Hi ladies,

Not sure if any of you experienced your husband's rejection during pregnancy but if any if you did, how did you let go of the hurt from said rejection?

My husband and I met 11 years ago. Our relationship was, in my eyes, hypersexual for the first years. His drive was consistently about 2x a day. I felt I worked hard to get myself in the mood to meet that level and was obviously flattered that he wanted me that much. It was a huge part of our dynamic. When I was 26 (he was 34) we got married. I got pregnant immediately. We discovered he is in the group of men who is very turned off by pregnancy. At 12 weeks pregnant it was becoming unavoidably obvious he did not want me sexually. At 16 weeks, we dropped to literally never. He was still looking at porn and masturbating daily (I say this to show his drive was intact) I was obviously devastated. I was expecting it at the end of term, but not so soon. It was my first and I only had a very tiny bump.

After the 6 week check up he was interested again. We've had 2 more kids since and every pregnancy went the same, except we stopped having sex earlier on with each one. We concieved our 3rd child after just several pretty tragic attempts at "fake it till you make it" sex. I know, I know. Big oops. We stopped once the test came back, this time with basically no discussion just a silent understanding that sex was off the table.

So here we are, trying to recover after a Our youngest is sleeping all night now, we have no chance of any more pregnancies, my husband basically wants me again. So all should be on the road to recovery.

Except I can't let it go. I really am trying. What's done is done, I know this. We have lots of sex now but we both want more out of it. He wants me to be more adventurous and I'm just stuck when I try.

Here's the thing. He views pregnancy about as attractive as aging. And now I'm 32. So even though he says he wants me, I just can't buy it enough to let my guard down. I already had self esteem issues and I just don't know how to get around this. When he's not home, I can have a grand-old sensual time. I truly enjoy sex. Even just to be by myself I will get "done up", in my lingere and full makeup etc. Just listening to music alone. When he is here, he can say one thing negative and I remember it allllllll and I just clutch up and feel so worthless and foolish. I think it could be like legit ptsd.

I'm all mixed up on my thoughts about how our marriage unfolded in regards to sex. But we've tried to talk about it and the only option from here is just to move on. So I'm trying to figure out how but I'm hanging on to all kinds of nasty feelings about it.

I have lots of other mom friends and I feel so embarrassed because no one else I know went through this. It's always the other way around with the man wanting it but the woman not.

And since I know it matters: I look about as good as I could for 32. For now at least, he raves about my looks, which is nice and does help but after 6 years of him not being attracted to me, never touching me, kissing me, nothing, it's still hard to accept it.
I'm same weight as at 21 and I take care of myself in all the ways. He's also attractive at 40. And tall and epically successful and intelligent.

So far I've been reading the books like Surrendered Wife, and For Women Only and trying to make changes in our lives that may hopefully overflow to the bedroom, as well as just increasing the self-care because I think the better and more feminine I feel the higher my confidence is.

So to shorten things up: anyone struggle feeling unattractive due to factors our of their control (pregnancy, hitting 30)? Any advice on getting out of my head to make the best of the situation? As I let him down in sex now it just snowballs and actually makes matters so much worse. As in, he gets frustrated, says something mean, I hold onto it and struggle to move on.

Also, I'll probably delete this because...um...it's incrediy embarrassing and stuff.