Too tired for sex is a female affliction. Hubby's cheating.

Send him a calendar invite. Sex, Thursday 8-9 PM. No excuses, no awkwardness about propositioning your own husband.

@1, that was my first thought too.

Maybe I'm projecting, but I've gotta be pretty dead to be too tired for sex. That sounds more likely to be an excuse than the truth.

I hope I'm wrong.

First, studies have shown that many men experience a lower libido after child birth, so it seems quite plausible that his sex drive simply hasn't rebounded yet.

That said, I think there could be a couple of psychological issues at work too. One may be stress surrounding the financial responsibility for his wife (who is working as a full time mother) and for his baby. Worrying about work and money is undoubtedly a real libido killer. Another possibility is that he seeing his wife solely in her role as a mother, for instance watching her breastfeed, and not as a sex partner, which I suppose may not be uncommon for first time dads. In that event, being direct about having sex seems appropriate.

@1: Come now, far less common but still exists without cheating, "being gay", or any other insulting/unnecessary leap of assumption. Of course through selection bias you're going to get more of the guys who don't have as unkillable a libido as you'd see in the wild.

C'mon, Seandr @1 and RP @3, give this poor guy a break. He consciously muted his natural sex drive for (guessing here) an entire year or so to accommodate his wife's sudden drop in libido during pregnancy and immediately after the kid was born. That's called being a considerate and supportive parenting partner, given all the weird, unpredictable hormonal changes and body insecurity that a pregnant and lactating woman experiences, and he deserves a lot of credit for not pressuring her into sex when it was clear she couldn't handle it. (Not all prospective fathers can successfully pass that test, nor all prospective non-pregnant mothers in SS relationships.) Now she's suddenly back to 100 percent in the libido department, but he needs to unlearn his year-long practice of consciously sublimating and redirecting his sexual urges away from the woman he loves. Not easy, not always a presto-change-o instant transformation, even for super-straight, super-horny, totally-monogamous people of the XY variety. Plus, he now has a lot of added financial responsibility as the sole wage-earner for a three-person family. He has to wean himself off whatever sexual energy redirection/coping habits he's formed, and also stop stressing about the financial changes in their life together, before he'll be ready to jump back into bed with his previous enthusiasm. But if LW continues to express a GGG willingness and (preferably) outright lustiness for her man's body, I'd be willing to bet good money that his libido rebound period will be much shorter than hers was.

LW doesn't say how old hubby is (testosterone begins to decline at age 30) or if he has had a physical recently. Although it is she who has gone through major physical, hormonal, and emotional changes over the last 15 months, he may be feeling overwhelmed emotionally and physically by the changes in his life. He might be experiencing depression. Their lives are different. His responsibilities are different. As much as he may have heard about it from others, the sexual spontaneity of their pre-pregnancy lives may be now a relic of the past and tough for him to accept and accommodate into his life.

She mentions that she is working on getting back to her pre-pregnancy figure but have they had an open and frank conversation about how he feels about her body now? Has he always been open and honest about his feelings or could he be hiding them so as to not hurt her feelings? It is difficult for some couples to accept the physical changes in their partners.

She doesn't say if they've taken the time for just them to have a date night. Their baby is six months old and is old enough to be left with a trusted family member or friend for them to go out on a date or maybe go to a nice hotel for several hours, order room service, and just be a couple again.

Her husband doesn't work seven days a week does he? Does he have any time to just "be" without some kind of work on the agenda? She might work out a plan with him that each has scheduled "me time" and alternate that with "us" time (hiring a babysitter).

She might be in a marriage with a presently cheating partner or one who had cheated and now feels guilty but there may be many other issues that could be causing her husband to withdraw sexually. Counseling might help them if they find it difficult to get past this on their own.

Also what @6 said.

So hubby was considerate and thoughtful for laying off of sex while his wife wasn't into it, but a cheating bastard for not being ready to go now that his wife is?

Nuh uh. Either both partners should make allowances for reasonable drops in libido, or neither should.

Dan also makes a good point about his possible exhaustion. While my wife was on maternity leave, she got to spend several hours per day with our kids. I naturally wanted to establish a parental bond as well, so I took over as many of the childcare duties as I could when I wasn't at work. So for those months, I had zero downtime: 10-12 hours of work on weekdays, followed by 10-12 hours of childcare on weekends. Try working those hours for several months and tell me how randy you feel. (I bet every stay-at-home parent who doesn't get spousal support can feel that fatigue.)

Things got better when my wife went back to work and we started splitting childcare duties on the weekends. So I agree completely with Dan: give hubby a little time off.

@1 naw, I bet you he's gay.

I donno. Why stop having sex with your husband when pregnant? I don't mean piv. I did reach a physical point where I couldn't. But I still gave BJ's periodically.

But now. Eh don't think he's cheating. The truth is we self select I think for the ends of the curve - very high or asexual. So perhaps it's gobsmacking that a guy not want sex when available but perhaps he is exhausted. There have been times when my husband has turned me down for being too tired. I don't think he's cheating. He bounces right back in the am. And there was a period in time that money worries put the ice on it as well.

god damnit, i really wasn't planning on ranting but... GOD FUCKING FORBID that a man not want sex. There absolutely MUST be something wrong with him and if he doesn't come around, DTMFA. Men are such disappointments.

It's ridiculous to assume he's cheating. It sounds like he doesn't have any time to cheat and is probably exhausted and overwhelmed. I found pregnancy exhausting and overwhelming, and my husband found adjusting to having a baby in the house a huge shock. I think something about the experience of being pregnant meant I was already at least partly attuned to the change in our lives, but for him it was the arrival of the baby that left him at times depressed and knackered. He did fully recover though!

Snuggly, empathy-driving "female" hormones surge in new dads, and testosterone often decreases. It's those important bonding hormones he's supposed to have; they're the same ones you made when you were pregnant and didn't want sex. So, he's stressed, emotional, and doesn't feel quite "the same" about sex. I feel bad for the guy. Yeah, get him an x-box, tell him to go out with the guys. Let him know that the baby isn't really the center of you-all's relationship (or pretend he's not for a few hours, lol).

Also, you guys should talk.

I always forget my links when I'm looking something up. Here's some stuff on new-dad hormones

http://www.livescience.com/46322-fatherh…
And I was reading something about how human dads are some of the only primates who have a drop in testosterone after being in contact with babies. More territorial animals see a rise, I guess so that the father can protect his new family rather than nurture it. But I can't find the reference, sorry.

A sudden drop off in sexual desire to the point where you don't feel it; may be like rejection to her husband. You can reassure him all you want verbally but it rather sucks as you (her husband) can feel like a failure.

So now that things are working again; how does he feel? If he was Faithful he hasn't had sex in over 6+months and has been furiously masturbating.

If he hasn't started to move on; he will. Quite devastating to suddenly find yourself unable to please your partner.

@13: "It sounds like he doesn't have any time to cheat"

Cheaters always find time for the cheating at the expense of their family. While I still don't think that's the case here, it's hard to argue that all those "late nights at work" are doing anyone but them good.

I've never been a parent, but stress and overwork totally zap my libido and that can drag on for a while if I don't get a chance for a real break. Fortunately, it comes roaring back with a vengeance when I do get a couple of days off.

If there are any grandparents handy, you might see if they can take the baby for a weekend so that LW and hubby can go away for a few days. Two days in a hotel no crying baby and a hot tub might be all he needs.

@busy_quilting: It's ridiculous to assume he's cheating.

Look, 9 out of 10 SL letters boil down to "the guy's an asshole". Maybe this is one of the exceptions, but I suspect you're all being duped by the classic "hard working provider and loving father" ruse, one of the oldest long cons in the books.

@Sportlandia: I bet you he's gay.

And cheating.

@12 right on. So sorry that Seandr got in the first, gender-role performance shaming comment. Look people, this isn't rocket science - sex drives are not constant. Some people tend to be high libido no matter what's going on in their lives and some tend to be low, but everyone experiences occasional fluctuations. Jeez. Major life transitions are stressful; parenting a newborn is stressful; partnering a woman through the changes of pregnancy, childbirth, and recovery is stressful; working full time and dealing with all of the above is super stressful. Cut the guy a little slack. I totally agree with Dan here (kind of a rarity). Take every oppurtunity to let him know you are ready to ramp it back up, but try to show him the same consideration he showed you. Give it a couple months before you decide there's a MAJOR ISSUE.

Wow, Sean, you're really sliding downwards into abject sexism lately. I'm disappointed.

If Dad has grown used to no sex as the new normal, it may take time for his suppressed libido to come back to life. Just because wife's has doesn't mean husband is automatically on the same mental wavelength. Too tired is a thing. So is masturbating; I bet he's been doing a lot of that too. He might be cheating -- but when? From the letter, he goes to work and comes straight home.

And speaking of masturbating:
Dan: "you've been able to find time in your day to masturbate, sometimes more than once a day"
Seriously? That takes, like, five minutes. If she has time to take a dump, she has time for a wank.

It's true though, Fan. A stay at home mother, with a six month old child.. No colic problems or the like..can have quite a bit of down time during the day, as the baby sleeps.
If the father is doing overnight duty as well as working, then yeah.. the poor guy is exhausted. Just like many women are, who do it All. If the LW is still breast feeding, there's no point in waking her partner.
My suggestion is LW's husband sleep by himself a few nights a week. A few good nights' sleep each week, and I'd say his sex with return.

He may also be a little worried about getting LW pregnant again. Even with breast feeding, the body is ready to go again after six months.
I know, it happened to me.

sender, if there's one thing I've learned over years of reading Savage Love, it's that women can be total assholes as often as men. There is no way in hell that 9 out of 10 SL letters boil down to a guy being an asshole unless you're reading all different letters to me.
I know that most cheaters will find the time to cheat if they want to no matter what else is going on in their lives, but in the case of working full-time with a new baby and also doing a lot of the sleep-deprived parenting at home I don't think this guy is working any kind of con, long or otherwise.

unrelated to the LOTD, but wondering if anyone knows how to search the CONTENT of the savage love archives? when I type in basic keywords (eg, 'vagina') I get no results; I think it's only searching article titles rather than content. any help?

http://www.thestranger.com/archive/dan-s…

@25 As usual, Google is better in searching a site than that site's native search engine. Type this in the Google search box: vagina site:thestranger.com, click the search button and behold: lots of results. Lots of them in titles, too.

@1 & @3 - I am only a few months further along the process than the LW and I can assure you that I am not cheating and am not gay, and I still do not have the drive I had before the kid showed up.

@2 & Dan have the right advice and we are doing better now than LW appears to be, but honestly, the drive is lower and add onto that the fact that I felt my wife was doing "duty sex", which is a real libido killer for me. I felt this way largely because "bits didn't work" also applied to us, starting i the middle of the 1st Tri, and clearly continued to not work for about 4 months PP (attempts at duty sex left DW grimacing in pain - yeah, that's a libido killer).

I would add to the "schedule it" and "let Dad have a break" that LW make it pretty clear to him how horny she is and work on getting him aroused. Too often women feel they cannot initiate or be the aggressor - and the hottest thing ever is a turned on woman - but expect the fact that they are receptive to a good night kiss to be all the indication needed to let you know they want sex.

@21: "Wow, Sean, you're really sliding downwards into abject sexism lately. I'm disappointed."

Yeah, usually it's couched under the guise of "a joke" but he's either extremely lazy or this is the regressive stuff he truly feels. What a waste.

@24: To be clear, what I said on the matter didn't apply to this particular LW's case.

AFinch @27, appreciate the update; sending good thoughts your way.

Your advice is solid here, and I'll add that the advantage of having a six month old (rather than an older child) is that the parents can be naked around the house and talk dirty to each other without worrying about what the kid sees or hears, at least for another year or two.

Re@22. Oh, the baby sleeps thru the night. Should have read the letter closer. Still, babies do wake up very early usually for their first feed, so I'll stick with my suggestion. And as Dan said, let the guy come home and chill after work some of the time. Hi Finch.

@6 and @20 say it best. Six months into having a new child (particularly if its a first child) can be still be seriously exhausting for both parents. If this were a year and a half or two years into it, then, yeah, it'd definitely be unusual if one or both parents hadn't eased back into a regular sex life. But six months? Give each other a major break on this; be patient, talk about it, let your spouse know how you're feeling, but for gods sake don't assume something's broken or somebody's cheating if it still even takes a while longer than this.

@27 had some good advice - LW really needs to let her husband know how turned on she is and how badly she wants to have sex with him. Remember, they went at least a year without sex - none after first trimester and first six months of birth. A year is an eternity for men, and I expect he found some coping mechanism, from porn to affairs. He needs to re-channel to his sexual energy to his wife and ditch his resentment if he has any.

My guess is he has no idea that his wife really wants sex, thus the reason he is having unsatisfying quickies. He assumes he is burdening her with his desires, so he is trying to be efficient.

Alternatively, cheating and/or gay.

TH @33

My guess is he has no idea that his wife really wants sex, thus the reason he is having unsatisfying quickies. He assumes he is burdening her with his desires, so he is trying to be efficient.

Sounds likely to me. After all, the standard narrative is that the last thing a mother with a baby needs is yet another person who wants something physical from her (or words to that effect).

Speaking of narratives, it's telling that our resident MRA isn't throwing a tantrum over this legit cruelty towards a new father by other men. Yet another sign that the ultimate advancement of the male culture is less important than getting shitty, childish digs in on women.

There are any number of reasons for the husband's behavior and we are as unlikely to know them as the wife. We can tell her to talk to him, but if he's having an affair, he's going to lie, if he finds her post-pregnancy body unappealing, he's going to lie, and if he says he's tired, she may not believe him, anyway.

I agree that she should make it clear how much she
1) wants sex
2) wants him
3) wants sex with him

She can send flirty little texts or leave sexy voicemails throughout the day; they can schedule an afternoon tryst for a weekend day during the baby's nap. On that day, perhaps the husband can get some extra morning sleep and be more rested.

@35: undead ayn rand, Since no one is throwing a tantrum, it's odd that you would bring up the phenomenon. Do you want to wade through "shitty, childish digs on women?"

Oh gods no. It's just a good example of people hurling ridicule on a guy in the comments for not responding in a stereotypically "male fashion". But harmful stereotypes coming from other guys is fine, I guess.

It doesn't take six months to be free enough from a baby's demands for a woman to have sex again. Perhaps the husband feels a little upset that he was fended off before the birth and then was fended off for half a year after the birth, and now his wife expects him to automatically go back to "normal". Maybe they should talk about that, so if he has any feelings about it, he can express them.

I'm surprised that Dan didn't advise her to masturbate in front of her husband. Perhaps the act of seeing his wife as a sexual person again can be helped along by having him watch her get off without asking him to perform. My husband (lots of husbands) enjoy watching me get myself off even when he's tired although just watching usually makes it impossible for him not to join in on his own. Also, if he's been without sex, his penis may be slightly desensitized due to his own increased masturbation. It's possible that a little self manipulation for the time being could get them over this transition without letting anyone feel too frustrated.

Also, I don't think he's cheating. Lots of men and women find out they have some mental issues about the way their parents treated them during the first year(s) as a parent. It's possible that the hubby is dealing with some anger or resentment over his own childhood and that's leading to fear of failure as a father which is a super libido killer and just as likely as an affair.

@39: it doesn't? Ever?

My husband suppressed his desire and never got it back. I think it was partly about not being high libido in the first place but mostly about relying a death grip during the time when I wasn't available. And porn, but he wouldn't try anything new with me when I was interested again. He was too much a creature of habit.

I'll add my voice to the chorus of "let him know you want to have sex."

With kid #1, my wife was much the same as the letter writer: uninterested in sex starting in the second trimester, and still uninterested for about six months after the birth. So I took to masturbating before any potential sexy time. That way I wouldn't stew in my own juices, or ask and feel shitty getting shot down yet again, or ask and feel guilty about the obligatory and unenthusiastic blowjob.

It's possible LW's hubby is doing something similar. I don't know any guy that can go more than a week without an orgasm, so if he's wasn't getting any from LW, and if he wasn't cheating, he was masturbating regularly. LW should tell him that she wants sex again, so he can dial back the masturbation and save some desire for his wife.

@33and@34. Tim and RE.
I get the sense that she has told him. He falls asleep just after he comes and doesn't look after her. This guy is bone tired. What is with the he's having an affair routine?
This man, is a card carrying
Good Guy, as I read it. The LW perhaps needs to change her expectations a bit. Hey Tim.

And just to clarify, she should tell him in advance of when she wants sex. Saying "I want sex now" is not helpful if the guy jacked off thirty minutes ago, expecting that his wife would not want to have sex and thus intentionally sating his libido so that he doesn't feel frustrated.

I have a much higher sex drive than my husband and damned if I don't hear this bullshit all the time.

He must be cheating.
He must be secretly gay.
He must have porn addiction.
You must be fat.
You must be ugly.
You must be ugly and fat.
He must have low testosterone.

Give it a rest you narrow minded jerks. Men have just as much a right to varied sex drives as women. It's not helping ANYONE to make such ignorant broad assumptions.

Good comment PennyLady!
I think Ashley Madison had a particularly vile advertisement once that featured a scantily-clad fat woman with the tagline "did your wife scare you last night?"
That really cemented my hatred of that site.

When I read things like "a man CAN'T have low desire, al men jus want to have sex all the time because men aren't like women" I just want to break the person's nose with my head.
Never heard of mr Gauss and his bell-shaped curve, didn't they?
Saying that all men/women/gay/etero/mums/dads/nuns/whatever must act a specific way is just BULLSHIT. And it is bullshit in every fucking field of human behaviour.
I'm always under the impression that people who react like @1 and @3 feel everything as an attack to their virility/womanlyness or whatever.

Back to the LW: a lot of the commenters above gave you a list of very good reasons your husband might be less interested in sex than he was before the kid. Down to the bone, it is just that a lot of people can't send away the ground noise they have in their brain, which is made of all the thoughts and worries of everyday life. GENERALLY it happens more to women than to men, but it DOES happen to men too.
Sometimes the noise is quite muted and it doesn't represent an obstacle, but when worries are big (new member in the family = another mouth to feed, for example) AND your life has been put upside down AND you are tired like a donkey for working and parenting... well, the noise can be overwhelming and block away other thoughts.
Differently from what a lot of people thinks, sex is not a primary need (meaning: your life doesn't depend on it, not as it depends on eating and sleeping), then it can automatically be pushed away if other things seem more relevant to your brain.
I think you should let your husband know that you are back to be interested in sex with him - helll, you should let him know that you damn want him - BUT you need to make it clear that there is no pressure, because pressure is something that can kill what little libido is left, when the conditions are the above. Maybe find a way to re-build your sexual relationship slowly, step by step, like you two were back to first dating or something.
And yeah, maybe do it at a time where your kid is with someone else (grandparents, aunt/uncle, babysitter, trusted friend...)

Take a look at Emily Nagosky's blog "The dirty normal" (older posts are better for your issue than new ones), and read her book "Come as you are": there is an example of a situation more or less like yours in it (parts reverted, but that's not important, not really), and I think you could find a lot of good suggestions in there, suggestions that are science- and experience-powered.
Good luck.

Tim @33: "A year is an eternity for men"
Not just men!

Undead @35: Our resident MRA has either been kicked off the boards (we should be so lucky) after I reported him for his latest tantrum on the Thrilla In Vanilla thread, or he's just gone away to lick his wounds, which I fear is more likely.

Sarah@39: "It doesn't take six months to be free enough from a baby's demands for a woman to have sex again."
"A" woman? Which woman? You holding all women to your own timeline here? What about those who are unlucky enough to suffer post-partum depression?

@43/@45: Good points about the guy needing to get out of the masturbation habit he has undoubtedly fallen into.

One thing that struck me is that "sometimes once he gets off he falls asleep or says that he is too tired to continue." Um, falling asleep post-orgasm is 100% normal for men. Most approach this physical phenomenon by getting their female partners off before commencing PIV. Try that, perhaps? Get your vibrator out if his fingers/tongue don't work quickly enough for your liking/his energy levels.

Penny @46: I hear ya. This "men are always hornier than women" is reductionist, insulting and frankly untrue.

Something else I've just noticed on re-read:
"My husband and I had a mutually satisfying sexual relationship before my pregnancy."
"My sexual appetite is voraciously revived"

It sounds as if her sex drive is now HIGHER than it was pre-baby, while her husband's may be the same. If "mutually satisfying... before pregnancy" means, for instance, they had sex twice a week and were both happy about that, but she now wants sex every day, it's not reasonable for her to expect him to meet this increased demand. It wouldn't be reasonable even if there weren't a new baby in the picture.

Ashara @48: Never heard of mr Gauss and his bell-shaped curve, didn't they?
I agree that saying all people of type x do y is bullshit. There are exceptions, and bell-curves have tails. But bell-curves also have medians, and therefore acting like men are just as likely as women to do y in circumstance z is also bullshit. The centers of the curves fall in different spots; the standard deviations are different; and when you check out behavior y, yeah, there are going to be fewer men hanging out at that spot on the axis than women. If people respond accordingly by proposing that maybe y isn't really what's going on, it's just a front for other behaviors, all long as they aren't stating that like it's a certainty, that's not bullshit, that's probability.

@47: http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/201…

That's the one.

Ashara @48 -- Of course sex is a primary need. We, collectively, as a species, die out if we stop fucking, and to prevent that nature has wired us accordingly.

So no I'm not going to die if I don't get laid tonight. (Nor am I going to die of starvation if I skip lunch either.) But if I go for too long without sex I get all twisted and bitter and fucked up, and start channeling my unused sexual energy into collecting guns or scrapbooking or Catholicism or something. Failure to thrive is not pretty.

Confidential to letter writer: how about giving him the same consideration he showed you, hmm? That means this time next year before you get to start writing letters and making a fuss. Fucking hell.

@53: "Of course sex is a primary need. We, collectively, as a species, die out if we stop fucking, and to prevent that nature has wired us accordingly."

A primary need, collectively. Not necessarily individually. Not everyone is "wired up" the same, certainly.

Another interesting discussion.ill read it after.
LW, while the baby is not walking , and your guy is carrying a big load, give him
Sensuous Saturdays. Maybe promise a month, best not to let men get too carried away.
A woman does need to nurture her man, as she likes to be nurtured.
So, he gets to sleep in, you bring him coffee when he wakes up. Maybe the papers to read, while he drinks his coffee, in bed.
Give him a solid day a week to just do what he likes. And you feed him and keep the baby occupied.
Parenting is an on the hop type job, forever changing. For you and your guy to navigate this exciting path you have ahead, you got to nurture each other. Talk about this, because as your baby grows the needs will change.
Parents are the closest working team, communication and love.

@LateBloomer @53: start channeling my unused sexual energy into collecting guns or scrapbooking or Catholicism or something.

hehehe

It would be nice if people stopped pinning what are primarily bi male behavioural patterns on Teh Gayz, but I know better than to hope not to be punished for other people's attitudes anytime soon. LBT+ community, please make haste.

@57: Which "primarily bi male behavioural patterns"?

@40.shee. Good points. I do believe new parents not only have to look after this new bundle of work, the experience activates their own childhood experiences. And this goes on as the child grows.
Double hit.
And that's a good topic to bring to the parent time discussions. What is being activated in each other.
Now that my kids are grown, I look back and it is such an intense journey, raising one or more children.
Talk. Talk.

Venn @57: I think you commented on the wrong thread?

Wow, @1. What a hateful, loathesome thing to say about someone experiencing one of the most difficult times in his life. Seriously. Wow.

Hi Finch!

@62: 2edgy4me