Passionate Living Coach Abiola Abrams gives love, dating and self-esteem advice on the CW’s Bill Cunningham Show and all over the web through her hit web series AbiolaTV. Now she wants to help you keep things spicy and fresh between the sheets. Are you in need of an intimacy intervention? Just ask Abiola!
Dear Abiola,
Do my “duties” as a wife include sex?
I knew my husband for three years before we got married. I’m 26 and he’s 42. I am not proud to admit that I met him when he was married to someone else. What started as a crazy down low office affair turned into a relationship. We used to meet up whenever, wherever and just have sex but somewhere along the way we fell in love. When he confessed that his wife no longer loved him, I remember thinking, how could any woman not love this fun, caring, sweet man!
He left his first wife, and immediately married me when the divorce was final. So yes, married men do leave the wife for the mistress! Boom. Now I got my man but the best years of my life are no longer fun and sexy like it used to be. I went from happy to miserable in a few months.
I didn’t expect him to bring his kids and turn me into insta-mommy but for the majority of the week his three kids are with us. They only spend weekends with their mother who I think makes them act up towards me — crying, screaming, and carrying on. I have been feeling really exhausted dealing with three bratty kids under the age of 10, work, bills, death of a parental figure, and just life so we haven’t really been having sex.
My man doesn’t seem into me sexually like he was before and now he’s blaming me. He’s saying I need to turn him on more and get him into it. He wants lingerie and a damn performance every night. Yes, I used to do the lingerie thing before when we were meeting up in classy hotel rooms but now I don’t have the energy for it. He says I need to at the very least wake him up every day with oral sex because sex is part of my wifely duties no matter how tired I am although he no longer wants to have oral sex with me! He also says that whether I want it or not he should be able to have sex with me whenever.
We had no talk about wife duties or anything crazy like this for the past three years. Even though it started as a kind of affair (don’t judge me) I felt like I knew this man completely. I don’t know where all of this is coming from. Now I have to raise his kids by someone else, give him oral sex every day and be ready to have sex at a moment’s notice?
I really feel like I am in an alternate universe and don’t have anybody to talk to about it. Alot of people in both our lives turned their back once the whole relationship came to light. His family sided with the wife and my family is just acting funny. But we are official now so nobody can challenge that.
Am I supposed to be sucking it up and just going for the ride (puns intended) no matter how exhausted I am? I feel like I can’t function and the situation seems irreversible. Does being a wife mean this?
Signed,
Not What I Signed Up For
My Darling NWISUF,
Your question about sex, expectations, and marital duties is a common one. The duties of spouses are to love, support, cherish, and respect each other. And yes, making each other feel hot and happy does generally include sexual obligations. However, there is no one-sized-fits-all approach to sexual duties in marriage. The rules of marital engagement are whatever two consenting adults mutually agree to. These are things that need to be worked out before entering matrimony so that you’re on the same page whether you have known each other 6 months or 6 years.
You say this is not what you signed up for. Well, it’s hard to know what you signed up for when your connection came from a faux relationship built on lies, sneaking around, and cheating. Although you knew your man for 3 years before you got married, you didn’t know him at all. You knew “Work Dave” — or whatever his name is — and then “Fun Dave.” “Cheating Dave” was dashing, exciting, and a part-time lover. What you are getting now is “Real Dave.”
The person you meet in an affair is not who they really are. The person you were dealing with was a projected fantasy — and that applies to his vision of you as well. Welcome to reality. You report his kids as bratty but please understand that they are going through a devastating life trauma that they may not have the words to express. Life as they know it has been forever altered. You can’t plug in a new mommy and expect kids not to react. Treat them with the same compassion you seek.
Nonetheless, no matter how your relationship began you don’t deserve to be mistreated by anyone, ever. You are worthy, blessed, and beautiful. You deserve to be loved, honored, and cherished. From your side of the story, your husband sounds outrageously controlling, extremely selfish, and ridiculously inflexible. You are 100% right – no one signs up for that. The two of you need couples therapy and you should invest in support for yourself as you sound very isolated. As a family unit with the children, you could also all benefit from family counseling.
You are young with your whole lovely life ahead of you. No situation is irreversible. I am holding a vision for you, my goddess sister, of joy, passion, and divine perfect love.
Passionately yours,
Abiola
Abiola Abrams is the founder of The Bombshell Academy blog, online school and web series over at AbiolaTV. Follow her on Twitter to continue the discussion about this week’s hot topic, and then email her your burning questions now. Anything you send will be posted anonymously, promise.