u/Ok-Heart3849

TW: SA

TLDR; my husband has been sexually coercive over the years and still isn’t giving me time to regain trust.

So my husband 32M and I 29F have been together 10 years now (married almost 7). We have two young kids together. Over the years of being together we have never been on the same page about sex. There were many, many instances of him giving me the silent treatment and staying upset for days, along with making me feel like something is wrong with me whenever I said “no” to sex. Most times I would convince myself to just do it so the household mood wasn’t strung with his negativity. Anyways, I started therapy 1.5 year ago because I firmly believed something was wrong with me… which soon figured out wasn’t true. Through therapy I’ve found my voice, set boundaries, and have been getting better at showing emotions. It’s taking a lot for me (because of my childhood), but I’m getting there. We also are doing couples counseling. There are other issues being discussed besides sex (he has adhd which has been contributing to some engagement/connection issues between us and even his children, he claims he’s working on).

So things have been super on and off with us. It’s a horrible cycle. I’ve owned up to my part of struggling to give him encouragement and recognization for the good that he’s doing in this process, which is something I’ve been working hard on.

Well fast forward to about 2 months ago, he touched me inappropriately in my sleep. We confronted this and he claims he “didn’t know I wouldn’t like it” when I know that he would know, as for the past year and a half I’ve asked him to please not touch me like that (even when I’m awake). He also was completely surprised and angry when our therapist told him it’s SA, and that he would “never do anything like that to me”.

Well now it’s been a couple months since that instant and he’s back saying that he’s feeling so disconnected from me physically and it’s so “emotionally overwhelming” and basically making me feel like there is no possible way to heal when he gets to this point every 1-2 months. He also said that when my therapist, his therapist, and our couples therapist held a meeting that they are “validated his sexual frustration” with me. My therapist said they never used the words sexual frustration in the meeting at all. They validated his feelings, yes, but not his sexual frustration towards me. My husband used that against me the other day basically saying “all our therapists say it’s valid that I’m sexually frustrated with you”. Anyways last night he totally freaked out to the point of sleeping on the couch. He just constantly says I don’t think physical intimacy is as important as he thinks it is, and that he’s committed and changed and working on things but I still don’t show affection towards him.

We have a couples session tonight but like someone please tell me what is going on here. I feel like I can’t wrap my head around anything and that I am the major problem in all of this. What do I even do at this point?

TW: SA

TLDR; my husband has a porn addiction, has been sexually coercive over the years and still isn’t giving me time to regain trust.

So my husband 32M and I 29F have been together 10 years now (married almost 7). We have two young kids together. He has/had a porn addiction when we met. He stopped porn/masturbation until just over a year ago when he starting masturbating again and using soft porn (which he claims he now stopped) after I set boundaries with sex.

Over the years of being together we have never been on the same page about sex. There were many, many instances of him giving me the silent treatment and staying upset for days, along with making me feel like something is wrong with me whenever I said “no” to sex. Most times I would convince myself to just do it so the household mood wasn’t strung with his negativity. Anyways, I started therapy 1.5 year ago because I firmly believed something was wrong with me… which soon figured out wasn’t true. Through therapy I’ve found my voice, set boundaries, and have been getting better at showing emotions. It’s taking a lot for me (because of my childhood), but I’m getting there. We also are doing couples counseling. There are other issues being discussed besides sex (he has adhd which has been contributing to some engagement/connection issues between us and even his children, he claims he’s working on).

So things have been super on and off with us. It’s a horrible cycle. I’ve owned up to my part of struggling to give him encouragement and recognization for the good that he’s doing in this process, which is something I’ve been working hard on.

Well fast forward to about 2 months ago, he touched me inappropriately in my sleep. We confronted this and he claims he “didn’t know I wouldn’t like it” when I know that he would know, as for the past year and a half I’ve asked him to please not touch me like that (even when I’m awake). He also was completely surprised and angry when our therapist told him it’s SA, and that he would “never do anything like that to me”.

Well now it’s been a couple months since that instant and he’s back saying that he’s feeling so disconnected from me physically and it’s so “emotionally overwhelming” and basically making me feel like there is no possible way to heal when he gets to this point every 1-2 months. He also said that when my therapist, his therapist, and our couples therapist held a meeting that they are “validated his sexual frustration” with me. My therapist said they never used the words sexual frustration in the meeting at all. They validated his feelings, yes, but not his sexual frustration towards me. My husband used that against me the other day basically saying “all our therapists say it’s valid that I’m sexually frustrated with you”. Anyways last night he totally freaked out to the point of sleeping on the couch. He just constantly says I don’t think physical intimacy is as important as he thinks it is, and that he’s committed and changed and working on things but I still don’t show affection towards him.

We have a couples session tonight but like someone please tell me what is going on here. I feel like I can’t wrap my head around anything and that I am the major problem in all of this. What do I even do at this point?

TW: SA

So my husband (32M) and I (29F) have been together 10 years now (married almost 7). We have two young kids together. Over the years of being together we have never been on the same page about sex. There were many, many instances of him giving me the silent treatment and staying upset for days, along with making me feel like something is wrong with me whenever I said “no” to sex. Most times I would convince myself to just do it so the household mood wasn’t strung with his negativity. Anyways, I started therapy 1.5 year ago because I firmly believed something was wrong with me… which soon figured out wasn’t true. Through therapy I’ve found my voice, set boundaries, and have been getting better at showing emotions. It’s taking a lot for me (because of my childhood), but I’m getting there. We also are doing couples counseling. There are other issues being discussed besides sex (he has adhd which has been contributing to some engagement/connection issues between us and even his children, he claims he’s working on).

So things have been super on and off with us. It’s a horrible cycle. I’ve owned up to my part of struggling to give him encouragement and recognization for the good that he’s doing in this process, which is something I’ve been working hard on.

Well fast forward to about 2 months ago, he touched me inappropriately in my sleep. We confronted this and he claims he “didn’t know I wouldn’t like it” when I know that he would know, as for the past year and a half I’ve asked him to please not touch me like that (even when I’m awake). He also was completely surprised and angry when our therapist told him it’s SA, and that he would “never do anything like that to me”.

Well now it’s been a couple months since that instant and he’s back saying that he’s feeling so disconnected from me physically and it’s so “emotionally overwhelming” and basically making me feel like there is no possible way to heal when he gets to this point every 1-2 months. He also said that when my therapist, his therapist, and our couples therapist held a meeting that they are “validated his sexual frustration” with me. My therapist said they never used the words sexual frustration in the meeting at all. They validated his feelings, yes, but not his sexual frustration towards me. My husband used that against me the other day basically saying “all our therapists say it’s valid that I’m sexually frustrated with you”. Anyways last night he totally freaked out to the point of sleeping on the couch. He just constantly says I don’t think physical intimacy is as important as he thinks it is, and that he’s committed and changed and working on things but I still don’t show affection towards him.

We have a couples session tonight but like someone please tell me what is going on here. I feel like I can’t wrap my head around anything and that I am the major problem in all of this.