Is it sexual coercion or am I not seeing things clearly due to my circumstances? 38F & 33M
I’ve been with my (38F) partner (M33) five years. We are best friends and able to be our complete true weird selves together. When it’s good it’s amazing, but lately the odd fights are happening more and after this morning, for the first time, I didn’t cry but I wondered if it makes me a bad mum to stay after this one example.
For context, I have had so many huge / difficult life events in a short period (including my mother’s suicide). Unless I’m with my daughter I’m generally more reserved or wanting quiet time. We pretty equally contribute at home and financially. He has been giving me a lot of emotional support generally in the form of cuddles or taking me out somewhere so that my routine isn’t 100% mum or work with nothing else.
He has a much higher sex drive than me, and especially since losing my mum I’ve really not been in the mood. When I say no to sex his entire demeanour changes and he’s standoffish, sulky, and doesn’t want to spend time with me in other ways. We still have sex once per week and most of the time I’m doing it just to make him happy.
He has a pain condition and he says he’s not treating me differently when I say no to sex, but that sex just makes him feel better so that makes him more loving towards me. Two weeks ago I was so sad but was afraid that if I said no he wouldn’t be supportive towards me, so went through with it but I literally just laid there the entire time. He didn’t seem to notice that.
This morning when I told him I didn’t like how pushy he was after I said no the night before (even though we had sex twice in the prior four days) it turned into a fight. He asked me what my reason was for saying no, and I responded that I don’t need one and I have a right to say no. Nonetheless it should have been clear that I worked all day, cooked dinner for the family and did bath time routine.
He then carried on about how he never says no to me (which is half true) and he will just start saying no from now on then literally for what felt like minutes just kept saying “no no no no” in all these different voices and tones. When he walks away from me when I’m mid sentence and I say he’s showing a lack of respect he says it doesn’t matter what he says and I’ll always be unhappy with whatever his response is (generally because I feel the response does not take accountability and shifts blame elsewhere).
If I take away this issue, the relationship is more than I could have asked for. But if my daughter told me she had this issue I wouldn’t want her with that person because I see it as a lack of care and respect for someone else’s position.
I want my relationship to work, he’s my person. I cannot bare the idea of only seeing my child 50% of the time. But this issue feels too big to ignore and I don’t know how to tackle it if he won’t join me in therapy.
Does anyone have some (hopefully kindly worded) advice on ways to manage this?