To ask how couples with kids schedule in the time for sex?

[BookAnAppointment]

Me and DH are in late 30s. Sex has taken a dive over the last few years due to a combination of factors and I wanted to ask how other couples manage to have the time to relax, enjoy each others company, and have sex more than once a week (if we're lucky!) if:

You both work full time (he has quite a manual job and I work NHS shifts) and are exhausted when you get home every night and just want to have a shower and go to bed ready to do it all again the next day (ad finitum).

If you don't have any family that supports at all, ever.

If you have a pre teen child or children that are at home most of the time. For context our DD is 12 and suffering from an eating disorder. Things have been incredibly tough but she is quite withdrawn because of this and mainly seeks comfort from being at home/around us. We also live in a smallish 3 bed semi with thin walls.

So while we get on fine, we are struggling with a lack of "alone time" and general knackeredness and stress. How does everyone else manage, I cannot imagine I am alone in my circumstances?

Letting latency age and teen children stay at friends’ houses can help, though you need to return the favor. Lots of screen courtesy noise helps, as well as having understanding neighbors. My girlfriend lives in a semidetached with a thin party wall. We pretend we can’t hear the neighbor, and he pretends he doesn’t hear us.

[quote Allsorts1]@DogsAndGin phew it’s not just us then! I can’t imagine having sex every day, even in my youth! 😅😅 I always wonder how it goes for those having sex every day - is it that your DP makes a move every day? Or is it you pouncing on them? Or a mix? Don’t you get bored? I quite enjoy the build up![/quote]
How can you get bored of sex?! Do you not need the release? With us, we get into bed and it's usually a natural progression from kissing and cuddling into sex, so a mutual thing, probably initiated a bit more by DH.

Once a week sex? More like once a year here and I don’t miss it at all.

Don't ask me OP, but if you find out let me know!

It's not even as if DD is a kid anymore, she's 26, but we live in a tiny flat with paper thin walls and she stays awake until the early hours chatting to friends online. DH and I have no privacy and zero chance of spontaneity. DD has complained that she can hear us and that it's embarrassing - it's not like we're swinging from the chandeliers, we're as quiet as possible. But it's made it so awkward that me and DH are too embarrassed to have sex now. I really really miss it - me and DH still fancy each other like mad but the only way we can let our hair down is if we book a hotel, which is too expensive to do often!

It's not even as if DD is a kid anymore, she's 26, but we live in a tiny flat with paper thin walls and she stays awake until the early hours chatting to friends online. DH and I have no privacy and zero chance of spontaneity. DD has complained that she can hear us and that it's embarrassing

At that age I’d be telling her to move out if she doesn’t like it. You really shouldn’t be embarrassed about wanting/having sec, it indeed not having it, for the sake of your adult child!

@PiesNotGuys Is that not a priority thing? You choose to work late, go to events, classes, friends etc. You could choose to prioritise that time with your partner? I mean, you might not want to...but it doesn't seem like a time issue.

@BookAnAppointment btw definitely look into your hormonal contraception! Mine made me, ahem, like the Sahara desert to the point where DP was avoiding sex as it actually hurt him, but I didn’t really know as I did actually feel quite horny. I went off it and it’s like night and day in terms of being more in the mood and also normal levels of wetness (sorry!). Given we only have sex once a week, it seemed pretty low risk to switch to the app (I use natural cycles) and monitor ovulation with digital tests - it’s pretty easy for us to abstain during the fertile window. Really recommend. I lost weight too and eat a lot less.