Is There Sex After Children? Hell Yes!

Firstly I’d better point out that I’m not a councilor, all opinions voiced here are mine yada yada and also just because it works for me doesn’t make it work for everyone.  I personally often wonder why society is so Victorian about sex, after all, if humans didn’t procreate you wouldn’t be reading this would you? So that accepted, this post is about BEING SEXY not lesson in dynamics 😉 but if you have a problem with this please use the little x in the red box up there on the right.

Still here? Fine. Glad to see you xx

This week I visited Karin’s Blog Cafe Bebe and watched her vlog on sex after children, whilst this is a family blog and even though practically all my family and friends breeze through here at some point I felt compelled to answer her question “What do you do to keep things hot and sexy?”

My man and I may have some issues, who doesn’t! But a lack of sex life is not one of them, although until recently it probably was…

My issues…

Overtired?  You know that time when you spent months, in my case years plotting your chart, working the dates, seeing your temperature spike and calling the sperm provider to come home and fertilise the egg holder? How Sexy Was That? Total turn off to be honest but for a lot of us it’s how it was… is even. And then what happened? Your body changed so much in such a small time frame, physical change, chemical change, alien invasion.  I was never physically sick but I felt sick from 9 weeks to 30 weeks with both children and sleep? Sorry, what is sleep?  Explain that concept to me again because after four years of the kids waking up at all hours I still don’t sleep properly a year on.  #Insomniac

Exhaustion is a real libido killer, don’t be too hard on yourself if you are feeling so tired you can’t think, honestly until last year the last thing on my mind when I went to bed was getting sexy, it was more “I wonder how long I will get to sleep tonight?”

Self Esteem? On my wedding day I was 12 and a half stone, still a little overweight perhaps, curvy yes. Two children later I bloomed to 15 stone, like so many women I was unhappy with this, it didn’t feel right for me, I felt trapped inside my body. I’m still overweight (apparently) and not entirely happy but loosing 2 stone has helped with my view of me, I’m much happier enjoying wearing nicer clothes, I have more energy and I feel sexier… Please rest assured I did this for nobody but myself, I still have a few issues with my self esteem but I’m getting there…

Who are we together?

We were a very active couple. We met skydiving, we loved skiing, mountain biking, walking. We would spend our weekends under canvas dragging our all too willing border collie all over the country, it was a lifestyle we enjoyed together and I’m afraid it got sidelined…

Having kids… major roll changes, for me, for us… who’d have thought it! I have a hate of labels but they do apply, I’ve always been somebodies something, Daughter, Girlfriend, Fiancee, Wife… For a very short time in my 20’s the “Daughter” label became less important and the Girlfriend one disappeared and I became just “Me” Independent, strong minded, flirty with a strong self awareness including a sexual identity, once Fiancee and Wife happened somehow my self awareness became less important and by the time the label ‘Mother’ was attached I had no time to consider me, I was the center of someones universe in a totally dependent on me kind of way… Huge.

I remember once in my 20’s scoffing at a woman on the TV “Needing to Escape to find Myself” I remember thinking, honestly, what a strange thing to say! Now I can relate to that on so many levels it scares me.

And so, when I’m so lost in being ‘Mummy’ what happened to ‘Daddy’? He felt inadequate, my OH was never very sure how to handle/deal with babies, he says he was able to “choose not to” try and help due to this inadequacy, thankfully at 5 and 3 he is brilliant with them.. but all that baby stuff fell to me. Feeling sexy now – No Sir!

So how have we made/keep things hot and sexy?

It’s really hard to sit here writing about this and put them into some kind of order, they all kind of merge, so you will have to forgive me if I jump around a little, mine is not an orderly mind 😉

Time…. I have to say it, as much as I wish it wasn’t true, since my son turned two and has been more independent in play and feeding himself, life is coming back into “LIFE”. When I knew I was pregnant with no.2 I eased back from interactive time with my daughter, encouraged her to entertain herself, use her imagination, feel she was contributing to the family by helping and as my son has got older I’ve done the same with him.  The unexpected added benefit of this is at weekends Daddy and I can lounge in bed while they play downstairs together on a Sunday Morning and they do get very caught up in their games….

Several other things happened to change the post baby blues. I lost that 2 stone I hated and my self esteem improved, energy levels increased, my reading brain returned – I read my way through the Twilight saga in four weeks and then moved on to rereading other books I’d enjoyed and some new ones, I’ve always enjoyed adult themed literature (along side my huge love for comic fantasy) and reading about relationships, how people interact and come together, flirty, sexual tension with adventure and romantic notions is a strong influence on me! Another huge experience at the same time as the rediscovering reading for me was my birthday, I had a bit of a epiphany in hitting 40… The ‘naughty forties’ time to re-capture that independent feisty sexually aware 20 something I once was and reinvent her into a more mature feisty, sexually confident woman who feels she has nothing to prove to anyone anymore and can be ‘herself’ – Yeah, that and why the hell not? After all, you only live once.

Romance? No Romance? What is Romance? What does this mean to you? Candlelit dinners? Walks in the rain? We are all different. For me it’s being tactile, being held, feeling contact, being wanted… Quite simple things really. Tiny things that make your partner feel like you want to be close to them, like SLEEPING NAKED! Honestly, nothing says “I don’t want you” more than clothes in bed…

Sex is not about romance for me, I’ve lost the rose tinted glasses Hollywood paints for us, it’s a pre-cursor certainly, it helps with feeling sexy, romance is something a couple can work on all the time, not just with an ‘end goal’ in mind. Romantically speaking I do love the idea of getting myself ready for my ‘lover’ taking care of myself, I like him to make an effort too; but in reality for both of us this doesn’t happen for a whirlwind night of passion, it’s an “Ongoing project” I like to be aware of.  I get waxed, I go to a good hairdresser so I look reasonably acceptable, I try and wear nice clothes often, skirts and yes pretty (inexpensive) lingerie; nothing special just not ‘Bridgets’ all the time.. and these things I do for myself because it pleases me, makes me happy. YES! of course my husband likes his wife to look good and feel sexy but in my opinion that’s a happystance.

Don’t worry about being tired, be close, hold each other, be together when you can on whatever level you can manage, if that is just spooning at night so be it, who said sex had to be all swinging from the chandeliers anyway, adjust you athleticism to what you feel you can manage and UNDERSTAND that your partner needs to do that too… how do you do that? Well it’s all down to….

…Communication! This is the most important factor in our relationship, we talk, we listen to the verbal diatribe (and you think I drivel here!) about everything, no subject is taboo and when it comes to sex I do mean everything! Even investigating each others thoughts on things that don’t appeal to us, being opened minded about each others quirks and leaving no stone unturned. I’m lucky in this fact, it makes it easier to consider what Sex means to me and expand my horizons or just reaffirm an avenue we don’t wish to investigate. How you communicate is of course up to you, we hide ourselves away in the evenings in the hot tub and chew the cud, a rare escape to Minehead recently saw us covering subjects together that we had only hinted at before, frankly, intensely sometimes – TALK – no holds barred. And when you are not talking you can still be communication, non verbal communication is really important. Watch, explore – learn…

What do I like?

A friend of mine often says: ‘Men tell women they only think of sex every seven second so as not to scare them, because in reality it’s an awful lot more.’ Well, newsflash, a lot of women do too! Perhaps I’m just one of ‘those women’. I have blogged before in this post about my love of erotic photographs, I love reading erotica too, hell I even write it. I find it expands my mind thinking about the process of sex, choosing stories that appeal to me, pictures that interest me, most importantly working out what doesn’t appeal. This exploration of my mind, the use of words and the sight of an appealing picture is probably the single most key factor I associate with my increased libido since having children and I am sure my husband will agree, discovering what I like is what has bought sexy back into our lives.

So – a summary might be necessary.. 

Sleep naked

Talk

Listen

Touch

Explore

Is it legal? are you happy? do you like it? Do it…. Be open… Discuss.

Well there you go Karin…. I think I may have gone a bit mad…. 😉

Foot note – This is a family blog… Anything you think I’ve been vague about or you want some more detail on ask. I have email and Twitter has DM’s I don’t know all the answers but maybe if just chewing the cud would help, I’m up for that.