Four months postpartum and feeling pressured (by myself!) about sex with my partner

[jmrpinkie]

4 months PP and have a 5 year old. Relationship with partner is good but sex life since conceiving our recent baby has been lacking. I had a couple of bleeds early on which scared me from wanting to have sex and at 32 weeks my waters broke so we then couldn’t have sex because of infection risk and now I’m obvs post partum and the last week in the depths of four month sleep regression (baby is exclusively breast fed and we’re really battling with her to take a bottle).

I love my partner. I’m physically attracted to him but my sex drive has plummeted. We’ve talked openly about it. He doesn’t want to pressure me but I feel so much pressure. Las might I went out for some drinks and got back at 11. I could tell he wanted to have sex. I felt like he should have known it was not a good time. I’ve been going to bed with the baby the last week because of the frequent night wakes. He comes to bed and is trying it on. Anyways we have sex, it was good but I’m now resentful towards him.

any advice or words of comfort/wisdom? I have been open about how if felt this morning and told him I feel so angry towards him which again I’ve said I know is not rational and he’s been great and said i can obviously just say it.

please be kind - I hate having to say that but please don’t reply if your not going to be.

‘Please be kind’ to yourself op. You’ve got a lot going on with two little ones. Many new mums feel like this.

Tell DH to back off and let you fully recover. Take sex off the table for now and tell him he has to be patient. When you’re rested and relaxed you might feel different - his job is to help you get to that point. Teamwork.

Thank you. We’ve had sex 3 times since she was born and the first time I was probably 6/7 weeks postpartum. I felt like they really soon. So many mums in my antenatal group still haven’t.

I think the key is to still make time together - laugh, snuggle, talk. Make sure he knows you still love him. But communicate and make it clear that you want to wait a bit as sex is not feeling great right now. Tell him you need his help to get there by being patient and understanding (and pulling his weight so that you have some head space to get your mojo back).

why is this all your fault?! You have too much going on to be thinking about sex. You should be able to have a break from it post partum. Your husband is pressuring you and yet you’re the one feeling guilty, even though you did actually have sex with him! That is so warped. He’s in the wrong. Imagine if he just said, pressure’s off, no worries, and meant it.

Yeah exactly and this is what we talked about and I explained if we have sex in the evening my mind is thinking this is time I could have sleep and he wants to know how he can help so we can do both and he really has started to do more around the house (we’re pretty balanced anyways but he’s now doing more) and more with our son to take the mental load off which is part of the problem too so I know we’ll get there.

Ah bless you, it's so hard when you have little ones and tiny ones. I think you should just sit down & have a really honest conversation with him about how you're feeling. Take care of yourself and don't do anything you don't feel 100% ready for. He should understand.

Yeah I think I’ll speak to him again and just suggest we just don’t have sex for a few weeks and just enjoy each other and chat and spend time together without me feeling pressure.

OP it's entirely natural not to feel like sex for a good while after you've given birth. You say you are exclusively breast feeding and the the high prolactin levels produced during lactation plus the drop in estrogen levels suppress sexual desire for a reason.
Please don't pressure yourself, show your husband you love hm in other ways and concentrate on your sleep and wellbeing for now.
He should not be pressuring you at all. Explain the physical reasons why you don't yet feel ready and hopefully he will be understand and be patient. .

Thank youuuu. This is so helpful. I love understanding the science behind why my sex drive might be low too as it def wasn’t like this in previous pregnancy and post partum but I wasn’t exclusively breastfeeding.

I feel I’ve been unkind to him. He really isn’t pressuring me (at least not intentionally) and he has said many times he wants to support me etc and wants me to tell him how he can do that etc etc. so generally he is being amazing. I just felt last night he should have just known without me saying anything.

He may have thought that you were no longer prioritising sleep above all else because you went out for a drink. A minor miscommunication and hopefully won’t happen again once you have set expectations.

This is such a good point. I had never thought of that. This is why I love mumsnet. Thank you!!