Here is the original post, if anyone would like to see it: https://www.reddit.com/r/DeadBedrooms/comments/zwhy3t/my_26m_wife_27f_only_views_sex_as_a_way_to_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Alright everyone, here goes. I'll try to get everything here in this update...

She came home. We ate dinner. She asked what was wrong, and I talked for a while. I talked about how she was so much more sexual before our marriage. About how I want us to enjoy our sex lives together and not stress about ONLY having kids. About how I want to explore her body, make her feel good, and feel good in return. About how I want to do these things with you because I love you.

She broke down. Her friend is pregnant and apparently everyone in her life has been asking her "when is the baby? Why aren't you pregnant yet?" And so on. All her religious cousins, aunts, and others asking about it. She feels immense guilt and pressure to have a kid already. She feels "behind" in life.

She was raised Catholic, where anything sexual was frowned upon. She hated how everyone turned from "never have sex" to "you need a baby NOW".

When we met, she told me that we would wait. That was fine with me. We would sext and talk dirty and she was very sexual, then we moved in together and it died down. "Just how relationships progress" she said.

I asked her why we shouldn't be able to explore or be adventurous with sex now. Apparently she hates her body and has a negative self image and imagining herself sucking my dick, getting eaten out, or even in doggy is shameful and awful to her. She also thinks "blowjob" means aggressively deepthroating, which is definitely not what I want.

She was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis at a very young age and it hurts her to even get in different positions for sex, hence only missionary. I can barely fit halfway inside her before she winces in pain, even after foreplay and lube, but she bares it because she wants the kid. She thinks her pleasure isn't important.

She was never abused, not a lesbian, anything like that. She said, in tears, that she does want to have sex and wants to have a normal sex life, but she is not comfortable trying these things or being open in that way. I feel bad, but I told her "I need you to be, for our relationship's sake" and she nodded.

She agreed to see a therapist to help her work on her outlook of sex and is looking at options that could help her arthritis.

She still hasn't said that she would be open to these new things, but I think that I dumped enough on her to contemplate for now. I don't want to be too pushy.

So yeah...good talk I think? Right now yes, it's all talk, but we'll see how it goes. I'm hopeful.