Sex & Romance
Dear Community,

Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.

If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.

Thank you.

Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.

XP: lack of intimacy....

For those who have had TIP, was it due to you having a lack of intimacy (or maybe not necessarily only due to only that, but that intimacy was an issue)? It's hard when advice that I receive is that to help get things happy in my marriage, I just need to work harder at being intimate with my DH. But my very first thought is that I would be fine to never be intimate again with DH, including to never kiss him. Indifferent. I just wasn't sure how I could even try to work toward that when I have zero interest in wanting it from him. For example, we go 4-8 weeks in between having sex (he wants it more, I just turn him down and then at some point I give in cuz I feel bad for him, not that I want it). DH can make me O, but there is no part of me that wants to be passionate with him, initiate, and even after sex (even if I do O), I just feel very, hmm, can't think of the word to use, but it's not a good feeling. And it isn't that I am turned off in general (my counselor asked that...wondering if it was a medical issue), and no, I still take measures into my own hands, but just am turned off of DH. Has anyone else worked through this? I'm not sure if I do...I just don't know how to even begin with that.

(see next post for some more background info...in case that would be helpful)

Re: XP: lack of intimacy....

  • Background info:

    DH and I have known each other 14 years, been together about 13 of those years (married 7 years). We have 2 kids together under the age of 5. I've realized that I have been unhappy most of my marriage, not really realizing how unhappy I have been until the last year or two. At this point I'm basically staying because of our children.  I have realized that while I still love my husband for so many reasons, including being the father of my amazing kids, I'm not in love with him and there are things that I'm not happy about in our marriage. I don't want to be intimate with him, I have no desire to kiss him/have sex/cuddle. For the longest time I thought that I could just stay married and make it work, but DH has said a few times in the past year that he doesn't understand why I won't initiate anything, that I seem to pull away from him, etc. So, clearly I haven't been hiding it as well as I thought. I'd say sex is about once every 6-8 weeks, maybe at minimum of 4 weeks and it's him initiating. ...maybe this is just a rut that marriages go through? But looking back, I really haven't wanted to be intimate with him for several years.

    We don't fight in front of the kids and don't really fight often, I just keep my unhappiness to myself. We talked about a month ago because we ended up having a disagreement, and I said I wasn't happy (just said as a general statement) and he said that me and the kids were his world and that we can't get a divorce and that he loves our family of four and what would that do the to kids...etc (I never said I wanted a divorce...I thought it to myself but then after he said that, I just bottled up because he was really taking it hard that I said I wasn't happy. I didn't take anything back that I said, he just went to bed by himself after crying for awhile and I stayed up and watched tv).

    I'm not attracted to him anymore. I guess I've just been pretending to be happy for a long time so that he was happy and now it's gotten to a point where I'm really not happy but he hasn't seen any of that because I've been good at hiding it, up until recently when he has started to realize I am pulling away when he tries to kiss me. I wasn't purposefully doing it for him to notice, so it's become apparent to me that now I guess I'm not hiding things as well as I once was. 

    DH and I have never "made love" or had that passionate intimate love making. And I think that is also a big deal for me....I've had that type of sex with previous partners before DH and I've missed that. But yet, I also at this point as much as I want to make love and have that intimate feeling, I don't want that with him anymore. 

     

  • I don't think we're getting the whole story here a you are either hiding parts from yourself or feel ashamed to tell them........

     

    ...If I were to guess, I'd say that you have recently had "passionate intimate love making" only not with your husband and now you can't do without it....

     

    If you felt this way about your husband WHY did you spend 6 years with him and THEN get married,..and wait another 2 years before having kids?   Presumably he did have SOMETHING about him that you liked!! ...................Was it his money?   During that 6 years did you not think that he was not 'intimate lover' material?

  • imageoldbugle:

    I don't think we're getting the whole story here a you are either hiding parts from yourself or feel ashamed to tell them........

     

    ...If I were to guess, I'd say that you have recently had "passionate intimate love making" only not with your husband and now you can't do without it....

     

    If you felt this way about your husband WHY did you spend 6 years with him and THEN get married,..and wait another 2 years before having kids?   Presumably he did have SOMETHING about him that you liked!! ...................Was it his money?   During that 6 years did you not think that he was not 'intimate lover' material?

    Yeah I was thinking the same thing about you possible having some sort of relationship with someone else? or even just feeling this way with someone else? Is there anything to this OP?

    I'd also like to know what it was that made you 1) be with this man 2) marry this man in the first place. Why were you drawn to him?

     

    BabyFruit Ticker
Sign In or Register to comment.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards