I now know why so many wives don't want to have sex with their husbands

[Jennifer26]

I have been with my husband for eleven years. During the entire duration of our relationship (well up until the past six months or so) I had a high libido. At times mine was even higher than his - well not really, but I wanted sex more than he did. He preferred porn.

 

There is so much background, and I'm not in the mood to write a mini novel here. I joined loveshack years ago because I felt so rejected and hurt most of the time. I needed somewhere to vent and seek advice for the troubles in my marriage.

 

There have been numerous issues over the years, from his porn, to his lack of helping me with housework, to his anger issues. I have considered leaving him so many times, but instead I always put my head in a marriage book or come online and post hoping there will be advice that I've just not considered. I feel I've done most of the work with everything in our lives.

 

I work 8-10 hours a day, while he's been a stay at home father for the past couple of years. I come home from work and the house is a mess. I usually spend my evenings cleaning, cooking, trying to workout, getting our children bathed and in bed, getting things ready for work and school the next day. I rarely have time to myself. He parks his ass on the couch all night and rarely offers to help. I'm so exhausted, I almost never get a full eight hours of sleep.

 

So yes, my desire to sleep with him hasn't been strong. His laziness and selfishness are such turn offs. Even if they weren't, I am so tired from doing everything the last thing I am thinking of at night when I get into bed is having sex with him. I haven't wanted to sleep with him for a while now. I do once every week or so to shut him up, but I get no enjoyment out of it. He's lucky if he even gets a blow job once every couple of months. He used to get them weekly or more, and sex was a few times a week.

 

I don't think I love him anymore. Infact there are times I look at him and can't stand him. I really resent him and I've told him this but he does nothing to change.

 

I know if things don't improve (very soon), our marriage is over. It probably already is and we're both just stuck in limbo.

 

Knowing I'm not in love with him anymore I've tried to arrange for us to have dates. Last weekend I found a babysitter, but we could not agree on what to do. I wanted to go walk around, or see a movie, grab dinner, etc. He wanted to go shopping, for himself. He won and we split up in the mall and saw each other about 30 minutes the entire evening and barely spoke.

 

I again arranged for a babysitter this Saturday night. Except my family announced they are doing something for my sisters birthday this Saturday so I changed the babysitter to Friday. Well, my husband had already initiated plans with his friend for Friday night (without speaking to me beforehand, although he says he told his friend the plans were pending him speaking with me). He is throwing a fit over the possibility he not do something with his friend. So much so he called me a ****ing selfish bitch today over the phone and followed it up with telling me to go **** myself and hanging up.

 

When I get home today it will be the silent treatment, or if I am lucky he will be an ******* and rant.

 

Why am I still with him? I don't know. I suppose because I feel too goddamn exhausted between work, kids, the house and everything else in life to go through a divorce too.

[ShatteredReality]

I'm so sorry...there are a lot of things that I want to say right now...but none of them will really help your situation! It sounds like you have made efforts to try to keep things going or get them going again...have you told him that you're just pretty much done? I know a divorce is so stressful...if you did leave would you wind up having to pay alimony too, though? Since he's a sahd?

 

I honestly and truly hope things improve for you...apart from telling him straight up you're going to leave I don't know what else you can do at this point...and I am honestly not offering you anything great here...but I suppose I am saying you've got someone in your corner hoping for the best!!

[Kamille]

Is he a stay at home dad by choice, or was it the result of a lay-off?

 

How old are the children?

 

See... I've seen many men post the equivalent of what you just wrote about their stay at home wives. It seems to be a situation where resentment easily builds on both side, because both side feel that their efforts are not recognized.

 

Perhaps the best thing to do is for him to return to work and for you both to invest in day care? That way you can both share the evening tasks - and therefore each get a bit of a break (while the other is tag-teaming).

[xpaperxcutx]

If you know what's making you miserable, you should get rid of the thing that's making you miserable. If you're unhappy about your marriage, then a divorce is the best way to go. I've seen parents stay in unhappy homes for their kids, so that when the kids are grown and had moved out, the parents already wasted their youths as sacrifices. If you have to means to live on your own ( especially after dividing the assets) do so. You only live once- does that mean you want to waste it on a man you no longer love?

[Green Light]

I stay at home while my fiancee works. I do all the housework, make the food, do laundry, do dishes, do all the repairs around the house. All she has to do is come home and relax and if she wants to go to bed at 8pm and sleep for 10 hours she can do that too. You would think that a woman in this situation would have a high libido but she doesn't and hasn't for a while now. In fact it gets lower all the time.

OP's husband still sounds kind of like a jerk though. Or he's depressed...

Edited February 18, 2011 by Green Light

[Jennifer26]

yeshuaisiam: In the past I spent countless hours looking up porn addiction. I tried to get my husband into counseling. To be honest, I don't even know if I feel porn addiction is really the problem. I do believe it exists, but I also think that men just like porn and they all look at it. In my husband's case maybe he looked at it more because he was bored. I know these days he wants to have sex with me, but now I am the problem.

 

How the divorce would impact my kids, and being a single parent are the main reasons I've tried to hang in and make things work.

 

Kamille: He is a stay-at-home dad by choice. Our children are three and eight-years-old. There is definitely some resentment on his side, he feels very trapped in the situation and unfulfilled. The good news is that he is going back to work in a few weeks and is very excited about the job. However, since he got the news about being accepted for the job he has been even nastier towards me. I think he has felt trapped and beholden because I earn the money. I think this is part of his resentment too. I have NEVER thrown it in his face that I make the money. He has come to me before and asked if he could buy something (that wasn't expensive) and my response is always that it is OUR money and he can make small purchases without consulting with me. Bigger purchases we have agreed we both consult with each other to make sure we can afford it, and that the purchase is a good decision. He wouldn't be terribly happy if I spent $1500 on a television from our savings and vice versa.

 

xpaperxcutx: I think I could make it on my own financially. Although to be honest paying for daycare would be a hit, but it would only last a couple of years. I suppose I would save on his car payment, car insurance, food costs, clothes, etc. and possibly child support (which I wouldn't count on) if he didn't want joint custody. Being a single parent is still very scary. Things are incredibly hard for me right now because I feel like 75% of the time I am functioning like a single parent. I don't know if I can go to 100%. My job is so demanding, besides the long hours in the office I also must work from home at times. I honestly don't know how I could do it without my job, or my children suffering. And without my job, which pays me far more than it probably should, I would not be able to support my children on my own.

 

Green Light: OMG I want to be your wife. I think I would be so happy if I came home to half of that. I don't even need him to do the cooking, or grocery shopping and I am perfectly happy managing our finances and doing taxes. Just the cleaning and house repairs and maybe keeping up with the yard work would make me over the moon.

 

And yes, I do believe my husband is depressed. I have thought this for some time and urged him to see a counselor. He is very anti counseling and absolutely will not budge about the issue. He did start taking prozac for a few weeks, but stopped because it killed his libido and made him very tired.

 

I had hoped going back to work would make him feel good about himself, and maybe it will. But I think neither of us is in love with one another, and I think we both resent one another.

 

Last night when I came home from work he would not speak to me. I worked out, made dinner, dishes, laundry, took out garbage, etc and left him a plate of food out on the counter. He came by and tossed it in the trash can and refused to even look at me. I could tell he was seething with anger and just avoided him. Finally around 10pm and me getting ready for bed I just couldn't sleep and go another day of this tomorrow. So I went into the basement and tried to talk to him. I said something like "I don't feel I should be coming to you after how you spoke to me earlier today. I don't understand why you did that, and what evoked that kind of reaction. I feel completely stunned and have no idea what is going on"

 

The next couple of hours are like a whirlwind. I can't even remember half of what was said between him and I, but it was very ugly. He threw a glass of water across the room, screamed for me to leave him alone, said he wanted a divorce, called me a liar, said that I was smug and self righteous (after I told him the way he was behaving was abusive and that if he could not speak to me like an adult that he should leave the house).

 

It went on for hours. Twice he went into the garage and said he was leaving, and then came back in the house when I didn't chase after him. I told him to go and that there was obviously no hope here as we can't even have a calm rational discussion.

 

He did calm down eventually. I still don't understand why he was so irate. I've never seen him so mad and irrational in all the time I've known him. I wasn't afraid or anything, but he made me feel like I was going crazy. He made no sense. It is obvious that things have been boiling for a while and he burst last night. I think feeling rejected by me, feeling dependent on me, feeling like less of a man because he was at home, thinking I want to leave him, being isolated and depressed, and likely a slew of other feelings I'm not even considering came exploding out of him last night.

 

This morning we were still very cool towards one another however, we are on speaking terms.

 

I still feel like things are probably not going to work.

[carhill]

Some backstory

 

How old is your H?

 

Who prescribed his Prozac?

 

IDR, have you attended IC in the past? Would you consider it at this time to assist in resolving the current dynamic? As an example, my exW and I used MC to resolve our M, and see that D was the healthy path. Like I said in that linked thread, it needs to be a *team* effort. You (and he) have put in enough time, don't you think?

[DaisyLeigh]

He was at home by CHOICE. Damn! He needs to decide what he WANTS, grow the **** up, and stop with the abusive ******* routine.

 

I don't care if he is depressed. So are many other people in the world and they do not abuse their spouses. You tell him that his throwing things, having temper tantrums and acting like an ******* is NOT ACCEPTABLE. That he either gets his **** together and acts like a man, or he can hit the ****ing door.

 

If he starts getting violent again, call the police. I am sorry. I know that people have problems, but that kind of behavior is a dealbreaker in my eyes.

[asireen]

Please don't give up on him yet. Divorce has a heavy effect on kids.

 

I agree with this. Wait at least till the youngest child is 18.

I know some counselors say one must not stay married just for the children's sake, but having divorced parents does affect the child.

[zengirl]

I agree with this. Wait at least till the youngest child is 18.

I know some counselors say one must not stay married just for the children's sake, but having divorced parents does affect the child.

 

So does having parents who lived together and hate it.

 

My parents divorcing helped me immensely. I got to see a good marriage, between my Mom and Stepdad. And I got to see a happy single woman as well. Better than seeing a miserable Mom and Dad together for my sake. I would have come into the world with way less social capital, had they stayed together.

 

Children with two happy parents do best, yes, but that doesn't really apply to unhappy marriages anyway. Those children suffer, too.

 

I'm not saying the OP should absolutely divorce. That's her business. But I disagree that divorce is always the worst choice for children. A toxic family unit that's together is better than a family unit that's been split up in order to try to become healthy again.

[Woman In Blue]

Why am I still with him? I don't know. I suppose because I feel too goddamn exhausted between work, kids, the house and everything else in life to go through a divorce too.

A stay at home husband? Please. Sounds like he contributes just about NOTHING and uses the kids as an excuse not to get a REAL job.

 

I don't blame you one iota for divorcing him. He just brings absolutely nothing positive to the table. Nothing. I would have been long gone by now.

 

Here's hoping you get the hell out - the sooner the better.

[PeachyPink]

I've always thought there are two major things that destroy a marriage: resentment and infidelity. You have both. You both resent each other, and in his own way, he is being unfaithful by choosing porn over lovemaking.

 

Reconciliation will require a lot of time, effort and commitment that it seems like neither of you have presently.

[Lucky_One]

Is he having an affair?

[sammyd]

What a horrible situation to be in:(

I personally wouldn't blame you for divorcing him if it stays like this. Maybe counselling would help?

With any luck, the job will bring him back into the real world. You can't treat people this way. He clearly has problems expressing himself.

((hugs))

[Sparty97]

I gotta ask, do you understand how divorce works? You make more than he does, he was the state at home parent...he might have a better shot at custody, and he would certainly have a right to alimony.

[Lucky_One]

Sparty, I thought the same thing. Most SAHPs are the ones who retain majority custody, child support, alimony, house "stuff", marital home, shares of retirement funds.

[Jennifer26]

My husband starts his new job one week from tomorrow, so he would not be a stay-at-home father anymore should we get a divorce.

 

Tonight we're eating dinner and he says the dog is out of food. I ask him if he fed him last night (because we had a busy night) and he says he can't remember. I didn't yell or berate him, but I was upset. We're in the middle of some pretty heavy snow fall and not the best time to have to run out to the store. I am just flabbergasted he couldn't remember the dog needed food, or at least let me know (he feeds the dog every day) so I could have gone out earlier to get it.

 

Anyway, he asks me if I "want a fight" and that part of the problem is when I last bought food I bought too small a bag. I remind him the store I was at didn't have his brand in larger sizes, and my husband is very against switching brands as it's caused GI problems for our dog in the past.

 

I tell him the issue is not the size of the bag, that even large bags will eventually run out. The issue is him possibly not feeding the dog yesterday and then waiting until tonight to announce it.

 

He screams at me, absolutely flips out again, tells me to shut the f up (3x), calls me a moron and stupid. I tell him if he speaks to me in that way one more time we're done speaking. He goes down in the basement for a while, then out to the store to get the dog food, and now back in the basement.

 

His anger is worrying me and it's definitely a deal breaker. I will not speak to him or stay here tomorrow if he is going to lash out like that. He broke a glass during our last argument, and I considered calling the police on him if he tried to break anything tonight (he didn't).

 

Fortunately these last two arguments (which have been some of our worst ever) have been later on and our children have been asleep.

 

Sigh.

[Eddie Edirol]

Hey Jennifer, I wonder if you would you consider physically separating for like a month. You stay at a friends, or a relatives for a month or so. Im not sure how that would work with the kids, maybe bring them with you to a relatives house so you have some help, and leave him in the house alone. If he cant talk to you, he HAS to miss you somehow. Unless you know he will trash the house....

[Jennifer26]

I have thought about taking the kids to my parents house most of today. I am tired of sitting upstairs in my bedroom, and him in the basement. We just did this a few days ago, and now we're right back to it.

 

I haven't left yet because 1. my husband stays at home with our youngest son. I don't know how I'd get to work tomorrow. I do not know anyone who could watch him temporarily until I set up daycare. 2. The closest person I could stay are my parents, and they're not very close. It's about a half hour drive from where I live (opposite direction of where I work). 3. I'd rather he leave. I want my kids lives to be disrupted as little as possible. 4. I can hardly muster up enough energy to get out of bed. I am still in my PJ's at 2 in the afternoon and have been crying off and on. 5. We're in the middle of a snow storm. We had about 6-8" last night and it continues on today. There is blustering winds out there, and several more inches have fallen in the past few hours and it's continuing on. The drive to my parents house is not a good one in this weather (they live in the country).

 

Tomorrow I go back to work. I am dreading this so much. I don't know how I am going to hold myself together.

Edited February 21, 2011 by Jennifer26

[Jennifer26]

The evening of my last post my husband and I had another huge blowout. He was just being irrational and angry, honestly, it was perplexing to me. He wound up breaking down and sobbing, and saying he doesn't know why he's behaving this way. I felt like he was having a nervous breakdown. It is obvious to me he is depressed.

 

I suggest he take prozac. I had him fill a prescription a while back, but he never took them. He took one that night, and every night since and he is like a different person.

 

He started his job this week, and is on cloud nine. He's been helping me with housework, taking care of our children, and I don't even have to ask. We even went on a date last weekend finally.

 

But unfortunately prozac kills his libido. So now neither of us has any desire to have sex.

[ShatteredReality]

Well it is good things are looking up. Sorry about the no sex thing, though...that can be irritating...but maybe once things begin to look up again you will both want it. My sister was having depression pretty badly and she had her Vitamin D levels checked - she was way low. She's been taking that for a month now and feels great - she's giving it to her whole family. I am taking it now and giving it to my family as well, hoping it helps with my Hs depression so he can lower his meds maybe one day...maybe that would help too?

[silktricks]

The evening of my last post my husband and I had another huge blowout. He was just being irrational and angry, honestly, it was perplexing to me. He wound up breaking down and sobbing, and saying he doesn't know why he's behaving this way. I felt like he was having a nervous breakdown. It is obvious to me he is depressed.

 

I suggest he take prozac. I had him fill a prescription a while back, but he never took them. He took one that night, and every night since and he is like a different person.

 

He started his job this week, and is on cloud nine. He's been helping me with housework, taking care of our children, and I don't even have to ask. We even went on a date last weekend finally.

 

But unfortunately prozac kills his libido. So now neither of us has any desire to have sex.

 

Glad to hear that everything is looking up (except the sex part ). However, if the Prozac helps the depression, it will probably not have to be long-term ride. I've understood that it's needed to break the cycle rather than be a permanent requirement (never took it myself, but some friends of mine did and they weren't on it for terribly long). Since he's now working he'll probably be feeling much better about himself. It would be good (essential??? ) for him to get into some kind of therapy so the anti-depressant usage can be appropriately managed.

 

And now that he's working, possibly you folks can hire someone to come in regularly to help take over some of the tasks you've been doing, which will enable you to get more rest, so that you'll feel more sexual as well.

[Untouchable_Fire]

The evening of my last post my husband and I had another huge blowout. He was just being irrational and angry, honestly, it was perplexing to me. He wound up breaking down and sobbing, and saying he doesn't know why he's behaving this way. I felt like he was having a nervous breakdown. It is obvious to me he is depressed.

I suggest he take prozac. I had him fill a prescription a while back, but he never took them. He took one that night, and every night since and he is like a different person.

He started his job this week, and is on cloud nine. He's been helping me with housework, taking care of our children, and I don't even have to ask. We even went on a date last weekend finally.

But unfortunately prozac kills his libido. So now neither of us has any desire to have sex.

 

That is a very interesting change. Clearly his anger was directed at you during that period of unemployment. Why?

 

I am a strong believer in cause and effect. I stayed out of your thread because I didn't feel like I had anything to say that you might find useful or want to hear.

 

I think something you did or were doing made him both hate himself and hate you.

 

Before you toss out your marriage you should probably do some soul searching.

[Lovelybird]

yeshuaisiam: In the past I spent countless hours looking up porn addiction. I tried to get my husband into counseling. To be honest, I don't even know if I feel porn addiction is really the problem. I do believe it exists, but I also think that men just like porn and they all look at it. In my husband's case maybe he looked at it more because he was bored. I know these days he wants to have sex with me, but now I am the problem.

 

How the divorce would impact my kids, and being a single parent are the main reasons I've tried to hang in and make things work.

 

Kamille: He is a stay-at-home dad by choice. Our children are three and eight-years-old. There is definitely some resentment on his side, he feels very trapped in the situation and unfulfilled. The good news is that he is going back to work in a few weeks and is very excited about the job. However, since he got the news about being accepted for the job he has been even nastier towards me. I think he has felt trapped and beholden because I earn the money. I think this is part of his resentment too. I have NEVER thrown it in his face that I make the money. He has come to me before and asked if he could buy something (that wasn't expensive) and my response is always that it is OUR money and he can make small purchases without consulting with me. Bigger purchases we have agreed we both consult with each other to make sure we can afford it, and that the purchase is a good decision. He wouldn't be terribly happy if I spent $1500 on a television from our savings and vice versa.

 

xpaperxcutx: I think I could make it on my own financially. Although to be honest paying for daycare would be a hit, but it would only last a couple of years. I suppose I would save on his car payment, car insurance, food costs, clothes, etc. and possibly child support (which I wouldn't count on) if he didn't want joint custody. Being a single parent is still very scary. Things are incredibly hard for me right now because I feel like 75% of the time I am functioning like a single parent. I don't know if I can go to 100%. My job is so demanding, besides the long hours in the office I also must work from home at times. I honestly don't know how I could do it without my job, or my children suffering. And without my job, which pays me far more than it probably should, I would not be able to support my children on my own.

 

Green Light: OMG I want to be your wife. I think I would be so happy if I came home to half of that. I don't even need him to do the cooking, or grocery shopping and I am perfectly happy managing our finances and doing taxes. Just the cleaning and house repairs and maybe keeping up with the yard work would make me over the moon.

 

And yes, I do believe my husband is depressed. I have thought this for some time and urged him to see a counselor. He is very anti counseling and absolutely will not budge about the issue. He did start taking prozac for a few weeks, but stopped because it killed his libido and made him very tired.

 

I had hoped going back to work would make him feel good about himself, and maybe it will. But I think neither of us is in love with one another, and I think we both resent one another.

 

Last night when I came home from work he would not speak to me. I worked out, made dinner, dishes, laundry, took out garbage, etc and left him a plate of food out on the counter. He came by and tossed it in the trash can and refused to even look at me. I could tell he was seething with anger and just avoided him. Finally around 10pm and me getting ready for bed I just couldn't sleep and go another day of this tomorrow. So I went into the basement and tried to talk to him. I said something like "I don't feel I should be coming to you after how you spoke to me earlier today. I don't understand why you did that, and what evoked that kind of reaction. I feel completely stunned and have no idea what is going on"

 

The next couple of hours are like a whirlwind. I can't even remember half of what was said between him and I, but it was very ugly. He threw a glass of water across the room, screamed for me to leave him alone, said he wanted a divorce, called me a liar, said that I was smug and self righteous (after I told him the way he was behaving was abusive and that if he could not speak to me like an adult that he should leave the house).

 

It went on for hours. Twice he went into the garage and said he was leaving, and then came back in the house when I didn't chase after him. I told him to go and that there was obviously no hope here as we can't even have a calm rational discussion.

 

He did calm down eventually. I still don't understand why he was so irate. I've never seen him so mad and irrational in all the time I've known him. I wasn't afraid or anything, but he made me feel like I was going crazy. He made no sense. It is obvious that things have been boiling for a while and he burst last night. I think feeling rejected by me, feeling dependent on me, feeling like less of a man because he was at home, thinking I want to leave him, being isolated and depressed, and likely a slew of other feelings I'm not even considering came exploding out of him last night.

 

This morning we were still very cool towards one another however, we are on speaking terms.

 

I still feel like things are probably not going to work.

Jennifer, sounds like you are a martye, being this way you make him feel guilty. you probably want him to depend on you, probably you doubt your worth, and being codependent? Probably he lacked responsibility in some areas in the beginning, and you felt the urge to fill the gap.

 

Why he threw the plate of food? this is my guess. At the bottom of his heart he knew he didn't treat you right, but you continue to allow this, beyond this, you even prepared food for him. This will make him feel even worse. probably you had desire to control in the beginning, but now you are tired.

 

doing less probably will lend you some place better.

 

a man cannot feel connected to you if he doesn't make the effort to make you feel loved and cared.

 

ask yourself, can you do less? if not, why not? what you fear?

 

ask yourself if you believe that if you give more, then you will receive more love? your worth is in giving and doing things for him?

Edited March 3, 2011 by Lovelybird

[soserious1]

That is a very interesting change. Clearly his anger was directed at you during that period of unemployment. Why?

 

I am a strong believer in cause and effect. I stayed out of your thread because I didn't feel like I had anything to say that you might find useful or want to hear.

 

I think something you did or were doing made him both hate himself and hate you.

 

Before you toss out your marriage you should probably do some soul searching.

 

and this is proof positive that women will NEVER win with a lot of guys.

 

she stepped up to the plate, she brought home the farking money, she still fulfilled a traditional wife/mother's duties, cooking cleaning care taking at the end of the work day, she didn't give him an allowance or make him justify his spending but no matter... somehow this is all her fault.

Edited March 3, 2011 by soserious1