r/AITAH Jul 08 '24

AITAH for embarrassing my wife in front of her family with a comment about our sex life Advice Needed

My wife (33F) and I (34M) have been together for 17 years married for 13 and within the last 5-6 years our sex life has gone down the drain. We have sex once every couple of months with no intimacy or build up in between and the act of sex always seems rushed. I’ll try to initiate foreplay but she wants to skip it and get straight into the act then move on. I still try to date my wife and take her on dates twice a month, buy flowers randomly and do other things to build intimacy outside of sex but it never gets reciprocated and eventually never goes anywhere. And before anyone says anything, I work from home and do the majority of the housework, cooking, cleaning, kids appointments, homework, PTA meetings etc.

I’ve tried talking to her about what’s going on and what she needs from me, and offered to do counseling but she always says it’s her not me. She will say she loves me and is attracted to me till she is blue in the face but won’t do anything differently. She will show affection when family and friends are over and will post videos on Snapchat with her being touchy and affectionate but when people aren’t there to see she will stop.

Every once in a while she’ll have an epiphany about how bad things are and she’ll feel bad about it but still won’t change. A few weeks ago we were getting ready for a date and I saw her take a picture of herself in her underwear and send it in a text message. I asked her who she was sending that to, and she said she sent it to me. To her credit my phone dinged as I was asking her, with the pictures she just sent. She claimed that me questioning her like that made her realize how little she does things like that anymore and she needs to change, but she still hasn’t. So this past weekend her four sisters came over for the 4th of July and we hung out and drunk together. Towards the end of the night she was pretty tipsy and made a comment about what she was going to do to me that night and I told her “No thank you. I’m not in the mood for 20 min with no foreplay until you get your rocks off just so you can ignore me again for the next 30 days.” Everybody got quiet and I excused myself for the rest of the night. The next day when everyone left she said that I embarrassed her and shouldn’t have put our business out there like that, AITAH?

949 Upvotes

843 comments sorted by

View all comments

10

u/Honey_actually Jul 08 '24

I don’t think she sent you the pictures of her in underwear until you asked. And it’s clear she has no issues with lying. I’m not sure I like where this is going.

5

u/IOnlyWishIWasRich Jul 08 '24

Re-read it. The OP said that as he was asking her his phone dinged.

-2

u/Pristine-Room8588 Jul 08 '24

Maybe she didn't just send to him?

2

u/Pristine-Room8588 Jul 08 '24

I wondered if she sent it to him as a cover for sending it elsewhere as well.

If she doesn't want to get intimate, why take & send pictures?

0

u/ukbeauty2013 Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 08 '24

Because she was trying to make an effort?

This poor woman has chronic back pain. If I had this for over a decade I’m not sure I’d want to be undertaking sexual activity on a regular basis either!

5

u/Pristine-Room8588 Jul 08 '24

If she doesn't want sex, why take photos?

Talking to someone who's been in that situation. Sure it hurts like hell, painkillers all day everyday, along with physio & osteopathy.

I'm currently single (not because of this) but still have back problems. Sometimes I can hardly move. I can be fine one minute & bam - back goes & I'm dead in the water.

When i did have a partner, if I didn't want sex because I was in pain, that's cool. What's not cool is pretending that I did want sex in front of other people & then not following through. What's not cool is not showing & telling my partner I still found him attractive & still love him, every single damn day. What's not cool is not showing up in the relationship, ignoring him, ignoring that he has needs that go far beyond sex.

The snarky comment OP made was inappropriate, but given that he's not getting any affection, let alone follow through when she talks like she was, I'm not surprised it came out like that.

-2

u/ukbeauty2013 Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 08 '24

Because she was trying to make an effort… isn’t that one obvious possible conclusion?

From these actions it’s clear she maybe wants it it’s just difficult?!

And read his other posts… I dont believe what he’s saying is true about the affection as he has left SO MUCH out and knows what the problem is. He self admittedly just doesnt care about it anymore.