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When I was a new mother, a friend came by with her four-month-old daughter. We nursed, we ate, we drank and eventually the conversation – as it tends to do – turned to sex.
“Every time we get it on, he [BLEEP], and then we [BLEEP BLEEP], so he [BLEEP BLEEPS].”
Okay, so I’ve had to censor a few bits there, but the “what,” “where” and “how” of the story isn’t the point. The point is her prelude: “Every time.” Every time?! That suggests there have been more than, say, two. With a four-month-old in the room next door. Back then I couldn’t fathom the thought of getting back in the sack, and there she was having bleep bleeping bleep like a frat boy.
Four years later, I still dread the idea of getting back in the sack, unless it happens to be noon, the kids have passed out in the stroller and I’m – most essentially – alone.
At least post-partum I still had hope for a future filled with passionate nights informed by the Kama Sutra. Well, that future is now, and any texts that might have made things interesting have long since been carted off to Goodwill.
How did it – how did I – I get this way?
I used to be the kind of girl for whom euphemisms were invented. “Fun-loving.” “Good-time girl.” Men loved me. Women were suspicious of me. And I liked it that way. Frankly, I couldn’t get enough.
All that changed, of course, when I met my husband. I became less appealing to men and more appealing to women, but most crucially I became a goddess to him. And thus it has remained to this day. However implausibly.
I know what you’re thinking: I snagged him, he married me, we had our two children; the thrill of the chase is over.
This is true: the manly hands I once relished all over me are the same hands I now swat away in bed while reaching for my iPod. But there are so many other factors. Stress, exhaustion, dueling schedules, weight-gain. Is it the seven-year itch? Are we on the path to destruction? Or have I simply found – and fallen into an ardent extramarital affair with – my inner frigidity?
Whatever the case, sex and everything surrounding it – the anticipation, the guilt, the excuses – is excruciating. (And not in a physical way; that’s one excuse I can’t throw at this.) Yet the marital rolls in the hay I often hear about at koffee klatsch lead me to despair of my waning libido. Even if they are made up, exaggerated or the product of – ugh – blood, sweat and tears.
So here is my cry for help. Is there hope for me? Or are marriage and motherhood simply not conducive to having a sex life at all?
The novelist Carrie Jones votes for the latter in her book Cutting Up Playgirl: A Cheerful Memoir Of Sexual Disappointment.
“I remember the first time my girlfriends and I admitted that we all felt the same about married sex as parents: we couldn’t be bothered with it and felt guilty for not wanting to sleep with our husbands,” Jones told the Daily Mail when the book was published “It was a revelation. I remember thinking: ‘Thank God! It’s not just me!’”
Why does that not make me feel better?
Then again, will anything make me feel better?
Wait, don’t tell me, I know the answer. And it’s a four-letter word.
Hmm. Tell it to my friend… the [BLEEPING] [BLEEP].
(Photo: iStockphoto)
The problem with reading these articles is that the visual they give is not a reflection of what us “normal” parents look like. Every time I click on one of these things they have to have a pic of a flawless women mounted on a flawless man. Ridiculous! How are you suppose to relate to this? I just end up feeling worse than I did. Thanks, Cosmo…I mean, Redbook.
34 days ago
[...] bed with one eye open), which perhaps explain why I was more interested in sleep than sex. (Sadly, many moms out there would still choose sleep – or Facebook – over sex.) But beyond the exhaustion and leaky boobs and lack of hormones was the whole [...]
47 days ago
[...] varying degrees: mother of two young kids, working full-time, not getting enough sleep and totally uninterested in sex. I have read countless articles on sex after kids advising me to go on date nights with my husband [...]
My husband and I are lucky. We recognized our sex life was lacking early on and took immediate action to fix that. We have sex almost every night, and very rarely is it the “I’m only sorta in the mood, just get it over with” kind. I was mostly the problem. I lost my sex drive after having kids. So we worked on it. I did a lot of faking it the first few months. We bought a sexy board game that didn’t just get you in the mood, it sparked the love that was there in the beginning stages of the relationship, the romance which is what I needed to get my drive back. We had to work hard at it, but now our sex life is better than ever, and has been for the last two years. We have wonderful sex three or four times a week and quickies twice a week. You may have to lie to yourself to start with, like I did, but soon enough the desire becomes a reality. You just have to really want that intimacy back. =]
89 days ago
[...] Besides, once that baby comes, it’s a whole other story… [...]
90 days ago
[...] alone, we’ve had one woman swear that having more kids improved her sex life, while another can’t remember the last time she had “hot” sex with the man she [...]
There should always be some time for some special TLC, its integral to our overall wellbeing. http://best-melbourne-brothels.com.au/news/melbourne-the-home-of-pleasure/
unlike hollywood makes us think…Maybe it’s not all about sex?
ugh. this post makes me even more scared of having kids.
I took a marriage counseling class and we read an article on exactly this topic. This is TOTALLY NORMAL, and experienced by many women. Myself, I’ve been married 3 years, and my libido comes and goes. After reading this article, I’ve stopped feeling guilty or bad about it. I love my man, we have emotional intimacy and if we don’t feel like sex, that’s it, we hang out, cuddle, talk, which can be more intimate than sex at times. Maybe the problem is in the assumptions we make about that we “should” be having sex…leading to all the guilt and shame…? However, I’ll never let it go longer than a week. I’ve noticed that if I do, then desire to have sex goes further and further away. It’s important to keep the juices flowing! Sometimes I’ll masturbate a couple nights in a row and that will get me back in the mood to be with him again.
here’s the abstract from the article I’m referring to:
The high prevalence of sexual desire complaints in women have led a number of researchers and theorists to argue for a reconceptualization of female sexual desire that deemphasizes the drive model and places more focus on relational factors. Lacking in this effort has been a critical mass of qualitative research that asks women to report on their causal attributions for low desire. In this study, the authors conducted open-ended interviews with 19 married women who had lost desire in their marriage and asked what causal attributions they made for their loss of sexual desire and what barriers they perceived to be blocking its reinstatement.Three core themes emerged from the data, all of which represented forces dragging down on sexual desire in the present sample:(a) institutionalization of the relationship, (b) over-familiarity, and (c) the de-sexualization of roles in these relationships. Interpersonal and intrapersonal sexual dynamics featured more prominently than did relationship problems in women’s attributions. The authors discuss the results in terms of clinical implications in the psychosocial component of treatment for hypoactive sexual desire disorder.
From:Why Did Passion Wane? A Qualitative Study of Married Women’s Attributions for Declines in Sexual Desire, Sims, Karen, Meana, Marta, Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy; Jul/Aug2010, Vol. 36 Issue 4, p360-380
I am so sorry
If there is anything that I could say, it would be for both you and your spouse to read “The Sex Starved Marriage” by Michele Weiner Davis. It will help you to see that you’re not alone, it will help your spouse to understand you better, and it will help you with your waning libido. Trust me 
This post makes me scared to get married.