I need a male perspective on this.
My husband and I have a healthy sex life, but lately, I’ve been working a lot of grueling night shifts as a pediatric nurse. We’ve committed to helping his sister with her treatment costs, so I’ve been taking on more shifts to contribute.
On Monday, I worked an 8-hour shift that ended at 6 AM. I got home around 6:30, and I’ll admit I wasn’t the quietest since I had to grab my pajamas from outside. I accidentally woke him up, apologized, and got into bed. He was a little annoyed but started initiating. I told him—gently—that I was exhausted, especially since I had just lost an inpatient. But he was clearly frustrated, and he had to be up for work in two hours, so I ended up going along with it.
We talked the next day, and he admitted he’s been feeling frustrated with how often I’ve been turning him down. We used to have sex daily or close to it, but now it’s around four times a week since my schedule changed. He told me that “marital duties” aren’t something you can just neglect based on how you feel in the moment and asked how I would react if he just stopped paying the mortgage because he was “too tired.” (For context, I cover about 45% of it, so it’s not like I’m not contributing financially.)
I get where he’s coming from—he has a high libido, and I know intimacy is important. But I didn’t think saying no when I’m sleep-deprived and emotionally drained was unreasonable. That being said, I’ve seen a lot of men on r/deadbedrooms frustrated with the “I’m tired” excuse, so I’m wondering—do most guys feel this way? Even if a change in circumstances is temporary, does a wife have an obligation to always meet her husband’s needs? What’s actually a “good” reason to say no?
Would really appreciate some honest opinions.
My male perspective, from that phrase alone, is that he’s an asshole.
And that just further supports my initial assessment.
It wasn’t.
And the fact that you said no should be sufficient all by itself, and not even just as a sign of respect. From a selfish position it should still be sufficient, since nobody with any measure of concern for their partner should be able to enjoy sex they know to be unwilling.
That I don’t know. I can say that not all do, but especially at this point in time, more than I’d think reasonably possible do.
That’s sort of immaterial though, since they’re wrong, and remain wrong no matter how many other assholes agree with them.
Categorically no.
Now that said, a wife should feel some desire to at least try to accommodate her husband, since that’s the nature of partnership, and depending on ones personality, one might treat that as an “obligation.” I’m not sure that that’s healthy, but i see no intrinsic problem with it. But an obligation in the externalized sense - something another might reasonably demand of you rather than something you might demand of yourself? Absolutely not, under any circumstances.
I want to say any reason, but I don’t think that’s quite true.
I’d say any reason that’s internally valid is okay, which is to say, because you’re tired/emotionally drained/physically ill/just not in the mood/etc - anything that’s an honest expression of your emotional/physical/psychological state and the simple degree of desire you feel.
The bad reasons to say no are things that are other-directed - things like the desire to belittle/punish/torment/manipulate/etc. ones partner.