Need help quick, dont feel like a husband anymore (long)

Does your wife get child free time without the expectation that you will want to have sex after her child free time?

You really do seem to be making the effort to help your wife be comfortable.
At this point I really have no usefull help to offer apart from suggesting that bith you and your wife seek counselling.

Tell us more of your situation; Do you keep yourself nice? well presented? Does your wife keep herself well presented?
Are you physically fit and healthy?

I would warn you that there may be nothing you can do to help your situation.

That was something I forgot to add. We are both in professional fields and must maintain a professional appearance. I am definatly well presented, I shower every night before bed and wear nice clean clothes everyday. I am still in good shape, I would same somewhere between average to athletic, not like I was in high school, but I still wear the same size clothes. She is good shape, not an athlete, but I think she is beautiful.

She does get free time without the boy. I would say every other week or so, sometimes less. I am always telling her to go out with friends and I will watch our son, but she will never do it on my suggestion. It is almost like she uses it as a trump card when she is frustrated with me. I have a guys bowling night per week, and this is something that she knows I will always do. The thing is, we actually met bowling, but she no longer bowls.

I would also say that she is a great mom. But it is almost like she took on the supermom role and decided to forego the wife role, only to end up treating me like another child who is constantly being put in "time-out" for reasons unknown to me.

I know she is not a big fan of my schedule. She is mon-fri 9-5. Some days I work 9-6 while others are 1-10pm, with my days off mostly in the middle of the week to help offset daycare costs. But I have worked this schedule ever since I met her. Last night during our conversation, she said that if I were to get this new job that I am applying for, I "might get lucky more often." The new job is more of an 8-6 mon-fri gig. I then asked why I should be punished now for having the schedule that I do. To me, it makes sense to cherish the time we do spend together. Instead, whenever I get home and sit down with her, she will get up and start cleaning the house, while complaining about little things I have done "incorrectly" according to her. These could be things such as, not filling the dishwasher correctly, not hanging up a dishtowel, leaving the dogs toys in the livingroom before I left for work, forgetting to clean a pan after making pizza....small meaningless things.

Im not sure I have any real advice either here.. but..

I went through this with my husband after our daughter was born. Having sex maybe every other month, bickering a lot in between.
In my experience only.. that bickering for me was a sign of sexual frustration.
Little things that really are no big deal.. ( mis placing plates in the dishwasher, clothes hanging out of the hamper.. etc) were just ways to vent my unhappy feelings.

It was only AFTER we started having sex more often that those behaviors went away for me .

One thing I learned is that my issue was , I was waiting for my BODY to say ' lets have sex'. If I wait for my personal cycle, that amounts to only two or three times a month if Im not tired, stressed, working, busy, cleaning, sick..( you get the idea)

Other then that I am on neutral.. and that is normal.

For women, we usually have to start having sex before we feel like we are WANTING sex. Not the other way around. Men feel 'horny' then want sex..
We have sex, then feel 'horny' We are strangely wired that way..

Once I learned that though, having sex was no big deal.
For a while I really thought one of two things-

1) Maybe i was not truly in love with my husband

2) having a baby destroyed my ability to want sex and I was sort of doomed.

Thank goodness neither are true. It was simply a situation where I just needed to start doing something different and stop thinking that I had to be so excited about sex before I could have sex.

Add on to that time between me and my husband -my pregnancy- where we could not really have much sex. When I finally realized what was going on, counting the nine months, we were going on almost 2 years of this no sex pattern.
I have had many pregnancies, but only 2 babies. My body does not do well with pregnancy and we were scared to bits about losing our daughter. So sex was just not an option during pregnancy, but that attitude continued even after she was born.

Even though I had a real, concrete reason to not have sex during pregnancy, your wife might be feeling some kind of body change now too where she thinks she shouldn't, cant, or doesn't enjoy sex anymore and it may feel concrete for her as well.

Being out of practice does that

I wish I could say that all it took was A , B , or C and we were fine..

But in all honesty, the problem was with me and me alone. Not him. Not 'us' ....... just me.

Our daughter is now almost 4 and I am just now comfortable with admitting what happened.
If that helps you understand how slow the process is...


I don't really have 'advice' and for that I apologize.. but I did have an experience that sounds almost exactly what is going on between you two ( from what I read) ... And I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents in hopes it helps some where..

Perhaps... stimulated in a manner that makes you want sex? I have noticed this with my own wife. Ie if I didnt initiate It'd never happen. (seems like never)

Some gentle physical stimulation (with your wifes consent) with no pressure to engage in intercourse as a result of that stimulation may spark some interest. Just enjoy touching and fondling and exploring.

Hello, notsure, welcome to A2K.

I think the supermom scenario is quite common but it seems as if there was a predecessor to that being the issue in your case. You said that your sexual relationship with your wife changed as soon as you got married but that it was fine beforehand. That doesn't sound as if your current situation was triggered by the birth of your son -- although it may have magnified it.

It sounds as though you and your wife have vastly different thoughts on what you should expect with respect to sex after marriage. It's unfortunate that she didn't clue you in before the wedding that she was a premarital rabbit but feels that sex within a marriage is only for procreation (I'm guessing, but I would wager that she was never exposed to the idea of her parents having an active sexual life).

There's also the possibility that since she's a professional she is avoiding sex in order to avoid pregnancy, which could derail her career plans. Was the first pregnancy planned or an accident? One sure way to not get pregnant is to not have sex.

I'm not really sure what her thoughts are so I can't really advise you on how to proceed other than to reinforce to her that you and she are both sexual beings and that sex IS a normal part of marriage. If she truly feels that sex is for birthdays and New Year's Eve then you have a long struggle ahead of you to create a mutually rewarding and successful marriage.

Good luck!

I think she sounds passive aggressive

Re: Need help quick, dont feel like a husband anymore (long)
I agree with others that you sound like you're doing a lot of good things and that it is unfair for your wife to unilaterally decide that the start of marriage means the end of sex. Obviously I agree that counseling is a good idea.

This was one thing that jumped out at me from your post, though.



It sounds like she could be feeling really pressured. There is pretty much nothing that kills my libido faster than pressure, and I know a lot of other women feel that way too.

I'd feel better about advising you to stop asking and stop pressuring her in any way if there were more indications that, when she felt the pressure lift, she'd go ahead and want to have sex more often, though. I'm a bit concerned that if you quit asking and quit pressuring she'd just be relieved and no more sex would happen than is happening now.

But that's the only proactive advice that springs to mind from reading this -- something you can do beyond counseling (and again I do recommend counseling!) It would probably be more effective if you talk to her about it rather than just do it silently. Say something like, "I know you are not interested in having sex; you know that I'm very interested. I want to help fix this situation. I'm concerned that you are feeling pressured, so I'll stop asking and just let you take the initiative. If you're interested, great! If not, I'll live with it."

You can't be expected to live with that indefinitely of course, but doesn't sound like you're having sex now anyway, and may bring HER around, ending up in more sex and less resentment.

And I still recommend counseling.

Your wife needs a COMPLETE physical - you, too.

She may be in post-partum depression (Yes, it can last a very long time) or just be exhausted. She may be afraid of getting pregnant again.

Insist on this . . . your child is picking up vibes from an unhappy mother!!!

Some questions -
Have you taken her away for a weekend lately?

Has her work schedule lessened because she is caring for an infant?
Caring for an infant is exhausting. Get some help with that.

Is she sleeping or eating differently?

I like Dadpad's idea. Ask her if she will agree to just mutual touching for a while, nothing more. Just massage - non sexual. Do that for a couple of times and let things develop from there. Some men think that ANY touching MUST result in the sex act. This kind of non-sexual touching is great foreplay.

As for your own sexual frustration, keep things in your own hands, (if you know what I mean.) There is nothing wrong with that.

You need to get to the bottom of this. It sounds like she is not feeling good about the relationship - it may have NOTHING to do with you.

Good luck. I admire you for being so patient and for asking for input from others. Most married couples go thru the same thing as you describe, but it is important to remedy the situation. For your child's sake, too, you need to find out what's wrong with her.

Everyones pretty much hit the nail on the head here with the answers. Something did however jump out at me though...



Where did she get that idea? Yea..each couple is different, but your'e married, not dead.


Ok, so you said:


Wrong, you really need to get it off your chest, say what you feel in a nice way or else these bottled up emotions aren't going to better the situation anymore than what her bottled up emotions are helping.


So here we go.....


Umm, I've been guilty for this myself. And I don't know if I can explain this enough to make good sense, but I'm going to try.....so hang in here for a moment........

You said...

My husband has done this in the past, and it pissed me off to NO END! I felt that the only reason he touched me was because he wanted sex, and that he expected all touches to end in sex. And that I couldn't touch him that he didn't think it led to sex, I argued this point with him, just because I wanted a kiss, or to be held...didn't mean I wanted sex, everytime......

When he started this routine, and I'd stop him in his tracks,instead of just accepting it and holding me, he'd roll over in the opposite direction and go to sleep.

Just like..umm, your doing.....my dear.

Which would piss me off too, because it proved my point that he couldn't touch me that he didn't equivalate it to end in sex. Because if it didn't, he'd just simply wrap his arms around me and instead of rolling over.

So, when she turns you down, why don't you just hold her tight and fall asleep with her in your arms, instead of rolling over in frustration and staring at the walls loosing sleep? I promise you, it'd pay off quicker.


Then you said...

Ok, so look at this in a different way. What message is this sending her? Your only helping, offering, making comments, pouting in hopes of getting YOUR way....and that'll it pay off in a little nooky.

So, when you do get sex, what happens afterwards? Do things go back to normal? Or do you continue to offer to help, give backrubs, etc....or are they only offered when you want sex?

So...you maybe giving........but your not giving without strings attached. Thats the trick you need to learn......


I promise you, she's probably as frustrated as you are........

Shiver, you make good points . . .

However, he said
"She did ask her doctor why she is not having any sort of "drive" and her doctor wanted to have her back to run some tests, but she never went and gave excuses for not going."

I'd start with that FIRST. She needs a physical, first.

Hi Sullyfish

Ohhhh, I think your right, she needs to go back to the doctor and quit making excuses as why not too. It could be a mix of everything each one has mentioned, especially the PPD.

notsure
Hang in there notsure. Love outweighs sex any day of the week. Were not women, and, women aren't men. We'll never understand what the other gender truly feels to be like. Just continue to be there for her.