Sex after children

[Johnsfour]

I know nothing is "normal" in anyones relationship.....

My wife/partner is off sex. Two children quite close together. First one 2 and six months. Second, just one. In calender 2012 we have made love twice......in the year before, ( after first, then pregnant with second), possibly 5 times ( including the conception of number 2).

Both natural births, both pretty quick, no major complications. Now, no libido, no interest, excuses ( tired, just do not feel like it) and specific reasons; "everything just feels different down there".

Not an easy question to ask friends: "how quickly did you get back to occasional sex, yet along regular sex ?". I have been as understanding and patient as I think I can be. The current position, is no sex, no sex envisaged for the indefinite future.

I should add, before marriage three years ago, we made love keenly almost every evening we spent together. Regular, enjoyable ( for both of us) and initiated by both of us.

It has become a taboo subject between us, and I am not keen on getting pushed away ........

what to do ? Advice ? How quickly do other couples get back to occasional sex ?

I think you can, I don't think two bad things cancel each other out. It all just strikes me as completely pointless and horrible, I also feel retaliatory hurt is actually a bit worse than just plain hurt. It is more of a choice.

What's retaliatory?

You would like to have sex again at some stage in your life. The DP with whom you enjoy going out with, raising children with, acting in ad-dram with doesn't.

Why should they care? They don't care about your sexual wants, no matter how much they like your cooking. Share your meals with them and your body with someone else.

I think sharing your body with someone else is not an answer. It's not like an itch that needs scratching.

When you have a close relationship with someone you want the intimacy with them as an extension of feeling.

I don't quite understand your logic OMC; one partner who withdraws sex but refuses to discuss it with a view to artificially maintaining a pretence of the relationship unilaterally without input from their partner is wrong but a partner who in the face of this, seeks extramarital sex, also refusing to discuss it with a view to artificially maintaining the same non by now relationship is right? And if we accept the important thing is apportioning blame all that helps those people and their individual happiness how? What is left of the actual relationship if neither person will relate to the other?

Negotiating sex outside a relationship needs to take into account the associations a person has with sex. While there are certainly individuals for whom sex is merely a physiological activity that produces a bodily response, there are more people for whom it means extra or different things and who have a psychological, as well as a physiological association.

It is rather superficial to assume that everyone has the same associations about sex and that psychological responses to it will not occur for either sexual partner, therefore having a further negative impact on the relationship that the attached partner is seeking to maintain.

This superficial view of human nature and motivation frequently comes up in debates about monogamy. Many people seek new partners for a variety of reasons other than the physiological act of sex. There are often psychological needs such as the need to be desired, loved, chosen, respected, valued - as well as less commonly identified needs such as thrill-seeking, illicitness, adrenaline addiction and keeping secrets.

I'm guessing from the OP (who seems to have disappeared) that he has psychological as well as physiological associations with sex, so this debate (while interesting) doesn't seem to apply to his particular plight.

Offred do you think all relationships are entirely defined by sexual activity?

My previous relationship was abusive and had no sex, but I can imagine some people have perfectly content relationships, save only the absence of sex.

If a partner says they love you, and want to be with you, "but I just don't want sex", why should you think they don't mean it?

I don't think you should hide it from your partner, but if you say "OK, fine; you don't want sex with me, so I shall find it elsewhere..." why should they think that unreasonable?

No, OMC and that is the whole point isn't it?

The whole point of what i said, is that amount of sex and who it happens with is not the point it is the relating to each other that makes it a relationship and what's the actual point if neither of you is prepared to relate to each other just have perceived needs met however you can get them met even if it involves manipulation, lying, stonewalling etc in order to "stay together"? What is the point in staying together in that situation? how is the wrong of cheating made right by the wrong of enforced celibacy and stonewalling? Abuse is not relevant, i was abused, i also cheated, i still think i was wrong to cheat and that whether i did or not xp was still abusive. i dont like the implied thing of to be a victim you have to be whiter than white and to be an abuser you have to never be nice, it is wrong and damaging.

This thread is talking about sex that's why we're talking about it and not relationships as a whole.

Charbon - I don't know enough about op's situation but "sexless" relationships are all different and you can't assume cheating or extramarital sex is always only about fulfilling a physical need, it depends on the individual. For me cheating in an abusive relationship was a. Taking back some control, b. some respite and c. Fulfilling psychological, emotional etc needs in order to maintain my involvement in the shitty relationship as is often the case with abusive relationships: very hard to even consider leaving.

And to answer your question they are entitled to find that unreasonable if they do. There is no law that says people have to stay together. Just break up FGS if your partner can't or won't provide something you want or need... Don't see it as a license to be a shit.

Offred I never assume that infidelity is about sex as a discrete entity. IME it rarely is, but equally I wouldn't assume it wasn't either. I can however honestly say I've never encountered someone who, after discussion, agreed that his/her infidelity was solely connected with having sex itself. Like you, it sounds like the OP has psychological as well as physiological needs, which is why I challenge the knee-jerk and simplistic response that often crops up on threads about sexless relationships i.e 'have your sexual needs met elsewhere, your partner has no grounds for complaint if you do'. It rarely solves the underlying issues for either party - or the relationship itself, because it assumes that everyone is able to put sex in a sealed box. Many people cannot and have no desire to, either.

So, presumably, if one partner decides they don't want sex any more, surely they should be the one to leave, not kick the partner out/drive them away?

If a person doesn't want sex or a relationship with a partner, then it is more ethical to organise a structural break in a relationship that has ended anyway.

If however they don't want sex but they are still invested in a relationship, ending the entire relationship might meet no-one's needs and that unilateral action takes away the other person's choices to say 'I am prepared to stay in this relationship despite there being no sex'. Behaving ethically in relationships is all about giving people choices and being transparent about the choices that are being made. Not having sex is an open and transparent choice which leaves the other person free to make their own choices. Deciding to keep a response choice secret, is unethical behaviour.

No, since it isn't a given that the other person will be unhappy with that in all cases and they aren't a parent, they are a partner. It would be very paternalistic to say "I feel I don't want to continue one part of our relationship so I am not going to talk to you about it or give you a choice I am just going to leave you." What is the actual problem with the concept of communicating about issues like this and making mutually beneficial decisions or choosing to separate because you can't?

We are just agreeing with each other then charbon in that case!

(I was worried something I'd said had been misconstrued based on what OMC had incorrectly interpreted)

Offred -

A partner who insists on their right to a sexual relationship but will not leave expects either to exercise a claim over their partner's body or to seek sex outside the relationship. A partner who is entitled to decide they don't want sex is not entitled to trick, manipulate or stonewall their partner over it in order to keep them in a relationship. Monogamy is not more important than respect for autonomy.

Well I certainly agree with all that, so I guess I see where you're coming from.

OMC -

no-one should have sex if they don't want to.

Why not?

Er because that's a rape if it is woman who doesn't want to and a sexual assault if it is a man in heterosexual sex, you get the picture...

Did you not know that loris?

The law is clear in requiring that consent must be ascertained and not coerced and that it is up to the person seeking sexual activity to takes steps to ascertain that consent beforehand...

bangs head off wall

Not wanting sex is not the same thing as not consenting to it.

The statement was about somebody having sex when they don't want to, not about being made to have sex when they don't want to.

Desire is a separate issue from consent. You can rape someone even though they want to have sex (they may well not consent for whatever reason, despite wanting it), and you can have consensual sex with someone who doesn't particularly want it, but agrees to do it anyway.

But most importantly - the statement was made from the POV of the person having sex when they don't want it. OMC didn't say that someone else shouldn't have sex with them, he said that they shouldn't have sex.

I don't understand why. People do things they don't particularly want to do all the time, for all kinds of reasons.

If there's no coercion a person who doesn't want sex doesn't normally have sex so it is a moot point. The person having sex with the person who doesn't want to cannot have taken adequate steps to ascertain consent because the person they are having sex with doesn't want to have sex. Situations that could be described as "she didn't say no" for example and is still rape and can be prosecuted if the woman complains. It is the test of reasonable belief of consent. You have to demonstrate what steps you have taken to ascertain consent.

Why shouldn't a person who doesn't want sex feel they don't have to do it anyway? Because it is their body and their right to decide what to do with it.

Feel they have to do it anyway!

Isn't the question why would you want sex with someone who didn't want it, Loris?

Offred -

If there's no coercion a person who doesn't want sex doesn't normally have sex so it is a moot point.

Well that's blatently untrue. Lots of people have sex when they don't personally want to, in order to make their partner happy, without being in any way coerced to do so. And then there are also people who have sex for extraneous reasons (seeking validation, manipulating others etc.) when they don't actually want the sex, but do it without any coercion, even instigating it themselves.

The person having sex with the person who doesn't want to cannot have taken adequate steps to ascertain consent because the person they are having sex with doesn't want to have sex.

That's a complete non-sequiteur and makes no sense. I suppose it's based on your presmie above that a person who doesn't want sex wouldn't have sex. As I've pointed out that premise is false, so the rest of this doesn't follow.

Situations that could be described as "she didn't say no" for example and is still rape and can be prosecuted if the woman complains. It is the test of reasonable belief of consent. You have to demonstrate what steps you have taken to ascertain consent.

That's true, but irrelevant. We're not discussing cases where the woman doesn't consent, or even where consent is uncertain. We're discussing what happens when one partner (of either sex) doesn't personally WANT to have sex - and those cases can easily involve full and explicit consent.

Why shouldn't a person who doesn't want sex feel they don't have to do it anyway? Because it is their body and their right to decide what to do with it.

Who said they shouldn't feel that? I'm not saying anything about what anyone should or shouldn't do. If someone doesn't want to have sex, then it makes perfect sense to me, all else being equal, that they don't.

But the fact is that some people DO have sex when they don't want to, and not just because of being coerced. I'm similarly not telling them they should do otherwise either - it's a free country and people can do what they like as long as they dont hurt others as far as I'm concerned. OMC said they "shouldn't" do this. I'm yet to see a reason why they shouldn't, and for some reason all the discussion seems to be trying to shift the question to other issues.