I was engaged after a 4 year relationship.  I was practically ready to attack strange men on the street but was totally turned off by my fiancé. That’s when I knew I had to call it all off - 6 weeks before the wedding. One of the best decisions I ever made. 

Yeah, this is not a good sign.  Marriage counseling is in order.

It is kind of hard to be turned on when there is constant tension and all of his attention is focused toward everyone else.  Suddenly the skids are not around, BM is not giving him a hard time, he notices that you are breathing, and he wants to get it on?  Yeah - right.  Maybe if it was accompanied by a hearfelt "I thought they would never leave - I have been dying to have you!" that would be different.  But just merely being willing to acknowledge your presence and reach out for a grope.  Please.  Our sexlife used to be the stuff people dream of when the skids were only eowe.  But when there started a revolving door of one or the other moving in full time things came to a screeching halt and simply never recovered.  I love him and don't want to separate.  I have been very clear that I am not happy with the decrease in quantity and quality.  He has agreed and promised that things would improve but they have not for the past 3 years.  I reminded him recently that this is very unfair to me, that he complained bitterly about how BM neglected him in favor of the kids and what the result of that was.  And they were HIS children!  Does he truly expect that I would be any different than he was?  Sex and love can be two completely different things for women as well as men. He claimes that he understands and, while he is not happy to hear it, really can't fault my logic.  We shall see.....

I totally get this. We've been married for 3 years, and we are still friends, but that's been it for a while. There's been an INSANE amount of trauma with his two BM's and skids and while I get why he might be shut down, I've been left holding the bag. He says he doesn't want to really be intimately connected (physically and otherwise) if he's not 100% certain that I'm never leaving, but I feel that's crazy! I've been "ride-or-die" in literal life-and-death situations, and now that I'm checked out... NOW he's choosing to see me. The crazy thing, though, is that he says he'll only stay with me if I WANT a relationship with SD16 (lives with us full time and is with her crazy BM on some/most weekends). She's done nothing but be manipulative, lie, and is in an extreme co-depenent/narcissism loop with her mother... TOXIC TOXIC TOXIC. 

I've been trying EVERYTHING under the sun to keep our intimate life alive for the last 3 years (we've only been married 3years!), but I think I'm checked out. He seems willing to "work on it" now, but honestly, I truly just want the fuck away from the toxicity. My self preservation is finally kicking in, and I think I'm checked out.

Am I nuts?

Do you even want to be in this relationship any more? 

It sounds like he only wants you around when he can physically use you then go right back to disregarding your presence.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that those we love most, while understanding, also have a limit to the amount of neglect they can take before they're at the point of no return.

Frankly if he is not making you a priority then you're not very important to him.

Would he be open to counseling or just sitting down with you and having an intimate conversation about your feelings?

If not then maybe you should call it quits. Why waste time on about man that clearly can't spare even a minute for you.

It's hard to respect someone that you feel doesn't value your or take into consideration your needs and wants. I mean, when the neglect starts, the feelings of love start to dissipate.

There is always hope though if both of you want to make it work.

If he can't take responsibility for the change he seeks in his relationship with you, it is not worth it.

He should try to understand that 3 years of misery is a chunk of your life you will never have back!

I feel bad you've had to put up with so much. That's absolutely ridiculous. Most people would have been out the door after a few months, but you must really love the guy.

I mean I'm sure he's suffering daily, but so are YOU. And these aren't even your kids. You didn't invite this level of responsibility in your life when you married him. You shouldn't have to do everything for yourself by yourself.

He's waiting for graduation? That's not an excuse to be a shifty husband. The fact is that if he wants your relationship to work he should have been putting in the effort from the get go, regardleas of whether kids are in the house or not. That should have no bearing on his treatment of you. You are his WIFE. His LIFE PARTNER. You are not his doormat to be treaded on whenever he's having a bad day.

If he hasn't been loving you the way he should why hold out hope that he's going to change just because his daughter will be graduating? If anything that further secures the thought that as long as his kids are in the picture you are second place.

That is absolutely awful that so much mental illness exists in this family. It's flat sad.

You are entitled to your happiness, don't forget that. The only person that can make you happy is you. Same goes for your DH. You can't MAKE him happy. He has to do it for himself.

It sounds like the only way to make this work is with serious communication, alot of concerted change, and growth in the intimacy department 

You are young and capable. If he doesn't follow his words with action-get the hell out of there while you've still got your youth so 20 years from now you're not looking back thinking how much more fulfilled and happy you could have been with a man that treasures you and loves you deeply enough to make you #1 in his life.

For most people sexual activity and attraction can be a cyclical thing. My wife and I have experienced what you are experiencing within the context of our marriage.  It is rare but it does happen.  When it does, we have found that just getting it on the table for discussion gets things moving in the right direction.

Have you put in out there and told him?

If not, give it a try. It will either start the fix or initiate the end.  Either is better than the current status quo IMHO.

Regarding his adult/teen sk but we still make time for us. We have weekend getaways, dates on weekends and holidays overseas, sk are not invited ever when they intentionally exclude all of us, even their dad and our 2 kids (their half siblings). Sk being present just bring a bad awkward uncomfortable negative vibe and you just don’t want to be around them and they come with that attitude and try to play happy family with their dad which is even more awkward 

my husband has come to realisation that him going out of his way for he 3 sk when they behave this way was pushing me and our toddlers away from him and leading to reality of divorce. I actually had to tell my husband i can’t be around your kids or have mine be in vicinity of them and their bad influence, i’d rather divorce you and be a single struggling mum with 2 kids. That was the wake up call

relationship & marriage always comes first as without this, kids never learn how to behave in relationships and how to treat others properly. My sk may never learn but at least we set an example for them.

for us sk treat us as the rich ones to treat them but they do not contact their dad. So i asked hubby why waste valuable time driving several hours away for sk who don’t care about you. Then reality hit hubby when he got old, these sk would never be capable of caring for hubby, but they’d be the ones waiting for an inheritance cheque. 

Talk to your hubby about how you are feeling neglected, tosed to the side and use the examples “when sk are here you ignore me completely and we have no me time which i feel shows i mean nothing to you in sk eyes”. Take it from there but try to not say negative things of the sk as that’ll just backfire. It takes time to get your spouse to open their eyes but if you just say 100% about sk hubby will go on the defensive 

Wow - I totally get it. Just recently, I was spending time with my husband and was undecided about what to do that Sunday afternoon. Well, he said he had already talked to his daughters and had invited them and his grand-daughter over. They had just been over last week and were in and out for 4 days! Well, thanks a lot for letting me know. I see where your priorities are. 

And, it does make me less attracted to him because I am considered second-rate. I feel your pain. 

(I could go on and on about how he pays more attention to his daughters than to me.)

There are so many hidden elephants in the room of Step-parenting, and I think this is one of them—how sexually attracted can you be to a man (or woman) who is always dinking around with someone else not connected to you?  And, by “dinking around,” I don’t mean anything sexual at all.  What I mean is a huge chuck of their time goes to their children, which it should, of course, but that chunk of time can also go to dealing with the ex- and other issues that may or may not be related to raising their children.  Meanwhile, you as a spouse or SO is supposed to stay out of it!?  Like. . . ahh, how does that work in a marriage or union?  You are married to your DH, have a home, shared expenses and so on, yet whenever SKs or BM call or come on in or over, you are supposed to fade-to-invisible?  Just crazy, in so many ways. 

Yep, fading-to-invisible will have a way of effecting your sex life, that’s for sure.  I just know that for years, like most, I sucked it up and took it, got treated like crap by many in DH’s family for it, was left dealing with the betrayal of all of that on my own, finally learned to say NO and mean NO, and learned to put a lot of it aside for DH to deal with.  But, recently my very ill parents had to move in with us, and now DH is acting all put out, despite I did get his permission first.  I told him to his face more than once that, “Hey, if I had to deal with his kids over 10+ years as youngns’ and now as adults, the least you could do it suck it up for my parents for a couple of years.”  But, of course, in his mind his kids were young and sweet and cute—nothing like the old farts my parents are.

I tell you. . . it is just too much sometimes.  Hard to feel romantic or sexy about someone who threw you under the bus more than once for his ol’ family, and now appears to be throwing you under the bus when you want a little give-back for all of the years you suck it up and took it.  Even though DH and I have been married for almost 20 years, I’m starting to see how easy he has really had it for most of our marriage.  He basically did whatever he thought worked, while I jumped around trying to appease everyone.  My DH and I are still friends, but I just have to hope the romantic part of our marriage comes back at some point.  Nothing can put a damper on love like a man who tends to lose his pair far too often.

Again, it is not a question of who comes first.  It is a question of treating spouses like spouses, children like children, exes like exes, and so on.  In the example above, for instance, when the DH invited his kids over without SM’s permission, he was basically treating the kids more like a spouse—yeah, whatever works for you, honeys, come on over—and SM like a child—yeah, I don’t need permission from you to have anyone over in MY house.  It should not work that way in any marriage or union.