Male, 28, in a committed relationship with my wife for 10 years, here…
For the first four years of our relationship, my wife and I had a fantastic sex life, 3+ times a week, very compatible drives. It was fantastic.
Year four (a year after we were married), she became pregnant, and there was an understandable slowing in our sex life. She had a very rough pregnancy, was sick and weak all the time, so from the beginning to the end of the pregnancy, we had sex maybe two or three times, because most of the time she was just too sick to do anything. Did I miss the sex? Oh, god, yes…but I loved my wife, and frankly, 90% of what makes sex great is our mutual enjoyment of sharing it with each other, so it was bearable.
For the next two and a half years, sex was very rare, once every month or two. Our little boy didnt start sleeping through the night until he was 2.5, and before that, he would only sleep for 3-4 hrs at a time. We were both exhausted (we always took turns looking after him, to try and give the other a chance to sleep), and again, physical conditions made sex difficult. We were both tired and irritable, and when one of us had desire, the other often didn’t. This lead to a lot of frustration, a lot of resentment, and a lot of grumpiness in general. Thankfully, we worked past it, talked it out, and that helped a lot.
There was one other problem, though. After the pregnancy, my wife’s emotions and mental stability never quite returned to what they used to be. She started having massive mood swings, going from manically happy to incredibly angry over the smallest things. Sure, our sex life improved…we were having sex 2-3 times a month as opposed to once every month or two, but her moods were insane, uncontrollable, and very stressing.
This past summer, after coming home to find her curled up into a ball and in tears, I finally convinced her that she needed to get help for her mood swings and depression. She has fought me on this issue since our boy was born, but finally, she agreed to seek help. Much counseling, much therapy, and many doctors later, it has been determined that she has massive chemical imbalances, and will likely need to take anti-depressents for the rest of her life to be “normal.” Unfortunately, after trying many “cocktails” of meds, the only ones that work have absolutely drained her of any and all sexual desire. Worse, even thoughts of sex or watching/participating in sexually related acts is distasteful to her. She can’t get turned on, no matter how we try…but, aside from her frustration with her lack of sex drive (and the resulting feelings of inadequacy) she is finally mentally and emotionally stable.
In the past six months, we’ve had sex twice. Since my sex drive is pretty high, I pretty much rely on self-satisfaction to relieve my needs, because the last thing she needs is guilt or pressure to do what she physically cannot. Is it as good as sex? Hell no, but emotionally, we are so much better now then we were a year ago, and so it is worth it. We’ve talked about “female viagra” and are considering it, but she is very uncomfortable taking meds as it is, and it probably isn’t a likely solution. We still cuddle, we still kiss, we still are very close emotionally and mentally…and we both love each other very much. Sex is an important part of a married relationship, true, but I do not feel it is the most important part.
