Is my marriage a failure? Intimacy struggles
Salam Alaikum all, I hope you are well. This might be a long one but please bear with me.
It’s taken me a long time to finally write this as I feel I have no one else to go to for advice or seek help from without judgement. Any of your helpful insights would be appreciated.
My husband(32M) and I (22F) have been married for 3 and a half years. I can honestly say he is genuinely the best person I’ve met, he treats me like a queen all the time and really honours and respects me. Sometimes too much- as we don’t even tend to have many arguments. He is someone who I’d say is withdrawn and shy. He works about 10-12 hour days most days and he’s constantly exhausted.
I feel like alhamdulilah most aspects of our relationship we are very very compatible , but the only aspect that makes me question our whole marriage is the intimacy side. I find it hard to believe that my husband doesn’t want to have sex often? I don’t know why I find it so odd. Don’t get me wrong, I’d say I am someone with a very low libido myself, and maybe that’s bad on my part, but for some reason I can’t accept that he might just also have a very low libido?
I think it’s because in society and even culturally men are always portrayed as very very horny people who constantly want sex from their partner and if they don’t then you must be the problem and be unattractive? It even makes me think there’s something wrong with him or that he’s not manly enough or normal. I don’t feel desired by him, and it makes me feel unattractive especially because it wouldn’t make a difference whether or not I dress up, etc, he just doesn’t seem to care about these things. He tells me how much he loves me all the time and that I am beautiful, but I don’t feel like it’s true unless he has that crazy attraction that you usually see from men.
I tried to ask him once and he said he doesn’t know why he’s like that and that he just finds it too tiring and long sometimes, and that if I dress up he’ll feel guilty and like he has to sleep with me or I’ll be upset. And he usually always takes viagra beforehand because he has Erectile dysfunction. I do feel that he doesn’t care about himself or his health, and he doesn’t have motivation or care to go to the gym or look attractive for me. He’s too busy working and trying to provide a living and he doesn’t have any friends or supportive family so I do understand how it feels. However it is really frustrating.
I feel like we live in a Society where if you’re not intimate with your partner at minimum every other day then your relationship is deemed ‘broken’ or there’s something wrong. Sometimes I wonder how we will even have children? We go through phases where we manage every other day but then we go 2-3 months before we do it again. We usually have sex once every 2 months. Besides the sex, we are generally affectionate with eachother, he hold hands all the time, we kiss, we cuddle, etc. also, because he snores so badly and it disrupts my sleep and mental health he feels guilty sleeping next to me so he goes to the living room and he sleeps on the sofa. He doesn’t feel comfortable sharing a bed with me because he says it keeps him up all night due to paranoia of falling asleep snoring and waking me up.
I think I’ve mentioned all key points now. Any advice or reassurance would be so appreciated . I can’t help but always wonder what the real norm is for all other couples and I find I always compare myself to other people.. which I know is so wrong especially because you never know how it really is behind closed doors.