Married with Children…and Less Sex
Has getting eight hours of uninterrupted sleep become your hottest bedroom fantasy? After a long day, are you more likely to slip into comfy PJs than sexy lingerie? Have romantic nights out been replaced by struggles just to get the kids fed, bathed and into bed at a decent hour? Have the strains of late-night mood music been supplanted by those of early-morning cartoons? Have spontaneous weekend romps morphed into a routine of birthday parties and Little League games?
If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, congratulations! You are officially married with children. Though you and your husband are undoubtedly enjoying the unique joys of parenthood, you are probably also struggling to find more time and energy for yourselves as individuals and as a couple.
The Problem
The first thing to suffer is usually the romance department — ironically enough, the thing that got you to this point in the first place! Children change your sex life in ways that many couples are unprepared for and are not sure how to overcome. After all, children require enormous amounts of attention and energy — both emotional and physical. They can leave parents feeling overextended, depleted and relatively unavailable for each other. They make it more challenging to spend quality time alone together having adult conversations and doing adult activities. Once-energetic lovers can settle into a sexual routine marked by emotional distance, feelings of unimportance — and even a sense of resentment.
This is a common problem, and the remedy is simple. The key is to give yourself permission to prioritize your marriage — and that includes finding the time and energy to make love to each other. Your marriage needs to come first, and here’s why: your kids will wait while you build your marriage, but your marriage won’t wait for your kids to grow up. Ask any couple whose marriage ended just as their kids left home.
All too often, couples allow children to take center stage, placing the needs of the marriage on hold. Depending on the initial health of the marriage, this “holding pattern” can be successfully managed through compromise and good communication. However, many relationships are badly wounded by the neglect that occurs when children take priority over the marriage.
Here are some practical ways to recapture the passion and place your marriage’s needs first:
• Make time each day that is just couple time — no kids allowed.
Set up whatever guidelines feel good to you — such as forbidding interruptions by your kids — then don’t feel guilty about enforcing them. It’s actually good for your kids. Even if they complain, they’re learning that their parents value each other, which makes them feel secure. It’s also good for them to see you making time for each other and prioritizing your marriage. This is a powerful example to set for their developing sense of self, and a terrific model for the development of their future relationships.
• During this alone time, focus on building intimacy — not just on the bills or the to-do lists.
Whether it’s sex or a deep and meaningful conversation, we’re talking about taking half an hour or so to keep re-knitting the ties that bind a couple together, and to create a solid family framework in which to raise children. Use this time to acknowledge each other for everything you do. Explicitly convey your liking, warmth, caring and concern for your partner.
• Don’t wait for spontaneity, or you’ll end up waiting a long, long time.
Schedule time for intimacy. This may not seem particularly spontaneous or romantic, but it is actually one of the best things you can do for your relationship. Think about all the time you expend nurturing your career, your children, your physical health. Your sex life deserves the same focused attention and dedicated effort. So yes, actually put it on your calendar. Becoming great lovers is an acquired skill — but it is one you can develop if you schedule time for practice.
• Create realistic expectations for your sex life.
Remember, the goal is not to achieve perfection. You’re attempting to create a level of improvement that you both find satisfying. Whatever you do, don’t add to the stress by creating unrealistic expectations. Open, constant communication is crucial. Couples need to get comfortable talking about their sexual feelings. Trying to guess what your partner needs doesn’t work. Neither does feeling uncomfortable or embarrassed. If need be, buy a good sex book to trigger conversations about what you want your sex life to look like as you move forward together. And remember, the context of your conversations with your partner is always key. Exchanges cannot happen in the heat of an argument. Initiate this intimate conversation in an atmosphere of trust, unconditional love and acceptance. If one partner is reluctant to talk, the other needs to be patient, gentle and accepting. The following questions may help you get started:
• What does romance mean to each of us? What puts each of us in the mood for sex?
• What are the positive factors about our love life?
• What brings each of us the most sexual fulfillment?
• How often would we like to make love a week? (Getting clear on expectations of frequency can do wonders!)
• What are the fantasies we have been hoping to fulfill?
• What changes do we each need to make to keep sex fresh and growing?
• Special note for mothers: value your sex life as much as your husband does.
Typically, a husband is interested in more sex than his wife, and this difference often becomes exaggerated once children are part of the equation. Recent studies confirm that women still tend to handle the majority of parenting responsibilities (even when they work outside the home). Thus, women often are the ones whose romantic excitement and sexual energy are most diminished by children. Very often an unconscious, probably instinctual decision is made to prioritize motherhood over all other identities — placing their children’s needs in front of their husbands’ needs and their own. This can spell disaster in the bedroom for a couple, so stay vigilant to avoid this inclination.
So the next time you’re feeling annoyed about your husband pawing at you when you can barely hear yourself think, stop and consider the male perspective for a moment. While he wants sex, he may also be feeling neglected. He may feel that you don’t care enough about him to approach him as a lover or to stretch yourself to engage him for a little while — especially when he sees you stretching yourself much more for the children, or even for a friend who calls on the phone. The solution is not to take these differences personally, but to recognize them as normal and rooted in the biological hardwiring of men and women.
Once they have children , couples need to nurture their relationship more than ever. You need to find the time and make a conscious effort. Remember, you cannot simply expect your spouse to feel loved and nurtured. It is impossible for two people to keep their love growing and prospering without plenty of energy spent relating to each other individually and intimately. Both commitment and chemistry in a marriage require daily effort and attention. Anything that deflects energy from your partner — kids, work, family, health, possessions — threatens romance and personal satisfaction in a relationship. In the middle of your hectic lives, as you parent your kids, keep grabbing time to love each other. Not only can you have kids and a love life too — you can be lovers for a lifetime.
(12 votes, average: 4.17 out of 5)
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21 Responses to “Married with Children…and Less Sex”
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After 17years of marriage and 6 children, the sex life does wane occasionally. So he may feel a little neglected because he isn’t getting the sex he wants, the woman IS neglected in not getting the help or care she needs. Communication IS key. Men don’t like to talk? Well, they need to learn to communicate and listen. Keep talking, keep loving, keep respecting, and putting your spouse’s needs first…that goes for both of the spouses. He is a grown man and father…he needs to prioritize as well and NOT put himself first. A committed marriage is not a decision you make once on your wedding day, it’s a decision you make every morning for the rest of your life. NEVER go to bed angry and that decision is easier to make in the morning.
We married in our 40’s and already have older children from previous marriages. I was a single mom for quite a while and my children were used to having my attention to themselves. They are all for the marriage, they love my husband, but I sometimes feel badly leaving them behind so we can go off to do something by ourselves, for ourselves. We’ve talked about this some, but not much. I don’t want the children to think I’ve “chosen” him over them, we just need some time to ourselves. We are still working on a solution – together – so will keep trying.
Great article, we have 4 kids and we have a date night at least once a month, we try to get in 2 a month, and we do have that time alone, once they have gone to bed, even though we are both tired, too. You have to make an effort to keep things alive, we have been together for 23 years and it just keeps getting better!!
In today’s modern world, unfortunately women’s work has tripled, she has to see home, children and also career. I think its time now when males should put forward there helping hands to relieve some of their burden which I think is a great way to build your intimacy. Women will feel that her man do care and understand her and can really do something so that he gets her time.
This article put all the responsibility on the wife to keep the sexual relationship going. Women are apparently considered to be the adults in the world. What about men stepping up and meeting their responsibilities? How about suggesting the man spend some time helping with the kids (he helped create) so his wife has some energy left for fun with him.
I happen to be a woman who enjoys sex with my husband and have actually prioritized him
throughout our 34 year marriage so this is not personal resentment speaking. It’s from listening to my discouraged married girlfriends.
I so agree with Cherel’s comment. When my husband cares about my needs and our childrens’s needs before his own comfort and stress levels…. that is when I imagine the relationship will become equal and each of us will get what we are looking for. Dr. Clark’s advice is great for two partners who do 50/50 or even 60/40. But not when the husband want sex when you have a 104 tempature or you’ve been on a 9 hr field trip with 10 kids all day, get home at 7:30 and he still expects YOU to fix HIM dinner. He had been home for 3 hours! The house was wrecked by the kids and they were outside with no shoes.
Dr. Clark says, “Not to take the men/women differences personally..they are normal and rooted just in the biological hardwiring of men and women.” Please! Maybe 50,000 years ago, but I feel anyone who can manage a 350 million dollar project at work can certainly find the “on” button to the vacuum cleaner on their own once in a while. It’s just an excuse to do what they want to do with out having to own up to it….hey, it’s rooted in my biology….maybe I’ll use that one myself.
It seems to me that many women, especially the ones making comments here, seem to assume that in all relationships, the husband doesn’t pull his share of the burden. Perhaps this is a problem in their particular relationships, but it isn’t valid to generalize as if that is true in all relationships. As a husband, I do, without any doubt whatsoever, MORE than my share of the “work of life”. Sometimes, when my wife is feeling overwhelmed, she neglects to consider many of the things that I work on, and accuses me of “not helping enough” because of a particular chore that she feels she has to take care of too frequently. I have, at these times, successfully reminded her that just because I didn’t happen to help with that one particular chore for an extended period of time, it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t other work that replaced it, and often work that far surpassed the intensity/difficulty of the chore in question.
My point is this: sometimes people aren’t happy about a particular distribution of work tasks, but confuse this with others not doing their share. This is dangerous because the accusation of “you’re not doing your share” is quite serious (and extremely offensive, if inaccurate) compared to “I don’t like always doing this particular task – can we switch some tasks around sometimes”.
“Recent studies confirm that women still tend to handle the majority of parenting responsibilities (even when they work outside the home) … So the next time you’re feeling annoyed about your husband pawing at you when you can barely hear yourself think, stop and consider the male perspective for a moment. While he wants sex, he may also be feeling neglected.”
So regardless of the amount of work women are already doing in these situations, they’re still supposed to take care of the man. Think she’d be less worn out if he split the housework/child rearing 50/50?
My husband has learned not to try to guess what I want. He usually does specific tasks one time IF I ask him, but he has learned from sad experience that if he just pitches in, I come to expect that help from him, take it for granted, then get angry if he quits doing it. He is a wonderful husband and father who is wants me to be happy, but not when his help backfires. He has also pointed out that I seem to have an infinite to-do list. He has asked me to define “enough” (housework) with him and we have agreed to let some things go undone. We have also defined “enough” (intimacy) together. Our current strategy is “nine o’clock time.” We have told the kids we need time with each other, without them. They are fine with that. We support each other and share the responsibilities of putting the four youngest kids to bed by nine. The two older kids can stay up until ten o’clock, but they know to leave us alone. We reserve one and a half hours each evening for renewing our marriage. Two days (currently Monday and Friday) are set aside for sex “assert nights”. That way I can get save my energy during the day and make sure I’m not too tired. The other five days we call “flirt nights” because although sex isn’t ruled out, it is not expected and there is not pressure. He feels secure knowing he will get some in a timely manner and I enjoy the less pressured, more relaxed atmosphere seven days a week. Sometimes assert nights don’t work so we postpone them for twenty four hours. The next day we guard our time even more carefully. I believe God cares about marriages and He will give you the answers you need if you ask Him, you are both committed, and you are both trying.
Less SEX? Are you kidding? No way! Not in my marraige. I don’t care if all the “work” gets done or not. I don’t care if I’m mad at him for some reason. I’m not likely to turn down an opportunity to feel good for a little while….I love being incredibly sexy for my husband at all times, hoping for that spontaneous moment to appear when I can attack him for all he’s worth…He loves it! 15 years of marraige and 4 children….
Divorce happens because one of the partners is consistenly unhappy for too long, for one or more reasons, without hope of resolution, whether they are talking about it or not.
Sex is too delicious a gift to neglect yourselves of….After all, isn’t “marraige” gaining the legal right to have CONSISTENT SEX with the partner of your choice? GO FOR IT!
This article seems to assume that both partners at least have some DESIRE to be intimate. But how do you convince a woman to prioritize something that she has no desire for?
From all the contributors it is obvious that one is not alone in this. I got married over nine years ago with two girls and it’s been hectic, having to work and raise the children with no extra hands living with a husband that wakes up as early as five in the morning and leave home some few minutes after, having to take care of the children, most days the children don’t get to see him as he leaves home too early and comes back soo late. My husband is loving and a lover of sex. It has been difficult for us coping as i am always worked up before his arrival and each time he touches and snuggles i feel like he’s disturbing me. But after reading all the responses, i think i now know what to do and i know that our sexual life will pick up again.
I find this information pretty ironic. Ironic because this is what I am going through now. My husband and I have been together for 4 years and have three kids. With my daughter, my sex drive went through the roof!!! But with our two boys….it just wasn’t there. I constantly got the ” you don’t find me attractive” speech or the ” you’re never in the mood” It got really annoying after awhile ’til it actually started up fights. My problem is, when I am in the mood, he would take me for a joke or never come straight home from work. I had my feeling of neglect because I’m home all day dealing with the kids, up all night waiting for him to come home, then just getting the cold shoulder. I just gave up after awhile. For some reason he associates kissing and hugging with sex time only. So I can never get the passionate responses anymore. I tell him how I feel because you know we’re suppose to be open….but he gets upset. I don’t know what else to do! I’ll try these suggestions out and see how they’ll do. I just want my husband back…or at least the feelings we had before the kids.
In response to Marc:
I wish I knew what to tell you, truthfully. I wish I could say that by simply helping with chores did it. Or not only touching when sex is desired. I feel “used” when he only touches me as the lights go out and he wants sex. I have to have the “priming” to get even close to in the mood. When he only touches me at night and is begging for something he hasn’t previously displayed an interest in, I am not at all impressed. My husband actually does more “mothering” than I do because of my work hours. So it would actual make sense for him to be too tired for activity, yet he can have gone without sleep for days and worked his butt off at work and home and still “need it”. I get anything less than 6 hours of sleep, which happens quit frequently, and I am useless for physcal attraction. I mean, honestly, Tim McGraw could be standing in front of me tell me I could do whatever I want to him, and I would tell him to just sing me to sleep.
My husband gets the impression that I do not desire him or sex. Yet my clock is just set to his time. I am usually crazy for sex during the day when I have gotten time to take things slow and no pressures from anyone. Or during the horrid time of the month when it is just “yuck”. However, he is ALWAYS ready for sex. So this timing of ours is a hardship in our own marriage. I plan to show him this article – in printed form – with my feelings that were expressed in here and ask him for his to be shown to me. Different color highlighters for each of us. This way, we can have something to refer back to when we forget.
This advice seems strange to me in the For Women section because it is saying women are to tried and drained from giving everything to their children but we should feel sorry for our men and give more to them. Not a real motivator for anything but More guilt for not living up to some psychotic expectation of a women to work, keep house, raise kids, and pleasure their men. I am a work at home mom of two, breastfeeding one, I am literally drained each day. Sex is only emotionally untimely but physically uncomfortable. He goes to work were there are no emotional demands on him. If he just does his job and is nice to the boss he gets praise, awards, raises, and all kids of benefits. Then he comes home and the kids go running to him for hugs and fun. He get fullfilled in a million different ways. My thankless job never ends. Perhaps more the advice on this subject should go to the husband than to the wife. I would just like to hear one person advise the men to cool their jets for short period and see things from the point of view of the mother of the children. Let the physical demands of their babies lighten up before whining about their own. Nature didn’t intend for women to have sex 6 weeks after having a baby. That’s why we menstrate while we are breastfeed. So quite telling us what is natural for a man and tell to have some selfcontrol and sympathy.
For my marriage, it’s my HUSBAND that’s not desiring sex. That needs to be talked about more. It is in “Intimate Issues” by Linda Dillow, and it’s talked about a bit more in the past few years, but not nearly enough.
The Lord has showed me that in some areas, the wife can feel the similar to those who are married to husbands that want it “all the time.” In those cases, a wife feels like he’s more interested in her simply been there physically, making her feel used. EITHER WAY, you’re NOT feeling appreciated and desired.
Where do I find a wife like CHAR?
Twice a week would be great. I have communicated with her that my desire is every day and maybe two or three times on Saturday and Sunday. I would love to know that when we go to bed that we would have sex. After 19 years and 5 kids we are at the same spot we were after our frst month. There are times when it is once a month or less.
Hello, nice post. Bookmark it.
I am a good husband and father. My 3 kids, 1, 4 and 7 are wonderful and I love them to pieces. The joy you get from a child when they are being good wipes away any anger that they might have caused when they were bad. Ask any parent.
In our marriage, its true that there are more happy times than bad, but I must say that my wife is exhausted, depleted, tired, uninterested etc., when it comes to sex; which cause many arguments that always end up pretty nasty.
The kids absolutely drain her. I witness this on a nightly basis. Baby crying, 4 yr old wakes up scared, 7 yr old with major attitude problems. My wife of 10 years, has not slept a full night in 7 years. It seems to be a never ending cycle. Not to mention providing all the attention that they need and crave to grow.
I am not sure why some of these posts seem to assume that the husbands do not help out, they are just speaking from their point of view I would imagine. In my household, I do almost everything I can to help, but cook (I can make breakfast only, oh and soup
).
We recently got a maid to come clean the house, so that reduced some of the weekly stress however when it comes to the kids, no matter how hard we try, we are tired, her more than I. If we are not spending time with them, we feel guilty. If I do something for myself, I feel guilty. If she is not constantly involved with them, she feels guilty. I am not not quite sure how to address this.
I have stressed the importance of what has been written in this article many times in many ways. In fact, reading it it sounded like I wrote it. It seems to fall on deaf ears. People say, “Oh it will get better when the kids get older”, but what they fail to realize – we get older too. Menopause sets in, arthritis, aches, pains sickness, deaths, etc. I want to enjoy my marriage now, while I am young, alive, vibrant. I don’t want to be divorced after the kids are grown and start over. There has to be a happy medium where man and woman can get along and connect to fill the needs of one another.
My wife tells me she loves me and that I’m attractive and all the wonderful things a man loves to hear, but it does not mean a thing when there isn’t any action behind those words. Our love, desire, passion and romance has faded into, frustration, anger and resentment along with the occasional quickie.
There are no secrets, there is plenty of communication, its all on the table. We get along great in other settings. In the bedroom however for the most part there is an uneasiness an argument or nothing at all. We know where the problems lie. She tells me “She does not know why or how to fix this” – I feel I am doing and have done my part for a while. (I could possibly help out with the kids a bit more in the late nights on the weekends, but other than that I’m lost.) I asked her the other day, “What can I do better, tell me like I have been telling you” – Her only response was to help out with the kids more. Which I have been doing.
With a marriage that almost ended twice and each new beginning bringing on a different location and a new child I don’t want to give up. I have come too far to give up now, but how much longer can I continue like this?
I have heard that men connect with women through sex as women connect with men through communication. I have also heard that foreplay starts 24 hours before the nipple makes its first appearance. Well if the majority of your communication is about or involves your kids within the past 24 hours, you’re not having sex. Who clearly is the winner here? She gets her communication, but the man does not get his physical / emotional connection.
I need love and attention just like anyone else. If I am constantly going to have to take a backseat then maybe I’ll find someone to share that seat with when I’m older.
I am reaching out for support, not criticism.
Best Luck to all you married couples.
Another Lonely Man
Wow!! I am truly shocked at reading all these responses, truly. You woman ought to be ASHAMED of yourselves. Nothing but SELF CENTERED responses there. Men ARE quite different than woman, and every woman KNOWS this. It is a sad sorry excuse to EXPECT men to be LIKE woman and vise a versa. The DIFFERENCES are what ATTRACT us and are MEANT to be that way. What I suggest woman do, is to find out WHY and HOW we are different and then approach your man in this knowlegde. Stop the huffing and puffing that YOU have to do it all. Please! I am a stay at home wife/mother. I USED to work prior to having children. I implore you woman to really look at your situation outside of your own little worlds. Remembering how very stressful and time consuming a job is, to then come home and do housework or chores, and then ON TOP of this care for the children is very demanding. For those of you who also work as mothers, it is the woman’s NATURAL and instinctual drive to care for house and children. This is where the article was in intention, and not meant to BELITTLE anyone. YOur frustrations have caused many of you to appear very self centered in this, and if you care at all to keep your man, and keep him FAITHFUL instead of straying, you ought to take heed here.
I have been married for 13 years, and lived with him for 3 years prior, and dated him for 3 years prior to this. Men are different and have different ways of dealing with all sorts of things than woman do. It would do YOU and not only YOU but your relationship that you apparently CARE about, to come outside of your own selves in this, and take the time to LEARN the differences, admitt to them, and do some WORK on your OWN first. If YOU expect there to start being changes, you must first look to SELF first. This I think, is where this article was trying to get at, yet many of you diverted off from the point, to make yourselves out to be victims, because of your frustrations, rather than recognizing it is a DUAL situation. If you are having problems in your marriage enough to have looked to this article, you can BET that your husband TOO has some issues in the same regard.
I am in a situation where our marriage has been DEAD since just prior to the birth of our first child, in the intimate part. We are and continue to be best friends, but the intamacy went out the door a very long time ago. My husband has not had a desire for me, for a very long time. Do I understand why? Not really, I can only speculate, as he is very difficult to express his true feelings, as many, if not most men are. It is easy to get angry, but far more difficult to admitt this reality and try to find ways to get around that, or to get to that point, but blaming the other is not going to help at all. If I desire to change this area of our lives for the better, then I am going to have to put forth MORE effort, but if I do this, I know that it will be WELL worth it. After all, I LOVE my husband, so my time and effort and work in this, even if I have to do more, is and should be a WILLINGNESS on my part. Not these self centered- I am the victim sort of responses. Those who have done so, must recognize that the relationship is TWO, and obviously the ONE has come to understand some sort of problem. Communication is key, even if you might be the one doing all the talking, eventually they will come around, if your heart is in it/doing it all for the right reasons, that many here seem to have forgotten – LOVE and passion that comes automatically from that. I know this from my recent experience in this. Now our relationship is starting to bloom again! If he loves you and cares about you, he will do HIS very best, whether he meets your expectations. Appreciate the efforts he DOES do and those things he DOES show. The more you appreciate, the more will be given. The more YOU give, the more HE will too.
Just my two cents on all of this. I thought it was a great article, and not at all implying what some of these woman have spun it off to be saying. They have some serious insecurities, and the only thing that is going to help them, is to first look to fix SELF.