My husband and I have been together for 14 years, married for 2. We have grown up together and have fallen in love with each new version of each other. We recently had our first baby (2 months old). This has obviously changed our relationship dynamic quite a bit, and we are navigating our new sex life postpartum.
Yesterday, we woke up, and my husband hinted that he would love to have sex, but if I wasn’t in the mood, he would love for me to go down on him. I was in the middle of breastfeeding our son when he had asked, and the thought of giving more really overwhelmed me. I told him that I didn’t want to, and I could sense his immediate mood change and disappointment. He told me “it was fine” but that “he asks all the time and never gets one”. (For context, we have had sex starting 6 weeks postpartum, which was led by me, and we have been taking sex slowly while I recover.)
Later in the day, we ended up fighting because I confronted him about how he was in a bad mood just because I didn’t go down on him. He admitted to this and said that “this is one thing I want”. He compared this to how he gives me a lot of messages and that he does that because he loves me and wants to do something for me that he knows I love. I told him I do not think that massages and blowjobs are comparable. I will admit that my defenses go up because I told myself I would never be okay with a man telling me what to do sexually. I found the conversation to be misogynistic. I asked him if there was anything else intimate that he would want, and he said “no, only blowjobs”.
We have had this conversation many times prior to us having a baby, and we have always disagreed. I think this is feeling a lot harder because of having a newborn, and our sex life has changed. I like going down on him, but I do not want to feel pressured to do so. I can understand him wanting to communicate his sexual needs and desires, but I felt this conversation was very unfair since I have JUST had his baby. I also don’t want to go down on him just to keep him in a good mood. I told him that because I am freshly postpartum, any sexual energy I do have, I want to have towards having sex, not just go down on him. He told me that “sex is for both of us” and he wants to feel like I do something intimate that’s just for him, just like how he gives me massages.
I do want to go down on him, but it’s not at the frequency he wants.
How do I handle this?
EDIT: I think important context here is that my husband has been extremely helpful with the baby (he bottle feeds the baby at night so I can pump and go back to sleep, etc). I do not think he is a terrible person or I would not have married him. We have not been to marriage counseling, and I know that he would go if one of us wanted to. Additionally, he always offers to go down on me but it’s not my preferred way orgasm, it’s not something he isn’t reciprocating.