This is how I started my day:
Photo from A Lady That Kneels
But that wasn’t always the case. There was a time after my kids were born and when they were toddlers, that I wasn’t interested in sex with myself or with my husband, much less sex with strangers (or people whom I’d known for only a few hours).
This is my second go-around with marriage. Thankfully, my wonderful hubby Rick only knows me as a consistently horny, adventurous love goddess, not the hormone-fluctuating, self-loathing, moody and tearful mess I was back when Yo MTV Raps took over the airwaves and some young guy named Bill Clinton was just learning the nuclear codes in the White House. Fortunately for Rick, another poor schmuck got to live through that adventure. LOL
But if your wife or significant other has lost interest in swinging after the kids are born, you may need to do a few things to help her get her groove back. Points to consider:
1. Kids are a wonderful, wonderful thing. I love my three. But they are born knowing how to kill their parents’ romance. When we decided to start our family, I started popping out kids at warp speed. I was pregnant 4 times in 4.5 years. You read right. I lost baby #3 to a miscarriage, which added to the marital stress, but nothing could be done about that.
Guys: understand that pregnancy, childbirth and nursing can fuck with a woman’s body like nothing else. My doctor told me shortly after delivering baby #2 that ideally, a woman should wait three years between kids so her body can fully heal. Obviously I didn’t listen to her advice, but if I had, it might have preserved some sanity and saved me the thousands of dollars I later spent on a tummy tuck. Encourage your wife to take naps throughout the day if she’s home with the kids. Encourage her to go on walks with YOU to get a bit of fresh air and exercise. If you have to take kids with you, so be it, but get her out of the house on a regular basis. You can’t help but feel better after a little exercise.
2. Before children (BC as I call it), I loved sex. I was thinner and more flexible. Sex was happening like 3 – 4 times a week, sometimes more even. But after kids, I felt fat, ugly, undesirable, all those negative adjectives. I wasn’t interested in sex anymore. And while baby daddy didn’t pressure me, our lack of sex soon became the elephant in every room.
Guys: have sex with your wife. Perhaps offer to eat her pussy first, for as long as she wants, then jack off while watching porn with her later. After a woman gives birth, it’s can be a long time before she wants anything inside her vagina. When we say “not tonight, darling” sometimes it means, “I don’t want your dick inside me and I don’t want to give you a blow job.” Mommies give and give to their kids all day long. Sometimes there’s just nothing left to give you. Selfish, yes. But true. Another thing: for a time, I was really into the whole “attachment parenting” movement. We would put the kids in bed with us. With no complaints from them. Baby daddy finally put his foot down one night and said, “These kids have a nursery with more expensive furniture than we have in our own bedroom. It’s high time they start sleeping in there every night. I want my bed back.” It was hard for me to do at first, but after a few nights, they learned how to sleep in their own beds, and wow, I had forgotten how much room I actually had to stretch out in my own bed. And the master suite became a sexier room because of it.
3. You have to save something for yourself (and for each other). When I had babies and toddlers at home, I somehow felt like it was my sole responsibility to raise these little people to become perfect, contributing members of society. None of my kids’ grandparents lived within driving distance of our little family, and I didn’t have anyone to help me in those days. And somewhere along the way, I forgot how to be a functional, funny, interesting, sexy, adventurous member of society, and lost myself in being a mommy. I think there were probably 8-10 years of my life where I didn’t utter a thought that didn’t have something to do with a kid, and I sacrificed the person I was when I met my baby daddy for the mommy I thought I had to be. It was only after we divorced after nearly two decades of marriage (I married pretty damn young) and I sought some well-deserved counseling that I realized that I need to live a life for me; not for my kids, or for anyone else.
Guys, help the mother of your kids rediscover things she loved doing before she had kids. Help her re-engage in a hobby she once enjoyed, even if it’s just for a few minutes each week. And take the time to create some romantic memories for you two. Yes, it takes some time, but wouldn’t you rather spend an hour making a hotel reservation, ordering some flowers and finding a babysitter than watching another episode of Duck Dynasty and NOT getting laid?
Men, if your wife or girlfriend doesn’t want to swing anymore, and you have babies or young children, you’ll need to help her figure out why that is. Maybe it’s postpartum depression, sheer fatigue, feeling overwhelmed with responsibility, who knows. Counseling might help, but perhaps just a little time, space and some creative thinking on your part would help her get back the desire for a twosome (with you) then for threesomes, foursomes and moresomes. Good luck. (And happy Father’s Day!)
Did you lose interest in sex after having kids? How did you (or she) get that desire back?
