Need advice - marriage starting to get into trouble

LegacyUser

I'd appreciate any advice on my situation. I'm married, in my mid 30's with three great kids. The problem is that my wife and I now have no sex life, for reasons I'll go through below, and I feel I'm rapidly approaching breaking point.

Our sex life has generally been reasonably good over the years, although I always had a higher sex drive than her. One complicating factor is that she has been prescribed anti-depressants for many years. By and large that wasn't an issue at all until we started having children and she had to change her presciption to one that is ok to use during pregnancy. We never had sex while she was pregnant with our first child (or with any of the kids) and our sex life resumed a while after the baby was born and continued on without too many issues eventhough she stayed on the new prescription (an old drug which is known to be safe for expectant mothers but not as good as more modern anti-depressants) as we planned to have more children.

When she bacame pregnant the second time (in early 2006) everything went on hold again. This time after the baby was born she had little or no interest in sex apart from to get pregant again as we had always planned to have three children. After having sex just a handful of times (maybe 5 or 6 times over a period of more than a year) she became pregnant again.

A problem then arose in that the drugs she had been prescribed went out of production and she was shifted onto another prescription. Howver everything went fine and our third child was born earlier this year.

What you must understand is that you generally would not notice any difference as she switched between prescriptions. There's no question that she's still the same person she always was (our sex life aside) and she's a fantastic mother to our kids. The problem is we have no sex life at all now. We haven't had sex since she last became pregnant and even at that we've only had sex 5 or 6 times in well over 3 years.

When the topic comes up for conversation, while I know she sees the problem, she doesn't really want to talk about it and when we do talk about she can sometimes become quite upset. Talking about has yielded so little success that we don't even do that much anymore. I've tried to persuade her to get whatever medical advice and help she needs to at least start to address the problem however she is reluctant and always seems to seize on a reason to put it off. She is currently putting this off as she says she couldn't change her prescription while she is still breastfeeding so what is the point until that changes (that's probably another 6+ months or so).

That's a valid enough reason but at what point does our marriage, never mind come first, come even a close second?

At this point I'm getting desperate and am struggling to see light at the end of the tunnel. Past experience, and it's hard to pack that kind of thing into a post like this, gives me little confidence that in 6 months time there won't be some other reason to put off confronting the issue for another while. I'm tired of things being just a little while away from getting back on track. We're always "nearly there" and I don't know how much longer I can cope with the situation. I've been as patient as I humanly can until now but that's starting to run out and I'm starting to resent her and feel taken for granted. That's a bad road to go down.

Has anyone any similar experiences or any advice? What am I supposed to do?

VaioCruiser

Hi OP. I am sorry about your situation.

The complexities of your situation make it impossible to comment or suggest things in detail about your daily life.

As someone who has been married for a significant amount of time in my life... I would say to you that you are now at a crossroads in your life and one of the things you have to decide is, do you LOVE this women ?

I ask, because in my personal opinion there are more important things in life than sex. There are many many happy marriages that survive well after sex dies out.

I also ask that because, although you don't mention it, there could well be other reasons why sex has died out - thing that you may be doing, thing you may be saying etc etc etc,...

That is not to say that you have no hope of it returning... But if you come to a decision that you love your wife, sex or no sex, then I have a pretty good idea that once the pressure this is having on your relationship is lifted, sex will come back ... in time.

If you decide that you cannot stay married without sex, then that is for you to decide ... If you do decide that your love is more important, then I suggest that once this is acknowledged by you and understood by your wife, you can start communicating far more openly and intimately about this and other issues. The reduction in pressure from you and possible therapy and/or consulting with a specialist vis a vis a change in medication, could well result in you getting sufficient intimacy to satisfy you while not causing her unhappiness. It's all about balance.

All the best.

SarahMc

A/Ds are notorious for killing libido, add that to the rut you have got into not doing it, and how tired she probably feels....

Having said that, this is an issue, and you are right to tackle it before you both get entrenched. How is affection or intimacy in the relationship other than sex?

I don't agree with VaioCruiser, that once pressure is off, sex will come back naturally. Sometimes it doesn't, and people live in chaste marriages forever.

LegacyUser

Unregistered wrote: »

I've tried to persuade her to get whatever medical advice and help she needs to at least start to address the problem however she is reluctant and always seems to seize on a reason to put it off.

The thing is, you're the one with the problem, not her.
I don't mean that harshly but look at it this way. She doesn't feel like having sex and she's not having sex. No problem. So waiting for her to feel that the time is right to call in the professionals - well, as you've already discovered, it's not going to happen.
So why don't you, OP, take action to solve your problem? Book marriage counselling and an appointment with a sex therapist, and present it to her this way: you're not pressuring her to change her prescription just yet because you understand about the breastfeeding etc, but you want to start working on things through counselling/therapy even before that time comes around.
If she won't go, you still must go yourself and tell her that you are going anyway because it's important to you, and you think talking to someone might help you understand what's going on with her.