After you get pregnant, things in the bedroom can really change — hello pregnancy hormones! But one couple is running into a unique problem now that the wife is expecting: She’s “different” down there (her husband’s words) and now her husband is refusing to give her oral sex. “I’m just sitting in the other room crying and trying to move past it,” she wrote in a since-deleted Reddit post.
It all started when the original poster’s husband told her “It’s different down there. You’re pregnant.”
The weird thing is that the OP has been pregnant before and “he has definitely given me oral before while I’ve been pregnant,” she wrote in her post. The OP explained that she doesn’t want to coerce her husband into doing the deed “but I am definitely hurt and feel undesirable by his rejection.”
Besides — "I enjoy giving and receiving oral," she explained.
Oral sex is very important to the OP, but she’s only really into it when both partners “want to do it.”
“So now I’m thinking that I’m guessing I’ll just hold off on asking until after I have this baby and after my body heals,” she wrote. “I guess I’m asking for input if anyone has experienced this or advice on how to just be happy and deal and respect my partner’s preferences without being selfishly hurt.”
Although she did wonder if she was just being sensitive due to pregnancy hormones.
The OP is due to give birth in about 11 weeks and so far her husband has given her no reason to believe he isn’t attracted to her.
“He says that he loves me and that I’m gorgeous and desires me but the closer I am to birth the more different my body is and that it’s not his preference to do it and it should be considered a valid reason,” she wrote. But the rejection clearly stung and the OP couldn’t stop crying about it.
“At least I have the clit sucker and porn to resort to,” she mused.
Many people urged the OP to talk it out with her husband.
"It’s a two way street honestly," one commenter sagely pointed out. "Yeah, if your husband is uncomfortable with the idea of oral with you while you’re pregnant, you have to respect it. Conversely, he has to understand that if he’s going to treat you differently because your now pregnant with child, you’re going to feel hurt, and undesirable. My advice would be that you both need to hear each other out."
"My husband cut off sex at about 6 months because he was uncomfortable," another person wrote. "It was SO FRUSTRATING for me but we talked it out and I respected his decision. It’s so challenging, people always joke about hormones but you cannot control them and when they’re flooding your body you get a bit crazy, that’s OK. Just communicate! Maybe grab some toys or find something that’s not quite the equivalent but will fill the void for now. Remember this isn’t forever, you will get your body back and things will get easier."
"Keep in mind, when you're pregnant, people don't see your body as just your body," someone else wrote. That's not only your vagina, that's his baby's exit strategy. It can feel a bit weird when you think about it. And more bad news, you'll have the baby, he'll be ready to throw down and you will likely be the one uninterested. It usually takes a minute after you have kids."
But pretty much everyone agreed that the OP shouldn't take things personally.
"I think you are allowed to ask him to expand on this but definitely not while you are trying to be intimate or while you are feeling rejected," one person commented. "It could be a case of you taste different and he isn't enjoying it or a case of he's worried you will go into labour in his mouth or that the baby will see or something really odd like that that might need some reassurance. Men do develop really odd fears that need reassurance. Remember to not take his answer personally and if he doesnt want to answer you then respect that."
"You're body odor and vaginal secretions can change down there during pregnancy," another commenter added. "My husband couldn't bring himself to do anything sexual after a month or so because we've misscaried a few times and my pregnancies were high risk. My OBGYN never took sex off the table but he was just way to paranoid about it. There's nothing you can do about it. You have respect his feelings and not take it personal."
"My husband did not feel comfortable performing oral or even having sex towards the end of my pregnancy," someone else chimed in. "It had nothing to do with attraction. He just couldn’t get past the mental wall of physically seeing there was a baby inside of me due to my large belly at the end. I totally understood and I didn’t really care. We were intimate in other ways with cuddling and massage. Did I miss sex, yes, but I knew it wasn’t personal so no harm no foul. Sex life was back to normal eight weeks post partum. It’s just a season and it’ll pass."
Later in the thread, the OP wrote that she could understand that "changes happening in body chemistry" could be changing how she tastes. "He hasn't mention anything like that in particular yet. I’ll try and clarify. But I’m thinking if it’s not him being kind, or not being bothered, than his feelings are perhaps more psychological as other people are suggesting in the thread."
"Considering him psychologically accepting the reality of baby coming and birth is important," she added.
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