It’s Official: Parents Have Less Sex
February 24, 2007 by kate baggott
Filed under Mental Health
Given the discussion on my new mothers and lost libido post, a lot parents feel less interested in sex and are concerned that they are doing the deed less often. The question of just how much less sex parents have compared to what my friend describes as “normal people” has actually been quantified.
The statistics in this article (free registration required) on the Irish Unison site, make it clear why the average family size is shrinking around the Western World.
- Studies have found that there’s a 40% drop in sexual activity within the first year after a child is born, while around 70% of new parents report a change in their sexual behaviour. But it appears the biggest problem for stressed-out, exhausted parents is getting back into the swing of things after a baby comes along. Surveys carried out in the UK have found that 60% of parents have sex less than once a week and 25% less than once a month. Half of the clients using AC-CORD’s marriage counselling service are aged between 30 and 40, and 71% have children – the majority of whom are under the age of 11. Surprisingly, 24% of those who attend their counselling services seek help with sexual and intimacy problems. And a further 19% who don’t consider their sex life to be a major problem are also seeking advice.
I find comfort in these statistics. Obviously, a lot of people are worse off than I am in the sexual activity department. What I found most interesting in this article were the tips from the upcoming book The Good Marriage Guide by John Farrelly on what to do about the situation. I’ve paraphrased the tips below:
If you think the situation is serious, see a relationships counsellor.
Try to be romantic whenever you can. In other words, hold hands at the grocery store. Being able to put the kids in the shopping cart actually counts as a date in our house.
Resist the urge to criticize your partner and try to compliment them instead.
Remember that fairy tales end with “and they lived happily ever after” because they have no idea what happened after the wedding. Real life is not a story, a movie or a clip your husband watched on the Internet with the same hand he held your’s with in the dairy aisle.
(In fact, if I were writing these tips instead of just paraphrasing them in a highly entertaining way, I would tell married men to stop looking at porn in order to have more sex with their wives. If you are consuming porn, your level of sexual excitement is too much higher than your wife’s and you won’t have the emotional understanding or patience to help her catch up with you…but that’s just my opinion.)
Make sure you kiss at least once a day.
It is hard for life to be anywhere near “normal” after a baby is born. It is especially hard for a woman with all the hormonal changes, fatigue, and changes in her body. This certainly is a real issue that parents deal with.
I am just through BF after the first year of my first child. I had a 22 hour labour and a totally natural and a terrible infection from a tear. I think the pain of the birth traumatized me to that area of my body and has completely changed my feelings about sex. I also feel my breasts have been desexualized by breast feeding. I love my husband and he loves me and yet I sense a growing sense of guilt surrounding the issue of intimacy each time I push him away. I don’t feel sexy but I long for the sex we used to enjoy together before having a baby.
I hear you Katie! It’s hard to stop thinking about what sex can lead to once you’ve had a baby and full-on labour. And tears. And infection.
Maybe, though, you can start over. Maybe, you can start dating again. Lead up to seduction, slowly and discover something new. You could even play “search for the new errogenous zone”! Once, you have time, I mean.
Our kids are 4 and 2.5 years old. I still like sex 2-3 times weekly, and my wife used to also, but now prefers 2-3 times yearly! However, we had sex once a month for the past 5 years. I tried to be extremely patient, but it’s very hard!
Here’s an analogy that explains how I feel: imagine that after marriage society approves eating food only with your spouse. It would be terrible to eat in a restaurant, for example. Food is to be shared in private and with your spouse. You could sneak a protein pill in secret sometimes. OK, once you accept that strange premise, here’s the situation. You and your spouse liked to eat 2-3 meals a day early in your relationship. But after a while, your spouse’s appetite decreased to the point of only wanting 2-3 meals a week–enough to physically survive without starving, but so infrequently that you feel hungry 80-90% of the time. Food was not the only important thing in your marriage before, but now it becomes your constant obsession. You would think about your hunger much of the time. You might be very patient and never complain to your spouse. Or you might nag. Or you might think about seeing someone else with whom to eat together. Or you might suggest a marriage counselor or doctor or books on the problem. Or you might divorce. Or you might try concentrating on work or kids or activities to distract you from hunger. That’s pretty much how I feel and the solutions I’ve considered.
I hope that more research will be done on this problem and possible solutions. Our kids are great, but I would, sadly, advise every single person not to have kids or get married: just have a boyfriend or girlfriend so that you can leave when he/she changes drastically from when you met. This pain has been too much.
But, given that we are now already married and have kids, what can we now do as husbands or wives? My wife, for example, refuses to read a book or see a marriage counselor. She said that she knows how she feels in her heart, and nobody could help or change her. Her solution was to force herself to have sex once a week or two. She asked me not to try to stimulate or romance her. I appreciate her sacrifice, but it feels unsustainable, disturbing, and unsatisfying to me. I love her and want us both to be happy like we used to be.
If you lost your sex drive after kids, has it returned yet or not (and how old is your youngest child)? Was there anything you noticed that caused the return? Is there anything you or your husband could have done to hasten the return?
Best wishes