Thread: Why I resent sex

I am having a hard time with my marriage right now. We have been married for 6 years now. I am 41 and my husband is 39. My husband is a wonderful man with great values and is very loving. The only problem we have is we don’t have sex as often as he wants it. This issue arises every 4 or 5 months and is the same issue as he isn’t getting sex as often as we did when we were dating. I wrote this list as sort of therapy to get my reasons out there. I just wanted to share it. It seems most of my reasons are physiological which I have shared all of this information at one time or another with him. You would think that I could just suck it up and be a dutiful wife and have sex whenever he wants it, which makes me more mad that I should have to compromise because men want sex so bad that they would be willing to throw away a marriage and good life all for a piece of tail. I sometimes also feel that when he tries to hug and kiss me he is just doing it to try to get sex because that always leads to him groping me. I just want to feel loved and appreciated for me and not feel threatened to loose my husband all over sex.

Reasons why I resent sex

1. At a young age, I was raised the sex was sacred and only occurred when marriage and you didn’t cheat. But then I found Playboys in my dad’s closet. I was mad at my father because it was like he was cheating on my mom looking at other naked women.

2. Men lie, cheat, and steal just to have sex.

3. Marriages and relationships are destroyed just because someone else wants sex so bad they are willing to cheat. It just reinforces that people and relations are important just the act of sex. People say they love their husbands or wives and then go cheat on them just because they are only getting sex 1 time a week or something like that.

4. Most of the men I have dated, including my first love in high school have cheated on me.

5. My second husband had an affair while I was working another job trying to keep our house out of foreclosure and leaving my son in daycare while he brought a girl to our house.

6. Men feel the need to look at other naked women besides their GF/wives, why? It makes us feel we aren’t good enough.

7. I was molested in some way when I was 4 or 5 years old by some boys in my neighborhood in the woods. My brother and another boy, ages 6 and 7 went to get my parents. My parents took me to the doctor and talked to the other parents, but nothing was ever discovered what happened. I don’t have memories of what exactly happened just of this occurring. The incident that I remember has been confirmed.

8. Men are willing to give up their families just to have sex with someone else.

9. Women use sex to steal your husband or BF just to do it.

10. My loving caring husband gets upset when he doesn’t get sex when he wants it from me.

11. We don’t have money to spend going out to do fun things and get some excitement in my life, but somehow we have the money to buy hooker heels and lingerie, etc. for him.

12. Try to please my husband by watching porn, dressing up for him, wearing dirty lingerie, but feel it’s still not enough for him.

13. Resent that he masturbates when he can’t get sex from me.

14. Resent sex because men covet it so much that they are willing to pay prostitutes, tip strippers, etc. just to see them naked.

dontwantto, there seems to be a lot of unresolved issues with your perceptions of sex that have nothing to do with your husband wanting more sex. I would highly recommend dealing with them before being angry at your spouse. See a therapist, talk to a close friend, something to deal with all those negative feelings. Its difficult to see past them and it appears as if it is impacting you current relationship.

Being a woman on the other side of the coin, I can tell you, there is also a lot of negative emotions when your partner that states they love you is not interested in sex as often as you would like. Everytime my husband rejects my advances, I feel horrible. Over the years, it has built a lot of negetive feelings towards him but also on myself. I always prided myself in being very sexually confidence and also in my appearance. Now, I feel really hesitant to make a move in fear of being rejected again and constantly doubt if I'm not doing something right - am I not taking care of my appearance, do I nag too much, am I getting old and he is loosing interest, etc. Its a horrible feeling. I have started to fantasize about other people because fantasizing about my husband hurts too much to know that he will not be interested. I would never cheat on him because I am committed to making this relationship work, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

I have also had a previous relationship where I cheated on my boyfriend and it had nothing to do with sex. It was a result of my unhappiness with the relationship and an indirect way of trying to get out of it.

What I'm trying to say is sex is not all physician and there are a lot of emotional components to it for your partner as well. Men and women stray from monogomous relationships for many reasons, not just for sex. Also, sex impact a lot of aspects of the relationship besides just the physical.

Originally Posted by sp346

dontwantto, there seems to be a lot of unresolved issues with your perceptions of sex that have nothing to do with your husband wanting more sex. I would highly recommend dealing with them before being angry at your spouse. See a therapist, talk to a close friend, something to deal with all those negative feelings. Its difficult to see past them and it appears as if it is impacting you current relationship.

I agree with this! From your post it seems like you are holding yourself back from unresolved issues surrounding your dad, the childhood molestation, and your ex-husbands affair. Therapy can help with this, and may be exactly what is needed to help address these issues with your current husband.

In regards to #13, I don't understand how masturbation should play into this. Anyone who has known a baby boy, can see that they find their penis early on, and the fascination lasts a lifetime. Whether you engage in sex or not, I am guessing he masturbates. Whether you are a man or woman, you know your body and how to please it. I don't think there should be shame or limits set by another person to how and when you can please yourself.

I do realize that I have a lot of issues surrounding the negative impacts that have influenced my resentments. I do still want to have sex with my husband. It's just not as often as he would like. It's about once a week. And for a while there, the once of week involved the whole dress up, heels, lingerie, the whole dirty sex thing. I think a lot of the resentment came in from him was when I had to get up at 4:30am to go to work, but he stayed up to 1:00 am and expected to come to bed and have sex. I always knew when he came to bed early that was why he was coming. I started to get upset because he would stay up playing video games until late, but he could find the time to come to be with me when he wanted it. First it was just the x-box kinds of games. He would play them in our bedroom and I would watch tv in another room. Then I thought, "well, heck, I would get a game." I started playing online and got my husband to play the same game as I thought this activity would give us something to do in common. That's when he would play for hours upon hours. We have also discussed that my needs for more excitement or a need for us to do things outside of the home. His excuse was that we didn't have the money. That is where the resentment comes in that we find money for lingeries, dirty movies, sexy heels, etc. but not for us to go out and have a good time together. It seems to kind of stem off of theses things. Then the resentment reminds me of how he thinks his getting less sex is more important than me not getting my needs fullfilled. I told him that if I felt more connected to him through us doing activies or things together that I might feel more connected to him sexually. I really am attracted to him and I do try. I tried to do things during the day to get my interest in sex up. Also, I think he doesn't accept so of my rational reasons why we can't have sex when we come back from the gym. We live in small house, only two bedrooms. My son will be 15 in a few days. The shower is right next to his bedroom. We did do this once, but my son was right in the bedroom and I know he can hear everything. I explained that I didn't want to do that again and felt uncomfortable that my son was right there and was definitely old enough to figure out what was going on. Since then, my hubby has made comments several times about doing it in the shower when he is home and every time I have to explain to him why it makes me uncomfortable. We are in the military so we don't live near any family that he can visit for a night like he used to. He doesn't have any close friends he can spend the night with either, so that is out. I feel like he doesn't respect some of the reasons why it makes me uncomfortable about having sex when I know he is asleep and can hear us in the next room.

In regards to #13, I don't understand how masturbation should play into this. Anyone who has known a baby boy, can see that they find their penis early on, and the fascination lasts a lifetime. Whether you engage in sex or not, I am guessing he masturbates. Whether you are a man or woman, you know your body and how to please it. I don't think there should be shame or limits set by another person to how and when you can please yourself.

This is true, but he used to get mad if I used the vibrator that we bought together. He was jealous of it. He would get mad if he found out I would use it and not have sex with him. It's not like I completely stopped having sex with him. It's just not that it is as often as he wants it.

If you like, you could read my reply on "Wife's lake of intimacy" Please remember that, although you don't want sex, your partner needs/wants it. Also realise please that men need to release sperm at regular intervals to keep their prostates healthy. So, by denying him sex (maybe for what you see as good reasons) you are keeping him frustrated and unhealthy. If you had a man's body you would see this situation completley differently. You must both agree a regularity that suits you both as well.