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Hi
Me again, I created a log in here thinking it was just to air some thoughts, my husband is not really abusive just a bit stubborn and can get very angry…
Something I have thought a lot about is how he has been saying (detail removed by moderator) lack of intimacy. He has however forgiven me for it as marriage is also about forgiveness. Isn’t that an interesting way of looking at it, as if intimacy (sex!) is a right that is his to receive. The reason we had less and less sex was due to his behavior towards me and our kids.
He also noticed that when we did have sex I was not really engaging and he even said to me (detail removed by moderator). That made him resentful and feeling sorry for himself.
There is something fundamentally wrong about how these men see women!
Take care ladies xx -
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I read a really interesting article about women’s sex drives and it makes a really good point.
When men want sex but women don’t, women’s sex drive is too low. When men don’t want sex and women do, the woman’s sex drive is too high. Its never the man that needs to change, its always the woman, as if the man’s sex drive is the standard and we just float around it.When men have sexual problems, they can take viagra and its fixed. So then men assume it works the same for women and try to medicate us or send us to therapy. When in reality, there are very good reasons for not wanting to have sex with someone who treats you like s\!t.
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I’m so glad you’ve posted about this issue. My ex used to complain about our lack of intimacy and make me feel guilty saying I just wasn’t attracted to him and I didn’t like him. When really, the issue was because the way he spoke to me and disrespected me was so disgusting, it physically turned me off, as you’d expect. That, coupled with the depression I developed due to the ongoing emotional abuse.
It’s such a painful process, that creates an atmosphere of distrust, negativity and low self esteem – the perfect recipe for a disaster when it comes to sex. In addition, intimacy in a relationship is built on trust, openness and love, all of which are total opposite connotations of abuse!
Yet of course, as always with abuse… it’s never the fault of the abuser. They are responsible for nothing.
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Thank you for feeding back on this.
FlowersAfterFlood, it’s very interesting what you are saying. I actually tried to talk about intimacy earlier in our relationship. I was basically asking for some help when I didn’t have time to ‘finish’. First time it was met with some excuse, second time I was told you don’t talk about these things. I get it now, me not finishing was some kind of criticism towards his ability.
One of the things my husband has said few times is that sex (removed by moderator). Well it doesn’t make you feel good if you don’t want to!
I have come to realize that there is something controlling about this as well. The expectation and how it is turned onto me how bad it has made him feel that I don’t want to have sex. It has basically made him depressed. BUT he has not gone out to find someone else , I should really appreciate that!
Pinkvelvet, I was also made to feel guilty but just like you his attitude and behavior turned me off.What age are we living in?!?!?
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Eventually in my relationship we spent 95% of time apart in the same house. Except for when it was to discuss the severe problems we had financially. There was a lot of shouting and extreme criticism. He would then expect sex or me to please him any way he wanted. When I objected as I said I didn’t feel any warmth towards him after being shouted at he would say if we were closer in an intimate way he would feel better towards me and wouldn’t shout at me in the day.
Eventually it came down to me being woken in the night with his hands on me and if I objected, pushed him away or said I want to sleep he would say you don’t even have to wake up. In the end I would ‘get on with it’ and give in so that I could go back to sleep so that I could function at work the next day.
It made zero difference to how he was around me during the day. It became so we didn’t even discuss what had happened in the night.
To this day I’m pretty sure he thinks he did nothing wrong.
I’m also not sure it was that bad as if I had insisted it would have stopped – I would just put my mind somewhere else and pretend it wasn’t happening or think of how I could speed it up to get away from him. I would curl up on the very edge of the bed as far away as I could after and try my best to get to sleep. I knew if I didn’t do it I would find it difficult to sleep as I would be on edge waiting for him to try again. I also know there would have been more shouting and bad moods the next day if I had refused.
I still to this day believe some of that is my fault and don’t believe it’s as bad as cases you read about in the paper. It’s not as ‘serious ‘ as those.
It went on for years and years. I became physically ill- seriously so.
Every day I read something about these cases in the press and the vile comments attacking women saying they should walk away or they are making it up. Except you believe there is something ‘wrong’ with you and you are failing in your role. I’m not really sure why someone would invent something like this as I would almost prefer to die than do anything formal about it. I have told only a couple of health people and even that I found terrifying as you worry you won’t be believed or that you are making a fuss or yes you are mad because you haven’t left.
It has damaged me for life I think.
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My ex was sexually abusive. In fact he was arrested for it. He started watching hardcore porn online and wanted to re-enact what he he had seen. I on the other hand didn’t want that kind of sex. I was after intimate and gentle affection, no bondage and worse. It didn’t make me feel wanted, it made me feel like a worthless piece of meat to be mistreated and used at his whim. So we stopped being intimate for months at a time during which he’d call me all sorts of offensive names for not giving in to him. When I would eventually give in from being worn down by all the name calling and snide comments, I’d tell him ok, but say I didn’t want the hardcore stuff because I didn’t like it. He’d ignore me, say he didn’t care because he did like it, and then he’d basically rape me. Afterwards he’d just leave me there to clean myself up and walk off. As others have said, to this day he probably still thinks he did nothing wrong, and that I made up stuff to get him arrested. The fact that I was screaming no at him and was crying, that just seemed to turn him on even more. Worst bit … the police couldn’t convict him, so I went through embarrassing interviews for nothing as it was my word against his. He is still out there somewhere … hopefully alone, but possibly harming some other poor woman.
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This is awful to experience. I don’t think I had a truly bad experience, but physical intimacy always comes with an odd feeling when you are with someone who has been abusive to you in other ways. There was a period of time when I wasn’t physically intimate with my ex at all because I just decided to finally stop saying yes when I didn’t want to, and then realised I actually rarely wanted to with him. This was especially after a bad event.
But throughout our relationship I found there was always some pressure around sex. He would want to do it in more “public” spaces. He would try to do things during sex without asking me if I was ok with it first (e.g. choking me) which made me really scared considering everything else in the relationship. I didn’t even feel comfortable for him to “talk dirty” to me, call me things like “b***h” during sex because he already did that outside of it sometimes and meant it, so there was no pleasure in it for me. I remember times when I said I didn’t want to and he kept pushing it, wanting me to just give in a little more, and a little more, until there was nothing else to do. And in the beginning I thought this was fine. But when everything started accummulating it just became another obligation for me. I would often be thinking of other things during sex with him, and I feel so ashamed about that because I think he would actually have preferred if I enjoyed it, and he would have accommodated for that… But for some reason I just felt like I had to get through it or appease him more than actually communicate well.
These weren’t my only bad experiences with sex though. Other people in the past either pressured me into sex or tricked me about other things related to sex. It’s messed up how these people have treated us.
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I was never badly abused sexually, but the way sex has been about him and the way he treated me generally just slowly reduced my desire until I had sex out of obligation. I didn’t realise that he noticed this until he made comments about it recently, how he could tell that I was turning away and that made him feel resentful. I understand that it’s not fun to not be wanted but for him to describe it like that to me, that he felt resentment, just shows that he felt he had some kind of right to it.
Just like the sex my whole issue with the abusive nature of my husband is that he hovers around the line of what can be explained or argued to be ok or my fault. And he is absolutely amazing at arguing his case and making himself the victim.
And then we have the elephant in the room that he now says is the reason for me not wanting him, the fact that he was obese and put most of that weight on during our marriage. But the issue was not the weight, however that’s very convenient to use to show how cold I am.
How there men you are talking about think it’s ok to use derogatory language and even choke someone is beyond me. Having joined this forum I am very sad to hear how common this is. -
My ex husband to be would always complain we didn’t have enough sex, he threatened to go elsewhere if i didn’t oblige obviously knowing how much that would hurt me. He would make me feel guilty if I refused him even if I was genuinely exhausted but whenever I wanted it he’d flat out refuse or make out like he was doing me a favour then hed struggle if you know what I mean. Sometimes I’d do stuff just to please him even though I didn’t really want to. I’d really lost my body confidence after having children and he would make me feel good sometimes and actually enjoy myself but then hed seem to ask for it more saying it had been ages when it hadn’t. In the end he decided he wanted to drink less but have more sex. I let it slide the first few times again feeling guilty but then i stood up to him and told him that wasn’t right and made me feel pressured I thought he’d taken it OK but not long afterwards he turned physical on me for the first time so I’m still wondering if that was one thing amongst others playing on his mind.
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It’s been gut wrenching reading this thread.
Since having my little one I have completely lost my sex drive. He stopped coming to bed and a part of me was relieved, however soon I started to feel abandoned and very lonely.
As soon as our little one went into her own bedroom that’s when he started to come up asking for sex. At this time I had become so withdrawn and numb. He would literally hound me for it to the point I would just give him something to get him off my back. I felt sick. It was always either “clearly you don’t love me” or “I need to feel connected to my wife”
I managed to leave him for a while, however when we were talking over the phone about me going back after not being strong enough to stay away, I confided in him about the whole sex issue…. That I am trying my best to get my sex drive back up so please allow me time and stop asking for it so often. It should just happen naturally if I can get in the mood.
No lie, at the end of that call he asked me for phone sex. I never felt so disregarded.
It’s made me realise I am just a wife with a duty. I don’t think I can bring myself to have sex with him again and I’m now worried this is really going to escalate things now I am back 😞 xx
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I don’t miss sex, but I miss intimacy. Like the many things he has deprived me of during the many years of our marriage, intimacy is one of them.
After every argument he tells me he is going to leave me, and then goes and sleeps in the spare room or on the sofa. I feel so rejected and unwanted, it really hurts me. I feel so stupid for even sharing this here but I really need to share my thoughts because I’m too embarrassed to tell anybody about this.
Before he started to sleep elsewhere, he would take his clothes out of our bedroom and dress/undress in another room when I was in the room following an argument. I always found this strange and couldn’t understand the logic behind this, the only thing I could think of was that he was taking away the intimate act of taking his clothes off in front of me, and now he is sleeping in another room I feel so hurt and rejected, and so humiliated to even talk about it.
Am I the only one going through this? Is this just another form of abuse, a way of me feeling bad about myself? Because if it is, it’s working because nobody wants to feel unwanted and that’s exactly how I feel right now.
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Oh ladies some of these posts have me in tears. I genuinely hope for a day when we can all realise that sex should only ever be about intimacy and wanting that closeness with our partner, that we get to a point that we love the person that we’re with so much, and more importantly that they respect us so much, that it never feels like a chore.
For me I’ve been told that as his wife I should want to help him to release (yes that’s exactly how he says it) whenever he needs as that’s my role and if I loved him it wouldn’t matter to me if I was in the mood or not. I have given 2 blow jobs a week plus one full on session since my eldest was a few weeks old. And still I’m told I’m cold. I do not put enough effort in. When he grabs my boobs in the evening I should have the face of a porn star and not someone who looks uninvolved
I am coming to realise that none of this comes from a place of love. He does not respect my body. I asked for a divorce, he said no. I fell asleep on the sofa due to no sleep and all day activities with the kids, and woke up to him “feeling me up” while I was unconscious. This is fine apparently because he has needs.
Hope, love and strength to all of you, wishing for a better day when we realise out worth xx
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My ex wanted sex continually, or me to be naked at every opportunity. He watched a lot of porn too and started bringing ideas to the bedroom. He used to keep a note of missed opportunities for sex ie. When our adult kids were out. He would continually want photos too and bought awful tacky stuff for me to wear. I still can’t bear the sound of crinkly cellophane they would be wrapped in.
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My ex became obsessed with sex, everything was about it. When I said no it turned into I didn’t find him attractive, I must be getting it somewhere else. I felt like there was something wrong with me and did a lot of things that I was uncomfortable with. I did things for forgiveness, believing I was making his life miserable. He even told one of our children about an incident and it made them question whether or not everyone understands consent, if sex in marriage is a man’s rights. I’m starting to miss intimacy but don’t know if I could ever trust again.
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Abusers don’t ‘do’ love on any level. Any intimate contact is going to be only about them. Sex is often part of the abusive cycle, and as we normalise abuse, we normalise sexual assault and rape. Abusers use their partners as objects as a normal person might use a car or a plate.
We so often get tangled up in rape myths and deny to ourselves that these horrible sexual experiences are actually abusive and not normal.
Intimate contact is not ok if we’re unable to freely consent. We can’t freely consent when we’re being put down, shouted at, demeaned, maybe physically attacked. It’s not consent to tolerate sex to keep the abuser happy. Above all, when we don’t want sex with someone who’s plain nasty to us, it’s their behaviour which is causing the problem. Not ours.
Rape Crisis is brilliant. Nobody has the right to be close to us uninvited.
I’ve found it helpful learning about narciss*tic abuse and the forms it takes. We can’t know what we don’t know, and we can’t unsee what we’ve seen.
Abusers are profoundly damaged individuals. I stayed with my ex husband for far too long because I didn’t understand what was happening and I thought I could sort it out. How wrong I was!
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