J. Parker

I’m getting personal today, because I interviewed my husband about the years after our children were born. The years he wasn’t having much sex. The years I wish I had done differently.

Perhaps you can relate to how he felt or maybe gain some insight into your wife based on what I felt. And maybe you can be encouraged that those dry years can fade and fresh intimacy can take its place.

Note: I edited our conversation for space, for clarity, and to maintain our sons’ privacy where we got too personal in talking about our kids.

The speakers are designated as J (me) and Spock (a fond nickname for my oh-so logical husband).

J: I have talked about how I have been everything in our marriage: I have been sexually matched to you, I have been lower drive, and I’ve been higher drive. Do you agree with that?

Spock: I do.

J: So I wanted to talk about what I would call “the dry years.”

Spock: Okay.

J: Which was after our kids were born.

Spock: Each one, yes.

J: Wait, you think there was a big dip after each one?

Spock: Yes.

How My Husband Felt

J: Okay. So I just wanted to talk about how we each saw that situation and how we worked through it, if we did work through it.

Spock: Okay.

J: Tell me what the experience was like for you.

Spock: It was understandable in the first month or two. But after your body had had time to heal from delivering, I thought you should be ready for more action and you weren’t. And I think you were totally consumed with caring for newborns.

J: Yes. Okay, that’s how you processed through it mentally. How did it make you feel when it was in months in, and I—well, we were still having sex…

Spock: Occasionally.

J: Just not nearly as often as you wanted.

Spock: True. It was very frustrating.

J: Why was it frustrating? Was it just physically frustrating or more?

Spock: Both physically and emotionally frustrating.

J: I just want you to be more specific about how it was emotionally frustrating. Like what was that experience like for you? What did you think was happening with us … or me, or you?

Spock: I felt like you were so absorbed in the children that you didn’t have time for me. That you weren’t living a balanced, whole life.

J: So did you feel unloved somehow?

Spock: Umm. I was feeling disregarded. It’s not the same. Love is one element of a mix of feelings, and which feeling happens to be dominant in the conscious mind varies from time to time. And I think at that time, you were so consumed with the kids that you didn’t have time for me.

J: We weren’t getting along well in our marriage at that time anyway.

Spock: I don’t remember what was going on in our marriage at that time.

J: Well, I will not go into all the details of what I think was happening then or it might just be a litany of complaints. [chuckles] And we’re past that—the kids are grown.

Spock: [laughs] Yeah, right.

J: But I feel like relational conflict actually was part of it to me, and postpartum depression. Those were the two things that I think were the biggest problems for me.

What My Husband Wishes I’d Understood

J: What do you wish I had understood back then?

Spock: That God gifted you with all the abilities needed to raise a child and you needed to lean naturally into your God-given abilities rather than worrying.

J: Do you realize you never said that to me at the time?

Spock: Well, there’s a lot of things I don’t say because they seem to be obvious or common sense.

J: Oh my gosh. Women need to hear these things. Okay…

Spock: Yeah.

J: Wow, that was beautiful, though. I wish I had embraced that.

Spock: Well, I think you grew past it. It wasn’t a permanent condition.

J: Well, no. Once the kids got a little bit older, my interest came back. And when they got really older, like teenagers, it really came back.

Spock: Well, yes, and your interest came back faster with [our second son] than with [our first] because you had gone through that first-cycle learning curve and you weren’t as worried.

What I Wish My Husband Had Understood

J: You know what I wish you had understood back then?

Spock: [laughs] What do you wish I’d understood?

J: I needed to hear from you these kinds of things—that you missed me. I felt like I was letting you down, but I felt like I was letting everybody down back then. And saying, “Well, you know, I’m not getting sex” or “I want more sex” probably would have made me feel like I’m just been letting one more person down. Whereas you telling me, “I believe in you as a mom, and I don’t feel as important to you as I want to be,” that might have…

Spock: And I wish my natural thought process ran along those channels I could deliver those messages.

J: Well, we’ve learned. We’re much better at talking about sex now. Would you agree?

Spock: I think we’re better at talking about a wide variety of things, including sex. I think we’re still works in progress, but then such is the nature of humanity.

J: True. I’ve also, obviously, have said this repeatedly, but I desperately wish that I had recognized my PPD and gotten help for it. I think if we could go back through all that with me on antidepressants or light therapy or something, it just might have been a different experience in some regards.

Spock: True.

J: But you do what you can with what you know at the time.

Spock: Mm-hmm.

How We Found Our Way Back

J: Do you have any thoughts about how we got back to having a good sex life? Other than your amazing charm?

Spock: Well, I don’t know about that.

I think mostly it was that the newness and the adaption required to deal with the children had faded into the background, and you were able to resume a lot more of your pre-childcaring responsibilities and interests. When you let go of some of the strain of all that newness and started to relax and live into it, your libido and all the other characteristics about you started to return.

J: I agree with that. I think at the beginning it was 100% mom 100% of the time, is how it felt. To me, I just felt “on” all the time. And then later, I became a fuller version of myself that could include more.

Spock: Sure. Most people when they graduate from school and start their first job, and they’re committed to that job as opposed to just filling a square, they usually become quite consumed with that job for the first three to six months to a year.

J: Yeah, but our dry years lasted longer than they should have.

Spock: Mm-hmm.

J: Maybe in the future, we’ll discuss my dry years when you were not as available, which has a lot to do with work stress, but not today.

Spock: All right.

J: Thank you.

Spock: I love you.

J: I love you.

Always a good idea to end conversations with your spouse with a reminder about your love! Not that Spock and I do that every time, but it is a good idea.

May any dry years in your marriage be only a season, replaced by fruitful lovemaking and intimacy.