# Our sex life is just dying.



## Soltero (Dec 9, 2012)

Hello,

I am 37 and my wife is 33, we got married almost 2 years ago, 4 months into our marriage she got pregnant and it has all beed going downhill sex wise.
She is a stay at home mum now taking care of out wonderful son, and She is studying at the same time.
She always complained that she can't manage with all the chores and the baby and studying, and whenever the topic of sex came up it would be a disaster, I was accused of not being understanding, that a women after birth has a dip in her drive and she is adapting to being a mum, mind you I never out right asked for sex, and all I did was "test the waters" with advancements.
So, we ended up getting a maid/nanny to help her out, and guess what, everything is still the same, not solely talking about sex here, but she would still complain that even with a maid she barely has time to study and her mind still is stressed and sex is no where on her mind...
I tried to talk to her but she always accuses me of only caring about sex.. So I emailed her explaining that while sex is admittedly important to me, mostly I am disappointed that our intimacy is non existent, no hugs, kisses, signs of affection and this ended up also being misunderstood as I complain about sex too much!!! 
Since the she got pregnant we have had sex about 6-7 times, that's in 18 ,months!!!! 
She does confuse me though, she does tease me, she does start me up but only to leave and that's it, while asleep sometimes I unconsciously make advancements which I do not know of, and usually they happen after she has tried teasing me before going to sleep so naturally I go to sleep turned on... 
Last night I tried to give her a Hug in bed and she got iffy saying she needs to sleep to wake up in a couple of hours since the baby will wake up...
I don't know what to do here, and well this is driving me crazy, I am resorting to porn and well I just am n to happy about this.

Sorry for the long post but I am out of my wits. I had a very hot and active sex live before and she did once mention during a fight that she has a great sex life with her ex bf. so blah , I get the bitter end of the stick.
What can Ido to get the flame back if that's possible?

Thanks


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## BeachGuy (Jul 6, 2011)

Yep, you're a victim of the "after we had kids" syndrome. Same happened to me and it never reverted back to the old way.

Line up someone to watch the kid for a night or even a weekend. Rent a hotel room somewhere and go spend a weekend alone. Just the two of you. Then she can't blame the house work or the child or studying. See what happens then.

Another less desireable option is to go stay somewhere else for a week or two. Just you. Gives her a wake up call that she may lose you if things don't change. Again, didn't work for me but it works for many.

I don't get how having one child and taking some classes is "too much" to handle for a stay at home mom. But my stbx said the same thing once. Wanted me to hire a maid to help her out. I wouldn't do it.


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## east2west (Oct 19, 2012)

Get a paternity test.

Run the MAP from MSSL.


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## Maneo (Dec 4, 2012)

If you need to email your wife to explain your feelings, you two may have more fundamental communication problems and root relationship issues that need resolving and then see if the sex becomes more frequent and satisfying.


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## Soltero (Dec 9, 2012)

Hahaha east2west that's a little dramatic don't you think? I acknowledge there are problems when it comes to sex or lack of, but there is no reason to go bashing my head with the whole infidelity drama. Need to solve my issues and not complicate them.

I have tried to arrange some time for us alone but she doesn't trust to keep the baby with the nanny while we're away so that has to come later on and not at such early age. 
I am reading or looking even for some books and I have found some good resources here on other topics. 
What I haven't found yet is how is it directly after childbirth and what is the reasonable amount of time to get her libido back?


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## Soltero (Dec 9, 2012)

I emailed her because we couldn't successfully talk about this but had no problems discussing anything else. We may have a deep rooted problem and this could be the tip of the iceberg I don't know honestly. I'm considering everything...
I also don't want to be unfair and just be focused on me.


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## Zig (Oct 6, 2012)

Soltero said:


> I had a very hot and active sex live before and she did once mention during a fight that she has a great sex life with her ex bf. so blah , I get the bitter end of the stick.


If you stay with her after this you kind of deserve what's coming to you.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

east2west said:


> Get a paternity test.
> 
> Run the MAP from MSSL.


I doubt that the OP knows what "MAP" and "MSSL" means. Maybe you could put some links in your signature block to they can be found? Just an idea....:smthumbup:


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

Soltero said:


> I emailed her because we couldn't successfully talk about this but had no problems discussing anything else. We may have a deep rooted problem and this could be the tip of the iceberg I don't know honestly. I'm considering everything...
> I also don't want to be unfair and just be focused on me.


Your wife does not understand the importance of intimacy, affection and sex in marriage.

By her not working to improve her sex drive and to make sure these things exist in your marriage, and accusing you of only wanting sex, she is distorying it.


Look at the resouces in my signature block below for building a passionate marriage. These might help you.


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## Ina (Dec 3, 2012)

Zig said:


> If you stay with her after this you kind of deserve what's coming to you.


The OP and his W just started a family. I think it's a bit premature to tell him to throw in the towel. I was guilty of treating my husband this way after we had children. I was adjusting to being a mother, going to school full time to get my doctorate and work. We always had family support but I was exhausted. It was not just the physical demands but I was also mentally exhausted and I just didn't feel sexual. I look back on those days with regret for several reasons. I left my husband out in the cold, didn't realize how my lack of desire affected him, and probably missed out on some nice nights. I will say that my husband doesn't really know how to turn me on and has never been an attentive lover. But I never told him. Now we are working on this aspect, but my drive is in overdrive. I'm just at a different place. 

My husband decided that his family was worth it to him. After all I contribute many things outside the bedroom as he does. Now we are both reaping the benefits of patience and communication. I figure if we are married 50 years and 15-20% of those years we were not rocking it in the bedroom, that still gives us a nice amount of time where we can be enjoying the fireworks. I totally trust my H. I trust that he won't leave me at my worst. I can surrender to him completely. Talk to your wife. Tell her you know it has to be hard to juggle bug that you miss her and you are afraid of what may happen to your marriage if you lose that spark. Ask her what you can do to turn her on. Don't threaten, just be honest and persistent. I hope you two make it, especially now that there is someone else you are both responsible for. Good luck.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Soltero (Dec 9, 2012)

Thank you all for your replies and I guess I have to clear something out, I made a typo, she is not HAVING great sex with her ex, she HAD when they were together, sorry for the confusion and I guess this is where people asking to throw the towel are coming from.


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## Zig (Oct 6, 2012)

Ina said:


> The OP and his W just started a family. I think it's a bit premature to tell him to throw in the towel. I was guilty of treating my husband this way after we had children. I was adjusting to being a mother, going to school full time to get my doctorate and work. We always had family support but I was exhausted. It was not just the physical demands but I was also mentally exhausted and I just didn't feel sexual. I look back on those days with regret for several reasons. I left my husband out in the cold, didn't realize how my lack of desire affected him, and probably missed out on some nice nights. I will say that my husband doesn't really know how to turn me on and has never been an attentive lover. But I never told him. Now we are working on this aspect, but my drive is in overdrive. I'm just at a different place.
> 
> My husband decided that his family was worth it to him. After all I contribute many things outside the bedroom as he does. Now we are both reaping the benefits of patience and communication. I figure if we are married 50 years and 15-20% of those years we were not rocking it in the bedroom, that still gives us a nice amount of time where we can be enjoying the fireworks. I totally trust my H. I trust that he won't leave me at my worst. I can surrender to him completely. Talk to your wife. Tell her you know it has to be hard to juggle bug that you miss her and you are afraid of what may happen to your marriage if you lose that spark. Ask her what you can do to turn her on. Don't threaten, just be honest and persistent. I hope you two make it, especially now that there is someone else you are both responsible for. Good luck.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


This is a very common response. If the OP were a woman and posted that her husband had told her his ex gf was so much better in bed than her, I KNOW that certain female posters on here (I'm not naming names) would insist that it was emotional/verbal abuse and that she should call the police on him.

Men have to take whatever unimaginable s**t their wives throw at them in the vain hope that it will improve the marriage while women can walk away at any time.

OP, your wife clearly hates you. Consider yourself lucky that she blurted this fact out instead of keeping it a secret and leading you on. 

Why is what she said to him not verbal/emotional abuse?


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## Zig (Oct 6, 2012)

Soltero said:


> Thank you all for your replies and I guess I have to clear something out, I made a typo, she is not HAVING great sex with her ex, she HAD when they were together, sorry for the confusion and I guess this is where people asking to throw the towel are coming from.


I read your initial post correctly. If you stay with her and, God forbid, start jumping through hoops to try and please her, then you can only expect her to treat you worse.


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## Ina (Dec 3, 2012)

Zig said:


> I read your initial post correctly. If you stay with her and, God forbid, start jumping through hoops to try and please her, then you can only expect her to treat you worse.


Projecting much?


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

Zig said:


> This is a very common response. If the OP were a woman and posted that her husband had told her his ex gf was so much better in bed than her, I KNOW that certain female posters on here (I'm not naming names) would insist that it was emotional/verbal abuse and that she should call the police on him.
> 
> Men have to take whatever unimaginable s**t their wives throw at them in the vain hope that it will improve the marriage while women can walk away at any time.
> 
> ...


Wow you hate a real strong hate for women and it's comming out in this post... projecting your anger here.....


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## Ina (Dec 3, 2012)

Zig said:


> This is a very common response. If the OP were a woman and posted that her husband had told her his ex gf was so much better in bed than her, I KNOW that certain female posters on here (I'm not naming names) would insist that it was emotional/verbal abuse and that she should call the police on him.
> 
> Men have to take whatever unimaginable s**t their wives throw at them in the vain hope that it will improve the marriage while women can walk away at any time.
> 
> ...


His wife hates him? During a fight she said she had great sex with her ex, not better. Soltero, was this fight about her not being sexual? Could she have been defending herself and her sexuality. No doubt it was the wrong thing to say, but we all say crap when we are angry and have at some point hit below the belt. Many times we are clueless as to how one phrase affects and stays with the other person. The key is to communicate and stop making assumptions. 

And Zig, abuse is a pattern not a one time incident.


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## Zig (Oct 6, 2012)

Trying to balance out the rampant misandry on these forums is not hating women.

Ina, if a man decked his wife ONCE and ONLY once then he's not abusive?

I need to find the post on here somewhere that said because a man criticized his wife's cooking too harshly she should get a divorce........


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## Soltero (Dec 9, 2012)

Ok, this has spiraled a little out of control, with the definition of abuse and what not, and I'm still on a dry spell.
Issue here is not what she said or I said during a fight which yes was in a heated discussion over the whole sex thing. It actually was when she suddenly lost any interest in the first few weeks of pregnancy and before we found out she was pregnant.

I'm not planning on jumping through any hoops or getting bent out of shape in here, let me get one thing straight, she is the mother of my son and if she is not able to juggle the chores, hiring help means she has more time to spend with my son and ultimately is beneficial for my son, and I don't see that as hoop jumping. 
Before I drop the D bomb I would like to explore all avenues, I can't forgive myself if I end up dragging my son into a mess which MAY be avoidable.
But at the same time if I exhaust all means to be in a happy marriage, I won't settle for a room mate and create a false sense of a happy family for my son either...

I never given birth nor was I ever pregnant, and that's why I'm here, I'm hoping to start learning more about this and try to see if there is a solution.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

Your wife's change of libido before you even knew she was pregnant could very well be due to hormone shifts in pregnancy.

With my first pregnancy we went on a ski trip before I knew. The trip was a really bad experience for me because I could not stand the smell of any food. All of the food we were served in restaurants tasted horrible. I thought that the ski town just had bad restaurants… but as the pregnancy progressed, this problem became worse.

Pregnancy does some odd things to a woman’s body. Some of us go through it with no problem and for some of us strange this happen. And they can linger for some time afterwards.

Some questions to try to help you here…

What is she studying in school and how many credit hours is she taking?

How many hours a week to do two of you spend doing things together, just the two of you?


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## Zig (Oct 6, 2012)

EleGirl said:


> Wow you hate a real strong hate for women and it's comming out in this post... projecting your anger here.....


An attack on a person's character might be easy when you don't have an argument, but it only real shows others that you don't know how to respond to what they said

I could have reported you and Ina but I'll let it slide so long as you promise not to attack me again and to only attack my arguments/what I said.


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## Ina (Dec 3, 2012)

Soltero, I want to apologize to you for engaging in a discussion that was irrelevant, useless, and took away from your issue. Your last post shows that you are a devoted husband and father. It gives me hope that your wife will learn what I did. I think it's great you are trying to understand what it is like or your wife.

For me, after pregnancy I got caught up in being perfect. The perfect wife, mother, student. Sex was an obligation, my duty and because of my approach, I did not enjoy it as I should. I also grew resentful that no matter how I was with everything else, if I failed at sex, my H was not happy. 

I wasn't right, I missed the point, and only looked at things through my perspective. I didn't understand until recently about how my rejections affected my H. It's not like he was totally in the clear, we both have lots to improve on, but we are talking and learning. Sex has never been better. Im 37. I have three kids, my youngest just turned 9. It took a while. But I'm at a place where now the sex is just as much for me as it is for him. I'm more comfortable in my own skin even though I technically looked better when I wasn't feeling as good. the other day I got up at 5am, packed lunches did breakfast, took kids to school, had a marathon day at work, picked up kids, took oldest to baseball practice. got home past 9. My husband was watching tv, youngest still not bathed and no food in fridge. I was upset, he ran out to the store. He got home went to bed to watch the Victoria secrets fashion show. I stayed up helping with homework, etc. didn't get to bed past 11. In the past, I would have been so angry because I would have felt like i have to carry a higher load. Instead, I asked him for a kiss, which turned into more . . . Then I slept like a baby. Same life, different approach. Your wife can get there. You are the type of husband that makes it worth it.


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

1. Sex 6-7 times since she got pregnant. This isn't about the baby. 
2. She insists on a nanny and gets one and still ignores him 
3. She teases him to confirm he still wants her and then she shuts him down

Number 3 is standard in relationships where the man is whipped. A guy with a spine will quickly shut down mean spirited sexual teasing. 

She married him to provide for her, not to have a romantic relationship with him. 

Most likely there is a big attractiveness or age gap between them. That combined with his fear of upsetting her is a total disaster.


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## Soltero (Dec 9, 2012)

Well, a little update...
First, no she isn't with me to provide for her, she's had quite a successful career so far, and comes from a comfortable family.
Age difference is 4 years.. Attractiveness, no big gap....

Anyhow, I read somewhere about the 10 days sex therapy, which I'm not sure is a therapy but you're supposed to have sex 10 days in a row to get the rhythm back, I suggested to my wife and she obliged.
First couple of days it was weird seeing that you're having a schedule for sex, towards day 8 we were bunnies and stopped being a schedule, we were at it 2 , sometimes 3 times a day like teenagers!!

well it's all gone better ever since. Just thought I'd thank you all who replied with genuine suggestions.
All the best!


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## lilith23 (Sep 6, 2012)

It's great that things are going well between the OP and his W. 

I'm kind of surprised how many people in TAM actually blame lack of sex to women just marrying men for being provided for, or that they must be cheating and so on. It is true that some women does that, but many are also having problems like losing drive, having more serious issues in their relationships (pent up resentment, miscommunication, losing attraction and so on), or dealing with depression or stress.

Having many responsibilities can be very stressful, specially at the beginning, when a person needs to adjust to all the things. In this case, right when you guys were adjusting to marriage life, you had to adjust to being parents, and then she also had to take care of the house and baby plus studies. And then she might also suffer from hormonal changes and being emotional turbulent and tired. I'm surprised how some guys here assumed that it's about a woman just being interested in having a man that provides for her, or that she might be unfaithful, instead of these possibilities. Maybe they have bad experiences themselves that made them lose faith in the opposite sex?

In any ways, this 10 days sex therapy is interesting. Glad to hear it worked.


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## Interlocutor (Dec 29, 2011)

Ina said:


> Projecting much?


Unless you have proof he is projecting, it is most probably not considering this happens too often from both men and women. The tasks doled out by the sex-starved are more often hoops than constructive actions as evidenced by abundant necessity for 180's almost all the time here, which end up fixing things. So usually they're most certainly hoops, and that needs to be considered at least.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## DTO (Dec 18, 2011)

lilith23 said:


> It's great that things are going well between the OP and his W.
> 
> I'm kind of surprised how many people in TAM actually blame lack of sex to women just marrying men for being provided for, or that they must be cheating and so on. It is true that some women does that, but many are also having problems like losing drive, having more serious issues in their relationships (pent up resentment, miscommunication, losing attraction and so on), or dealing with depression or stress.


Those are interesting points, and definitely food for thought.

One possibility for this is that low sexual performers tend to deny responsibility for a problem, if one is even acknowledged. In essence, a performance issue (which may be not intentional) is compounded by an attitudinal issue (which generally is intentional). This behavior seems to be an attempt to avoid inconvenience or accountability, and that smacks of selfishness.

Thus, sexual inhibition (perhaps due to abuse or bad teaching) becomes "that is gross / wrong" or "I am happy with what we do now" rather "I have a hang-up that needs to be addressed". Physical issues are "that is normal for my age" instead of "I need to get as healthy as possible". Busyness in life is "there are more important things than sex" instead of "I am having trouble prioriziting my time and need help". And so on.

I will note there are many people who feel a high level of sexual activity (variety and/or frequency) is not a priority. TAM is very pro-sex; people who aren't are outsiders and likely under-represented. I do know that, when I was trying to understand my ex, I cast a wide net and found many folks with a "sex is optional" mindset. If TAM is your reference point for how many women are okay with having the husband support the family yet not get his needs met, you are probably under-estimating.

Lastly, I have not seen an LD lady anywhere gracefully accept that less attention from her man is a natural consequence of chronically failing to meet his needs. You have LD ladies who want to please their husbands and provide enthusiastically. You have LD ladies who reluctantly accept (if not resent) it; they either "do what they must" (with the attendant attitude) or they dig in their heels and complain while the marriage suffers.

But, the LD lady who says "I need sex to be a function of my need, and I will yield to my husband elsewhere to be equitable" has yet to appear. Invariably, LD ladies who refuse to meet their husband's need - expecting them to defer indefinitely - are also unwilling to reciprocate and lower their own expectations. It is from there that the accusations of selfishness arise.


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