Sex After Kids
Sex after kids.
I have listened to both sides of this delicate coin and I’d have to say, men most certainly are from Mars and women from Venus. I have talked about the subject with so many people, that I decided we need to openly discuss it.
Firstly, we all like sex…well, nearly all of us do!
It has to be noted now that I have two kids and I’m also divorced, so clearly there were things we both did wrong along the way.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard a man complain that his “Mrs” isn’t shagging him since they’ve had kids, I’d be loaded. That being said, if I punched every man in the face who said that (like I’ve wanted to many times) I’d also have a very long criminal record!
Men just don’t understand what happens to us when we are pregnant and then have a baby. I was the only pregnant student out of 20,000 students at Otago university in Dunedin, NZ and it was bloody tough!
I was 20 years old at the time and surrounded by young people who had the world at their feet and drinking on their minds. I didn’t have a care in the world back then. Life was hopeful and the future was ours to take as we wished. That was until I found out I was 4 months pregnant. The news spread like wildfire. Judgement soon followed like heavy mist that never left. The reality that I was going to be responsible for another little person changed me almost instantly. The pressure I felt was suffocating.
Life for my boyfriend didn’t change at all. He was “high-fived” for “knocking me up”, whilst I was viewed very differently. He still partied. I was frowned upon for going out in my “state”. That was the first time I fully realised that life for a woman was so bloody different than that of a man. They sail through unscathed, whilst we are held to a strict set of rules that no one ever meets.
Prior to the pregnancy, I had competed in fitness competitions, was in great shape and my body was completely unspoiled. During the pregnancy, I became someone else. In one night my stomach grew so much that I awoke with bright red stretch marks that went from my belly button to my vagina. This mortified me. The urge to have sex still remained, but now I felt broken, ashamed and ugly. My partner was still a fit beautiful young 21 year old, and I wasn’t anymore. Psychologically I shut up shop and vowed he would never see me naked again.
A few weeks after our daughter was born, I left him. Partly because his mum was extremely difficult to deal with, but partly because I was devastated at who I had become. I was trapped in someone else’s body. A few months prior, I was perfect. Now I was drowning in self-loathing and as a result, my sexual desires turned off completely.
Men don’t think about what’s going on in our head. Many years later (18 to be exact), I spoke about this with my daughters biological father. He said, that at the time, he thought I just hated him. He had no idea how much the whole event had impacted me and how I felt about myself. I conceded that maybe I did hate him at the time. Nothing changed for him, whilst my world was turned completely upside down. Plus, when you’re that young, you can’t really process whats happening and the emotions are not ones you’re meant to feel. You’re meant to be euphoric and feel blessed to have created life and all that spiritual carry on. I was delighted to have my daughter and loved her fiercely, but I was a stranger in my own skin.
It took me 6 years to have another child. The feelings of shame, guilt and desperation I had felt all those years prior, though they weren’t on the surface, still lurked in the darkest corners of my mind. When you become a mother, especially when your kids are young, the YOU you started off as, is no more and will never be again. This is a hard fact to accept and some mothers never do.
You work 24/7. No one slaps your hand and subs in at any stage. Your mind is hardwired to keep the child alive and when they finally fall asleep at night, you take a deep breath and think “thank fuck we’ve survived another day!” After cleaning up the house, doing dishes, sorting washing, finally having your first shower in a few days and then falling into bed, all you truly want to do is grab a few hours sleep before the mini-person wakes up and demands a feed and a cuddle and it all starts again. For the first time in almost 18 hours no one is attached to your tired, broken, malnourished forgotten body. For a brief period, you are able to really breathe.
He rolls into you. Erection poking into your back. Hungry for action.
After a day of tantrums, nappies, breastfeeding, bottles, vomit, screaming and your own tears of desperation, being shagged by the guy who put you in this emotionally crazy position isn’t high on your list of priorities! Aside from that, deep down, most of us are worried that our boxes aren’t the same as before and try to avoid the post baby shag for as long as possible. Even if you have a cesarean, you still bleed like Niagara falls and if you’ve been lucky enough to have an episiotomy or internal stitches, even having a shit is like giving birth all over again. A few weeks of putting him off and telling him you’re not ready, is acceptable and any good man will kindly step back and wait until he’s given the green light.
This is where things start to go array.
We are so caught up in keeping your child(ren) alive, that our men, sadly, fall down the list along with sleep, showering alone, finishing a coffee, sexual urges and being able to leave the house without it being a carefully planned military exercise. When you keep nagging the sleep deprived, slightly unhinged, mother of your child(ren) for sex, it just pushes her further and further away and resentment starts to grow on both sides of the fence.
I fully get where men are coming from and I have heard many say, “She wanted a baby and I gave her one, so why is she off me? Why doesn’t she want to have sex with me anymore?’ Firstly, men, never use this as your opening line in an argument. No woman knows exactly what she’s in for the first time around. Even when you have your second, you’re on a whole new level as there’s now two little people you need to juggle. It’s also not that we hate you, but many of you don’t do yourselves many favours.
Comments like “When we first met, you used to want to shag like mad”. Well lads, many of you used to put in an effort to get laid. A pat on the arse or a dick in the back doesn’t exactly get the juices instantly flowing. And saying things like, “You used to be a good sort before kids”, is a bit of a nasty call to a woman who has let your children renovate her body. We don’t turn around and tell you that your balls used to sway delicately like handcrafted crystals and now hang low like church bells or ask you what happened to the erections that used be so strong they could have given Thor a run for his money! No, we keep that to ourselves.
Another thing men don’t understand about females is that we want to be desired, accepted and nurtured too! We are raised (well, back in my day we were) to view marriage and motherhood as the “prize”. That one day, we would be lucky enough to be chosen as a wife and we would have his babies and look after him and he would love us forever, amen. That’s the fairytale we were fed. Reality is very different.
There’s no mention of infidelity in any of those little Disney tales. It’s all centred around the fact that woman become a domesticated pet and men, yet again, are free to forge careers, run for president, play hell with a big stick and be whomever they were destined to be. Should a woman want to forge a career path or reach her full potential outside the nest, the instant remark is, “So who is looking after the kids?!” The double standards run deep. My favourite call is when a guy says, “Sorry mate, can’t go out this Saturday, I’ve got to babysit” What?! Babysit? Your own children? It’s called being a parent! You know, what your wife has been doing, daily, since you “got one past the goalie!” This is maybe another reason she’s not letting you mount her!
Did you know that more women watch porn than men and our top search category is “Hardcore”. Women who have had children spend more money each year on sex toys than those who are childless. Our desires have not diminished. We still have fantasies – but when you’re in the thick of toddlers, newborns and nappies, your biggest fantasy is waking up to a clean house after 8 hours of unbroken sleep.
Now, I also understand that when the kids are older (teenage years) and you’ve got more time to invest into your relationship, many couples say that their sex life has taken such a huge backseat for so long that it feels like you’ve got to start all over again. Well, in a lot of ways you do. People change. Our needs change. Our desires change. The relationship itself changes. After many years raising a family and evolving as people, things do change deep within each of us, which is normal. Some decide to start dating each other again and fall back in love. Some decide to call it quits. Some decide to switch teams. Some are happy having companionship and don’t place too much emphasis on the sexual side of their relationship. I read an article of a couple who have had a “cheating clause” drawn up. She’s more focused on her career, now that the kids have grown and left home, and doesn’t really want a sexual relationship with her husband, but they both don’t want to end the marriage as they genuinely love each other. I think the phrase used was “lose him for a moment or lose him for life”. Each to their own.
We wear many different hats in our day to day life – mum, dad, wife, husband, employee, employer, sister, brother, son, daughter – so it’s fair to say that when our primal urges grab us in their clutches, sex shouldn’t be any different. Sometimes a woman wants to be made love to and wrapped gently in your arms, other times she wants to be fucked like you hate her, she may want to jump on top and ride you like a rodeo horse and I’m sure the same goes for men. But you know the one thing that seems to be lacking in many relationships where sexual appetites are unbalanced – fear of honesty.
Many women are too afraid to admit they don’t feel like having sex when their kids are small. They’re worried their husbands will be offended or will cheat as a result. And when we finally pop our heads out of the mothering bubble that has engulfed us for so many years, with our newly reclaimed sexuality and ravenous vaginas firmly clasped in our hands, we are too afraid to say what we really want our partners to do to us – afraid that our desires may be too racy for the men of our lives and met with a negative response.
Many men, on the other hand, are too afraid to admit that all those years where we forgot them and forced them to fend for themselves, by watching cheesy internet porn with a box of tissues, has left them feeling pretty shit about themselves. Many are so desperate for any attention you choose to give them, that they will do just about anything you ask as they’re simply delighted you even notice him again. You’d be surprised how few men actually cheat with hookers and randoms like we women have concocted in our sleep deprived minds over the years. I think this is what was the driving force that lead me to write this.
Yes, men and women are wired completely different, but fundamentally we are the same. We all want love and companionship from our spouse and want to keep the relationship together for as long as possible. We both know that being together, takes bloody hard work and throwing kids in the mix makes it even harder at times. But open communication is the key to any healthy union. When the talking stops, the listening stops, the understanding stops, the unity stops and the sex stops.
So keep talking. Keep experimenting and keep the juices flowing.
Communication is lubrication x
