I don't know what to do....please help?!

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-01-2007
I don't know what to do....please help?!
3
Thu, 07-12-2007 - 12:57pm

My husband and I have been married for a little over a year now, and have been together for over 5 years. We have 2 children, my son from my first marriage who's 12, and our one year old daughter. He has his own business, and works from his shop that's right next to the house. So he's home all the time, but gone. Know what I mean? It has been getting scary for months around here. He's been working more and more, we have sex less and less, and never go out. I shouldn't say never....but he has severe anxiety about going out in public, to the point of having a panic attack on the drive into town. I've been after him for a long long time, to spend more time together and/or go out once in awhile. I hate to do that cuz I know how much it troubles him, but I get tho this point of craziness from staying at home allllllll the time.

The sex thing. We have great sex, when we have sex. After having our daughter, I've been really self conscious about my body. I had to have a c-section, so all our mom's out there know what your belly looks like after one of those. I still have to lose 35 lbs., to get my normal weight of 135. And I can't seem to get there. But anyhow, I tried to spice things up like 6 or 7 months ago. I went to a lingerie shop, bought a bunch of body stockings (hides the bad parts), some provocative stuff, and some elegant but playful stuff. He liked that alot, and we started getting into the toys a little bit. He's one of those men who doesn't like to dress up or wear anything sexy in the bedroom, and absolutely no toys on him. That doesn't bother me at all, since we talk about what we like and what we should try....nothing too crazy (s & m). So when we do have sex, it's great. But for the past 3 months or so (for the most part), we've been fighting, not speaking to each other at times, and having minimal sex...like once a month. We know this is not enough for us. There would be maybe a three day stretch where we were great to each other, we'd end up having sex, then we'd start to get irritated again. When the irritation leads to anger, we don't talk for a long time, then we finally would confront the issue. We usually say a couple of things we regret, like picking on each other, but then we usually resolve our issues and things are fine again for a few days.

He doesn't want our daughter in daycare (over-protective), so he asked me to quit my job and stay home with the kids. After some time, I agreed. It's been almost 5 months now that I've been home, and it drives me nuts not going anywhere or doing anything. I mean, I bring the kids places, run the errands, etc., but my husband and I haven't spent ANY time together. So this is on my mind constantly, and we constantly fight about this. For instance, over 2 months ago for our anniversary, he took me out to dinner at a local place (within his safety bounds). He said he wanted to take me out for a weekend getaway, and that place is really nice. It didn't happen. He knew I was disappointed, so he managed to take me out to dinner instead. His mom took the kids overnight for us. Well, we don't drink, and we ended up having a few drinks that night. When we got home, it hit me like a ton of bricks, and I ended up going to sleep. My husband was soooooooo mad at me the next day, and for a week literally. He said that it was the perfect opportunity to have some hot and wild sex, with the kids being gone, and he thought that's why we had his mom watch the kids overnight. I blamed it on the booze, and apologized, but he was still fuming mad. He said that I knew what it took for him to go out. He also told me at dinner that he'd really like to go out and do that more often. Well a couple of months went by, and we still hadn't gone out again. About a month ago now or a little more, he took me out in the boat for an hour and a half. His parents said we can take the boat anytime we want, and we live right next to the lake. Well, again he said that he'd love to get into boating and fishing, and that we should do this alot more often. I've asked him for weekends in a row, to go out in the boat, and to take the kids sometime, too. He said he was under the gun to get work done. There seems to be an excuse all the time, but I know it's true. I've asked him to lessen his workload, or something like that so we could have a couple of hours a week for us. He said we couldn't afford to. I am so disappointed that he is working all the time. Most of the time I get to bed before he comes in from work. I do have kids to care for, and I'm on their schedule. Now that we haven't spent any quality time together (for a long time actually), I've given him the cold shoulder. We haven't had sex in a month or so now, and he's irate with me. I told him that I feel so distanced from him, why would I have sex with him? He told me lastnight that ever since I had our daughter, he's the one who's been making the advances to have sex. He forgets that I dressed up in sexy lingerie, and visited him in the garage....he was working late. Anyhow, I told him that we need to start spending time with each other, or our marriage, not just our sex life, would be damaged. I also told him that everytime he touches me, he wants sex. That's the only time he touches me. He agreed to that. He said that he wasn't doing that on purpose, and that he needed to work on that. I told him that it would be so nice if we could just go up to each other anytime, and be affectionate without sexual intentions.

In anger in our fight lastnight, I asked him what I was supposed to do. Even tho I'm miserable, am I just supposed to give hime sex to make him happy? He misunderstood me and thought that I said that it's what I've been doing in the past year. I told him no, of course not....our sex is great when we have it. I just explained again that if I were to have sex NOW, that I'd just be having sex to make him happy, since I'm not in the mood. He was upset at that one, and said he didn't want a "gift". He wants me to enjoy it too, and enjoy being with him. I said that I did too, but I'm so upset about this that I'm definetely not in the mood.

After some time of talking through this, he said that we're back to introductions he guesses. He said he doesn't know what else to do. He said that this was a bad flashback from his previous engagement (8 years ago). He said that in his last engagement, his fiance left him for the same reasons. He didn't go anywhere with her either, or pay attention to her at all. I told him that I feel like I'm at the bottom of his list, except when he wants sex. He said he understands that it looks like that, but doesn't mean for it to be like that. What am I supposed to do? How are we going to go back to introductions when we've been together for 5 years? We've lived together for just over a year as well....we waited until we were married to live together. BUt now that we live together, it seems like we're even further apart. Know what I mean? I'd like to get into sex with him again, but I don't know how to go about it now. REALLY! He told me lastnight that he'll call his mother to see if she can take the kids for a few hours this weekend, so we can do something together. We'll see if that happens or not. He's told me I don't know how many times before that we'll go out, we'll go out. But we haven't. The closer the day gets for us to go out, the sicker he gets. I don't know what to do. I guess we'll see what the weekend brings. I don't even care what we do, as long as we're together and enjoying each other. But it's hard to stay home since his business is right here. We're always interrupted by customers, no matter what time it is. IT's getting hard for me not to be bitter towards his business, too. I don't want to be mad at everything he does....sheesh. But there's no privacy. I can't stay in my pajamas for example, for one morning. I usually get dressed around 8 am, but maybe on a Sunday I would like to stay in my pj's a little longer....there's just no privacy. And with our kids here all the time, we really don't get privacy.

How do we get back on track? How can we get our sex life back? Is this all my fault for pressuring my husband to spend time with me or with me and the family? He says he wants to spend time with me, and that he doesn't like working all the time, but there's always an excuse, and it's usually work related. I've told him this. That's why he suggested us going back to intro's. Isn't that a little extreme or even impossible at this point? Suggestions? HELP?

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-11-2006
Thu, 07-12-2007 - 1:02pm
Has he been to the Dr? I don't see how he can move forward if he doesn't.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-01-2007
Thu, 07-12-2007 - 6:24pm
Yes he's gone to the doctor for anxiety. They put him on a number of different meds, and all of them had adverse effects. He had very bad side effects from them, so he won't take them anymore. He says he knows he's going to beat this on his own. But I've been with him for 5 years, and he had it years before I came along, too. It still isn't better, but there really has been improvements....even if they were small improvements. I do wish he'd give it another chance though. Maybe the doc can do something different for him, since it's been many years since he's gone to the doc about it. I don't think he's going to.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-11-2006
Thu, 07-12-2007 - 10:06pm

So it seems like you knew going into the relationship that he had this anxiety disorder. Unfortuntely you can't make him get help. So what are your options? Go out with your friends to get out of the house and not go crazy and resent him? Leave? I don't know.

Medical field has made great advances in anxiety medication in the last five years.Also, has he thought about meditation, hypnotherapy etc?

'He says he knows he's going to beat this on his own. '

How exactly??