Dear Casey44:

You are a married woman and mother of three. Within the last month and a half, you’ve been very tired from the following: having had shingles (a month ago), losing a family member you cared about (2 weeks ago), worrying about the family’s financial struggles, looking after your three kids, and studying while the kids are in school.

“My husband works from home and he will text me for sex when he has a spare 20mins between meetings. Normally I’ll agree but he’s been messaging me when I’m studying downstairs and I have to get my studying done before the kids get home from school“-

get your marriage on. com/ male entitlement and how to combat it: “For centuries, Western culture portrayed wives (and women in general) more as objects than people. The ideal wife seemed to be one who had no needs of her own but existed to fulfill the needs of her husband and children. As time passed, this idea faded somewhat into the background. However, the ideal housewife is still expected (often subconsciously) to take on all the household duties, be the primary carer of her children, and please her husband. Even as more and more women join the workforce, the expectations have not changed much….

“ADVICE FOR WOMEN: … Get comfortable with the idea that you are a living person. You are more than the role of wife or role of mother. You have agency and autonomy over your body. No matter what the culture around you says, you are entitled to your body and your time. You get to choose how you use both, in every circumstance…. If you find yourself believing the message that you owe your husband sex, that guilt will have the opposite of the hopeful affect. Guilt triggers our anxieties and stressors that will inhibit our natural arousal… Male entitlement is a cultural phenomenon that can affect our marriages, whether overtly or in subconscious messages”.

Unfortunately for you, Casey44, in your case, your husband’s Male Entitlement Attitude (I’ll use the acronym MEA, which is quite fitting) is overt:  two weeks ago, the night before the funeral of a family member you cared about, while you were very tired, “he was huffing, puffing kicking around…  started calling me names…  He said he helps me around the house more than ever, so I should repay him by having sex more“-

– marriage. com/ domestic violence and abuse/ what is sexual coercion: “Sexual coercion is defined as an unwanted sexual activity that happens when an individual is threatened, compelled, or tricked using non-physical means. The idea behind sexual coercion is to make the victim think that they owe the perpetrator sex… There is also sexual coercion in a marriage where one partner repeatedly forces the other person to have sex when they are not in the mood, using tactics like guilt-tripping, etc… For people who are married or in a relationship, some of them feel that sex is their absolute right and they can have it when they want.”

truth out. org/ it’s time to confront sexual harassment within marriage: “Over a third of married women report being coerced into sex by a current or previous partner, by way of exploiting a woman’s sense of duty, expecting sex after spending money, or bullying and humiliating women into unwanted sex… It can also include sleep deprivation, threats to children and/or the withdrawal of financial support. Intimate sexual harassment is uniquely severe; women are much more likely to be sexually assaulted by a partner than by someone harassing them on the street, or at their workplace… Sexual coercion by partners has enormous health effects. Women who have been raped by their partners are extremely isolated. Who can they talk to and get support from? They live with their rapist and there is little cultural recognition of the problem.”

You ended your original post, Casey44, this way: “ I don’t know what advice I’m looking for. I just wanted to tell someone because it’s not the type of thing I want to tell a friend or family member and it’s therapeutic just getting it off my chest.“-

-You told someone and I am glad it was therapeutic for you, to just get it off your chest. You are welcome to get it off your chest here, on your thread, anytime you need to do so. If your husband was a decent man, you would be able to communicate with him about the widespread cultural phenomenon of MEA and how it affects the two of you, leading him to understand that texting you for sex in between his meetings reeks of MEA and is not okay!

But your husband is not a decent man: he apologized to you for his misbehavior (a misbehavior that fits the terms sexual coercion in a marriage, and intimate sexual harassment, if not rape) the night before the funeral, but then he “started justifying his behaviour while apologising“, and “He seems to do this kind of thing a lot…  as soon as something doesn’t go his way it’s like a flick of a switch with no warning, he’ll insult me and go for the jugular. I don’t like that“- no one likes that!

“He can’t relate to what other people are feeling and it’s like speaking to a brick wall“- if he has no empathy for other people… for you, for his kids… what are you to do, Casey44?

anita