I have gone off sex!!!

[sleepyhorse]

Hi I have been married for nearly 5 years and got 2 small children. I have a great relationship with my husband but we have stopped sleeping together. The thing is i don't really miss it and just can't be bothered especially as my dh doesn't seem exactly up for it either. Is this normal? And does anyone else feel like this? Also I feel like the longer we leave it the harder it's going to be to get back into it as it will just become awkward. Maybe I feel like this as don't feel that attractive after having 2 babies?

Have you asked him?

He is probably feeling the same way!

Its hard when you have kids isn't it as you feel physically and mentally exhausted. But I feel like I can't keep using this as sn excuse and worried it could end up splitting us up if something doesn't happen soon. We haven't slept together for 18 months!!!!

The secondcoming . I don't think you have anything to worry about, you have just had a baby and who would feel like having sex when they are still breastfeeding. I think the prob with me and dh is that if I'm completely honest our sex life was never amazing even before kids. And now I just don't feel great about my body as boobs now disappeared since having 2 kids. Don't feel confident or comfortable in that area anymore.

we had a really lonnnnng 'dry' spell, and I wasn't worried about it at the time. But if I look back now I can see that I was under a huge amount of stress, and when I went to bed I just wanted to sleep (or stare at the celing worrying). Are you under any type of stress that maybe having an effect.

Some people are just not that bothered, and it is quite a good thing if two such people meet and marry each other. Sex, or frequent sex, is not compulsory in a couple as long as both parties are happy with the situation.
It's also true that a lot of people go through cycles and stages of being either mad for sex or totally off the idea: again, in an otherwise happy relationship, if you're both too tired/busy for much sex and both happy with the situation there's nothing to worry about.

totally agree with SGB but somehow lack of intimacy, even between 2 people who are not particularly bothered, will start playing on their minds and ultimately make the relationship feel odd or insecure, me think
Just a very common sense piece of advice from me would be make sure you set some time for the both of you, like a friday evening romantic dinner, and make it regular, anything you enjoyed doing together, sometime starting to go to some silly and adrenalinic activities (whether it is dance/music, fan fair, gallery, running together or swim) seem to work wonder to come back home and feeling a bit more into it

are you on the pill? sometimes that can seriously lower libido. also is you OH willing to take the time and put in the effort to make sex enjoyable for you?

also - are you both looking after yourselves physically? bad diet and lack of exercise can make sex increasingly less appealing and make you feel as unsexy as hell.

sometimes reading erotica online can get you in the mood.....

also lube, lube, lube.

i think it's okay to go off sex for short periods but unless you are both very low libido it's going to have a bad impact on the relationship longterm if you can't start to enjoy this side of things again. to me a longterm relationship without sex would be a bit like eating without being able to taste anything.

I was going to say the same as kepler. I was on the pill (before I had a very high sex drive) and OH would get 'it' once a month if he was lucky and thats only because I felt I had too iykwim. I couldn't even bear him touching me

Stopped taking the pill and now it's all back to normal :) would never take it again