Married sex life going down the pan.

[giotto]

It's a puzzle which is impossible to solve. I don't think your wife knows either. She's probably lost her drive, children come first now and sex is not a priority or another chore. She was doing her best "accommodating" you twice a week, even if with vanilla sex, but you don't want this. Twice a week is actually quite good and also accommodating you means she cares about your needs. 🙂 I'm not surprised you are not having sex now that you've stopped initiating. Not sure you have many choices here. It depends on how much involved sex is important to you and if you are prepared to break up your marriage over this.

[Veronica73]

Since you’ve asked….yes, you’re kind of being a twat.

[Mrin]

On 11/15/2021 at 8:34 AM, JRabbit said:

69 em

Ah, the Nickleback of sex positions...

 

OP: Seriously though, what @JRabbitsays is probably worth considering. And if  you go down that road, don't expect it to change overnight. But with concerted efforts, it may change over time. 

[JRabbit]

1 hour ago, Mrin said:

Ah, the Nickleback of sex positions...

LOL must be a Canadian thing

[Wiseman2]

You can't really "spice up" spoiled food.

[stillafool]

Your wife says she's lost her sex drive but what she means is she's lost it for you.  Married women are having affairs as much as MM because they are no longer sexually attracted to their husbands.  Raising kids, bills, arguing, cooking, cleaning, and pressure to have sex has killed her sex drive for you.  The worse thing you can do is to pressure her to "enjoy a sex life" without being specific as to what you want to do.  If you want to try new positions then try a new position with her when you are having sex.  Don't ask her to do what she's not even sure what you want her to do.

[LuckyM]

Don't know what vanilla sex is...but it is better than none, right?

Consolation? A lot of men would  do anythingfor plain sex.

[Els]

So what I'm seeing is that you have 3 young-ish kids, she works full time in addition to that (and therefore must be exhausted) and you two don't do date nights, ever. Despite all of that, you were still having sex (albeit bland quick sex) twice a week until you refused that...

IMO, "marriage" or being together for a long time is rarely the issue. Heck, H and I have been together for 13 years and our sex life is pretty darn good, by my metrics anyway. I initiate about half the time and we try new things fairly frequently. We are both quite satisfied... but we are a childfree couple and date nights are a "few times a week" thing. I understand that that isn't necessarily doable when you have children, but having no date nights at all sounds like a surefire way to toss your sex life into the bin.

Have you considered proposing any solutions to the above mentioned factors, rather than just expecting her to have the sex drive of a childfree woman who is having date nights with her spouse on a regular basis? What effort are YOU putting into your sex life, aside from suggesting sexual acts that you yourself want to try? Bear in mind that good sex starts outside the bedroom...

Edited November 25, 2021 by Elswyth

[Els]

On 11/14/2021 at 4:57 AM, dramafreezone said:

Also, if I'm getting married at this point in my life, it won't be to have an amazing sex life, it would be to have children and raise a family.  That's the most logical reason for a man to get married these days IMO.

Well, if that's what the OP wanted, he already has that, and this thread wouldn't exist. He apparently wants to have an amazing sex life AND three children.

I never understood why dudes would go ahead and father three children, and then act all shocked pikachu when there are changes to their sex lives, lol. I mean, no s***, having kids is probably the most life changing event that anyone can possibly opt in to (as opposed to other events that people have no choice in, e.g. a cancer diagnosis). I think just about every woman knows that having kids involves making some sacrifices - if we didn't, there would be far fewer of us opting to be childfree. Those who feel that the sacrifices are worth it will go ahead and have them anyway - but they do so with the understanding that some things will have to be sacrificed.

Sex, or at least the sex that you had before kids, is typically one of those things. You can improve things by doing stuff like planning date nights without the kids (which he also isn't doing...), but it still isn't realistic to expect things to be exactly the same.

Most people don't get to eat their cake and have it too.

[snowcones]

This dude never came back.  lol

[GeorgiaPeach1]

On 11/13/2021 at 1:19 AM, Aloysius1974 said:

Hi

I thought i would put this out there and see what people think. My wife and i have had a very weird relationship with sex since the kids. For the last few years i have tried to make our sex life more fun. She has not reciprocated at all. She wants sex, but on her terms. Just vanilla stuff. I don't want anything weird either by the way, just some interest in exploring what sex has to offer. It got to the stage where if she did try anything i felt like she was only doing it for me, and not because she wanted to. I want her to want to explore her sexual side and want to find ways of getting pleasure, not be doing it grudgingly. So this went on for a few years. A couple of months ago she went to a girls night and she told me about some of the things they chatted about. She said her and her mate are in the same situation that they have a relatively low sex drive and that they, and I quote "accommodate" the sexual advances from us husbands. So i basically said fine. I told her i am no longer interested in her accommodating me, or in a missionary position 2 miniute shag in the dark twice a week. I said if she wants a sex life then it is up to her to come up with something fun and exciting or I am not intrrested anymore. So, two months later....still no sex. I resent the fact that she can't be arsed to make even the slightest effort to get something going. I have dropped a few hints about us basically now being housemates etc, but still nothing. I refuse to go back to the crap boring sex which she would actually go for. I want her to make an effort.....do some research.....etc.

Am I being a twat? Or am I being reasonable?.....

I can tell you what's likely wrong, because I'm in the same situation. Basically, you have stopped romancing her the way you did in the beginning. No more looking at her like she's the most amazing creature you've ever seen. No more hugs, cuddles and affection JUST BECAUSE--not with the intention of getting her in the mood. No more dates where you put in real effort and try your best to show her something new. No more interest in hearing her views and thoughts and dreams.

PLUS there's a real likelihood that you're slacking on chores and childcare, leaving her to scrub the toilets, wash your dirty underwear and wipe snotty kid noses. 

MEANWHILE she probably has to still be part breadwinner for the household, while doing most of the chores and childcare. This is exhausting, and who wants to be intimate when they feel utterly drained and unappreciated??

NEXT, you've more than likely let your hygiene and manners slide, going from a gentleman to a farting and scratching machine.

THEN you probably watch p0rn, where you get a totally unrealistic view of what your bedroom life should be like.

IN OTHER WORDS your overall effort has decreased, while you expect her effort to stay the same or even increase.

[Trail Blazer]

On 11/14/2021 at 4:22 PM, basil67 said:

I like a lot of what @Lotsgoingon has written above.  As a woman who lost interest in sex with a previous partner, I 100% agree that there are all these thoughts and feelings going on.  But from a personal perspective, I had no idea that my resentment at feeling unappreciated, not doing nice things anymore, and his (what I believe in hindsight) depression played a part in it all.   (This was late 80's, so there wasn't the amount of information then that there is now).   So when he wanted to talk about why I didn't want sex, I honestly had no answers.  I didn't know why.  I did counselling but no counsellor connected the dots for me.   This could be the same for your wife.  She may not realise that feeling X&Y creates a loss of interest in sex.

 

 

So, in short, it's all on the man's head to figure out why women's sex drives diminishes and arrest it before it escalates?

[Trail Blazer]

On 12/18/2021 at 4:34 AM, GeorgiaPeach1 said:

I can tell you what's likely wrong, because I'm in the same situation. Basically, you have stopped romancing her the way you did in the beginning. No more looking at her like she's the most amazing creature you've ever seen. No more hugs, cuddles and affection JUST BECAUSE--not with the intention of getting her in the mood. No more dates where you put in real effort and try your best to show her something new. No more interest in hearing her views and thoughts and dreams.

PLUS there's a real likelihood that you're slacking on chores and childcare, leaving her to scrub the toilets, wash your dirty underwear and wipe snotty kid noses. 

MEANWHILE she probably has to still be part breadwinner for the household, while doing most of the chores and childcare. This is exhausting, and who wants to be intimate when they feel utterly drained and unappreciated??

NEXT, you've more than likely let your hygiene and manners slide, going from a gentleman to a farting and scratching machine.

THEN you probably watch p0rn, where you get a totally unrealistic view of what your bedroom life should be like.

IN OTHER WORDS your overall effort has decreased, while you expect her effort to stay the same or even increase.

I feel the OP is being unreasonable in the sense that he can't fathom that things change after having three kids.  If he didn't consider that as a possibility before, he surely has to realize this reality now.

I also feel that OP is being more than a little unreasonable by discounting having sex on the basis that he refuses "vanilla" sex.  Many guys would take *any* sex when they've been deprived for a little while.

However, to suggest that he's not making the same effort to look at her, to romanticize her - basically whatever he did prior to there being children born, is to ignore the very fact that the scope for doing as much has diminished for the very reasons that she's feeling tired and exhausted.

How does a guy go about doing those things when his wife just wants to curl up on the couch and scroll through her social media feed, or read a book, or be left alone to watch Netflix, for an hour or so before she goes to sleep?

Does it all rest on the man's head when the dynamic has essentially changed to one which is non-conducive to being flirty and sexual?  It's well known that women's sex drives drop after having children, yet mens do not.  Is each sex blaming each other unfairly when we're potentially contending with biological vices which subsume almost every effort to thwart it?

As a divorced male with two kids from a previous marriage, I've been through the same thing.  There was very little I could do to arrest my ex-wife's waning sexual interest.  I didn't earn mega dollars where I could fix all of her challenges.  We both worked, we both did house chores, we were both raising children.

At the end of the day we need to acknowledge the biological forces at play, and the fact that modern society is structured around both parents needing to work to keep a roof over the head and food on the table for all but the wealthy.

Women lose interest in sex after children, and there's no way for a man to arrest it unless he can afford to pay for a nanny, a cleaner and to pamper his wife with many luxuries that your common man cannot provide.

Edited December 26, 2021 by Trail Blazer

[basil67]

55 minutes ago, Trail Blazer said:

So, in short, it's all on the man's head to figure out why women's sex drives diminishes and arrest it before it escalates?

Of course not.  How could my ex figure it out if I didn't know?   

Not sure how you got this from what I wrote.  

 

Edited December 26, 2021 by basil67

[Trail Blazer]

6 hours ago, basil67 said:

Of course not.  How could my ex figure it out if I didn't know?   

Not sure how you got this from what I wrote.  

 

Well, that's exactly my point.  If you don't even know yourself, how is he to know?  I'd wager that most women don't exactly know why they lose their sex drive, but they just do.

When the reasons are trotted out, it's usually things like, "he doesn't do chores" or "I have to work as well" or some kind of other long-bowed reason which is the man's fault.

My opinion is that it's nobody's "fault" as such.  Women just lose interest in sex after having children because biologically sex has served its purpose. 

Men, on the other hand, are biologically programmed to spread their seed as much as possible.  So, men do not lose their desire for sex after having children.  Their bodies haven't been flogged out like a woman's has pushing out the kid.

Men cheat when they aren't getting sex.  Or, if they're just disloyal and opportunistic.  Women cheat when they feel undervalued/unappreciated.  They usually feel that way when the man has no idea what's going on in her head.

We're now back to the original point.  If you don't know what's going on in your head, he'd have absolutely no chance.  Throw in depression, which more and more men are seemingly suffering from, and it's a recipe uber resentment on both sides.

 

[basil67]

@Trail Blazer  So what was with the sarcastic response to my post?   

To address your point of the 'long-bowed' reason why it's the mans fault: when a woman tries work out why she doesn't want sex, there's the standard things of tiredness and physical and mental health.  If that bears no fruit, the next things we try to look at are the things which we are unhappy about within the marriage.  Even the book which I frequently recommend "Where's My Libido Gone" by Dr Rosie King does look at issues in the marriage as being a potential cause.  Problems which happen in the bedroom often start outside the bedroom.

The same thing can happen with men too.  As per The Notorious Cherry Bombs song: It's hard to kiss the lips at night which chew your *** out all day long.  Getting turned off within the marriage because of behaviour of the spouse isn't just a woman thing.  

I think you're making a massive generalisation with the comment "women just lose interested in sex after children because biologically sex has served it's purpose".  And what are you referring to by a woman's body being "flogged out" by pushing out the kid?  With the exception of about 6-8 weeks healing post partum,  I have never heard of such a thing.  For what it's worth, with my current marriage my sex drive was very strong post children - higher than his.  It only slowed post menopause. 

Meanwhile, we see plenty older female posters who've had kids but are upset because he's got no sexual interest in her.   Or there's the younger women who's partners aren't into sex.  

[Trail Blazer]

1 hour ago, basil67 said:

@Trail Blazer  So what was with the sarcastic response to my post?   

To address your point of the 'long-bowed' reason why it's the mans fault: when a woman tries work out why she doesn't want sex, there's the standard things of tiredness and physical and mental health.  If that bears no fruit, the next things we try to look at are the things which we are unhappy about within the marriage.  Even the book which I frequently recommend "Where's My Libido Gone" by Dr Rosie King does look at issues in the marriage as being a potential cause.  Problems which happen in the bedroom often start outside the bedroom.

The same thing can happen with men too.  As per The Notorious Cherry Bombs song: It's hard to kiss the lips at night which chew your *** out all day long.  Getting turned off within the marriage because of behaviour of the spouse isn't just a woman thing.  

I think you're making a massive generalisation with the comment "women just lose interested in sex after children because biologically sex has served it's purpose".  And what are you referring to by a woman's body being "flogged out" by pushing out the kid?  With the exception of about 6-8 weeks healing post partum,  I have never heard of such a thing.  For what it's worth, with my current marriage my sex drive was very strong post children - higher than his.  It only slowed post menopause. 

Meanwhile, we see plenty older female posters who've had kids but are upset because he's got no sexual interest in her.   Or there's the younger women who's partners aren't into sex.  

No sarcasm.  I was being serious.

I do hear from time to time on here about women who lament their partner having lost his sex drive.  Personally I find it hard to fathom as anecdotally, from buddies of mine or work colleagues, it's always "her" with the lack of desire.

I think that there's a lot to be said about a man's ability to earn money and his wife/partner's desire for him after having kids.  A man who can provide a lifestyle which is as stress-free as possible for his other half, is going to find that she's a lot more receptive to having sex.

Woman's body being flogged out; not in all cases, but many cases you hear women are dissatisfied with their bodies post-childbirth.  From minor stretch marks to a stomach with an apron, to full-on weight gain in the case of some - it appears that most women's bodies change for the worse after giving birth, and this affects their mental health and self-esteem immensely.

[elaine567]

59 minutes ago, Trail Blazer said:

from buddies of mine or work colleagues, it's always "her" with the lack of desire.

I guess few men are going to tell work colleagues or buddies they have no desire or they don't want sex... 

It is perfectly acceptable in most female circles  to admit to lack of desire and to not want sex.
No-one is going to accuse her of not being a real woman..

[misspoet92]

For me personally, I don’t desire sex as much. I more so get excited for touching and feeling than sex. I’ve had female friends who are the same way and it’s just the way we are. On the flip side I’ve had female friends who desire sex all the time, so saying this to say that every one is different. I feel that maybe your spouse is either unsure of what desires sexually she likes or not sure how to express them to you maybe. But reading some of other comments I see dates as suggestions which I agree with and explore each other’s body’s more in ways that are exciting with and without sexual intent. It’s definitely a team effort though, wanting her to do more is understandable but maybe helping her to find what it is that excites her is good for both of you and visa verse because she can help you too find other ways to be excited or desire sex.

[Els]

The few men I know who did the majority or all of the child raising (e.g. single dads,  SAHDs, men who actually did most of the night feeds) absolutely did find their sex drive plummeting, especially if having kids wasn't really their idea in the first place. IMO the gender disparity in sex drives after kids can be explained almost completely by the fact that women almost always carry the majority of the child raising and household burdens. You may THINK that you are doing 50%, but in reality plenty of studies have shown that it is statistically unlikely - even when both parties work, statistically women spend more hours each week doing unpaid labour than men do.

I would also guess that the remainder of the disparity is due to the fact that having young children around all the time is likely to impact the factors that make sex more enjoyable for women - most notably time and privacy. Rather than being able to go on a date beforehand, flirt, have plenty of foreplay, etc, the couple may find themselves having mostly quickies, which typically don't result in a lot of pleasure for her. Some women may enjoy quickies, sure, but I've never met a woman who prefers her sex life to be ALL quickies. 

The biological hypothesis is flawed because if it were true, firstly most couples would only have one child and not more, and secondly there would be no need for women to have any sex drive at all outside of the ovulation period, since they are not fertile then. Yet many of us do.

Edited December 26, 2021 by Elswyth

[GeorgiaPeach1]

On 12/25/2021 at 6:59 PM, Trail Blazer said:

I feel the OP is being unreasonable in the sense that he can't fathom that things change after having three kids.  If he didn't consider that as a possibility before, he surely has to realize this reality now.

I also feel that OP is being more than a little unreasonable by discounting having sex on the basis that he refuses "vanilla" sex.  Many guys would take *any* sex when they've been deprived for a little while.

However, to suggest that he's not making the same effort to look at her, to romanticize her - basically whatever he did prior to there being children born, is to ignore the very fact that the scope for doing as much has diminished for the very reasons that she's feeling tired and exhausted.

How does a guy go about doing those things when his wife just wants to curl up on the couch and scroll through her social media feed, or read a book, or be left alone to watch Netflix, for an hour or so before she goes to sleep?

Does it all rest on the man's head when the dynamic has essentially changed to one which is non-conducive to being flirty and sexual?  It's well known that women's sex drives drop after having children, yet mens do not.  Is each sex blaming each other unfairly when we're potentially contending with biological vices which subsume almost every effort to thwart it?

As a divorced male with two kids from a previous marriage, I've been through the same thing.  There was very little I could do to arrest my ex-wife's waning sexual interest.  I didn't earn mega dollars where I could fix all of her challenges.  We both worked, we both did house chores, we were both raising children.

At the end of the day we need to acknowledge the biological forces at play, and the fact that modern society is structured around both parents needing to work to keep a roof over the head and food on the table for all but the wealthy.

Women lose interest in sex after children, and there's no way for a man to arrest it unless he can afford to pay for a nanny, a cleaner and to pamper his wife with many luxuries that your common man cannot provide.

Women do not automatically lose interest after children, but I agree that he's being unreasonable by thinking there is something wrong with "vanilla" intimacy.

I think the overall problem is that men get to be just men, while women have to be women AND take on additional "male" responsibilities of being a provider. Women are not allowed to be tired.

[Trail Blazer]

7 hours ago, GeorgiaPeach1 said:

Women do not automatically lose interest after children, but I agree that he's being unreasonable by thinking there is something wrong with "vanilla" intimacy.

I think the overall problem is that men get to be just men, while women have to be women AND take on additional "male" responsibilities of being a provider. Women are not allowed to be tired.

Is this a sweeping statement, or is this belief confined to the context of why women lose interest in sex and become tired?  

[Pumpernickel]

On 12/26/2021 at 2:59 AM, Trail Blazer said:

My opinion is that it's nobody's "fault" as such.  Women just lose interest in sex after having children because biologically sex has served its purpose. 

Men, on the other hand, are biologically programmed to spread their seed as much as possible.  So, men do not lose their desire for sex after having children.

Well, imo sex gets stale after a while, if you’re with the same partner for years and years, and that’s the same for both genders. Men are just too biologically dependent on sex as a release, so there’s that. They keep going even if they would prefer some strange. Out of necessity, and not because they love the (predictable) sex with their wives so much.  
 

Women just get bored, and they can take it or leave it, unless a new, interesting dude comes along. Then they’re all in again. Sounds crude, but it’s true. 

[Lecturer]

I went through a similar stage and strategy as the OP. It may seem like jerk behaviour, but it is actually an act of desperation and an attempt to demonstrate and prove the issue to the spouse. For us it came after I would bring up our lack of intimacy, and instead of her acknowledging, agreeing, and working with me to fix the issues, she would minimize or deflect, "oh we still do it sometimes", or "I just have a lot going on right now". But of course weeks and months go by and nothing changes. The problem continues and the same things get said. So the thinking is that by stopping initiating and ceasing to make an effort, long periods of time will transpire and then subsequent discussions will result in the wife being unable to make those same disputes. The idea is that she will be forced to face the truth.

One important thing to consider is that often husbands will complain about a lack of sex in the marriage. But in reality, we are troubled by the lack of intimacy and bonding. Some of us also consider sex as one (of many) benchmarks that help measure the health of the relationship. A lack of sex, particularly a lack that is the result of a lack of desire from he wife, may indicate deeper problems with the relationship. And desire is the keyword here. Women's desire can be fickle and easily diminished by many, many factors.

Several posts here jump to conclusions on where to lay the blame. For this case, I can't say where the blame is because I don't really know anything about their relationship. But I can say that many claims people here have made are not universally true. I am an athlete and I work out 5+ days a week - so no, I did not let myself go. I have always done my share of chores around the house. I would vocalize my appreciation of my wife often. I would always build her up in regards to her interests and try to make her feel good about herself emotionally and physically. I would give plenty of physical affection. I would listen to anything she had to say, offering support and sympathy wherever appropriate. I would do all I could to minimize the stress in her life. So for us, none of that was the reason for her loss of interest. In reality it was the result of resentment she had built up against me for a decision I made that affected our family. She also has self image issues which sap her of any desire to be intimate (and no amount of reassurance from me can help with those type of psychological issues).

For us it was a lost cause. The resentment was not something she could overcome or something I could fix. And body image issues can never permanently be beaten. But maybe their marriage can be saved if they can find that factor that is disrupting their bond/chemistry/attraction, and find a way to fix it.

I think some people here are a bit too quick to villainize this dude for his decisions. His post may not say it explicitly, but he is almost certainly desperate and lonely and scared. He probably feels constantly rejected and frustrated. If you subject anyone to those conditions for long enough, they will likely start going to extremes to resolve the issue. For one thing, such a person might post on a relationship forum in a hope that people might offer support and useful advice. Crazy huh? So I would hesitate to assume such a person isn't trying to improve things. But I might wonder if their spouse is doing their part. I might even wonder if the spouse shares the opinion that there is even a problem. Perhaps if they don't, their priorities are not in sync. And maybe that is a good place to look first.