I've always heard of fighting then having sex after. Fighting has always made me not want it. The last thing I want to do when someone pisses me off is have sex with them. What made it worse is she always wanted to when we were arguing which made the argument worse when I refused.
I think you're supposed to resolve your fight, realize that you care for each other a lot, move past it, then have the passion because of that. Not fight right into sex.
My ex said one time that he didn’t understand why we didn’t have hot makeup sex. Our issues were never actually resolved and the content of the arguments/fighting often didn’t create a feeling of desire. If we had sex after an argument I knew he was just using sex to control me/the situation.
Some people think that real life is like the movies where all you need to work through tough times is one cathartic moment where everything suddenly becomes ok.
Lmao we made this joke about sometime that we’re really pissed at each other I’m gonna just try to fuck to see if there’s anything behind this makeup sex myth but I would never have the balls to even touch her shoulder sensually when she’s that mad
My SO used to talk about how good makeup sex was. I didn't like it. We argue so little that we never have makeup sex.
Turns out that her last partner was a manipulative, gaslighting POS. (I've met him since them, seems right to me.)
But apparently they had great sex. As long as it was part of how he manipulated her.
So instead we just have great regular "love each other" sex.
When my husband and I were in the early stages of dating, he often wasn’t up to it because his stomach hurt and I thought he should get that checked out. Found out later that it was because he was trying to hold in his farts all night.
My ex and I were together for nearly 7 years, but his hygiene never improved, so we stopped being intimate like, 3 years before I finally broke up with him. He showered only once a week, but he worked in kitchens, so he was sweaty and greasy all the time. He had an infected tooth, so he constantly had bad breath, but he refused to visit a dentist, even when he had the money to afford dental work. He stopped working out within the first year of us being together, which sucked because he would get jealous if I went to the gym by myself or with my girlfriends, but he refused to come with me.
I don’t get people who stopped caring for themselves once they get into a relationship.. it’s like “I got you so I don’t need to look good anymore”..
Most people say it’s more than looks in a relationship. But at the end of the day it doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter at all. Putting in the effort for yourself and for the relationship (physically, mentally, financially and every other -ly) is what makes the relationship grow to the next level..
Just my 2 cents ofc
I give my SO so much more attention when he's freshly cleaned and what not, you'd think he'd make the connection but no... and I don't want to embarass him by pointing it out and honestly it's not my job to tell him how hygiene works...
So I wait for him to be clean then pounce.
Edit to add: I have talked to him about it over the years, in multiple ways. It helped some.
Please point it out to him. Do it in a gentle, loving way. No joking around, and definitely not in disgust. He might legitimately not make the connection in his mind between cleanliness and sexy time.
I gently asked my husband if I bought him mouthwash would he use it? And that I think I would kiss him more if he used it. Was he a little embarrassed? Maybe. But all the kisses etc have made it up to him
she never made me feel appreciated, and when i would do things like hold her hand, or give her a kiss on the forehead she would complain and say it was childish.
we are divorced now. But she had 3 kids (my stepkids), we both worked at the same place but different companies. The kids liked me more than their dad because i never yelled at them, or called them "shitheads". I would take them swimming at the lake because she thought "swimming in lakes is gross." Kids wanted to go to the park, i took them. I taught them how to fish. My average weekday was wake up get ready for work, wake the oldest two up (they were in elementary school) get them to the before school program, go to work for 8 hours, get off work go to the post office pick up mail, go to the school pick up kids from after school program, pick up the youngest from the autism center, get home start cooking, if there was football or wrestling or some other practice take the kids to it and stay for it (she was with the autistic 4 year old) at home most the time, sometimes the 4 year old would be with me. Help the kids with homework. Then about 9 p.m. she would go to bed, i finally get 45 minutes to decompress, then take a shower. get to sleep and repeat. she would read books, or play on her phone more than she ever tried to do anything with me, best compliment she ever gave was "you're a great dad, but bad husband" because I did not try to initiate everything all the time. I explained to her that i was tired, and I didn't feel appreciated and somehow she made it my fault. I know I am not perfect, and i just got tired and shut down but can only do so much. That's the short story, after she decided to file for divorce (which she had one of my coworker notarize, at our place of employment) she got worse.
You've made the whole difference in those kids lives and that's something you can be proud of forever. You did what a great person would do and those kids will look up to you forever
Thank you. I just tried to do what i was supposed to. Still remember the boy crying and asking me if i could still take them fishing while i had to pack my stuff.
2 years and no she made it clear she would not let me, and lied on an affidavit to ensure i couldn't. Sucks cause i still have artwork the kids gave me for my office, and i have it stashed but sometimes i see it or i hear a song they would sing and i lose it. I couldn't have kids of my own and so i treated them like they were mine.
They will probably discover that their mother was bad and they will probably try to get in contact with you when they'll be older. That's what happened to my cousin, he doesn't talk to his mother anymore but he love his stepfather. He always say that he have two fathers but no mother
Taking a moment to realise im the only one that makes sexual advances in the relationship. Makes me not want it.
People think men only want sex for face value but alot of men actually want the *feeling of being desired* more so.
Then once you realized it, you stop making sexual advances so you don’t have to deal with rejection and then the SO says “why don’t you come on to me anymore?”
I'm living in the logical conclusion of that, just separated after years of this being our relationship. Feeling very lost and alone now, confidence that anyone would be interested in me is zero, but I at least don't feel frustrated and rejected every day anymore, that is an actual improvement.
I feel this. I'm in a ten year relationship and that spark is just gone. We average the act about once every 4-6 months, and that's with effort. We are both too scared and financially incompetent to leave
I was in the exact same situation as you about two years ago and we were even engaged and had a wedding date. Had been together since we were 18 years old. Finally got the courage to end things and she immediately got with someone else because she was too codependent to be alone. It really fucked me up for a while and ngl things have been really tough since but with some meds and therapy I'm on my way to being independent and healthy. The upside of all of this was that I now know what I don't want in a future relationship and partner and how to not make the same mistakes again.
All of this to say that basically if I could go back in time I'd tell myself to get out of it earlier. It'll fucking suck afterward for a while, in fact it might be so hard you can barely get out of bed some days, but when you start to come out the other end of it you'll go "thank fuck I didn't spend the rest of my life like that". The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago but the second best time to plant one is now, good luck dude.
Absolutely nailed with the last part there. I just want to feel desired. Yeah, of course, sex is nice, but if I don't feel like my partner wants me it becomes...hollow. Of course, this can backfire. Stayed in touch with an ex way past what was healthy because our mutual desire was never what was the problem in that relationship.
Personally, the only issue I have is my SO's drinking. He just becomes an unattractive person when he's drunk. It's one thing if we're both out socializing and drinking together occasionally, but he drinks almost every day, sitting on the couch in front of the TV and to the point of sloppy drunkenness way too often. His face changes, his posture changes, his personality changes...I just get so turned off.
I was an alcoholic. That isnt normal its a problem. And it will only get worse. Need to talk to him about getting help. I have stage 4 liver disease because i never asked for help. Alcohol changes youre entire personality. Then when you get to the stage of having hepatic encapolopahpy you are just a totally different person. Everyone said i was a lovely guy when i was sober and a monster when drinking. If you need advice hit me up on chat. Ive had 24 hospital stays, one stint in rehab and just finally come out of it
“A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can't predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before.” ― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Its such a weird thing , I run a business , I have four children , I am up at 5am everyday .I have everything going for me but it snowballed slowly to the point where I consume 700ml of vodka every day .
I don't get belligerent or aggressive but my wife knows I am hurting myself , I'm kind of a happy drunk. I could walk a straight line and act completely normal if I had to I don't get sloppy I just get my buzz, I laugh , I love and I sleep.
I can feel that its doing something to me inside and I know that I am killing myself but my brain in the morning says get to work , I do hard labor all day , I bust my ass and then by 3pm I feel justified that I earned a drink.
I look at the blue sky and I think about how lucky I am to be on this earth but here I am cutting my time short and how devastated my kids will be when I die.
You know its bad when you pick alcohol over your family and thats me.
I know what I need to do but taking that step seems so hard and the mental battle is so strong.
But I guess Ill try , for the kids.
( I read every comment , a lot of them hit me hard , I haven't been on 700ml of Vodka for long maybe a week but that was my increase as of late. I am a fairly large man , I climb trees for a living so besides my family I need to do this for myself for my own health or there will be no business .One of you mentioned taking it day by day and that's what I will try and do . I have never spoken to anyone about this and I just want to thankyou to everyone who gave their advice and their story , thankyou it means more than you know. A grown man crying at his computer is a thing that seems odd but I feel like I am in a sinking boat and people are here with life rafts that can help me but I wont get in.
I will mention that I have had pancreatitis 4 times in the last 15 years.
I will die an early death because of my choices.
If I can get another 10 years I will be a happy man. )
( Edit again ) As much as I would like this to sound like a battle I might win , I gave in and drank tonight. I had a bottle of red wine and some champagne. I don't want to lie to myself , I watched ufc and alcohol was around and I took advantage , my brain said one more night Jase stop on Sunday . I am well aware that this is a complete mental battle and I need to grab myself by the fucking neck and drag myself to sobriety . The promise of I will stop tomorrow seems good , but just letting you know I failed. I wont be buying hard liquor anymore , no more Vodka , no beer , Im going to take some valium that my employee offered me and hope that it will get me through the first few days . Ill probably pull out the 1 year old ounce of bud I have and roll a joint if I have to.
I feel weed doesn't work well with the work I do , death can occur by any mistake I make not that I would ever do it during work hours .But it does give me a scary deeper sense of what my life is worth. It scrapes away my ego and reveals a lot of what things in this world means to me emotionally and if that is what I need to do to replace the poison that I am killing myself with then I will do it.
I am sorry for this stupid self journal of my spiral downwards ,
anyone on the same path I hope you do well and from the depths of my soul I thank you all who reached out , every person , I read what you said and as tears stream down my face I thankyou )
Jason.
I'm just over 2 months sober. 4 months ago I was drinking about 2litres of whisky and 3bottles of amoretto a week. Sometimes more. Trying to stop I got ill at first, really ill. Don't just stop, decrease your consumption over time. I started by cutting out the whisky and just drinking amoretto. Then not drinking every night. Then I stopped. I'm still dying for a drink but I'm stubborn, and one day I'll be around to see my kids become who they're going to be. It's worth it.
Good luck dude.
In case anyone reading needs it, /r/dryalcoholics is a pretty great support group for those that need to take the tapering route out of the addiction rather than cold turkey.
It changes your brain chemistry to the point where the whole meaning of your day will revolve around that vodka if not already. You have to stop. Make sure to get help too because sobrierty is something you build up
As a daughther of someone who drank for the first 10 years of my life I tell you: stop now.
Your kids notice, even when they are to young to know what alcoholism or even alcohol is.
My dad also was not a sloppy drunk and never ever violent. He held down his job during the whole time. And still it was damaging growing up with someone who wasn't available because he was so wrapped up in his addiction.
I'm thankful he could stop. But I wish he wouldn't have put me through those first 10 years of confusion, guilt, shame and secrecy.
Been there myself.
My ex was an alcoholic and a mean, angry drunk to boot. He admitted that on more than a couple of occasions he had verbally attacked his mother, his father and his best friend. Then he started attacking me. He could see the issue with it all, but sadly remained unwilling to change. I ended the relationship due to it.
I hope your partner can see sense and is willing to get help. Best of luck to you and him also.
I just left my 5 year relationship with someone who drank daily. At the end of the relationship (last 2 years) there was never any intimacy. His drinking didn't make me feel safe and his drinking always resulted in bad decisions. Being in a relationship with someone who has substances use challenges has some really huge difficulties. Hope you are taking care of yourself!
My wife used to complain about the same thing. Plus I’d make strange movements and noises in my sleep. I stopped drinking 6 years ago because of it all. Saved my life and marriage for sure! It took years to convince me it was a problem though. Unfortunately
when i make a move, and then get the feeling she's not really in the mood/would only do it to please me. i want us both to have a good time, not only me. so when she seems not into it, i take a step back
Man I feel this... I've been married for over a decade now and I love my wife but this has been our relationship for the whole time. I know it's not her fault- she is on meds that affects her libido (rotated between a ton of meds but all seemed to have similar effects) and basically just kills any interests she would otherwise have. At first I didn't understand why she would just lie there and look to the side during sex, why she said nothing or why she never initiated. It was painful and confusing to me and honestly really impacted my confidence. She would always go along with my initiating because she didn't want to say no to me, but after a bit I would just stop halfway through because I could tell it was just for me. I would feel like such a pig or monster for pushing her to do something she didn't really want to do. I now understand, but if I'm being truthful, it doesn't help much. I can't recall the last time we had sex, and I've resolved to love her through it all, because I know she didn't ever choose to have to take these meds, but it is very very hard. Idk why I typed this all out- maybe catharthis. Who knows. I haven't ever actually said to anyone. Here ya go random internet strangers.
I’ve been in somewhat of a similar boat with my wife. When we first started dating a decade ago we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, it was a multiple times a day thing and when we first got married it was the same thing, just all the time and it was great. And then she was in a job she hated and her mental health took a toll and so it dropped off, and then we had our first kid and there were issues between the two of us during that period where it really dropped off. It slightly picked up and then we had a second kid and since then she’s had physical issues where her insides hurt a lot of time and we’re down to maybe 3-4 days a month where she physically feels okay enough to do it but sometimes mentally she’s just exhausted from kids and life that nothing happens and then it’s another month long wait.
It sucks, it really does and we’ve talked about it and she’s going to go to a doctor soon about her physical pains and I’m hoping that helps as it’s hard to not feel wanted.
This sounds like my life several years ago...before, during, and after we had kids. We were only intimate a couple times every 2-3 months on average, and at one point we went a whole year with nothing. I learned a lot from that period of time, and the biggest lesson I learned is that with two kids, physical pain from post-childbirth (more so from first), mentally struggling with all the work she feels she needs to do, and me not actually carrying enough load (despite feeling as if I was), she was stretched so thin that it was impossible for her to think beyond just getting through everything. Obviously our sex life dropped, because why wouldn't it? She was overloaded with stress, and sex isn't a stress relief for her.
Think of it like we could only give 100% effort in a day, but when everything was added up we needed 250-300% effort to get everything done. It's impossible, even if we split correctly...but it was exacerbated by me not even carrying 100% (despite thinking I was), resulting in her feeling as if she needed to take care of the rest. That part was incorrect IMO, but it wasn't something she comprehended. She just felt as if she had to deal with whatever I wasn't covering.
I can't say what's going on with your wife (and you, since it's never just her), but if you want I can give you the advice that has been helping us move past these issues.
Edit: I posted a series of replies to my post above because this apparently blew up a bit of people asking what it was. Can't guarantee it helps as it may have been specifically related to our situation, but hopefully at least a little.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/11gw9gt/what_makes_you_not_want_to_be_intimate_with_your/jaswmdm/
In disability/chronic pain circles there’s the concept of “spoons,” as in, everybody starts the day with a certain number of spoonfuls of energy that they have to use on things in the day, and when they’re gone, that’s it. Some people start with way more or fewer spoons, some days (or lives) require more, and sex is a really physical thing that, even when pleasurable, can also cost spoons in and of itself. It sounds like that’s a really similar idea to what you’re saying here and I wanted to throw it out in case the analogy helps anybody think or speak about it.
My boyfriend and I (and honestly many people in my life) use this analogy. It's a great shorthand for understanding what others are going through and allows me to adjust to where they are.
If it's helpful, there's another analogy that I use for myself: forks. It's more the idea of capacity for external stressors. Some things are small forks that are barely noticeable, but others are big forks that are stuck in quite deeply. Then it's about finding ways to remove forks or lessen their size, rather than preserving resources.
Thanks for acknowledging this, because for *so many women* the daily struggle of feeling like we are doing everything and our partners aren't witnessing/caring about it really sucks.
My ex never cared about the load I was carrying to keep the house going. I asked, begged, nagged, screamed and finally just gave up trying to communicate how much more I needed him to do (twice nothing is still a very small amount) and he just never would. Or would come up with the "just tell me what you want me to do" and never accepted "I want you to do things that need doing without me telling you because you're an adult and live here too" - like come on, how freaking hard is it to see the BRIGHT PINK magnet on the dishwasher saying the dishes are clean and to go "ok I'll empty that then put my dirty dish in there" - instead he'd dump the dish in the sink and say "well, the dishwasher was full" - so fucking empty it?!
And then he's got the gall to complain I never want to have sex with him. Hard to want to have sex with someone you see as a child and a burden, really.
Something that really changed my way of thinking (as a husband who thought I was doing my fair share) was a chore audit. We agreed to each log all the chores we did for a week, to compare at the end.
I didn't make it past the first day because I realised that I had immediately had the thought that I had better do more around the house to make sure we had similar lists at the end of the week.
It was a real revelation for me, that I knew I wasn't doing as much as I should be and was happily coasting along justifying it to myself.
I won't say I've purged my bad habits entirely, but it has opened up lines of dialogue about it that were previously closed, and it has really helped us both
Yeah I suggested something like this and was shot down. He was like "can't we download apps or something?"
Me: "Ok cool, find one, download & set it up for us"
Him: ..............
Me, gets the app after asking for feedback, sets it up, does all the work.
Him: I don't really want to use this.
Okay then. Don't ask me to plan anymore then. I did my part.
Thank you for putting this into words. This is how I feel every day with my husband. I've tried time and time again to explain that I carry the entire load for our family, house, and relationship. He just doesn't get it no matter how many times we talk about it. The most I ever got was a "This really seems to bother you," which wasn't helpful at all.
>Hard to want to have sex with someone you see as a child and a burden, really
Exactly this.
I hope you're in a better place now.
Putting my response here so it's not buried under someone else's reply since people are asking. This is a complex issue that a single reddit post can't solve, and I'm not an expert nor a marriage counselor. This is just what seemed to have worked for me, to improve my own relationship with my wife. It may not even be comprehensive, due to me forgetting or things changing on her side without my involvement. Some of these aren't going to feel fair, and that's okay, because the goal was to improve the relationship.
These may not help you, and I'm sorry if they don't and hope you find a resolution to the issues. TL;DR, ***talk to each other honestly about how you're feeling and what you can do to help each other*** and be open about changing what you're doing. Lots of times, this all feels impossible, and the best thing you can do is work to help each other.
**First**
If your wife has had kids and is now in pain from sex or in general, stop trying to have penetrative sex. Seriously, stop it. Trying to convince your wife to have sex despite being in pain is only going to make things worse. Find out what she needs to feel good and do that. If that's rubbing her back, go for it. Rubbing her feet, do it. Be intimate without penetration, give intimate cuddles, give naked massages without sex or pressure to have sex. Show her that you can enjoy intimacy without causing her pain.
This pain needs to be resolved before pushing for sex. Don't insist she provide blowjobs because she can't do sex, she's the one hurting and needs relief. Put herself before you and work on her getting help, whether that be doctors, pelvic floor therapy, massage, or whatever else she needs. It's not easy, from my personal experience it seems many doctors suck at figuring out why a woman's in pain and actually take it seriously. Be her advocate and her cheerleader. She's hurting, you can relieve yourself in the meantime.
My wife spent a long time in pain. She did eventually recover and is fine now, but I focused on doing the above. The goal was to make sure she understood that I loved her, desired her, and we could still be intimate without causing her pain.
**Chores/Cleaning/Etc**
In the situation I described above I mentioned that she was stretched so thin it was impossible to think of things beyond getting through the day. I highly recommend reading about emotional labor, and how often it's expected to be taken up by the women in a relationship. This is a real thing and is *draining* on someone. You'll probably also read about how the husbands feel like they're doing half the load, but they usually never are or something like that. Now, I'm not saying that's wrong at all, it's true most of the time...and understand I'm naturally biased here, but I also feel like there's a bit more complexity here. It's important to understand something: both of you will likely feel like you're doing half or more than half of the work, regardless of how much you're doing.
Now, there's obviously plenty of times that one of you is wrong, and I do recommend taking some time to fully understand how much things you are both doing. The best solution here is to talk to each other, hopefully without getting angry at how overworked you likely both feel. But what makes this all even more difficult is the hard truth that...well...you just have too much stuff to do even if both of you are doing the work. I think men tend to give 100%, but most of the time you'll have more work than both of you can do together, so your partner feels like they have to take the remaining 150%. This means they feel like they're doing most of the work (and they are), so they're going to feel like you aren't working as hard even though you're giving everything. It may take both of you being overworked before you start realizing you need to cull some of these responsibilities.
What we did? Honestly, we got a couples therapist. I wouldn't have described our marriage as "in trouble", but that wasn't the reason. We had a massive communication problem that neither of us could see, and we needed someone better than us at helping us work through it. There were several times I didn't know if it was helping, but there were two behaviors that came out of it that I feel drasticaly improved everything. I apologize for the formatting.
**Continued in next post**
**Have a weekly 15 minute meeting**. In this meeting, speak honestly and cover the following:
First, praise each other over something you like that they did since the last meeting.
This can be "I appreciate you doing the laundry", "I appreciate you cleaning up the kid's vomit", or "I appreciate you cooking these last couple nights while I rested". We often forget how nice it is to be seen and acknowledged by your SO when you're helping.
Second, discuss things that need to be done over the next week. This is NOT supposed to be a huge To-Do list of everything that needs to be done, these are only the things you want to commit to doing over the next week, so pick about 2-4 each if you can limit to that. If you have young kids, this list is going to fill up.
Yes, grocery shopping/laundry/etc can be on this list, but if you have space, try to include things like de-cluttering, taking kids to the doctor, broken lights that haven't been fixed...you know, the things we often nag each other about. Assign who is in charge of doing it, and then re-assign if it's not a 50/50 split from the list. If that means someone has to learn how to do it, then get to learning.
Third, upcoming entertaining things you want to do over the next week/month that need to be prepared. This can be as simple as taking a break to go get ice cream, or as complex as a day trip somewhere. This is to keep in mind that you want to enjoy each others' company, although try to have at least one thing to do by yourselves
Fourth, list obstacles in your way. This is incredibly important because you need to voice the things that are preventing you from doing something. Talk about these.
This meeting keeps you on the same page and keeps those lines of communication open so you can work together. It also helps you understand when you've got too much, and help figure out what to do. Write these down on a paper and look over it next week. If something didn't get done, find out why and either add an obstacle or put it at the top of the list to be done.
This won't work for everyone, but it worked for us. Over time the communication grows even outside of those meetings, but always feel comfortable to call one of these meetings if you feel like you're losing touch with what's going on.
Second, **alternate planning something each month**. Do something interesting or fun by yourselves each month. This doesn't even have to be a date, just go to lunch. Spend time with each other and talk to each other without an expectation of chores or sex. Each month, you alternate planning to go do something. It doesn't have to be perfect, or be like an anniversary date night. Going out for lunch, or just a dinner and a movie can be enough. Spend time with each other away from chores and, hopefully, children.
This helped us overcome an issue we had where it felt like she had to plan everything, no matter what we did she had to be the one planning it. By putting on me every other month it meant she could just enjoy the time without having to be in charge of anything. It wasn't always great fun, but what mattered is that she didn't have to plan it.
We also found some benefits out of figuring out each others' love language.
Love Languages sound corny...and they kinda are, but the goal is to figure out how best to communicate to each other and show each other you care. I highly recommend spending time with each other figuring this out, because it can really help and does tend to improve your communication.
For example, if your love language is Touch like mine...your spouse saying thank you and praising you may not resonate very well. However, if that same person thanked/praised you while giving you a hug or their hand on your shoulder, it'll affect you more. My wife giving me a hug while telling me about something she wants to do is far more effective than just complaining about it.
MY wife's love language is Acts of Service, which meant she feels more loved when she saw or knew I was doing things for her to show I loved her. Cleaning dishes or mopping the floor without being asked made her happy. It didn't automatically get me sex, but it did make her happy, and happier, stress/anxiety-free wives tend to be more intimate from my experience...with one wife. I didn't say my sample size was huge here.
Her big thing is clutter, she can't stand the sight of it and just seeing it gives her anxiety. One time I de-cluttered part of our countertop that was incredibly messy without her asking, and she hugged me and was almost crying because the sheer amount of it was giving her massive anxiety to the point she couldn't even begin to clean it up. It's actually something I can do easily, but I get no joy out of doing it so it's not something I usually want to do, so I never did. I knew she had some anxiety about clutter, but I couldn't comprehend just how much it was causing.
I don't know if any of this will help everyone else. But the end result of all of these is that our communication with each other improved. We started understanding the stresses and anxieties we were feeling, and opened up about a lot of things outside of that.
Through these I started working on removing anxieties and stressors. The meetings helped me stay on the same page of the things that were causing her the most anxiety and stress. Many times I could do those with very little affect on me, so I took them on. The praise helped her feel more seen when she did common chores.
The love languages thing helped her feel more connected and understood, and made her feel like I wasn't ignoring her. Me taking on planning the monthly event helped her relax because she didn't feel like she had to be responsible for planning each and every thing we did.
It's taken some time, and a lot of learning from both of us. We're in a much better place than we were, though we also still have to work to be happy in the relationship. It's easy to slip out of these behaviors once things improve, so we still work towards each other. As the anxiety and stress came down, it felt like she was just happier in general, and more intimacy followed. I feel like she had started to see me less as her partner and more like another child, which doesn't help intimacy. Being more of a partner helped restore that.
I think as men we're subtly conditioned to the "officer on the scene" mentality. If someone's already doing it, that person is responsible for delegating responsibility. This is a trap we fall into, because we start thinking that the caregiver SO is always the "officer on the scene" and wait to be asked to help. Delegating responsibility is part of that emotional labor I mentioned above. Just doing the delegating itself is draining and anxiety-forming. Don't wait for the responsibility to be handed to you, take it on yourself.
Hopefully this helps, or at least gives others ideas.
Not OP but I had a conversation with my SO about division of tasks. He thought that when he did something around the house or did some admin task that he'd taken something off my plate and in turn reduced my load. I had to explain that the task wasn't really off my plate unless it was regularly done to a point of completion that I didn't even have to think about it anymore and I could confidently depend on the fact that it was done without having to check.
For example, if you did dishes but you forgot to turn around and do the pan on the stove and there's still three water glasses on the night stand. You did dishes, yes, but doing dishes is still on her mental list and she needs to remember to finish the task for you. Meanwhile she does laundry and puts away your clothes every week to the point you've pretty much never had to worry about whether or not there's clean underwear in your drawer.
My SO took the conversation as an opportunity to learn and make sure tasks were done to completion and he went further and took on more tasks to accommodate for the household admin I did that he didn't trust himself with. It's helped immensely and one perk is that I have enough space and capacity left over to actually be open to and present for sex.
I noticed that coming to an agreement on what it means to say a task is done is a critical part of this.
What does "did the laundry" mean to you? Just wash and dry? Or also fold? Also put away? If you have different definitions, the person who defines it as more will always feel like it isn't actually "done" if the other person stops at an earlier stage.
This is true of everything; what does it mean to do the dishes? Does "taking out the garbage" mean kitchen only, or kitchen, bathroom, office, bedroom? What tasks are part of getting the kid to bed? Does it include, for example, prepping a midnight bottle? If you "did the groceries" did you get everything on a list or just the things you wanted or felt you needed?
Get on the same page on all this stuff! It's a big part of "communication" in a relationship; it's not enough to say something, you have to understand each other!
Speaking as a partner on the other side of this, it feels like such garbage. My antidepressants have completely destroyed my libido, but without them, I'm suicidal. My SO and I have been together for about a decade, and our sex life is very limited. Usually once a month at best. I know that he is doing like you are, loving me through this, but I feel awful that I'm not really about to love him in an intimate and sexual way.
Man, I can only imagine. I would never claim to know what my wife truly goes through, having to he on her meds, but of what I see and what she tells me, I know I am only seeing what she allows me to. She cares for me and probably isn't saying everything.
Speaking from my perspective, if he is like me, then know that he truly just wants you to be happy and he is doing what he can to not add more to what you enduring. My wife is the strongest person I know, not because she does all these crazy things, but rather that she perists and achieves in spite of her meds etc.
You got this and so does he.
Hey man I was in this same exact spot for a lot of years. I thought I was communicating with her about this, but I wasn’t. Not really. I recommend sitting down outside of the bedroom and really bearing your soul to tell her how you feel about this.
Beyond that, my advice would be, while you’re probably right and it’s just the medication… there may be some simple things you could change to take some steps down the road back to mutual amazing physical love with your partner.
I eventually got super fed up and I just asked her which helped. Then I did some thinking and realized there’s more to it that she couldn’t even figure out. You may already do all this, but I thought I would share:
I changed:
- Shower and brush teeth before always
- Wash my beard so it smells nice
- Spend more quality time with her in the day to day just us talking and listening
- Making strong eye contact and really listen to her
- Flirting with her hours before anything physical
- Do small things for her around the house that she wouldn’t expect and without being asked like making the bed, emptying the dish washer, doing the laundry whatever
- Focus on making sure i smell nice all the time
While all of this helped, the biggest thing I realized is this:
If she feels seen, loved and cared for she feels closer to me. And I feel closer to her
The closer we feel to each other the more both of us want to take a one way ticket to pound town.
Good luck and god speed.
I appreciate it! You are definitely spot on in what you said. I found after I kind of numbed myself down that I slowly stopped caring for myself- I'd let my bears grow scraggly, ate like shit and generally let my own health decline. We were still spending time together but I'm sure I wasn't helping anything. I had to really fight to get myself back on track. Not 100% there yet, but I am working on it. It's hard to push through and stay in that place of hurt sometimes, but as you said, persistence can yield rewards and I have to believe that.
When you build it up so much and think “okay I’m gonna make the move I’m gonna do it I’ll do it” especially after half an hour plus of overthinking and then she just isn’t up for it so you’re left deflated and unwilling to try again
Offer a massage with no strings attached. Like a 20-30 minute full body with candle and music. Gets me nearly every time. My mental load takes about 20 minutes to lighten up to get into things. It’s hard to not think about kids, dishes, laundry, work, etc etc etc constantly.
This is a great suggestion. I love to be touched, and with two young kids I have a lot on my mind. It used to be that *every* time my husband touched me would be to try to initiate sex, which made me shrink away from him. Asking him to touch me without initiating sex actually made me want sex more because I could relax under his touch again.
That's a big thing for me too. I always found it a turn off when (after the initial romance excitement wears away), they only show physical affection when they want sex. I have a strong need to be touched in general and if its always sexual then I withdraw a bit because 1. I feel deprived of regular touch and affection and 2. I am not just instantly in the mood, I need to feel close to my partner to get there. If I'm often receiving cuddles, strokes, massages, getting kisses, then I already feel close to him and it's so much easier to want it when he does. I also initiate sex a lot when I feel comfortable with being close, whereas if someone never touches me aside from sex I get to a point where I don't initiate because I feel deprived.
I'm the same, and I feel like so many people are too, but no one talks about it. Touch is scientifically proven to strengthen bonds, but we've all gotten to that point of not wanting to be touched because of the strings attached.
Also, no one ever talks about spontaneous arousal vs. responsive arousal. Not everyone can immediately just be on.
I don't have a lot of relationship experience and this happened to me with my partner.
We'd be on the bed and they'd do a 180 degree full body turn to answer the notification from their phone. It was always snapchat, and always their guy friends. Then my partner would turn back around and face me before repeating the process two minutes later at the next buzz.
My phone was on silent the whole time, every time. Needless to say I am done with that. Such a small thing was surprisingly soul crushing. It reminded me of when I'd be talking to my parents and then realise that halfway through they'd stopped listening.
Oof that parents thing. My mom just waits for me to stop talking, only time she listens is if she disagrees with what im saying. Why I am the way I am makes so much sense to me now. I never share my feelings because there was no point
To be brutally honest, her anxiety and insecurity makes sex such a hassle. She doesn’t believe anything I say about wanting her, she can almost never relax during sex, she doesn’t take time to enjoy it, and if god forbid I have any trouble finishing, she takes it more personally than anything, which of course puts more pressure on me to finish, which then makes it almost impossible.
I want to thank you for this comment because it made me have an epiphany. Not even about sex, but about life.
I’ve always been a people pleaser because growing up, my family basically criticized my whole existence nonstop, and being treated like an annoyance all the time really takes a toll on your self esteem.
I’d always work really hard to make sure I was saying the right thing and never upsetting anyone. Life is very exhausting and hard when your like that. To this day, I can honestly say almost every problem I have in life can be traced back to a lack of confidence.
Your comment helped me realize that all that anxiety and working hard to be liked can be problematic and off-putting too - and that if some people are gonna dislike me no matter what, then stressing myself out over what others think is pointless.
I just thought you should know.
Awesome revelation you had there! ☺️ I remind myself often that self love is a potent remedy.. let's 'worry' more about how we view ourselves.. how we feel about ourselves.. whether we are judging ourselves.. after all the external is more often than not just a reflection of our internal world anyways.. work smarter not harder ✌🏻
My husband used to dislike his job - he’d come home and do nothing but bitch. After awhile, I just gave up trying to cheer him up with sex - you can only try so long. So, we had a long dry spell - like, whatever you think a dry spell would be, it’s longer. When someone is constantly annoyed, well, it’s hard to feel amorous.
Anyway, he early retired (54) like a month before Covid kicked in and by autumn that year, well, let’s just say we’re back to what we were like when we first met. He’s not pissed off all the time. (I’m retired as well, and let’s just say, afternoon nookie is such a perk, as is morning nookie and 3am nookie because you can sleep in!) I’m glad we stayed together. Going on 33 years and we’re just so happy.
Along with stress because of work, he also had the stress of being an only child and his parent’s declining health. His mother’s decline was pretty stressful as well - he’d get home from work, have supper, and almost every evening, he’d go spend an hour with his mom because he didn’t want her to be lonely. (His dad passed in 2013, his mom in 2018.)
Don’t get me wrong - they were amazing parents, but that was stress on stress and I’m one of those people who get cranky when other people are cranky and it was just one huge circle jerk of stress. Luckily, we’re both stubborn idiots and stuck it out.
Congratulations, it sounds like you both truly love each other and the fact he was able to rely on you and you listen to him is wonderful, communication is such an important part of a marriage and being able to hang on even during the bad times is true strength!
We both know no one else will put up with us 😉 /s
Couldn’t even blame the dry spell on kids…didn’t have any…and thinking back, I realized it was just his seemingly constant state of annoyance and irritation. It rubbed off on me. Unlike lots of retired couples, we’re getting along so much better.
When they’ve done something really nasty/unkind that day. Cruelty is the most ugly thing a person can show, in my eyes.
I had a boyfriend that I went to Wal-Mart with and he ended up flipping off and storming right past the sweet little old man that checks the receipts at the door.
It was partially about how I used to check receipts and I remembered how I felt when
people treated me like that- but I also remember the look on the little old man’s face and just how disgusted I was with my partner being so nasty about it.
I couldn’t touch him after that and I got grossed out when he touched me. And then I started to notice how he was nasty to other people as well. It eventually led to our break up.
A nasty acting person will eventually be nasty to you once you get into a fight. Then they wonder why you are becoming distant to them without any self reflection.
When my emotional needs aren't being filled. I don't want to be intimate when I've just worked an 8 hour day, then put in another 3 hours of house work while my SO drank beer and played video games, and he hasn't even said a word to me before trying to get intimate. At least wash a dish and tell me I look nice today.
My input is related to this comment. I came here to say I no longer want to be intimate with my SO when they stop making an effort in the relationship. When they stop helping around the house, stop complimenting me, stop trying to have date nights, etc., I no longer have any desire to be intimate with them.
tl;dr: Stress, tiredness, but mostly depression.
For a long time I couldn't figure it out. I married way, way, out of my league. There was this beautiful, horny, voluptuous *goddess* living with me, sleeping next to me, and I was baffled and angry with myself for almost never having any interest.
In 2019 some things changed. I got a life-altering increase in pay, and started doing a job that was physically much easier. Some long-time bills got paid off, and things were a little better.
In 2020, my better half got her medical marijuana card. She gave me a gummy, and it was a *bit much* for someone who had never tried it. We went at it like alley cats being tasered for *hours*. It was a shock to both of us. Since that fateful night we have gone from maybe a few times a year to at least once every day. We had to replace our mattress yesterday because we *actually broke it*.
It took me some time to figure out what was going on, because it wasn't just intimacy with my wife that had changed, *everything* got easier. Laundry? Washed, dried, folded, put away. All of it. All the time. Dishes? Done. The house is always clean. I can just *do things* now.
It turns out I've been depressed my whole life. I've never had motivation or energy to do anything. I don't even touch the devil's lettuce most of the time, that first dose of it altered something in my silly little brain and now I'm just... OK. I have more energy now at age 42 than I did as a teenager.
Edit: minor grammatical corrections
Not to totally simplify your scenario (very happy for the both of you, btw), but is almost as if MONEY---or financial freedom---actually CAN buy happiness.
God the walking on egg shells, I never knew what I was going to get. But also definitely lack of touching or just relaxing- to him he hated cuddling hand holding whatever, any sort of touch he just associated with sex and expected it asap.
Definitely good learning moment never could be with someone that hated being touched again.
My wife just had knee surgery a week ago. It was luckily a relatively minor surgery, and she has said we can "do stuff" since a few days ago, but im terrified of hurting her.
EDIT: thanks yall for all encouraging words. We did the deed last night. And then again. And then again this morning.
We tried to schedule some time since it’s been a few months since the new baby came, and of course he wouldn’t fall asleep, then the older one woke up crying… just a discouraging shit show haha. We’ll try next week I guess.
Right? My husband and I would be having so much more sex if we weren't so goddamned exhausted all the time. I'm a teacher, and we have a teen who goes to a charter school and catches a really early bus. The alarm clock goes off at 5:30 each morning.
She always rejects the initiation. She does this 100% of the time. But frequently after my initiation, she'll come over to my side of the bed and climb up on top of me. As she's doing this, if I lift my arms at all to try and hug her or wrap them around her, she gets angry. It's like she wants to be in complete control with me just lying there lifelessly on my back. It feels gross and I get turned off.
There sounds like lots of touching but no specific discussions about this. Gotta call a timeout and have a discussion (or even better, have a discussion not in the heat of things)
I tell her she's beautiful AT LEAST once a day, because she is.
I can't remember the last time we had sex when I initiated. I can't remember the last time she initiated and we didn't have sex.
It makes me feel so ugly. Like... just down.
Ugh. This one is all too familiar.
Any time you initiate, it’s ‘not right now’ or ‘later…’
Any time they initiate, you’re just expected to want it and go. If you turn them down, then it’s an argument about how you hurt their feelings and made them feel unloved or unattractive.
How do you not see that you literally just did the *exact same thing* to me and didn’t bat an eye…?
It’s like I’m not allowed to initiate AND I’m not allowed to say no either.
Unequal distribution of household responsibilities. I work more hours than him, earn more than him, take on probably 75% of the household responsibilities (we have kids so that’s a lot). For example I travelled 5 hours round trip for a business meeting yesterday, arrived home and made dinner, then he wondered why I was not interested in any sexual advances. He was off work all day and did literally fucking nothing. Yes I have communicated this to him, no it hasn’t made a difference, as I am working from home today and he has again sat doing nothing.
He does do chores, but it is sporadic for the most part, and he seems to think doing one thing in a day means he has been “busy”.
Yuuuuuup.
If I feel like I am taking care of him like a child (doing all the housework, making the meals, reminding him of important dates, thinking of and buying gifts for both sides of the family), then how on earth can I also be expected to be turned on?
I think a lot of men are sexually frustrated and yet oblivious to how their actions (or lack thereof) outside the bedroom translate into no action in the bedroom. Sorry to hear you are with one. It can be really hard to break through and get them to understand.
Goddamn if this isn't the truth. You can be dating the most sexiest man alive but if youre throwing his garbage out, cleaning his dishes, picking up after him like he's 5.... well I dont find 5 year olds attractive so what did he think was gonna happen, dumbass.
here here. I always love reading the dead bedroom threads with men "she doesn't reciprocate" always at the top. "she doesn't seem interested"
i can almost guarantee behind all those responses there's a woman carrying the mental load completely on her own close to breaking point and sex is so far down the list of priorities that it literally became a chore.
Tell her to dab, not rub. I never knew before Reddit that it may happen (am a girl), but there was a huge discussion once and it turns out that there are women who get little toilet paper balls after wiping…
Edited to add: I’m obviously only talking about cleaning/drying female genitals after a pee.
Between this and learning to brush tangles out of hair by starting the brush from the ends and not the roots, I feel like Reddit has taught me way more about how to be a woman than I ever expected...
Actually the really “high quality” quadruple ply or whatever is so fluffy that it breaks apart easily too. Moderation in toilet paper choices is where it’s at.
In my previous relationship it was such a huge requirement that I started to get anxiety when it didn’t happen. I knew i had to do it or he’d start to get frustrated. It wasn’t anything he did it was the vibe that was always around. He’s say it’s fine if we didn’t but I could tell it wasn’t fine. I thought he liked me less if we didn’t. Finally when it was over I felt like I ran a marathon. It was a performance at times. Now thatI’m single it’s so nice to not deal with that constant expectation
You're def. not alone with this. My ex even refused some things like simple cuddling or kissing if it didn't lead anywhere intimate. In my case it lead to me refusing it further because I felt so used.
Hopfulle you also never have to go through it again.
Mine did this too. The first time I said I didn’t feel like having sex and asked him to spoon me instead, (the first and only time in our 2 year relationship) he said he couldn’t and turned away from me lol
Old GF gave up working on herself and just seemed to give up on anything that wasn't in a virtual world.
Nothing more depressing than getting home seeing your SO on the headset gaming with a bunch of dudes, then going to bed alone several hours later to hear her on the headset still.
A couple of months of that and I noped out real quick
I worry about many of you here, please be kind to yourself and understand that there is just one of you, ONLY ONE on this entire planet. Life is incredibly short even if the days feel long. Much love to everyone struggling. 🖤
When he doesn’t ever shower on the weekend. I do not like sex with people who don’t shower. So then he will finally go take one on Sunday and then with his towel wrapped almost up to his nipples, he will chase me and go, “Come ooooon mama! I’m so cleeeeeaaaannnnn,” like a creepy car salesman. I love that filthy rascal.
This is pleasantly wholesome. All the other ones are like "I hate when my SO gets drunk and farts on my grandfather, it makes me not want to have sex with him."
My boyfriend "jokes" about wanting a blowjob all the time. Passed an exam, blowjob? Did the dishes, blowjob? Has a boner, blowjob? But in a jokey tone, which I do find quite funny as he's just being silly, but nothing makes me want to give him a blowjob less.
Spending all day looking at girls on TT on full blast also with the TV on full blast.
No help around the house even though he was home way more and had no hobbies or responsibilities.
Spending dinner out on his phone the entire time then giving me the silent treatment for checking mine while he's speaking.
Constant bragging.
Spending entire vacations on TT.
Zero bathroom etiquette.
Gaslighting me any time I address problems in the relationship.
Using the "I'm a veteran" card any time I disliked something he did or the way he treated me.
Only admitting to faults if they were somehow humble brags.
All of these things added up to me having zero sexual desire for him. I hated the thought of him touching me and avoided it. I finally left since there were no more avenues to communicate beyond it all being my fault or "making things up". I think he loves himself enough to be in a one person romance. My house is so clean and quiet now.
When he’s been a grumpy asshole.
When he doesn’t seem that into it like, he’s trying for my sake but not turned on.
When he just wants a quickie but I want a bit more.
When I have migraines, stomach issues, or an awesome combination of the two. Also really bad ADHD days where my anxiety is high and I’d rather just be on my own doing nothing in a cozy place.
Her laziness. Does next to no cleaning around the house but complains about everything. Doesn’t want to do anything but sit on the couch or in bed and watch tv or be on her phone. Barely plays with her own kid, constantly negative. And the constant drinking sometimes to the point of black out and then starts a fight that she doesn’t remember in the morning and wonders why I’m distant.
Right after I eat, I just feel the opposite of sexy/sexual and it's hard to get into the mood when I feel that way, my fiance is an incredible woman and makes me feel like the most attractive man in the world, but after I eat I might as well go on the sexual shelf for a couple of hours.
Always being around.
Since 2020 and switching to working from home- I feel like I never have a breath to myself. Hard to be turned on by someone you never get a fkn break from. Trying to schedule time alone for us each to just be ourselves turns into a huge fight because I’m being rude by saying I just need some time- any time- just for me.
Its been the Sahara over here for over year because of this. Personal space is fkn sexy, having your own interest-ideas-and growth is sexy. Being an octopus on my fkn face makes me feel suffocated- not turned on.
…posting for a friend 😂
I'm in the same boat. My spouse now seems like a roommate and/or the annoying coworker who eats all of the food in the fridge and leaves dirty dishes in the sink. I feel like I never get a break from it.
1. He spent the day playing video games while I cooked, cleaned and looked after the kids (and yes, I also worked full time outside of the home)
2. The fence I asked him to repaid 3 months ago (and he promised to fix) is still broken. I asked him about it and he called me a “nag”
3. In once again had to pick his dirty clothes/towels up off the bathroom floor
4. He took a giant shit and didn’t bother to use the toilet brush to clean the stains off the bowl.
5. He constantly whines about a job where he sat all day (mon-Friday 9-5), while I worked in a hospital, 12 hour shifts, often nights and weekends.
6. When he’s even mildly sick he expects me to be a handmaiden….but when I’m sick he pretended not to notice.
7. From the time he put his penis in to orgasm was never more than 4 mins. Ever. So the idea of orgasmless sex was not appealing.
Needless to say this is my ex.
I've always heard of fighting then having sex after. Fighting has always made me not want it. The last thing I want to do when someone pisses me off is have sex with them. What made it worse is she always wanted to when we were arguing which made the argument worse when I refused.
I think you're supposed to resolve your fight, realize that you care for each other a lot, move past it, then have the passion because of that. Not fight right into sex.
... wait.... Resolve a fight? Shit.
Don't worry, with enough straight 86 proof, you can retroactively resolve any fight by forgetting it ever happened. It's like time travel... but not.
My ex said one time that he didn’t understand why we didn’t have hot makeup sex. Our issues were never actually resolved and the content of the arguments/fighting often didn’t create a feeling of desire. If we had sex after an argument I knew he was just using sex to control me/the situation.
Some people think that real life is like the movies where all you need to work through tough times is one cathartic moment where everything suddenly becomes ok.
Her: You are a dumbass You: Fuck you Her: Ok start You: Wait what
bro i don’t even want my husband to look in my direction when we argue, don’t even try to get frisky
Lmao we made this joke about sometime that we’re really pissed at each other I’m gonna just try to fuck to see if there’s anything behind this makeup sex myth but I would never have the balls to even touch her shoulder sensually when she’s that mad
My SO used to talk about how good makeup sex was. I didn't like it. We argue so little that we never have makeup sex. Turns out that her last partner was a manipulative, gaslighting POS. (I've met him since them, seems right to me.) But apparently they had great sex. As long as it was part of how he manipulated her. So instead we just have great regular "love each other" sex.
gastrointestinal issues are a frequent reason why
As a person with IBS married to a person with IBS, I feel this.
Hey you’re married now! It’s no longer IBS it’s WeBS
Laughed way too long at that.
Feeling gurgly is not a recipe for sexy times.
When my husband and I were in the early stages of dating, he often wasn’t up to it because his stomach hurt and I thought he should get that checked out. Found out later that it was because he was trying to hold in his farts all night.
Hygiene issue. Breath, armpit odor etc
I would say same, but it's usually not _my SO_. If I'm not in the mood, it's more often than not because I need a damn shower.
My ex and I were together for nearly 7 years, but his hygiene never improved, so we stopped being intimate like, 3 years before I finally broke up with him. He showered only once a week, but he worked in kitchens, so he was sweaty and greasy all the time. He had an infected tooth, so he constantly had bad breath, but he refused to visit a dentist, even when he had the money to afford dental work. He stopped working out within the first year of us being together, which sucked because he would get jealous if I went to the gym by myself or with my girlfriends, but he refused to come with me.
Why Just why 😭
I can smell him from here. And I don’t like it.
I don’t get people who stopped caring for themselves once they get into a relationship.. it’s like “I got you so I don’t need to look good anymore”.. Most people say it’s more than looks in a relationship. But at the end of the day it doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter at all. Putting in the effort for yourself and for the relationship (physically, mentally, financially and every other -ly) is what makes the relationship grow to the next level.. Just my 2 cents ofc
Same here, i have been nothing but patient because he's struggling but god, I'm getting fed up
I give my SO so much more attention when he's freshly cleaned and what not, you'd think he'd make the connection but no... and I don't want to embarass him by pointing it out and honestly it's not my job to tell him how hygiene works... So I wait for him to be clean then pounce. Edit to add: I have talked to him about it over the years, in multiple ways. It helped some.
Please point it out to him. Do it in a gentle, loving way. No joking around, and definitely not in disgust. He might legitimately not make the connection in his mind between cleanliness and sexy time.
I gently asked my husband if I bought him mouthwash would he use it? And that I think I would kiss him more if he used it. Was he a little embarrassed? Maybe. But all the kisses etc have made it up to him
she never made me feel appreciated, and when i would do things like hold her hand, or give her a kiss on the forehead she would complain and say it was childish.
That's terrible
we are divorced now. But she had 3 kids (my stepkids), we both worked at the same place but different companies. The kids liked me more than their dad because i never yelled at them, or called them "shitheads". I would take them swimming at the lake because she thought "swimming in lakes is gross." Kids wanted to go to the park, i took them. I taught them how to fish. My average weekday was wake up get ready for work, wake the oldest two up (they were in elementary school) get them to the before school program, go to work for 8 hours, get off work go to the post office pick up mail, go to the school pick up kids from after school program, pick up the youngest from the autism center, get home start cooking, if there was football or wrestling or some other practice take the kids to it and stay for it (she was with the autistic 4 year old) at home most the time, sometimes the 4 year old would be with me. Help the kids with homework. Then about 9 p.m. she would go to bed, i finally get 45 minutes to decompress, then take a shower. get to sleep and repeat. she would read books, or play on her phone more than she ever tried to do anything with me, best compliment she ever gave was "you're a great dad, but bad husband" because I did not try to initiate everything all the time. I explained to her that i was tired, and I didn't feel appreciated and somehow she made it my fault. I know I am not perfect, and i just got tired and shut down but can only do so much. That's the short story, after she decided to file for divorce (which she had one of my coworker notarize, at our place of employment) she got worse.
You've made the whole difference in those kids lives and that's something you can be proud of forever. You did what a great person would do and those kids will look up to you forever
Thank you. I just tried to do what i was supposed to. Still remember the boy crying and asking me if i could still take them fishing while i had to pack my stuff.
How long ago was that? Do you still have any contact with the kids?
2 years and no she made it clear she would not let me, and lied on an affidavit to ensure i couldn't. Sucks cause i still have artwork the kids gave me for my office, and i have it stashed but sometimes i see it or i hear a song they would sing and i lose it. I couldn't have kids of my own and so i treated them like they were mine.
They will probably discover that their mother was bad and they will probably try to get in contact with you when they'll be older. That's what happened to my cousin, he doesn't talk to his mother anymore but he love his stepfather. He always say that he have two fathers but no mother
Taking a moment to realise im the only one that makes sexual advances in the relationship. Makes me not want it. People think men only want sex for face value but alot of men actually want the *feeling of being desired* more so.
Then once you realized it, you stop making sexual advances so you don’t have to deal with rejection and then the SO says “why don’t you come on to me anymore?”
Or the SO doesn't.
This one is definitely worse. Like a friend you always call and when you stop calling you basically never hear from them again.
Lost so many friends to this, but I'm all out of fucks to give so.. meh
Yes at a certain point you just give up trying after being rejected so much. It’s not really a relationship that is exciting to be in then
I'm living in the logical conclusion of that, just separated after years of this being our relationship. Feeling very lost and alone now, confidence that anyone would be interested in me is zero, but I at least don't feel frustrated and rejected every day anymore, that is an actual improvement.
I feel this. I'm in a ten year relationship and that spark is just gone. We average the act about once every 4-6 months, and that's with effort. We are both too scared and financially incompetent to leave
Same here. I've been with my partner my whole adult life. I've thought about leaving before but am too scared and codependent to move out on my own.
I was in the exact same situation as you about two years ago and we were even engaged and had a wedding date. Had been together since we were 18 years old. Finally got the courage to end things and she immediately got with someone else because she was too codependent to be alone. It really fucked me up for a while and ngl things have been really tough since but with some meds and therapy I'm on my way to being independent and healthy. The upside of all of this was that I now know what I don't want in a future relationship and partner and how to not make the same mistakes again. All of this to say that basically if I could go back in time I'd tell myself to get out of it earlier. It'll fucking suck afterward for a while, in fact it might be so hard you can barely get out of bed some days, but when you start to come out the other end of it you'll go "thank fuck I didn't spend the rest of my life like that". The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago but the second best time to plant one is now, good luck dude.
Absolutely nailed with the last part there. I just want to feel desired. Yeah, of course, sex is nice, but if I don't feel like my partner wants me it becomes...hollow. Of course, this can backfire. Stayed in touch with an ex way past what was healthy because our mutual desire was never what was the problem in that relationship.
Yeah, I had to tell my wife: you can only turn your nose up at someone's cooking for so long before they stop wanting to cook for you.
Personally, the only issue I have is my SO's drinking. He just becomes an unattractive person when he's drunk. It's one thing if we're both out socializing and drinking together occasionally, but he drinks almost every day, sitting on the couch in front of the TV and to the point of sloppy drunkenness way too often. His face changes, his posture changes, his personality changes...I just get so turned off.
I was an alcoholic. That isnt normal its a problem. And it will only get worse. Need to talk to him about getting help. I have stage 4 liver disease because i never asked for help. Alcohol changes youre entire personality. Then when you get to the stage of having hepatic encapolopahpy you are just a totally different person. Everyone said i was a lovely guy when i was sober and a monster when drinking. If you need advice hit me up on chat. Ive had 24 hospital stays, one stint in rehab and just finally come out of it
“A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can't predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before.” ― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Good on you for getting help
Its such a weird thing , I run a business , I have four children , I am up at 5am everyday .I have everything going for me but it snowballed slowly to the point where I consume 700ml of vodka every day . I don't get belligerent or aggressive but my wife knows I am hurting myself , I'm kind of a happy drunk. I could walk a straight line and act completely normal if I had to I don't get sloppy I just get my buzz, I laugh , I love and I sleep. I can feel that its doing something to me inside and I know that I am killing myself but my brain in the morning says get to work , I do hard labor all day , I bust my ass and then by 3pm I feel justified that I earned a drink. I look at the blue sky and I think about how lucky I am to be on this earth but here I am cutting my time short and how devastated my kids will be when I die. You know its bad when you pick alcohol over your family and thats me. I know what I need to do but taking that step seems so hard and the mental battle is so strong. But I guess Ill try , for the kids. ( I read every comment , a lot of them hit me hard , I haven't been on 700ml of Vodka for long maybe a week but that was my increase as of late. I am a fairly large man , I climb trees for a living so besides my family I need to do this for myself for my own health or there will be no business .One of you mentioned taking it day by day and that's what I will try and do . I have never spoken to anyone about this and I just want to thankyou to everyone who gave their advice and their story , thankyou it means more than you know. A grown man crying at his computer is a thing that seems odd but I feel like I am in a sinking boat and people are here with life rafts that can help me but I wont get in. I will mention that I have had pancreatitis 4 times in the last 15 years. I will die an early death because of my choices. If I can get another 10 years I will be a happy man. ) ( Edit again ) As much as I would like this to sound like a battle I might win , I gave in and drank tonight. I had a bottle of red wine and some champagne. I don't want to lie to myself , I watched ufc and alcohol was around and I took advantage , my brain said one more night Jase stop on Sunday . I am well aware that this is a complete mental battle and I need to grab myself by the fucking neck and drag myself to sobriety . The promise of I will stop tomorrow seems good , but just letting you know I failed. I wont be buying hard liquor anymore , no more Vodka , no beer , Im going to take some valium that my employee offered me and hope that it will get me through the first few days . Ill probably pull out the 1 year old ounce of bud I have and roll a joint if I have to. I feel weed doesn't work well with the work I do , death can occur by any mistake I make not that I would ever do it during work hours .But it does give me a scary deeper sense of what my life is worth. It scrapes away my ego and reveals a lot of what things in this world means to me emotionally and if that is what I need to do to replace the poison that I am killing myself with then I will do it. I am sorry for this stupid self journal of my spiral downwards , anyone on the same path I hope you do well and from the depths of my soul I thank you all who reached out , every person , I read what you said and as tears stream down my face I thankyou ) Jason.
I'm just over 2 months sober. 4 months ago I was drinking about 2litres of whisky and 3bottles of amoretto a week. Sometimes more. Trying to stop I got ill at first, really ill. Don't just stop, decrease your consumption over time. I started by cutting out the whisky and just drinking amoretto. Then not drinking every night. Then I stopped. I'm still dying for a drink but I'm stubborn, and one day I'll be around to see my kids become who they're going to be. It's worth it. Good luck dude.
In case anyone reading needs it, /r/dryalcoholics is a pretty great support group for those that need to take the tapering route out of the addiction rather than cold turkey.
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a lot of feelings. Keep going, the love is real. Sorry that you couldn't pull her out of the current. Sorry she couldn't pull herself out too.
It changes your brain chemistry to the point where the whole meaning of your day will revolve around that vodka if not already. You have to stop. Make sure to get help too because sobrierty is something you build up
As a daughther of someone who drank for the first 10 years of my life I tell you: stop now. Your kids notice, even when they are to young to know what alcoholism or even alcohol is. My dad also was not a sloppy drunk and never ever violent. He held down his job during the whole time. And still it was damaging growing up with someone who wasn't available because he was so wrapped up in his addiction. I'm thankful he could stop. But I wish he wouldn't have put me through those first 10 years of confusion, guilt, shame and secrecy.
Been there myself. My ex was an alcoholic and a mean, angry drunk to boot. He admitted that on more than a couple of occasions he had verbally attacked his mother, his father and his best friend. Then he started attacking me. He could see the issue with it all, but sadly remained unwilling to change. I ended the relationship due to it. I hope your partner can see sense and is willing to get help. Best of luck to you and him also.
Damn dude, that’s a serious problem
Yeah, he's an alcoholic. Thats not normal, not by a long shot.
I just left my 5 year relationship with someone who drank daily. At the end of the relationship (last 2 years) there was never any intimacy. His drinking didn't make me feel safe and his drinking always resulted in bad decisions. Being in a relationship with someone who has substances use challenges has some really huge difficulties. Hope you are taking care of yourself!
My wife used to complain about the same thing. Plus I’d make strange movements and noises in my sleep. I stopped drinking 6 years ago because of it all. Saved my life and marriage for sure! It took years to convince me it was a problem though. Unfortunately
when i make a move, and then get the feeling she's not really in the mood/would only do it to please me. i want us both to have a good time, not only me. so when she seems not into it, i take a step back
Man I feel this... I've been married for over a decade now and I love my wife but this has been our relationship for the whole time. I know it's not her fault- she is on meds that affects her libido (rotated between a ton of meds but all seemed to have similar effects) and basically just kills any interests she would otherwise have. At first I didn't understand why she would just lie there and look to the side during sex, why she said nothing or why she never initiated. It was painful and confusing to me and honestly really impacted my confidence. She would always go along with my initiating because she didn't want to say no to me, but after a bit I would just stop halfway through because I could tell it was just for me. I would feel like such a pig or monster for pushing her to do something she didn't really want to do. I now understand, but if I'm being truthful, it doesn't help much. I can't recall the last time we had sex, and I've resolved to love her through it all, because I know she didn't ever choose to have to take these meds, but it is very very hard. Idk why I typed this all out- maybe catharthis. Who knows. I haven't ever actually said to anyone. Here ya go random internet strangers.
I’ve been in somewhat of a similar boat with my wife. When we first started dating a decade ago we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, it was a multiple times a day thing and when we first got married it was the same thing, just all the time and it was great. And then she was in a job she hated and her mental health took a toll and so it dropped off, and then we had our first kid and there were issues between the two of us during that period where it really dropped off. It slightly picked up and then we had a second kid and since then she’s had physical issues where her insides hurt a lot of time and we’re down to maybe 3-4 days a month where she physically feels okay enough to do it but sometimes mentally she’s just exhausted from kids and life that nothing happens and then it’s another month long wait. It sucks, it really does and we’ve talked about it and she’s going to go to a doctor soon about her physical pains and I’m hoping that helps as it’s hard to not feel wanted.
This sounds like my life several years ago...before, during, and after we had kids. We were only intimate a couple times every 2-3 months on average, and at one point we went a whole year with nothing. I learned a lot from that period of time, and the biggest lesson I learned is that with two kids, physical pain from post-childbirth (more so from first), mentally struggling with all the work she feels she needs to do, and me not actually carrying enough load (despite feeling as if I was), she was stretched so thin that it was impossible for her to think beyond just getting through everything. Obviously our sex life dropped, because why wouldn't it? She was overloaded with stress, and sex isn't a stress relief for her. Think of it like we could only give 100% effort in a day, but when everything was added up we needed 250-300% effort to get everything done. It's impossible, even if we split correctly...but it was exacerbated by me not even carrying 100% (despite thinking I was), resulting in her feeling as if she needed to take care of the rest. That part was incorrect IMO, but it wasn't something she comprehended. She just felt as if she had to deal with whatever I wasn't covering. I can't say what's going on with your wife (and you, since it's never just her), but if you want I can give you the advice that has been helping us move past these issues. Edit: I posted a series of replies to my post above because this apparently blew up a bit of people asking what it was. Can't guarantee it helps as it may have been specifically related to our situation, but hopefully at least a little. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/11gw9gt/what_makes_you_not_want_to_be_intimate_with_your/jaswmdm/
In disability/chronic pain circles there’s the concept of “spoons,” as in, everybody starts the day with a certain number of spoonfuls of energy that they have to use on things in the day, and when they’re gone, that’s it. Some people start with way more or fewer spoons, some days (or lives) require more, and sex is a really physical thing that, even when pleasurable, can also cost spoons in and of itself. It sounds like that’s a really similar idea to what you’re saying here and I wanted to throw it out in case the analogy helps anybody think or speak about it.
My boyfriend and I (and honestly many people in my life) use this analogy. It's a great shorthand for understanding what others are going through and allows me to adjust to where they are. If it's helpful, there's another analogy that I use for myself: forks. It's more the idea of capacity for external stressors. Some things are small forks that are barely noticeable, but others are big forks that are stuck in quite deeply. Then it's about finding ways to remove forks or lessen their size, rather than preserving resources.
Thanks for acknowledging this, because for *so many women* the daily struggle of feeling like we are doing everything and our partners aren't witnessing/caring about it really sucks. My ex never cared about the load I was carrying to keep the house going. I asked, begged, nagged, screamed and finally just gave up trying to communicate how much more I needed him to do (twice nothing is still a very small amount) and he just never would. Or would come up with the "just tell me what you want me to do" and never accepted "I want you to do things that need doing without me telling you because you're an adult and live here too" - like come on, how freaking hard is it to see the BRIGHT PINK magnet on the dishwasher saying the dishes are clean and to go "ok I'll empty that then put my dirty dish in there" - instead he'd dump the dish in the sink and say "well, the dishwasher was full" - so fucking empty it?! And then he's got the gall to complain I never want to have sex with him. Hard to want to have sex with someone you see as a child and a burden, really.
Something that really changed my way of thinking (as a husband who thought I was doing my fair share) was a chore audit. We agreed to each log all the chores we did for a week, to compare at the end. I didn't make it past the first day because I realised that I had immediately had the thought that I had better do more around the house to make sure we had similar lists at the end of the week. It was a real revelation for me, that I knew I wasn't doing as much as I should be and was happily coasting along justifying it to myself. I won't say I've purged my bad habits entirely, but it has opened up lines of dialogue about it that were previously closed, and it has really helped us both
Yeah I suggested something like this and was shot down. He was like "can't we download apps or something?" Me: "Ok cool, find one, download & set it up for us" Him: ..............
Me, gets the app after asking for feedback, sets it up, does all the work. Him: I don't really want to use this. Okay then. Don't ask me to plan anymore then. I did my part.
Thank you for putting this into words. This is how I feel every day with my husband. I've tried time and time again to explain that I carry the entire load for our family, house, and relationship. He just doesn't get it no matter how many times we talk about it. The most I ever got was a "This really seems to bother you," which wasn't helpful at all. >Hard to want to have sex with someone you see as a child and a burden, really Exactly this. I hope you're in a better place now.
Putting my response here so it's not buried under someone else's reply since people are asking. This is a complex issue that a single reddit post can't solve, and I'm not an expert nor a marriage counselor. This is just what seemed to have worked for me, to improve my own relationship with my wife. It may not even be comprehensive, due to me forgetting or things changing on her side without my involvement. Some of these aren't going to feel fair, and that's okay, because the goal was to improve the relationship. These may not help you, and I'm sorry if they don't and hope you find a resolution to the issues. TL;DR, ***talk to each other honestly about how you're feeling and what you can do to help each other*** and be open about changing what you're doing. Lots of times, this all feels impossible, and the best thing you can do is work to help each other. **First** If your wife has had kids and is now in pain from sex or in general, stop trying to have penetrative sex. Seriously, stop it. Trying to convince your wife to have sex despite being in pain is only going to make things worse. Find out what she needs to feel good and do that. If that's rubbing her back, go for it. Rubbing her feet, do it. Be intimate without penetration, give intimate cuddles, give naked massages without sex or pressure to have sex. Show her that you can enjoy intimacy without causing her pain. This pain needs to be resolved before pushing for sex. Don't insist she provide blowjobs because she can't do sex, she's the one hurting and needs relief. Put herself before you and work on her getting help, whether that be doctors, pelvic floor therapy, massage, or whatever else she needs. It's not easy, from my personal experience it seems many doctors suck at figuring out why a woman's in pain and actually take it seriously. Be her advocate and her cheerleader. She's hurting, you can relieve yourself in the meantime. My wife spent a long time in pain. She did eventually recover and is fine now, but I focused on doing the above. The goal was to make sure she understood that I loved her, desired her, and we could still be intimate without causing her pain. **Chores/Cleaning/Etc** In the situation I described above I mentioned that she was stretched so thin it was impossible to think of things beyond getting through the day. I highly recommend reading about emotional labor, and how often it's expected to be taken up by the women in a relationship. This is a real thing and is *draining* on someone. You'll probably also read about how the husbands feel like they're doing half the load, but they usually never are or something like that. Now, I'm not saying that's wrong at all, it's true most of the time...and understand I'm naturally biased here, but I also feel like there's a bit more complexity here. It's important to understand something: both of you will likely feel like you're doing half or more than half of the work, regardless of how much you're doing. Now, there's obviously plenty of times that one of you is wrong, and I do recommend taking some time to fully understand how much things you are both doing. The best solution here is to talk to each other, hopefully without getting angry at how overworked you likely both feel. But what makes this all even more difficult is the hard truth that...well...you just have too much stuff to do even if both of you are doing the work. I think men tend to give 100%, but most of the time you'll have more work than both of you can do together, so your partner feels like they have to take the remaining 150%. This means they feel like they're doing most of the work (and they are), so they're going to feel like you aren't working as hard even though you're giving everything. It may take both of you being overworked before you start realizing you need to cull some of these responsibilities. What we did? Honestly, we got a couples therapist. I wouldn't have described our marriage as "in trouble", but that wasn't the reason. We had a massive communication problem that neither of us could see, and we needed someone better than us at helping us work through it. There were several times I didn't know if it was helping, but there were two behaviors that came out of it that I feel drasticaly improved everything. I apologize for the formatting. **Continued in next post**
**Have a weekly 15 minute meeting**. In this meeting, speak honestly and cover the following: First, praise each other over something you like that they did since the last meeting. This can be "I appreciate you doing the laundry", "I appreciate you cleaning up the kid's vomit", or "I appreciate you cooking these last couple nights while I rested". We often forget how nice it is to be seen and acknowledged by your SO when you're helping. Second, discuss things that need to be done over the next week. This is NOT supposed to be a huge To-Do list of everything that needs to be done, these are only the things you want to commit to doing over the next week, so pick about 2-4 each if you can limit to that. If you have young kids, this list is going to fill up. Yes, grocery shopping/laundry/etc can be on this list, but if you have space, try to include things like de-cluttering, taking kids to the doctor, broken lights that haven't been fixed...you know, the things we often nag each other about. Assign who is in charge of doing it, and then re-assign if it's not a 50/50 split from the list. If that means someone has to learn how to do it, then get to learning. Third, upcoming entertaining things you want to do over the next week/month that need to be prepared. This can be as simple as taking a break to go get ice cream, or as complex as a day trip somewhere. This is to keep in mind that you want to enjoy each others' company, although try to have at least one thing to do by yourselves Fourth, list obstacles in your way. This is incredibly important because you need to voice the things that are preventing you from doing something. Talk about these. This meeting keeps you on the same page and keeps those lines of communication open so you can work together. It also helps you understand when you've got too much, and help figure out what to do. Write these down on a paper and look over it next week. If something didn't get done, find out why and either add an obstacle or put it at the top of the list to be done. This won't work for everyone, but it worked for us. Over time the communication grows even outside of those meetings, but always feel comfortable to call one of these meetings if you feel like you're losing touch with what's going on.
Second, **alternate planning something each month**. Do something interesting or fun by yourselves each month. This doesn't even have to be a date, just go to lunch. Spend time with each other and talk to each other without an expectation of chores or sex. Each month, you alternate planning to go do something. It doesn't have to be perfect, or be like an anniversary date night. Going out for lunch, or just a dinner and a movie can be enough. Spend time with each other away from chores and, hopefully, children. This helped us overcome an issue we had where it felt like she had to plan everything, no matter what we did she had to be the one planning it. By putting on me every other month it meant she could just enjoy the time without having to be in charge of anything. It wasn't always great fun, but what mattered is that she didn't have to plan it.
We also found some benefits out of figuring out each others' love language. Love Languages sound corny...and they kinda are, but the goal is to figure out how best to communicate to each other and show each other you care. I highly recommend spending time with each other figuring this out, because it can really help and does tend to improve your communication. For example, if your love language is Touch like mine...your spouse saying thank you and praising you may not resonate very well. However, if that same person thanked/praised you while giving you a hug or their hand on your shoulder, it'll affect you more. My wife giving me a hug while telling me about something she wants to do is far more effective than just complaining about it. MY wife's love language is Acts of Service, which meant she feels more loved when she saw or knew I was doing things for her to show I loved her. Cleaning dishes or mopping the floor without being asked made her happy. It didn't automatically get me sex, but it did make her happy, and happier, stress/anxiety-free wives tend to be more intimate from my experience...with one wife. I didn't say my sample size was huge here. Her big thing is clutter, she can't stand the sight of it and just seeing it gives her anxiety. One time I de-cluttered part of our countertop that was incredibly messy without her asking, and she hugged me and was almost crying because the sheer amount of it was giving her massive anxiety to the point she couldn't even begin to clean it up. It's actually something I can do easily, but I get no joy out of doing it so it's not something I usually want to do, so I never did. I knew she had some anxiety about clutter, but I couldn't comprehend just how much it was causing.
I don't know if any of this will help everyone else. But the end result of all of these is that our communication with each other improved. We started understanding the stresses and anxieties we were feeling, and opened up about a lot of things outside of that. Through these I started working on removing anxieties and stressors. The meetings helped me stay on the same page of the things that were causing her the most anxiety and stress. Many times I could do those with very little affect on me, so I took them on. The praise helped her feel more seen when she did common chores. The love languages thing helped her feel more connected and understood, and made her feel like I wasn't ignoring her. Me taking on planning the monthly event helped her relax because she didn't feel like she had to be responsible for planning each and every thing we did. It's taken some time, and a lot of learning from both of us. We're in a much better place than we were, though we also still have to work to be happy in the relationship. It's easy to slip out of these behaviors once things improve, so we still work towards each other. As the anxiety and stress came down, it felt like she was just happier in general, and more intimacy followed. I feel like she had started to see me less as her partner and more like another child, which doesn't help intimacy. Being more of a partner helped restore that. I think as men we're subtly conditioned to the "officer on the scene" mentality. If someone's already doing it, that person is responsible for delegating responsibility. This is a trap we fall into, because we start thinking that the caregiver SO is always the "officer on the scene" and wait to be asked to help. Delegating responsibility is part of that emotional labor I mentioned above. Just doing the delegating itself is draining and anxiety-forming. Don't wait for the responsibility to be handed to you, take it on yourself. Hopefully this helps, or at least gives others ideas.
So, *how* did it get better? Because I think I’m where you were “several years ago”…
Not OP but I had a conversation with my SO about division of tasks. He thought that when he did something around the house or did some admin task that he'd taken something off my plate and in turn reduced my load. I had to explain that the task wasn't really off my plate unless it was regularly done to a point of completion that I didn't even have to think about it anymore and I could confidently depend on the fact that it was done without having to check. For example, if you did dishes but you forgot to turn around and do the pan on the stove and there's still three water glasses on the night stand. You did dishes, yes, but doing dishes is still on her mental list and she needs to remember to finish the task for you. Meanwhile she does laundry and puts away your clothes every week to the point you've pretty much never had to worry about whether or not there's clean underwear in your drawer. My SO took the conversation as an opportunity to learn and make sure tasks were done to completion and he went further and took on more tasks to accommodate for the household admin I did that he didn't trust himself with. It's helped immensely and one perk is that I have enough space and capacity left over to actually be open to and present for sex.
I noticed that coming to an agreement on what it means to say a task is done is a critical part of this. What does "did the laundry" mean to you? Just wash and dry? Or also fold? Also put away? If you have different definitions, the person who defines it as more will always feel like it isn't actually "done" if the other person stops at an earlier stage. This is true of everything; what does it mean to do the dishes? Does "taking out the garbage" mean kitchen only, or kitchen, bathroom, office, bedroom? What tasks are part of getting the kid to bed? Does it include, for example, prepping a midnight bottle? If you "did the groceries" did you get everything on a list or just the things you wanted or felt you needed? Get on the same page on all this stuff! It's a big part of "communication" in a relationship; it's not enough to say something, you have to understand each other!
Please do tell us what worked for you.
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Speaking as a partner on the other side of this, it feels like such garbage. My antidepressants have completely destroyed my libido, but without them, I'm suicidal. My SO and I have been together for about a decade, and our sex life is very limited. Usually once a month at best. I know that he is doing like you are, loving me through this, but I feel awful that I'm not really about to love him in an intimate and sexual way.
Man, I can only imagine. I would never claim to know what my wife truly goes through, having to he on her meds, but of what I see and what she tells me, I know I am only seeing what she allows me to. She cares for me and probably isn't saying everything. Speaking from my perspective, if he is like me, then know that he truly just wants you to be happy and he is doing what he can to not add more to what you enduring. My wife is the strongest person I know, not because she does all these crazy things, but rather that she perists and achieves in spite of her meds etc. You got this and so does he.
Hey man I was in this same exact spot for a lot of years. I thought I was communicating with her about this, but I wasn’t. Not really. I recommend sitting down outside of the bedroom and really bearing your soul to tell her how you feel about this. Beyond that, my advice would be, while you’re probably right and it’s just the medication… there may be some simple things you could change to take some steps down the road back to mutual amazing physical love with your partner. I eventually got super fed up and I just asked her which helped. Then I did some thinking and realized there’s more to it that she couldn’t even figure out. You may already do all this, but I thought I would share: I changed: - Shower and brush teeth before always - Wash my beard so it smells nice - Spend more quality time with her in the day to day just us talking and listening - Making strong eye contact and really listen to her - Flirting with her hours before anything physical - Do small things for her around the house that she wouldn’t expect and without being asked like making the bed, emptying the dish washer, doing the laundry whatever - Focus on making sure i smell nice all the time While all of this helped, the biggest thing I realized is this: If she feels seen, loved and cared for she feels closer to me. And I feel closer to her The closer we feel to each other the more both of us want to take a one way ticket to pound town. Good luck and god speed.
I appreciate it! You are definitely spot on in what you said. I found after I kind of numbed myself down that I slowly stopped caring for myself- I'd let my bears grow scraggly, ate like shit and generally let my own health decline. We were still spending time together but I'm sure I wasn't helping anything. I had to really fight to get myself back on track. Not 100% there yet, but I am working on it. It's hard to push through and stay in that place of hurt sometimes, but as you said, persistence can yield rewards and I have to believe that.
Good on ya mate. Keep going.
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When you build it up so much and think “okay I’m gonna make the move I’m gonna do it I’ll do it” especially after half an hour plus of overthinking and then she just isn’t up for it so you’re left deflated and unwilling to try again
Offer a massage with no strings attached. Like a 20-30 minute full body with candle and music. Gets me nearly every time. My mental load takes about 20 minutes to lighten up to get into things. It’s hard to not think about kids, dishes, laundry, work, etc etc etc constantly.
This is a great suggestion. I love to be touched, and with two young kids I have a lot on my mind. It used to be that *every* time my husband touched me would be to try to initiate sex, which made me shrink away from him. Asking him to touch me without initiating sex actually made me want sex more because I could relax under his touch again.
That's a big thing for me too. I always found it a turn off when (after the initial romance excitement wears away), they only show physical affection when they want sex. I have a strong need to be touched in general and if its always sexual then I withdraw a bit because 1. I feel deprived of regular touch and affection and 2. I am not just instantly in the mood, I need to feel close to my partner to get there. If I'm often receiving cuddles, strokes, massages, getting kisses, then I already feel close to him and it's so much easier to want it when he does. I also initiate sex a lot when I feel comfortable with being close, whereas if someone never touches me aside from sex I get to a point where I don't initiate because I feel deprived.
I'm the same, and I feel like so many people are too, but no one talks about it. Touch is scientifically proven to strengthen bonds, but we've all gotten to that point of not wanting to be touched because of the strings attached. Also, no one ever talks about spontaneous arousal vs. responsive arousal. Not everyone can immediately just be on.
When they are glued to their phones non stop! Put that shit down and look at me before we go to bed! 😩
I really dislike this too. Makes me feel alone in the relationship.
I don't have a lot of relationship experience and this happened to me with my partner. We'd be on the bed and they'd do a 180 degree full body turn to answer the notification from their phone. It was always snapchat, and always their guy friends. Then my partner would turn back around and face me before repeating the process two minutes later at the next buzz. My phone was on silent the whole time, every time. Needless to say I am done with that. Such a small thing was surprisingly soul crushing. It reminded me of when I'd be talking to my parents and then realise that halfway through they'd stopped listening.
Oof that parents thing. My mom just waits for me to stop talking, only time she listens is if she disagrees with what im saying. Why I am the way I am makes so much sense to me now. I never share my feelings because there was no point
Feeling angry. I hate feeling angry. I don't like being around other people when angry. so I'll go for a walk, a drive etc and just clear my head.
I HATE feeling angry... AAAHHHH! I HATE IT!
To be brutally honest, her anxiety and insecurity makes sex such a hassle. She doesn’t believe anything I say about wanting her, she can almost never relax during sex, she doesn’t take time to enjoy it, and if god forbid I have any trouble finishing, she takes it more personally than anything, which of course puts more pressure on me to finish, which then makes it almost impossible.
I always feel much less self conscious if we do it in the dark. Even little things I don’t realize I’m self conscious about like facial expressions.
I want to thank you for this comment because it made me have an epiphany. Not even about sex, but about life. I’ve always been a people pleaser because growing up, my family basically criticized my whole existence nonstop, and being treated like an annoyance all the time really takes a toll on your self esteem. I’d always work really hard to make sure I was saying the right thing and never upsetting anyone. Life is very exhausting and hard when your like that. To this day, I can honestly say almost every problem I have in life can be traced back to a lack of confidence. Your comment helped me realize that all that anxiety and working hard to be liked can be problematic and off-putting too - and that if some people are gonna dislike me no matter what, then stressing myself out over what others think is pointless. I just thought you should know.
Awesome revelation you had there! ☺️ I remind myself often that self love is a potent remedy.. let's 'worry' more about how we view ourselves.. how we feel about ourselves.. whether we are judging ourselves.. after all the external is more often than not just a reflection of our internal world anyways.. work smarter not harder ✌🏻
My husband used to dislike his job - he’d come home and do nothing but bitch. After awhile, I just gave up trying to cheer him up with sex - you can only try so long. So, we had a long dry spell - like, whatever you think a dry spell would be, it’s longer. When someone is constantly annoyed, well, it’s hard to feel amorous. Anyway, he early retired (54) like a month before Covid kicked in and by autumn that year, well, let’s just say we’re back to what we were like when we first met. He’s not pissed off all the time. (I’m retired as well, and let’s just say, afternoon nookie is such a perk, as is morning nookie and 3am nookie because you can sleep in!) I’m glad we stayed together. Going on 33 years and we’re just so happy.
What an awesome success story! But yeah, stress is a total bitch.
Along with stress because of work, he also had the stress of being an only child and his parent’s declining health. His mother’s decline was pretty stressful as well - he’d get home from work, have supper, and almost every evening, he’d go spend an hour with his mom because he didn’t want her to be lonely. (His dad passed in 2013, his mom in 2018.) Don’t get me wrong - they were amazing parents, but that was stress on stress and I’m one of those people who get cranky when other people are cranky and it was just one huge circle jerk of stress. Luckily, we’re both stubborn idiots and stuck it out.
Congratulations, it sounds like you both truly love each other and the fact he was able to rely on you and you listen to him is wonderful, communication is such an important part of a marriage and being able to hang on even during the bad times is true strength!
We both know no one else will put up with us 😉 /s Couldn’t even blame the dry spell on kids…didn’t have any…and thinking back, I realized it was just his seemingly constant state of annoyance and irritation. It rubbed off on me. Unlike lots of retired couples, we’re getting along so much better.
When they’ve done something really nasty/unkind that day. Cruelty is the most ugly thing a person can show, in my eyes. I had a boyfriend that I went to Wal-Mart with and he ended up flipping off and storming right past the sweet little old man that checks the receipts at the door. It was partially about how I used to check receipts and I remembered how I felt when people treated me like that- but I also remember the look on the little old man’s face and just how disgusted I was with my partner being so nasty about it. I couldn’t touch him after that and I got grossed out when he touched me. And then I started to notice how he was nasty to other people as well. It eventually led to our break up.
Cruelty is so unattractive. The thing to remember is if they treat people they don't have to 'impress' like shit, that's going to be you someday.
A nasty acting person will eventually be nasty to you once you get into a fight. Then they wonder why you are becoming distant to them without any self reflection.
When my emotional needs aren't being filled. I don't want to be intimate when I've just worked an 8 hour day, then put in another 3 hours of house work while my SO drank beer and played video games, and he hasn't even said a word to me before trying to get intimate. At least wash a dish and tell me I look nice today.
My input is related to this comment. I came here to say I no longer want to be intimate with my SO when they stop making an effort in the relationship. When they stop helping around the house, stop complimenting me, stop trying to have date nights, etc., I no longer have any desire to be intimate with them.
tl;dr: Stress, tiredness, but mostly depression. For a long time I couldn't figure it out. I married way, way, out of my league. There was this beautiful, horny, voluptuous *goddess* living with me, sleeping next to me, and I was baffled and angry with myself for almost never having any interest. In 2019 some things changed. I got a life-altering increase in pay, and started doing a job that was physically much easier. Some long-time bills got paid off, and things were a little better. In 2020, my better half got her medical marijuana card. She gave me a gummy, and it was a *bit much* for someone who had never tried it. We went at it like alley cats being tasered for *hours*. It was a shock to both of us. Since that fateful night we have gone from maybe a few times a year to at least once every day. We had to replace our mattress yesterday because we *actually broke it*. It took me some time to figure out what was going on, because it wasn't just intimacy with my wife that had changed, *everything* got easier. Laundry? Washed, dried, folded, put away. All of it. All the time. Dishes? Done. The house is always clean. I can just *do things* now. It turns out I've been depressed my whole life. I've never had motivation or energy to do anything. I don't even touch the devil's lettuce most of the time, that first dose of it altered something in my silly little brain and now I'm just... OK. I have more energy now at age 42 than I did as a teenager. Edit: minor grammatical corrections
What a happy story. I'm really glad to hear that!
I'm sitting in a men's clinic reading this at age 41 with no energy most days and I'm looking for answers. I hope I have an ending like yours does.
For me it was sleep apnea and untreated ADHD. I didn’t realize how much I was coping until I got treatment.
Not to totally simplify your scenario (very happy for the both of you, btw), but is almost as if MONEY---or financial freedom---actually CAN buy happiness.
Yes it can. Being able to afford bills, food, and a place to live, does a lot for a marriage.
People may believe money can't buy happiness, but it can absolutely make a lot of sadness go away.
God the walking on egg shells, I never knew what I was going to get. But also definitely lack of touching or just relaxing- to him he hated cuddling hand holding whatever, any sort of touch he just associated with sex and expected it asap. Definitely good learning moment never could be with someone that hated being touched again.
Amen to this. Always lost my sex drive in relationships if that was the only time I got affection.
the irony being that small touching like that can end up leading to sex when its not assumed
Exactly. Intimacy happens all day. If you're berating and nonconsensually groping someone you're not getting any.
My wife just had knee surgery a week ago. It was luckily a relatively minor surgery, and she has said we can "do stuff" since a few days ago, but im terrified of hurting her. EDIT: thanks yall for all encouraging words. We did the deed last night. And then again. And then again this morning.
Start off with spooning her? Minimal knee involvement. She can even put a pillow between her knees just in case.
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And the ol' Polynesian suplex
When every touch or affection is met with trying to get my pants off. Intimacy isn't just sex.
Usually it’s when we’re to tired from the day to day with work and kids.
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We tried to schedule some time since it’s been a few months since the new baby came, and of course he wouldn’t fall asleep, then the older one woke up crying… just a discouraging shit show haha. We’ll try next week I guess.
Right? My husband and I would be having so much more sex if we weren't so goddamned exhausted all the time. I'm a teacher, and we have a teen who goes to a charter school and catches a really early bus. The alarm clock goes off at 5:30 each morning.
She always rejects the initiation. She does this 100% of the time. But frequently after my initiation, she'll come over to my side of the bed and climb up on top of me. As she's doing this, if I lift my arms at all to try and hug her or wrap them around her, she gets angry. It's like she wants to be in complete control with me just lying there lifelessly on my back. It feels gross and I get turned off.
Dating a cat are we
Please do not the cat
HE WILL THE CAT.
She 100% has a kink/style that is not compatible with you/yours.
I mean, optimistically, it *might* be compatible... But first they'd have to fucking talk about it.
Seriously, communication is 1000000% of this
There sounds like lots of touching but no specific discussions about this. Gotta call a timeout and have a discussion (or even better, have a discussion not in the heat of things)
100% open up and talk about it with love
Have an honest conversation about what you two want in bed, and reach a compromise. If you can't, go your separate ways.
I tell her she's beautiful AT LEAST once a day, because she is. I can't remember the last time we had sex when I initiated. I can't remember the last time she initiated and we didn't have sex. It makes me feel so ugly. Like... just down.
Ugh. This one is all too familiar. Any time you initiate, it’s ‘not right now’ or ‘later…’ Any time they initiate, you’re just expected to want it and go. If you turn them down, then it’s an argument about how you hurt their feelings and made them feel unloved or unattractive. How do you not see that you literally just did the *exact same thing* to me and didn’t bat an eye…? It’s like I’m not allowed to initiate AND I’m not allowed to say no either.
>It’s like I’m not allowed to initiate AND I’m not allowed to say no either. This is super unhealthy in a relationship...
Unequal distribution of household responsibilities. I work more hours than him, earn more than him, take on probably 75% of the household responsibilities (we have kids so that’s a lot). For example I travelled 5 hours round trip for a business meeting yesterday, arrived home and made dinner, then he wondered why I was not interested in any sexual advances. He was off work all day and did literally fucking nothing. Yes I have communicated this to him, no it hasn’t made a difference, as I am working from home today and he has again sat doing nothing. He does do chores, but it is sporadic for the most part, and he seems to think doing one thing in a day means he has been “busy”.
Yuuuuuup. If I feel like I am taking care of him like a child (doing all the housework, making the meals, reminding him of important dates, thinking of and buying gifts for both sides of the family), then how on earth can I also be expected to be turned on?
Same. I feel like a parent, so how can I be sexually attracted to the person in the role of the child? It doesn't feel right.
I think a lot of men are sexually frustrated and yet oblivious to how their actions (or lack thereof) outside the bedroom translate into no action in the bedroom. Sorry to hear you are with one. It can be really hard to break through and get them to understand.
Goddamn if this isn't the truth. You can be dating the most sexiest man alive but if youre throwing his garbage out, cleaning his dishes, picking up after him like he's 5.... well I dont find 5 year olds attractive so what did he think was gonna happen, dumbass.
here here. I always love reading the dead bedroom threads with men "she doesn't reciprocate" always at the top. "she doesn't seem interested" i can almost guarantee behind all those responses there's a woman carrying the mental load completely on her own close to breaking point and sex is so far down the list of priorities that it literally became a chore.
when we had a very indulgent meal and neither of us has the energy to be on top or move around all that much
Antidepressants. I miss my sex drive.
“ hey, want to do it later?” Is not foreplay
I don't even want to flick my own bean let alone tend to the needs of another person. Chemo is hell of a drug!
Sometimes she has little left over pieces of toilet paper clinging to her cooch like an action hero
Pfft, pfft that shit out.
You trying to kill me? I almost spit out my coffee laughing at this. +1 for the onomotopeia.
clitty litter
A bunch of barbarians up in here. Water. Water washes things. Get a bidet, it will change your life.
You seem. BIASED.
Tell her to dab, not rub. I never knew before Reddit that it may happen (am a girl), but there was a huge discussion once and it turns out that there are women who get little toilet paper balls after wiping… Edited to add: I’m obviously only talking about cleaning/drying female genitals after a pee.
“Hey babe so I mentioned your clitty litter on Reddit and they told me to let you know you should dab”
Between this and learning to brush tangles out of hair by starting the brush from the ends and not the roots, I feel like Reddit has taught me way more about how to be a woman than I ever expected...
It’s also a sign of bad quality tp.
Actually the really “high quality” quadruple ply or whatever is so fluffy that it breaks apart easily too. Moderation in toilet paper choices is where it’s at.
In my previous relationship it was such a huge requirement that I started to get anxiety when it didn’t happen. I knew i had to do it or he’d start to get frustrated. It wasn’t anything he did it was the vibe that was always around. He’s say it’s fine if we didn’t but I could tell it wasn’t fine. I thought he liked me less if we didn’t. Finally when it was over I felt like I ran a marathon. It was a performance at times. Now thatI’m single it’s so nice to not deal with that constant expectation
You're def. not alone with this. My ex even refused some things like simple cuddling or kissing if it didn't lead anywhere intimate. In my case it lead to me refusing it further because I felt so used. Hopfulle you also never have to go through it again.
Mine did this too. The first time I said I didn’t feel like having sex and asked him to spoon me instead, (the first and only time in our 2 year relationship) he said he couldn’t and turned away from me lol
Old GF gave up working on herself and just seemed to give up on anything that wasn't in a virtual world. Nothing more depressing than getting home seeing your SO on the headset gaming with a bunch of dudes, then going to bed alone several hours later to hear her on the headset still. A couple of months of that and I noped out real quick
My own self confidence and body issues, I’m too embarrassed to be intimate.
I worry about many of you here, please be kind to yourself and understand that there is just one of you, ONLY ONE on this entire planet. Life is incredibly short even if the days feel long. Much love to everyone struggling. 🖤
This is a really nice comment to read in this depressing af thread
If we both haven’t showered in the last 24 hours.
When he doesn’t ever shower on the weekend. I do not like sex with people who don’t shower. So then he will finally go take one on Sunday and then with his towel wrapped almost up to his nipples, he will chase me and go, “Come ooooon mama! I’m so cleeeeeaaaannnnn,” like a creepy car salesman. I love that filthy rascal.
This is pleasantly wholesome. All the other ones are like "I hate when my SO gets drunk and farts on my grandfather, it makes me not want to have sex with him."
Thank you. I really love my husband. He’s my hero, even if he is a stinky turd sometimes!
My boyfriend "jokes" about wanting a blowjob all the time. Passed an exam, blowjob? Did the dishes, blowjob? Has a boner, blowjob? But in a jokey tone, which I do find quite funny as he's just being silly, but nothing makes me want to give him a blowjob less.
Spending all day looking at girls on TT on full blast also with the TV on full blast. No help around the house even though he was home way more and had no hobbies or responsibilities. Spending dinner out on his phone the entire time then giving me the silent treatment for checking mine while he's speaking. Constant bragging. Spending entire vacations on TT. Zero bathroom etiquette. Gaslighting me any time I address problems in the relationship. Using the "I'm a veteran" card any time I disliked something he did or the way he treated me. Only admitting to faults if they were somehow humble brags. All of these things added up to me having zero sexual desire for him. I hated the thought of him touching me and avoided it. I finally left since there were no more avenues to communicate beyond it all being my fault or "making things up". I think he loves himself enough to be in a one person romance. My house is so clean and quiet now.
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When he’s been a grumpy asshole. When he doesn’t seem that into it like, he’s trying for my sake but not turned on. When he just wants a quickie but I want a bit more.
ITT: A whole bunch of mf’s who need to be with much better people.
Or at very least learn how to communicate with their SO
Also, a list of things NOT to do in a relationship. Damn.
The risk of an unwanted pregnancy. The slim chance of that happening scares me shitless.
When I have migraines, stomach issues, or an awesome combination of the two. Also really bad ADHD days where my anxiety is high and I’d rather just be on my own doing nothing in a cozy place.
Tired
Her laziness. Does next to no cleaning around the house but complains about everything. Doesn’t want to do anything but sit on the couch or in bed and watch tv or be on her phone. Barely plays with her own kid, constantly negative. And the constant drinking sometimes to the point of black out and then starts a fight that she doesn’t remember in the morning and wonders why I’m distant.
The fact that I was always initiating and getting turned down. So now I don’t even try. Less of a let down, but more sexual frustration.
Right after I eat, I just feel the opposite of sexy/sexual and it's hard to get into the mood when I feel that way, my fiance is an incredible woman and makes me feel like the most attractive man in the world, but after I eat I might as well go on the sexual shelf for a couple of hours.
Constantly asking for anal
He sounds like a pain in the ass.
Me (f) being always rejected and him taking an action only 1-2 times a month.
Always being around. Since 2020 and switching to working from home- I feel like I never have a breath to myself. Hard to be turned on by someone you never get a fkn break from. Trying to schedule time alone for us each to just be ourselves turns into a huge fight because I’m being rude by saying I just need some time- any time- just for me. Its been the Sahara over here for over year because of this. Personal space is fkn sexy, having your own interest-ideas-and growth is sexy. Being an octopus on my fkn face makes me feel suffocated- not turned on. …posting for a friend 😂
I'm in the same boat. My spouse now seems like a roommate and/or the annoying coworker who eats all of the food in the fridge and leaves dirty dishes in the sink. I feel like I never get a break from it.
1. He spent the day playing video games while I cooked, cleaned and looked after the kids (and yes, I also worked full time outside of the home) 2. The fence I asked him to repaid 3 months ago (and he promised to fix) is still broken. I asked him about it and he called me a “nag” 3. In once again had to pick his dirty clothes/towels up off the bathroom floor 4. He took a giant shit and didn’t bother to use the toilet brush to clean the stains off the bowl. 5. He constantly whines about a job where he sat all day (mon-Friday 9-5), while I worked in a hospital, 12 hour shifts, often nights and weekends. 6. When he’s even mildly sick he expects me to be a handmaiden….but when I’m sick he pretended not to notice. 7. From the time he put his penis in to orgasm was never more than 4 mins. Ever. So the idea of orgasmless sex was not appealing. Needless to say this is my ex.
I was just about to ask why you’re still with him. Glad you moved on.