Marriage, love and sexual needs. Any advice?

LegacyUser

It's difficult to post / think clearly about this stuff so please forgive me if I can't articulate myself properly.

My wife and I are married and have 2 beautiful children with our third only weeks away.

My wife had an incredibly tough upbringing and was the victim of a sexual assault in her 20's.

We met and got on like a house on fire, both of us were sexually inexperienced and learned a lot together. Nothing crazy but lots of loving things that we still share to this day. It was difficult for her to get over her intimacy issues and I had a number of issues of my own so we grew an awful lot together. We took risks in our family homes (who hasn't? ) and tried loads of things like normal couples would but never anything to extreme. We moved in together and lived together for a number of years and had (and still do have) great craic and laughs. But a couple of years or so before we got married things changed. Less intimacy, less trying things out, it grew steadily less frequent our love making and even intimacy (i initiate kisses, hugs, fondles (which do not go down well at all)) but the odd time I get a kiss and a hug back. Our babies were conceived on the back of the once every 3-6 months we would make love and this would always have to involve alcohol for my wife to be in the mood. The last few times we had made love I felt she was just going through the motions as to be honest I didn't feel nearly as good as years earlier because I felt out of practice, even when I took my time etc it always seemed to get to the point of being pressured into getting it over with.

I know this is kinda all over the place. We love out kids and each other (I do believe she loves me as I love her). What I'm trying to say is that I still fancy the arse off her, always have but I NEVER feel it back. When I have tried in the past to talk about this stuff I often have gotten the, "you know I love you, it's always about sex, does it not sow much I love how you that I have given birth to our babies".

How do I explain how much I love her and yet explain that I need her to want me and to want to make love to me?

There is no issue that we haven't made love for months because my wife is about to give birth, I appreciate the pain and tough time that my wife goes through for our babies. My fear and what I know is going to happen is that it's going to go back to the distinct lack of intimacy, I feel like the spurned woman in the relationship where the husband prefers porn and the pub to his wife. I LOVE MY WIFE. I think the most worrying thing for me is that in the last 12 months or so the thoughts of wanting almost any woman (fantasy wise anyways) is ALWAYS there, I have always HATED the thought of lecherous men etc but the fact is that I'm getting those thoughts frequently and whilst I have no thoughts of acting on the thoughts an fantasies I am getting annoyed that no matter what I have tried over the last number of years, love sex and lust has always been on my wifes terms and never has been influenced by me.

Sorry it this is all over the place. Any advice welcomed. I just want to let her know that I love and want her and want her to love me (I have told her many times and been told well this is the way she is and that's it). The odd time it's come up about sex and love making and I've said that I can't stay in a relationship without it and been told then you want to have sex with other women so why don't you leave, but I never will as I love and fancy my wife. I NEED to fix this, we need to....

Any advice?

Oh The Humanity

I would definitely go for some couples counselling on that one.

You ask how you can fix it, well it takes two to fix it.

Its probably something you will have to wait a little longer to fix because as your wife is just about to give birth its not a great time to bring this up.

However, there is nothing wrong with your desire to have sex and its not fair for her to try to make you feel guilty with those statements that 'its all about sex' and 'does it not show I love you that I had your babies'

Thats unfair, its an avoidance technique. She is avoiding the problem and denying it.

She may be happy to go the rest of her life without sex but there are two in the relationship, so in the long run this problem will need to be aknowledged and worked on if the marriage is to survive.

I think though you will have to put this one on ice for the time being with the way things are. You must be going nuts though with the hornyness, I guess all you can do in the meantime is keep having cold showers and stuff.

Runner Bean

I agree with the previous poster, I think that some counselling sessions could be really helpful in this situation OP. The clearest thing that comes out of your post is how much you love your wife, and that, together with the knowledge that alot of couples go through cycles and phases where the spark seems to have completely fizzled on one or both sides, should reassure you that you can work this out.

You say that despite fancying your wife, you never get the feeling that she is sexually attracted to you. That belief, coupled with the dent to your ego and confidence that surely results, has probably left YOU feeling unattractive and undesirable (even though perhaps objectively you know that may not be the case).

You can't fix or change your wife, but what you can do is work on building your own confidence in your sexual desirability - through exercise, a new hair cut and set of clothes, whatever. it is an absolute truism that women are attracted to confidence (sincere confidence, not bravado). Also, if you are confident, perhaps you would be in the position to take more control and take the lead in wooing her and rekindling the romance.

I'm not saying these are easy fixes to what seems like a complex problem, particularly given your wife's history of abuse, but it seems like you are in a cycle that you can't break out of and need to change that some how. Good luck with it.