any other parents of teens managing to get any?

[PlentyOfParsnips]

I am sooo frustrated!

I have 2 DCs, 18 and 15 and since bedtime became a thing of the past, DP and I have been increasingly struggling to find opportunities for our sex life. We live in a pokey little terraced house with thin walls and the DCs manage to stay awake far longer than we can.

At weekends, we always sort of hope their plans will take them both away from the house at the same time for long enough but once again, we've just been interrupted - DS was supposed to be out til 9 but changed his mind.

This must be a common problem - what do other people do? Should I have a word with the DCs? Can't quite think how to approach it ... do we put our sex life on hold til they leave for college? Brazen it out and if they hear us, tough?

I'd be grateful for any practical suggestions or general sympathy.

Yes, teenagers don't go to bed until the small hours. But the upside is that they don't get up 'til midday. The answer is morning sex IME. Oh,and quiet sex.

My 5 year old spread-eagles himself across the bed, with knees and elbows everywhere. No problem with nudity, just want to be comfy!

we put it on hold for ages unless we were alone in the house. I just can't relax knowing that walls have ears. I don't think it's very nice for kids to hear their parents having sex. Other people might disagree- but unless you have a very open, no holds barred kind of relationship, I think most kids imagine their parents sex lives ended the day they were born!

Maybe just try to wait until they out during the day, which I am sure you do anyway, or go away for more weekends and short holidays on your own?

cabbage - I hated it I went through a phase of about 2 years where I heard my parents a few times and it really bothered me. I asked what time they went to bed and made sure I was in bed an hour before so I'd have time to go to sleep. I used to put cotton wool in my ears and hid under the covers.

We didn't have the sort of relationship that made it easy to talk about sex. I think it's a bit mean to just say 'who cares if they hear!' unless you are sure they are OK with it.

oh dear orm..sorry youhad to put up with that.

I think that most children do not want to know about their parents' sex lives - and vice versa. It comes down to subtle yet fundemental "taboo/incest" emotions. We are conditioned or programmed not to think of our parents as sexual beings and vice versa, for very good reasons.

Before the 20th and 21st centuries, at the age when children became sexually aware, they would either be leaving home or their parents would hit 40-45 and be dead!
It is only now when adolesence is earlier, and economics mean that teenage children are at home longer that the problem occurs.

Maybe I am just and old fuddy duddy but I really don't want anyone but my partner to hear me having sex, and especially not my children. I think adult couples need privacy and it's a bit thoughtless to rub your kids' noses in your sex life. To me, it would be the same as staying with friends as a guest and letting them hear- just not tasteful or thoughtful behaviour.

I suppose their are some families- like Mals- where it all seems to work fine- but I think these are very unusual. I have never come across it before and most of my friends squirm at the idea of their kids hearing them!

OP- I think, sadly, you just have to accept that for a while your sex lives take a dive, perhaps in the same way that they did when you had young babies and were just too tired half the time!

It's just another stage of being a parent when you can't do just what you want, unless you have a very thick skin or thick walls!

Update: DP had a chat with DS yesterday. Turns out DS was fully aware he had interrupted us yesterday and was as embarrassed as us about it He's agreed to be a bit more generally thoughtful before changing his plans willy-nilly (which also affects meals etc.) and to let us know in good time before any changes.

Cabbageroses and Ormirian you have pin-pointed the unease I have been feeling about the situation but I don't think I'm prepared to put this on hold indefinitely. It's not a 'guests' situation, it's a permanent living arrangement which I feel has to be made to work for all of us. - it's not unusual for DC to live with their parents until well into their twenties these days, often with a GF or BF in tow. That's a long time!

I think you're taking exactly the right approach OP and I especially commend you for dealing with it humorously and openly, especially your DP discussing it with your son.

We have teenage DCs too and they know and expect that we're having sex, plus we have been very open with them throughout about sex being a pleasurable activity and not one that ceases on parenthood. I was lucky perhaps in that my own parents were very open about it and still are, in their seventies. I didn't grow up thinking that my parents were non-sexual and I can't see any value in my DCs believing a lie either.

We treat it with the same sort of humour in our house too, but just as we won't go into their rooms now without knocking, our DCs understood from a very early age that unless it was a dire emergency, they should afford us the same privacy. We don't rub their noses in it of course or do anything to make them feel uncomfortable and we have got used to having sex with the sound of Call of Duty blaring out from our son's room if he's still up, or the telly left on if he is asleep. Our younger DD's bedroom is further away and out of earshot!

If we are both in at the weekends, we never remind our DCs to take their keys, so that we have at least some warning of an unexpected return and it has become a practice in our house that if someone is going to be in, none of us bother with taking a door key, so this is seen as normal.

In consequence, there have been several rushed attempts at dressing before a crowd of teenage boys traipse up the stairs, but no major gaffes yet to report...

give it time...