If the lust lets it know
Image: Unsplash
Getting in the mood for a game of sex: Loes (38) just hasn’t been able to do it since her youngest was born. Not that she minds it, but maybe she should order that sexy dress after all.
“The last time we had sex was two months after Shem was born, over five years ago. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience. It just didn’t work, despite the tip to grab a bottle of wine and a jar of lube. We were both nervous and hard to get into the mood. Maybe we gave up too soon then, I don’t know, but the lust hasn’t returned since, neither side.
In the mood
I knew soon after the birth of Sem: I don’t think this period, with small children, is sexy. It takes more for me to get excited than a hard day’s work, taking care of the kids, cooking a slice-of-five meal and hanging out in front of the TV. I don’t just flip that switch. Besides, I really like the game of seduction. Put on nice clothes, nice lingerie, go out to dinner or do something fun, go to the pub. Maybe bad that I say it, but with a few glasses of wine, the sex also goes a lot smoother. I am not naturally a tiger in bed and quite shy. When I have some I feel freer, looser, more bubbly.
But those kinds of nights don’t happen anymore. There are people who use porn to get in the mood, and great if that works of course, but most porn is too hard and plastic, not for me. However, that does present a problem: that we do not automatically get into the right mood. That also applies to my husband, Mark. He doesn’t jump on me just because he has to have me—and now. That stupid corona period did not help, of course. Being on each other’s lips all the time, no, if anything has been a libido killer, that’s it.
demolished
Also, having a second child was quite difficult for me. Two years after Julia’s birth, Sem came, and I never thought I’d find it so much spicier with a second one. At first I was quite afraid of getting pregnant again. Even though I’m on the pill, it still played a part in the back of my mind. My pregnancy with Sem was heavy, I spent it puking, right up to the last moment. I didn’t even want to think about getting pregnant. Even though the chance if you take the pill is very small, I have a friend who went through the pill when she was 39. She’s very happy with it, but I’d rather not.
“An old-fashioned game of disaster stamping? I just don’t have the peace for it”
Nor did I expect to find a second child so busy. In the first year I was wrecked and I went to work every day on my gums. I work four days a week as a marketer and I work very hard. That’s okay, because I love my job and I love to score. But with two children, my life is already so busy that I wouldn’t even know when I should have the peace and space in my head to tamper with an old-fashioned potty. At the end of the evening, around nine o’clock, when I’m done with the housework or answering some e-mails, I’m devastated and I only want one thing: sleep. Sex, I don’t even think about that, it doesn’t occur to me. No, I’d rather plug my headphones into my mobile and watch a nice weak Netflix series, falling asleep halfway through.
Other times
It’s not that the sex between Mark and me was boring before we had children, quite the contrary. It was actually always a happy bunch. We had a lot of fun, we always did anyway: laughed. And the sex was nice. No hard porn, but nice and pleasant, sweet and funny, cheerful and sexy. I came into my own, he came into his own. But always according to a certain pattern: with lots of fun, going out, doing fun things, a festival here and there and sometimes taking a pill.
We had a lot of time for each other and a lot of time and rest in the bedroom. Those lazy mornings, where you don’t have to do anything, but can lie in bed endlessly and enjoy each other, that was wonderful. Yes, I can long for that. That is quite different from having a child jump on you at six o’clock in the morning while you are still sleeping: ‘Mama, wake up, wake up!!!’ No, then the period before, with the occasional wild splurge, cannot be compared at all with now.
I’ve felt guilty about it over the years, of course. Not that Mark ever blamed me. Just because we don’t do it anymore doesn’t mean we aren’t intimate. We cuddle a lot, kiss each other, lie against each other, caress each other. We talk a lot, do fun things. Only that act itself, that does not come from it.
Taboo
But saying you don’t do it anymore is a taboo. I don’t shout it from the rooftops. Pretty crazy, because if someone else says they don’t have sex, like Patty Brard, then I have no judgment about that at all. Still, I’m afraid friends will find it. After all, you are being thrown to death with lists that people do it twice a week. Well, in that case I’m pretty abnormal. If someone asks, I just joke about it: ‘Well, what do you think after fifteen years of dating, yes, three times a week at least, haha!’ hoping I won’t have to talk about it after that.
I now know, after some research online, that I am far from the only one. That there are plenty of couples who no longer have sex, or who do it very little. That it doesn’t always have to lead to a breakup, as long as the other feels seen and heard, and does not feel that he is being rejected. It reassured me and Mark doesn’t seem too concerned about it anyway.
“That there are enough couples who no longer have sex, or who do it very little. That it does not always have to lead to a breakup”
He recently went on a weekend trip with friends, and of course after a few beers it turned to sex. Mark said that the group was divided into two: one group who, according to himself, still went wild a few times a week (part of which separated, and again completely in the sex vibe with a new girlfriend) and the other half simply admitted they didn’t do it anymore or didn’t feel like it themselves.
He also had to laugh a lot at our mutual friend Jos, whom we both hadn’t spoken to in ages. Jos had texted out of nowhere that he was so happy with his girlfriend, fifteen years younger and, I’ve seen the photos, a very pretty girl. He had cheerfully added that sex with such a young chick was no problem either, because he tackled the weak one with a blue pill. That worked great.
Also read: ‘I don’t feel like having sex now that I’m pregnant (but that’s how we stay intimate)’ >
I really like that Mark is sharing things like this with me, that he shows that those guys who are so open about it. It also reassures me that the image of the man who always wants and the woman with a headache is therefore not always correct, and that there are also men in his circle of friends who just don’t feel like it. During all that fuss about Jeroen Rietbergen I still had to think of that cover text that once appeared on the Linda† said: ‘Then make sense’. Well, look how that turned out.
More comfortable in my skin
Finally, what has played a role all these years is that I no longer felt sexy. My body has changed, my clothing style has changed. That’s kind of creeped in a bit. The beautiful lace thongs have made way for practical Hema underwear. They are comfortable, but they are not very sexy. And then my body! I thought it was stupid of myself to let that play a role, but I don’t feel like that sexy goddess anymore since the kids. I am ten kilos heavier and for a long time I did not feel the need to feel sexy.
“Hema underpants and an extra ten kilos: I don’t feel sex goddess Lake”
But now that peace has returned to the family and the children are starting to have their own lives, with friends, clubs and school, I notice that I feel like taking better care of myself again. To eat healthier, exercise more. A few weeks ago I signed up for the gym and I’m hopeful that in a few months I’ll be more comfortable in my own skin, literally and figuratively. That the blood flows through my veins again, that I have the energy again to ‘play a set’, that I have the energy for that again.
The first spark
I also find myself looking at sexy dresses again while scrolling on my mobile, which I already dream I can wear soon. With that I think the first spark of lust is back in my body. Maybe my body is finally coming out of sleep mode. That’s how it feels, that I want to be sexy again for the coming Summer of Love†
Maybe that first time will be difficult or exciting again, that could well be. But I know after 15 years that all relationships have ups and downs and go through certain phases. The way our sex life used to be, it will probably never be like that again. And that’s not a bad thing either. But naive or not, I have high hopes that we will have many more wonderful years together, with sex. That we will find our own way again. Even though after so many years of silence in the bedroom I realize all too well: that will not happen automatically.
Maybe I should already order a dress that makes me drool so much. Like a stick behind the door. Or should I call Jos for a blue pill, haha! Rather that than a therapist or talk session, I really shouldn’t think about that, then it all gets so loaded. No, it’ll be fine. That Summer of Love, I’m excited. Now that sentence itself.”
This article can be found in Kek Mama 05-2022.
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