My fiancé and I have been together for about 4 years now. I'm currently pregnant with our first child and am due next month. He has 2 other children from a previous marriage. From an outside perspective, our relationship is great. We don't argue, we're best friends, we do everything together. We connect really well on pretty much everything besides intimacy.
He has a VERY high libido. I used to as well, and things were great for a while. 2 years ago my body completely shut down. Out of the blue, no idea what happened. I can no longer get aroused. I dont crave or enjoy sex. Most times it just ends up being awkward and painful. This has lead to pretty much a dead bedroom. We do still have sex, but maybe once a week or once every two weeks and its only ever to fill his need and appease him. As much as I truly miss that aspect of my life and being able to emotionally and physically connect with him in that way, my body just refuses to respond to ANYTHING. And yes, we've tried getting creative and spicing things up. And the duty sex im afraid only makes matters worse in the long run. This is extremely distressing for me as it is because I can't figure out what's wrong with me and frankly feel pretty broken.
We love each other very much, and we would be married by now if not for this one issue. Sex is incredibly important to him and he describes it as something he needs to be happy, and needs it way more often than I can physically give it. But if I can't satisfy his need, we've discussed that this relationship probably can't last and are considering going our separate ways, which both of us are VERY strongly against.
So while we were discussing the issue last night, he offers his version of a "compromise." Basically to open the relationship and let him get his needs filled by other women. Now, in the very beginning of our relationship he cheated on me A LOT and it absolutely destroyed my self esteem and mental health. It took me a long time to be okay after that, with myself and our relationship. We've come a very long way since then, but I just don't think that's something that I could ever accept, or be happy living that way. I can't stand the idea of him connecting with someone else on that level again, it makes me physically sick. And on top of that I already feel inadequate enough and have a hard time accepting myself because of my issue. I feel opening the relationship would only make it worse and eventually I'd leave him anyway because I can't handle it. It would absolutely kill my mental health, and even if I could, I don't want to model that behavior for my son growing up. I don't want him thinking its okay to basically screw around on your wife. My fiance says I wouldn't even be aware of it and he'd never bring his "outside business" home, that our family would always come first. But how could I possibly just be blissfully unaware??? I just feel like that's not possible. It'll always come back to me, either because some woman gets a kick out of sleeping with another woman's man and would cause problems or just because people generally gossip and I'd hear about it anyway, even innocently. It would always be in the back of my head regardless.
At this point I just don't know what to do or suggest. At the moment it feels like the options are either go our separate ways and accept we're not compatible which would break up our family and everything we've built together over just one stupid issue, or I give in and i'm a miserable anxious stress ball for the rest of my life dealing with his damn sick chicks. If anyone has any insight, suggestions, personal experience, or just encouragement I'd pretty much appreciate any thoughts you guys have.
After reading some of your comments, let me just say some of YOU are straight up cruel. Even if you think the whole situation is stupid, im going through some of the most absolutely gut wrenching years of my life so straight up putting me down is pretty fucking horrible and insensitive.
Also, I have been treated for any STDs I did have years ago, haven't had any since and get checked regularly. I didnt just "decide" to have a baby with this man. I took my hormonal IUD out hoping that would solve my problem. It didnt, and a month later I got pregnant. Shit happens. Not intentional, but I personally dont believe in killing innocent babies just because its inconvenient to me. I know, im awful 🙄 haven't had issues or conversation at all about him cheating on me in years. We've been good, and if it was happening again I'd know after the last time made me incredibly hyper vigilant about everything. Thats not to defend his actions, just to say our relationship had changed for the better. Didn't even know our lack of sex was such a huge issue for him until bringing it up the first time a few weeks ago and then his stupid ultimatum last night. This completely blindsided me. As for my lack of drive, yeah I also assumed for a while that it was because of his repeated cheating. But after healing and feeling better about our relationship for years until very recently and absolutely nothing has changed or improved with my issue physically? Thats why im still confused as to what the actual fuck is up with my sexual health. Hope that clarifies. And Jesus, have some damn compassion.