Now, don’t get your panties.. errr boxers in a wad. I mean with your spouse or significant other. How do you ‘do it’… make time, take time, schedule time? A survey (undisclosed people, but I’m guessing it was all single New Yorkers based on where the announcement of this was)… said that people enjoy marital type relations 7 times a month and that foreplay lasts 20 minutes. If you have small children at home, when is the last time you had 2o minutes (that you were not sleeping) in a row for ANYTHING let alone THAT!?!
It’s been a VERY long time around here, I can tell you that much.
I had a commenter say very sweetly on my facebook page that with her one baby she has plenty of it and they schedule it.
1. Good for her
2. Your kid is not my 2 KIDS and your spouse is not my spouse and your apartment or whatever is not our 8 acres that needs mowed twice a week with no help thankyouverymuch
IT’S NOT THE SAME PEOPLE.
Meh. That’s how I feel about that.
This borders jumps right on to TMI…. so read it if you dare…
Then again I’ve had what could pass for a ‘drive’ for a couple of months before we got married (where we didn’t.. you know).. and then 8 years later once I was off the pill (I’m not kidding, I really mean 8 years) it came back for a bit and then I was pregnant and nursing for 3 years and then it came back for a couple of months and now..yeah 2 years into pregnant and nursing pretty much. Now in those 8 years the few days I was off the pill a month could kind of pass for something. But only kind of… so when you think of it that way, 7 times a month is like.. huge. I can’t even imagine that. Seriously. Once? We heard that 4x a week was good for your health? We almost died. And no, we didn’t have kids at that point. We’ve been married for 11 years and I bet there’s 14 year olds out there that have more experience than we do. Add in the fact that I’m not ‘on’ anything, and he’s not a huge fan of ‘protection’, added to the fact that unlike seems like every other person on earth, the fact that I’m still breastfeeding every 2 hours all day long doesn’t keep my period away. So subtract 7 days for that and 5 days to avoid the fertile time. That’s 12 days gone. Even on an average month, that’s still a lot of time out, added to the fact that he’s been on business trips for 2-5 days several times a month, it really kind of takes the time that might have been good for sneaking a cuddle. We do the best we can, but I’m guessing we’re closer to 2x/month than 7.
My husband is in line for sainthood. Even though Keeley was gone over our anniversary, we didn’t even get a chance to go out to dinner alone (meaning even with the baby). It just didn’t happen. The last time it did, I think it was probably 2 years ago for our anniversary. Yup the last time we ate dinner alone was two years ago. Before that it was about 2 years, as well, we were saving up for a house so we never went out to eat.
We rarely even get a chance to talk to each other. We’ve skirted close to overdoing our budget because neither knew what the other one was spending or paying on bills. That’s scary. I mean, you have to know our kids to really get it. The big one runs her mouth 24/7, she even talks in her sleep. The little one feeds off of the big one on a continual basis. It’s never quiet.
I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time being ‘fling-y’ with someone I rarely get a chance to talk to and haven’t ‘dated’, if that makes sense. And if there is a rare occasion we get a chance to talk, we wouldn’t also have time to.. well, you know. So I suppose our foreplay is several days to week(s) long. If you can call saying ‘hey did you pay this bill?’ as sexy.
So come on, talk about it: How do you find the time? Would scheduling really ‘WORK’ for you? I don’t know about you, but kids in this house don’t give a crap if we’ve decided that tonight we want to ‘cuddle’. That’s the time they puke on the floor, bust through the best diaper imaginable, and require everyone to get new clothes, sheets, stomachs, and noses. Sexy, right?
It’s understandable that its hard to make time for sex, but is it fair to compare her life to yours? Maybe she has other things in her life that you don’t know about. Hubby and I make time for sex, sure we get busy. but we always have time for each other. Granted though, everyone is different ! It is a bummer when the baby busts a diaper isn’t it?
Yup, Layla, that was the whole point. We are not the same. Obviously, she has more sex than we do, lol, as she pointed out on my Facebook page. Good for her.
No two people’s lives are the same. Were parents and my husband I make time as well, at least 2x a week but usually more. Not saying we’re any better than you or vice versa, and having children makes lots of things more difficult, even going to the grocery store can be a challenge but you find a way to do it because you have to have food in your house, no way around that. What I’m trying to say, as politely as possible, is that if you really aren’t making that time for yourselves its a very real possibility Theres something else going on there getting in the way of you two “doing it” not just your kids.
Um… I have 2 children (5 and 6 months). And we have time for it. We do it once a week (my spouse has this funny rule about not on a work night) Sometimes it’s twice a week. But we have time for 3-4 times a week. Actually we could probably even do it nightly without issues. Both children go to bed around 8:30ish. Then the little one doesn’t wake up until 11 or so. And I don’t go to bed until 12ish. So there’s plenty of time in there. Spouse usually goes to bed at 9 though, but that still leaves 30 minutes. And foreplay sometimes lasts up to 30 minutes. Usually it’s only 5-10 though.
It could easily be done without scheduling the time. If scheduling works for you, then do it. Whatever gets you connected again.
But it’s totally possible.
Nice to see I made your blog post. I think it is important to make time for each other if you love each other. I have one child yes, but I make all my food from scratch at home, I clean my house daily, I do cloth diapers, I nurse, I make baby food for my daughter, I workout 3 days a week at the gym, hubby is involved in sports on another week day, we have a garden that needs tended to, weekends are spent running errands and our 1 child just RECENTLY got a bedtime. We do it plenty, not that its your business or that I think I am better than you because I don’t. I am merely contributing to the discussion. If you have time to blog, you have time for sex. Point is, sex is important. We woman like to be talked to and cuddled with, well, sex for men is just as important to them as cuddles are to women.
Not saying that’s what you should do, just saying it is totally possible to have sex that often, if you want to.
Have a wonderful day and good luck with all you have going on! Because it is tough being a mom and dealing with daily life too, whether you have 1 kid or 20.
Sorry, we go to bed at 8, same time as our kids. My husband is up at 4. I am glad some of you can stay up until midnight?!? I’m guessing you’re a lot younger than me!! Lol! I just can’t do that anymore!
ok Jill – I’m right there with you… especially the paying bills “foreplay” part…. really romantic, I know.
For as long as we’ve been married, we’ve had good streaks and not so good streaks when it comes to our sex life. We’re currently in a not so great streak. And I do think that a lot of that is he is SO busy with work, and I feel like we never get time to talk. Since talking on more duties at the hospital, not only is he gone more from home, but when he comes home, he has work to do. Which makes him grumpy when the kids are loud or whatever and he’s trying to work. And who is in the mood when they are grumpy? And at night, I’m tired. And while that doesn’t bother me if he’s willing to do the “work”, frequently he’s tired. too. He leaves for work by the time I’m up (and I’m not getting up any earlier, or there goes the time we have together after the kids go to bed, because I would have to go to bed too.), so there goes that chance. We used to do much better with afternooners, if you will, but since we’ve got two that don’t take naps, that gets harder. We can turn on the TV, but there is very little spontaneity. And that stinks! My favorite times are actually in the middle of the night. Totally unplanned, unbothered (unless we got really unlucky and a kid came in, but we’ve got good sleepers), and it’s a nice way to wake up 🙂
Sex has always been super important to me. Up until our third was born, we were probably averaging 4 times a week. Well, truthfully, at the very beginning, it was daily, and frequently twice a day. Even with work, without kids in the picture (and a significantly cleaner house without even trying before there were kids around), it was super easy and fun to get that in. But when life started getting in the way, it was still about 4 times a week. I was sad if it was less than that. Mark knows if I ever tell him no, I’m really not feeling good. He’s only one time in our entire married life been told no for any other reason. But since Rachel was born, and we started working on the house, and Mark became in charge of the sickle cell clinic and short stay unit and became the lead at the office, thereby spending way less time here, it’s been hard. I do hope that it gets better, though.
Strangely, our best streaks seem to be right after having a baby. It didn’t matter to me that I’d be getting up soon. It didn’t matter (well, at first it weirded me out, but not for long, and certainly not after the girls were born) that I would “juice” him with my nipples. It didn’t matter that my belly was poochier or looser or whatever, it was just so good to be myself again.
I guess what I’m saying is it’s normal to have ups and downs as things in your life change. The being pregnant and nursing times are hard. When you get past that, I hope things start looking up. Sooner would be great, but I can be realistic. But one thing that others have said that I do agree with is that if you are concerned about the lack of sex, you need to make it more of a priority. If you’re not, then don’t worry about it. But if you don’t prioritize, you know darn well all of the other things that are going to come up that will take precedence over sex. There is ALWAYS something you could be doing around the house.
What you DO need to do is talk to Matt about it. Is he happy with the amount? Does he need more? If he does, then you both need to compromise. Staying up an extra half hour one extra time a week (or so, I’m not one for scheduling) and having sex one more time a week or month or whatever is not an unreasonable compromise. You’d think talking about sex with your husband would be easy, but it isn’t always. I do know that we finally had a big sex talk in between Jacob and Lauren and it ended up being a really good thing. In fact, that was the best streak we ever had, even though getting pregnant put a stop to it 🙂
I have to say 20 minutes of foreplay every time? That’s insane! It sounds great, if I’m able to stay awake for that long 🙂 It would help, it just isn’t very realistic. Sometimes I just want to get to it. Mostly foreplay is great though. For me personally, it’s all about touching and it doesn’t have to be a sexual touch. So if Mark can stop on his way past me in the kitchen or whatever and put his arms around my waist for a moment, or swat my backside, or touch my face or run his fingers through my hair or something in passing, that’s a good start to foreplay. And it can be done in front of the kids. I WANT our kids to see us being all touchy feely. Not like weird and gross them out kind of touchy feely, but I want them to see us being lovey dovey and know that it’s okay. And if he does things like that, I’m more likely to feel like doing more. So talk to Matt, what does he expect from you. What does he want from you. What does he HAVE to have? Is it about amount, about what exactly you do? As we got older and kids started coming, it became more quality over quantity. And it was really a good switch. And he needs to know what’s most important to you. I still feel that sex is a very important part of marriage, but as long as you two are on the same page, and willing to compromise when you’re not, then everything will be fine.
Jill, this is a tough subject. It’s especially hard to talk about online, where it’s difficult to sense inflection or tone. This is so personal for every couple and what may seem like a lot or necessary for one couple may not be the same for another. And that’s okay. I think that in some times of life, quality over quantity is valued and other times quantity might triumph. That’s not to say you can’t have both, but how we define those is different for every couple. My drive has ebbed and flowed over time, impacted by pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, stress, hormones, etc. The biggest factor can be feeling an emotional/mental disconnect from my husband, though. I think that maybe the reason people talk about “making time” is because sometimes a physical intimacy can help rebuild those connections – not just sex, but sitting together, holding hands, turning off all distractions and really talking. I know it’s hard with kids and that’s probably one of the things I like the most about date nights – just holding hands and talking uninterrupted. I think it’s great for kids to witness those intimate bonds as well. People are probably saying “make time” because they’ve felt the positive impact of this in their own lives. It looks like maybe some feelings were unintentionally hurt here and I bet it all originally stemmed from a helpful place. I don’t want this to turn into an advice column comment and I also don’t want you to be annoyed with me, but maybe could you fit an at home date night/day/1 hour, etc. into every month or every week? Sex is sex and it’s important, but intimacy and finding connections are something different altogether. I sense that you want a bit more of that (maybe I’m wrong) and I could see how much your husband loved you when I met the two of you, so find it in the places that matter to you (5 minutes of chat without kids, holding hands when the kids are playing outside, a little text flirting, whatever) and don’t worry about what anyone else does.
PS You’re a terrific mom and wife! 🙂