to think that men should not expect their wives/partners to remain the 'sex kittens' they once were after having children

[Toppy]

I read this article Where did my sex kitten go? today in the Sunday Times on the tube whilst having a rare toddler free 'me day' courtesy of my DH. (Weirdly it is listed under Women online but was in the Men's Special Style section today)

My jaw just dropped open and hung there for the duration of the article then I sat in shock as I took his opinions in.
AIBU in my utter disgust at this man or have I become so like the woman he wrote about that I am unable to appreciate his point of view?
My gut instinct a year on from having my first child (and putting my career on serious pause) is to think he is an utter t**t but a tiny part of me wondered if all DHs secretly wonder where their 'sex kitten' has gone (not that I ever was one) even if they were up for having kids in the first place.

Since having my DS I have let myself get fat, don't have the libido I once had and am indeed pretty wrapped up in my 1 year old but I would like to pray that this would not force DH to go out and have an affair !
Is Simon Jones' article food for thought or is the author a prize ** ?

(sorry for the asterisks - I am so wound up by this article though)

I've got one daughter who is four, am a single parent, disabled and work full time. Her dad isn't around but provides some financial help.

And I get pretty pissed off with all these breathless comments 'o how well you cope!! how do you do it!!'

I am sure they mean well but as I have a reasonable income, a washing machine, nearby shops and a lovely nursery key worker who will take my daughter home when I'm stuck at work, I don't need to be superwoman to cope.

I'm not trying to have a go at anyone who is struggling under more difficult circumstances. I just don't like this assumption that its perfectly ok to let you life go down the toilet after ONE baby. Why?

i know you already mentioned PND as a disclaimer, but sometimes lesser women that you just find having a baby so very hard. i think it is hard and i envy people like you spero, who can cope terribly well and enjoy it.

No custardo, working in the salt mines is hard. Finding out that your baby is going to have to have his leg amputated due to cancer, like my friend, is 'hard'.

Having one baby, living in a nice house, having scrummy husband coming home from work and giving you a big kiss is not hard.

If women can't just get on with it and enjoy it, then I feel sorry for them. I don't think they are 'lesser' than me, I just think they should get a fucking grip.

I cope extremely well. But I don't necessarily enjoy it. Maybe I'm just jealous and would like to be hanging around in a dressing gown while loving husband panders to my every whim. But that isn't my reality.

I just want to say, from a professional and personal perspective I have seen a lot of relationships fail because the both parents had completely unrealistic expectations of parenthood.

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Spero I think you rock. Just wanted to say that as you are getting a hard time for no good reason.

I agree that the average parental experience is not that hard and many people do make heavy weather of life.

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You just have to read some threads like 'help me , we are going holidays in 3 months, the baby will be 6 months, do you think is possible to fly to Spain?' And some replies are ' oh i sympathise. it is EXTREMELY hard to fly with a baby' instead of 'count your lucky stars that you can afford hols'.

Now flying on your own to Australia with 4 kids, would be hard. But 2 adults with one baby between them? (i am just using and example)
People go on about how hard it is to use bus after you have baby, to brush your hair after you have baby, to cook a meal etc FGS!
All this 'victim/martyr psychology is addictive and contagious. Thats why i like posts like Spero's

But the husband in the article left his wife 6 months after the baby was born because his mistress (now wife) issued him with an ultimatum. Which, kind of, indicates that they were shagging for quite a few months. His wife was, probably, still in her dressing gown because she had depression after realising her DH was a bit of a knob end. He gave his marriage no chance.

He sounds like like the type of person who should never had children. However, because he is weak he keeps getting talked into it.

Pruners,
i think maybe because we are a generation that likes everything easy.
And some of our generation dont have idea what 'hard' really is

Why do I think that or why do people make heavy weather of it?

I think that because I have been reading MN for 2 years.

People seem to make heavy weather of it partly because of unrealistic expectations. I think there is an immense amount of pressure for everything to be perfect, the media peddle an image of perfection of marriage/parenthood/life in general, and people feel cheated and that something must be wrong if their lives are not like that - men and women.

I agree the author of this article sounds like a complete bell end though.

What I am trying to say is that for the average person barring illness/disability etc being an adequate parent, even a good parent, shouldn't be that hard. I am aware that plenty of disabled/sick people are fab parents.

It is the expectation that everything is going to be sparkly baby fairies everywhere and you and husband will sit cooing at docile sweet baby holding hands for hours on end which lets people down. Life ain't like that, and then they can't cope.

I don't understand why men find this so complicated. Help with the housework/childcare and there is an increased chance of having a wife who has time to sort herself out and is rested enough to want to have sex.

I mean its not as though men ever put on weight/let themselves go or do other things that don't include giving their wives attention is it?

But I don't get what the big deal is for a new mum to be a bit baby obsessed for a couple of months?

My DH is getting a new motorbike in the Summer and it is all he can talk about. Should I go around shagging about because when we first met 15 years ago he promised me that he had no interest in motorbikes?

Nothing wrong with a new mum being totally wrapped up in her baby, nothing at all. Absolutely the father should be pulling his weight too, no dispute about that.

I was talking more generally about expectations that seem to make modern life so complex and so unhappy.

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Pruners, did you see Ciscas' post upthread? I think she was hoping you could help her, but I'm not sure you saw it?

I thin this debate represents the whole issue of some people refusing to take responsibility for their own actions.

He agreed to have DCs when he didn't want them, was cheating on his wife very soon after (if not before) giving birth to their own baby and then left 6 months into parenthood.

He got divorced, apparently, because his wife was no longer a sex kitten.

She probably would have been back to her old self by the time the baby celebrated its first birthday. However, he was to self obsessed to care.

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Gosh georgimama - I don't read that from spero's posts at all. What I read is 'leave your baby to cry, your husband deserves you to be back in full clothes/makeup/coiffed hair within 48 hours of giving birth'.

I mean we're not talking about women who don't get their lives on track 3 years down the line are we? We're talking about women who make their baby their priority for the first few months of their life. I don't really understand why you would have children and expect your life not to change a jot. It's bizarre.

And for the record, I'm also a single parent, work full-time as a consultant for an accountancy firm and have no financial contribution from my DS's father. And am as far away from spero when it comes to this debate as it is possible to be. In case anyone thinks POVs are linked to personal situations.

Thanks very much, BoF and Pruners - it's really good to know that things can get better even over a long period of time, and I just hope that I can hang on as long as you did!

The real trick is of course to be a grumpy/lazy slattern BEFORE he marries you. I do point this out to DH quite a bit, it isn't as though I took part in any false advertising.

spicemonster, that is not what I'm saying at all, and I think you know it.

All I am saying is that this attitude from well off middle class mother's who are supported by their partners that 'o having a baby is soooooo hard' is, in my opinion, disturbing similar to the Victorian attitudes about the essential frailty and hysteria of women.

And where did that lead? Having a lie down on the sofa oooo for a couple of years a al Elizabeth Barret Browning.

is it any wonder that women are not achieving to the same degree as men in terms of careers and payscales? Because this pernicious tosh gets peddled.

For the record I am NOT saying anyone who has had a baby should be waxing their inner thighs and wrapping them around their husband within 48 hours.

What I am saying is - IF you don't have some kind of illness, like post natal depression, it is a bit bloody rich to be staggering around months later, unwashed and the house a tip and expecting your partner to be saintly and supportive for an unspecified period of time.

About 20% of my client base, I'd reckon, tried that. After a few years, goodbye marriage, hello divorce lawyer.

Pruners, i think your comment is very interesting - why do people let their lives go down the toilet??

I know a lot of people who seem to enjoy being miserable, driving away their friends and family. Maybe it is some perversion of an essential human quality. I don't know. But it seems quite common.

I find it really odd that people would sincerely believe that just because they had a relatively easy time of it that others who were less fortunate just need to get a grip.

Ds1 was so difficult to care for that by the end of the 3rd week we had to divide the childcare into shifts just to keep our sanity. When you have a baby who doesn't sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time (day or night) and spends a fair proportion of the remaining time screaming then I think it's pretty fair to say that putting make-up on or washing your hair come waaay down on your list of priorities.

I suppose the bright side was that as dh was suffering just as much as I was he was too exhausted to notice whether or not the carpet had been hoovered.