- using sex as a punishment or reward
- using sex as a weapon
- viewing sex as an obligation
Sex as a weapon: I heard a saying once: women use sex to get love; and men use love to get sex. Unfortunately, that may be true of your situation, but it doesn't have to be.
There's nothing wrong with your husband's sex drive. We have a lot of factors that affect our sex drive (child-bearing, hormonal changes, and stress to name a few), but just because our desire diminishes at times (or even completely disappears), doesn't make it OK to act like something's wrong with your man's healthy, normal and robust desire. That's how he's wired. His desire for you isn't bad or dirty, or anything to be ashamed of. Be careful that you don't twist his healthy desire around so you can feel better about yourself. If you don't have a desire for sex, figure out why. If it's because of something physical, see your doctor. If it's because of something emotional, figure out how to work on it. Sometimes men are selfish lovers, but if you emasculate him, you won't be making the situation better; you'll be making it worse and taking it backward rather than forward. When it seemed like my husband wanted sex 24/7 (and I wanted it 7/24 - that's 7 seconds out of every 24 days LOL) it was easier to try to make his desire seem like a bad thing. If I could get him thinking something was wrong with him, I could take the focus off of me. But that didn't really fix anything; in fact, I felt worse because I knew the problem was mine and I threw it on him.
Put your weapon down and start talking. Learn how to fight fair. Figure out what your root issue is, and work on it together. You might need a therapist to help you navigate your way through this; if so, I hope you'll get one. Your marriage is worth the work.
New household policy: no WMDs in the bedroom. :)
