| Hi everyone. Long time-lurker, first-time poster. The past 12-18 months have been really rough for me personally and for my marriage. Here's the cliff's notes version: Pregnancy loss/emergency surgery, diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, sudden loss of my father, pregnancy/birth, being first time parents of a very colicky newborn, job loss... basically every majorly stressful "life event" you can imagine. Long story short, I almost left my husband back in March due to a number of issues, many having come to light or having been intensified because of these stressors. One of the major issues was the non-existence of our sex life. He finally agreed to marriage counseling, even made the appointment. Our communication improved, we had sex a handful of times, he made a huge effort to address my concerns; I responded in kind. Things seemed to be looking up. The problem now is sex.... again. I want it; he has absolutely no interest. We have had sex fewer than 10 times since our 10 month-old was conceived (December 2011). While I was pregnant, I didn't want to have sex until I was 12 weeks along due to fear of pregnancy loss and generally feeling like crap. Once I was past the first trimester, I was ready to go. He wanted nothing to do with me. He told me that he just felt that sex with a pregnant woman was "weird" and he didn't "feel right about it." He would just shut down when I'd try to initiate. When pressed, he told me that he found it "creepy" that his d1ck would be so close to the head of our unborn child. Despite my best efforts to reassure him that sex during pregnancy is a common, natural thing, and that there was no way the baby would be aware of what its parents were doing, etc., he refused to try. Even when we took a vacation to "celebrate our last few months as non-parents." I begged, I pleaded, I tried to seduce him, I tried talking to him about how much it meant to me on an emotional leve l. No dice. He would say things along the lines of "what about ME? what about how I feel??", "What, I'm just supposed to do something that I find repulsive so that you'll get off my a55?", and "Touching you right now is the furthest thing from sexy that I can imagine." Really awful sh1t, and hard to heal from. This was one of the major issues we addressed (or attempted to) in counseling. After I gave birth, he was interested in sex again when I was less than 2 weeks postpartum. I wasn't physically ready to have sex with him, but did give him oral a few times. The first 4 months or so were really difficult with our daughter; when she started sleeping mostly at night, she would only sleep latched on to me. My husband is an incredibly heavy sleeper (untreated sleep apnea), and I was afraid he'd roll over on the baby if we all slept in the bed. So the baby and I slept on the couch while he slept in the bed. Because, you know, he needed to be rested for work. And the couch was too uncomfortable for him. I should note that this continued when I went back to work. It was only after counseling that we started hard-core sleep-training and bought a bed that was big enough to accommodate all three of us. Anyway, we only attempted to have sex twice for the first 4-5 months of our daughter's life. Neither of us was interested, really. For my part, I was too busy just surviving. I also had some pain with intercourse due to granular tissue growth (I did get it taken care of, i.e., chemically burned off with no local anesthesia- fun!). I thought he was just overwhelmed with life with a newborn as well... turns out this wasn't exactly the case. For the past couple of years, he's been constantly complaining of exhaustion and feeling poorly. He's gained a lot of weight. Has become almost completely withdrawn, socially. Basically acting depressed. Staunchly refused to see a doctor. After counseling, he agreed to go for a check-up. He has low T. At 32! It makes sense, symptomatically, but just never crossed my mind because he is so young. The doctor prescribed monthly injections to begin with. He took two and seemed to be doing better- more energy, we had sex 3x/week during two separate weeks, he started speaking with more confidence about his job, and even began to lose a little weight. Then he stopped taking the shot. He didn't want to be dependent on it, didn't want to risk prostate cancer. He pretty quickly sank back into the awful funk he was in before. His energy/confidence plummeted. Sex stopped completely. I'd been rejected so many times in the past two months that I honestly began to feel like we were back at square one. He got super defensive when I told him that I thought he needed to start back on the T: "so I have to go get shot up with something so that you can deal with me?" FINALLY, this past Wednesday, he went to get his shot. Not because of anything I said, or because he wants us to have a sex life again, but because he "could barely function" at work. If he feels better after this shot, "maybe," he says, "I'll stick with it this time." I tried to initiate sex with him last night, but he wasn't interested. He swears that this lack of sexual desire isn't a permanent condition... he's just not interested in sex at all right now. Doesn't even masturbate (he did let me go down on him the other day). He claims that if I just "lay off" and stop bothering him about it, it will happen again. This is exactly what he said early on in my pregnancy, before he started insisting that I shut up and put up with his hangups. Our conversation last night escalated into an argument where I ended up saying to him, look: what would you do if the tables were turned? Would you live in a sexless marriage? I have no desire to be a martyr and be miserable for another 17 years "for the kid." So, either we get divorced, work out an arrangement where I get my sexual needs met elsewhere, or work this out. I said that we need to go back to counseling. He refused, thinks it's unnecessary. He said that he couldn't believe I was thinking about divorce again so soon after we'd agreed to stay together and work it out-- called me "wishy washy." He was really hurt by my suggestion that I find someone else to have sex with (this wasn't even a serious suggestion- just part of my laying out the logical options given our situation). Regarding that, he said, "do whatever you want," and left the room. I apologized this morning and told him that I don't want just anyone- I want him. I want the intimacy we used to have, not just a warm body to get my rocks off with. His response as I leaned down to hug him? "okay." Even if his shot kicks in and works miracles, there's a lot of damage to undo at this point. I don't know if it's possible to fix this (i.e., get our intimacy back). I worry that, despite what I said last night, I will end up staying "for the kid" and because it's the path of least resistance. I've seriously thought about seeking out an affair to have some intimacy again. In my better moments, I know this is a wrongheaded way to solve the problem and will likely just make things worse, so I haven't taken any steps down that road. Re-reading what I've written, I don't know... my resentment just sort of drips off the screen. Maybe I am just a heinous, nagging b1tch; maybe I don't communicate effectively with him. I really do try. I would appreciate any and all suggestions about how to approach him and what to say/do in order to get my point across without making him shut down. I'd also appreciate any feedback about our situation in general- am I an idiot for staying? Weak? Does this whole post just scream "LOW SELF-CONCEPT!! GET SOME HELP!!!"?? :( Sorry for the novel. | |||
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