# Little sex but wanting to get pregnant



## losing_hope (Dec 1, 2011)

So I've written quite a bit about my wife's jealousy, especially how she thinks I'm cheating on her, when I'm not. But now I have another issue.

For a long time now, her libido has been way down. If it was up to her, I think once every couple of months. But her psychiatrist suggested that we should just schedule the sex, especially since we have a young boy, and with work and all, it might be the way. 

One time, when I said that I'd like to have sex twice a week, she burst out crying. And even with scheduling sex once a week, she still avoids it about half the time with one excuse or another.

But today, kind of like you'd say to your spouse "I'm going to get a haircut tomorrow", she said to me "I'm going to try to get pregnant after the summer."

Okay. First of all, I am fairly sure she did not discuss this with me. I would have remembered. She insists she did. I may forget where I put my keys, but I don't forget things like this. 

Either way, neither of us can prove the other one wrong, so be it. It's not worth fighting over.

But my question is - isn't it bit insulting that at the same time she does not want to have sex, but wants to get pregnant? It's like I'm reduced to only a sperm donor role here. 

I tried to tell her, that I think it's more important to work on ourselves and our marriage first, and that will make us be better parents. But she has trouble with things that do not yield immediate results. 

So she got quite upset, and has been giving me the silent treatment for most of the night. From talking with her psychiatrist, I don't think the silent treatment is really an angry reaction to me, but more because she's upset at herself for letting herself get upset. 

Also, it sounds really mean, but I'm afraid that another child would probably push us towards divorce, at least right now, for various reasons. One being that due to her medical condition, her hormones really do a trick on her, causing her to have uncontrolled anger. Birth control pills help a bit, but she takes also other medication like for example for anti anxiety, which she would have to quit. 

I have a feeling she thinks that getting pregnant again would somehow fix everything that she feels is wrong in her life, and that's why she feels so strongly about it.


----------



## Gratitude (Feb 12, 2012)

You're right about not bringing another child in the world until your marriage is better. If this is how you strongly feel, stick to it. Even if she gets upset. Even if she gets angry. 

More than likely she will have sex with you until she is pregnant and then won't go near you for months. Plenty of more reasons (excuses probably in her case) with being pregnant and then the baby will be born. You will end up worse.

A baby may make her feel better emotionally but it is not going to solve your marriage problems. Deal with that first. Tell her no and your reasons why. You're allowed to have your voice and opinion too without feeling guilty all the time.


----------



## Enchantment (May 11, 2011)

Hi losing hope ~

I agree with you. Bringing another child into an ailing marriage is not a wise thing to do. Get the marriage back on to an even footing before even contemplating another pregnancy.

And... you will need to protect yourself. If she is on birth control pills, and goes off them without telling you ... you could be in a world of hurt. So, never have unprotected sex with her (and don't let her have access to your condoms either).

I know that sounds kind of paranoid, but it sounds like your wife has some issues that she needs to work through first. Be supportive of her efforts to do that work - but that support should not include using an innocent child as a crutch for the work she really needs to do.

Best wishes.


----------



## Tall Average Guy (Jul 26, 2011)

Enchantment said:


> Hi losing hope ~
> 
> I agree with you.  Bringing another child into an ailing marriage is not a wise thing to do. Get the marriage back on to an even footing before even contemplating another pregnancy.
> 
> ...


To add to what Enchantment says, having a kid is very often taken as a sign that the marriage is going well. If you have another child, your wife will assume, based on your actions, that the present course is acceptable to you. Remember that actions, not words, are what drive most people to understand.


----------



## Hicks (Jan 14, 2011)

Tell her flat out.
Until the sexual portion of the marriage is fixed, no more babies. Your rationale must be that it would not be fair to a child to bring them into a less than 100% great marriage.


----------



## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

You could always ask her how she thinks she'll accomplish this miraculous virgin birth seeing how the basic hydraulics of what's what isn't happening. Maybe you could suggest artificiality insemination?


----------



## Lionelhutz (Feb 2, 2012)

Maybe you should announce that you are about to get a vasectomy. 

I gather you understand that another child will make everything much worse. Given the history you have described, your sex life will be over permanently and you will be heading for divorce court.


----------



## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

Losing,
I know nothing about you. With that said:
- Women are wired to care for children, unless they make a concious effort what happens is: the kids get their time, love and attention, work (job plus house stuff) gets the rest and you are left with scraps
- Sounds like you are already deprioritized, another child will simply push her workload up, her stress level up and your priority down
- There is a serious respect issue on top of this and it manifests itself in a few glaring ways from your initial post:
1. Her desire is low (that doesn't mean she can't get aroused, just means she starts out not feeling desire, fairly normal stuff). However, you are getting the - it doesn't matter to me so we aren't going to do it - suck it up - treatment. That is a respect issue. 
2. This whole game of "you have no say in this matter". Like you, I might forget a conversation about whether we should paint the den a light gray color or a bluish gray color. However A new child represents:
1. An additional 18 year commitment to your marriage
2. A 250K financial commit
3. A LOT of extra time/effort for many years

The odds of you "forgetting" a discussion about a new child are very low. This bit about "we talked about it and you agreed" may show a huge lack of respect. 

If you are so inclined you could have a calm, low key conversation that goes like this: 
You: I am a bit bothered by the idea that we had such an important life altering conversation about having a child and for the life of me I can't remember it. Perhaps you can help me recall it. Where were we physically when we talked about it? When was the conversation? What did you say/I say? 

If you truly did forget, having her give you a bunch of contextual cues may trigger the memory. If it does you may discover something interesting. The conversation may have been something like this:
Her: I think it is lonely for a child to not have siblings
You: I guess it could be

End of discussion. She could choose to interpret that as meaning whatever she wants, even though a sane person would not claim this represents any type of meaningful communicatio. 

I am going to add a few more thoughts in the hope that you will use them in a constructive manner. 

Basic male wiring works like this:
- I have a HIGH drive to have sex. High enough that even if I feel that my W doesn't treat me that well I STILL want to have sex with her all the time. 
- Even if our marriage is mediocre, I want to have a LOT of sex. 
- Even if our marriage is bad, I STILL want to have sex

Basic female wiring works like this:
- I have a HIGH desire to have some number of children. Might be two, might be 5. 
- Even if our marriage is mediocre, I still want those children. 
- Even if ADDING children will make our marriage WORSE, I STILL want to have those children.

So with that in mind you need to have an equal amount of resolve and compassion. Just as her sexual rejection hurts you, your refusal (if that happens), to have another child will hurt her as much. 

Her desire opens a door that would otherwise remain shut. Your core issue isn't that your sex life is really bad, that is just a symptom. The real issue is that your marriage seems to be broken. 

Before proceeding, stop for a moment and ask yourself some tough questions:
- Is your wife the highest priority in your life?
- If so, do you think you really understand her? What she likes/dislikes about you and life in general? 
- If so, could you sit down and write a list of what she likes/loves about you as a person? Example: you are kind, considerate, supportive, patient, etc. These are "traits". They represent what you "are". 
- And a second list of what she likes/loves about what you DO, these are manifestations of your traits: if you are kind and supportive than you listen and empathize when she is upset and don't try and solve her problems, and/or push her to "calm down" as quickly as possible. If you are helpful, you do x,y,z around the house, with your child. 
- And a third list about the traits/aspects she dislikes (e.g. you are quick to anger, overly emotional, clingy, fat, bald, etc.)
- And a fourth and final list of how your behavioral traits translate into love busters: you frequently say "I love you". So frequently that she rarely gets to "say it to you first", and instead feels like when you say "I love you", you mean "do you love me"? 

If you don't know this stuff it may be because she is:
- Non verbal AND 
- Non communicative non-verbally 

Or it might be that you pay little attention to her tone of voice, body language and facial expressions. 

Given all that as context, the door is opening. She wants a child. You want a healthy marriage. This is the only opportunity you may get to improve the marriage. Go read married man sex life "MMSL" by Athol Kay. And read "no more mister nice guy". And then create a plan to get you to where you want to be. In parallel, ask your wife to fill out a "love busters" questionnaire with you. 

I am going to want you in advance. MMSL and NMMNG are both good. But by themselves they may not change things much. However, AFTER you put the concepts from those books into action for a few months AND then have a discussion that loosely goes like this, they may get you to a good place:

"Our marriage is not at a place where I need it to be for us to have another child. I am willing to discuss another child AFTER we resolve our issues, if you are willing to do that let me know and we can talk. 

And that talk has to start with the full list of what she needs to be happy with YOU - if she won't tell you, there is zero chance of success. If she lies to you "I AM happy with you" there is zero chance of success. FYI: If she was happy with you, she wouldn't be starving you of sex. 

If she does tell you, and she is clear and specific and reasonable then you respond in kind. And yes, part of this discusion will be that you say "I don't know what turns you on/off either inside or outside the bedroom. I need you to tell me. And if you honestly don't know, you need to be willing to experiment inside the bedroom until we find out how I can get you warmed up even when you start out not feeling desire. And I need you to know something. If you truly don't love me enough to feel good about making ME happy, you need to tell me." 

That last bit is core. If making YOU happy, doesn't do much for her, that is not fixable. Because then it all comes down to lust, which is a VERY fickle thing in most women. 

It is also true that she likely has little interest in any of this. Her wiring is driving her towards another child. The shortest path there is going to be to directly/indirectly threaten you with divorce unless YOU DO WHAT SHE WANTS. Unless you have the resolve to accept that risk, none of this matters. 

Ultimately to turn a mediocre/bad marriage into a good/great marriage you need to be willing to let your partner threaten the marriage. Or more simply: To greatly improve a marriage you often have to BET the marriage. 




losing_hope said:


> So I've written quite a bit about my wife's jealousy, especially how she thinks I'm cheating on her, when I'm not. But now I have another issue.
> 
> For a long time now, her libido has been way down. If it was up to her, I think once every couple of months. But her psychiatrist suggested that we should just schedule the sex, especially since we have a young boy, and with work and all, it might be the way.
> 
> ...


----------



## losing_hope (Dec 1, 2011)

So last night, as she was going to her yoga, she texted me if we could talk about what happened the other night. She had the day off, so she had been home all day, and she was in a depressed mood all day. Which is typical for her, after she gets angry.

The psychiatrist had warned though not to talk about anything deep when we're tired, so I was a bit apprehensive.

But actually, while she didn't actually use the words "I'm sorry", she was apologetic of her behavior. She didn't argue at all about whether we should have more children or not. But I did say that the marriage and health of both of us should come before more children.

Long time ago in therapy I had suggested that the reason why she was so eager to have our first child was because she wanted to bring us closer together. She went back to that, and said that the reason was because she wanted to have a baby before her dad died. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer, and he died about 9 months after diagnosis, 5 months before our son was born. So you can see a bit of the timeline there.

So I guess that is improvement, although there's still a long way to go.


----------



## Gratitude (Feb 12, 2012)

losing_hope said:


> So I guess that is improvement, although there's still a long way to go.


Her being honest with you is a definite improvement. But remain firm on the no more children until you are ready and the other areas of your marriage have improved. Leave a bit of time for this to happen as well, words are easy to believe but you need to see actions.


----------

