a break and sleep at your desk for a couple of hours. At that point, your wife comes to your work, unshowered and dressed in her finest sweatpants, and wants to have sex on your chair where you were supposed to be sleeping with your uncompleted work staring at you from the computer screen. Would you still be excited about it?

Women aren't concentration camp tired. Men, after similar levels of work as women and getting similar amounts of sleep as women, are still usually going to want to have sex with a woman, even if she hasn't been treating him especially well. Testosterone has consequences.

I think that some women are pretty exhausted. If you are getting up multiple times a night with children, then up early in the morning doing housework, then go to work at a demanding job all day, hustling through and skipping meals to be able to pick up kids on time, then coming home and trying to have some quality time with children before bed, then either logging back into work or doing more housework, it's pretty exhausting. You should see some of the schedules women share on here. And then they still feel like they are lacking at home and at work.

My husband is a critical care doc. The night before last, he did CPR on a 17 year old girl for an hour and a half before they called it. He had some niggling doubts in his treatment of her that maybe he could have done this or that, and he hasn't really been able to sleep since then. He hasn't wanted to have sex for two days. Eventually, he will, but that was because it was an isolated incident. If he felt so exhausted and took such a blow to his ego regularly, it would be a long time.

I think that a lot of women in high pressured jobs with young children are dealing with this kind of stress and fatigue on a regular basis. Then on top of it, they feel like they are failing at work. They feel like they are failing at motherhood. And their husbands aren't helping.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sex is enjoyable for both people. I don't know women who don't enjoy it.

For a woman who is perpetually exhausted, given the choice between sexing the man-child and getting an extra 30 minutes of sleep, sleep will win every time.

Yes sleep wins, except I fall asleep much faster and sleep much better after sex, so even if exhausted and/or annoyed sex improves things all around.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sex is enjoyable for both people. I don't know women who don't enjoy it.

For a woman who is perpetually exhausted, given the choice between sexing the man-child and getting an extra 30 minutes of sleep, sleep will win every time.

I hear what you're saying, but here is where biology creates a disconnect. Guys like sex enough that most of them, even if exhausted and even if the woman isn't treating them very well, would still skip a half-hour of sleep to have sex.

That isn’t true. Men don’t want sex when they are exhausted either. I mean, no one was having sex in the concentration camps. What is more true is that men will not work themselves to exhaustion to take care of the children and family home, and women will.
Also, women tend to view the home as their work, hence the term “second shift.”
So, think of this more like the equivalent of working your butt off for weeks on something at work, staying there night and day, and you decide to take a break and sleep at your desk for a couple of hours. At that point, your wife comes to your work, unshowered and dressed in her finest sweatpants, and wants to have sex on your chair where you were supposed to be sleeping with your uncompleted work staring at you from the computer screen. Would you still be excited about it?

Women aren't concentration camp tired. Men, after similar levels of work as women and getting similar amounts of sleep as women, are still usually going to want to have sex with a woman, even if she hasn't been treating him especially well. Testosterone has consequences.

Yes, and some women even want it when they are exhausted.

A marriage is about a relationship between two people. It is not a relationship with the laundry, the kitchen, nor your finances. Prioritize the two people and their needs and everything else falls in place.

You didn't get married so that you can enroll another human being in a week long horse riding camp.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sex is enjoyable for both people. I don't know women who don't enjoy it.

For a woman who is perpetually exhausted, given the choice between sexing the man-child and getting an extra 30 minutes of sleep, sleep will win every time.

I hear what you're saying, but here is where biology creates a disconnect. Guys like sex enough that most of them, even if exhausted and even if the woman isn't treating them very well, would still skip a half-hour of sleep to have sex.

That isn’t true. Men don’t want sex when they are exhausted either. I mean, no one was having sex in the concentration camps. What is more true is that men will not work themselves to exhaustion to take care of the children and family home, and women will.
Also, women tend to view the home as their work, hence the term “second shift.”
So, think of this more like the equivalent of working your butt off for weeks on something at work, staying there night and day, and you decide to take a break and sleep at your desk for a couple of hours. At that point, your wife comes to your work, unshowered and dressed in her finest sweatpants, and wants to have sex on your chair where you were supposed to be sleeping with your uncompleted work staring at you from the computer screen. Would you still be excited about it?

Women aren't concentration camp tired. Men, after similar levels of work as women and getting similar amounts of sleep as women, are still usually going to want to have sex with a woman, even if she hasn't been treating him especially well. Testosterone has consequences.

OP, you may have a good case if a husband who doesn't pull his weight. We'd need his side of the story to judge.

But even if he did, you still wouldn't want to have sex with him. That's just your hormones. Perhaps if he was nicer you'd be willing to give him a mercy session, who knows.

Fix the problem or you will be back here wondering what those strange numbers are on his cell phone

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sex is enjoyable for both people. I don't know women who don't enjoy it.

For a woman who is perpetually exhausted, given the choice between sexing the man-child and getting an extra 30 minutes of sleep, sleep will win every time.

I hear what you're saying, but here is where biology creates a disconnect. Guys like sex enough that most of them, even if exhausted and even if the woman isn't treating them very well, would still skip a half-hour of sleep to have sex.

That isn’t true. Men don’t want sex when they are exhausted either. I mean, no one was having sex in the concentration camps. What is more true is that men will not work themselves to exhaustion to take care of the children and family home, and women will.
Also, women tend to view the home as their work, hence the term “second shift.”
So, think of this more like the equivalent of working your butt off for weeks on something at work, staying there night and day, and you decide to take a break and sleep at your desk for a couple of hours. At that point, your wife comes to your work, unshowered and dressed in her finest sweatpants, and wants to have sex on your chair where you were supposed to be sleeping with your uncompleted work staring at you from the computer screen. Would you still be excited about it?