My partner and I are like many couples that have been together for a long time. We have two young kids. Busy jobs. A house that constantly needs cleaning. Chores and shopping. Money worries. Oh and I didn’t mention the cats. We have three and one of them is only seven weeks old.
We’ve been together for 27 years. I met Paul in a nightclub. My friend said he was not a good choice (I can’t remember the exact reasons but this was like waving a red rag to a bull as I liked a challenge).
We’ve been through infertility, IVF, miscarriages, perimenopause, bereavements, multiple redundancies and we’re still standing. That feels like an achievement in itself. We get on, we still laugh at stupid stuff, but it sometimes feels like we are two company founders heading up a start-up rather than two sexy adults who want to hump one another. We haven’t had sex in a long time. I can’t actually remember the last time, but definitely more than a year ago.
Anyone who’s had children will tell you that sex often gets put on the back burner because you’re too tired, overwhelmed or just want to catch up on sleep. There’s also the dreaded familiarity (and after so many years together things feel very familiar). So we decided to embark on bestselling psychotherapist Esther Perel’s online course entitled- “Bringing Desire Back”.
We sit down one evening and watch Esther’s introduction (the course is made up of videos of her talking direct to camera, combined with questions to answer later in private or together).
One of the first things Perel says is around arguing and confrontation – “Do you want to be in a relationship or do you want to be right?” she asks. The fact that we are doing the course is a sign that we want to have a relationship. We do however spend a lot of time trying to “win” when we’re arguing.
Paul and I often have the same arguments and these tend to be around certain familiar themes – in a pie chart we’d have a segment which was about the domestic load (who does the most), then a segment which would be about how we take one another for granted (I get frustrated as I feel he never listens). Then there is this general sense of not feeling seen. That’s a big one.
The conversations we traditionally have are often not constructive or kind. We discuss this tendency to blame one another, and how this resentment isn’t helpful in creating any sense of desire. This feels like a step forward as we aren’t just going around in circles about who empties the dishwasher the most. We are talking about our feelings instead.
Perel later states that we need to “communicate our longing” to one another. This makes me cringe because I’m fairly sexually repressed (despite hosting a sex podcast a few years back). I manage to text Paul and tell him that “I miss the way we used to be together”. The second part of the message tells him our daughter “has the flu and needs more Calpol if he can pick it up?”.. but it’s a step in the right direction.
In the next module Perel talks about “pleasure as the measure”. Not only does this rhyme stick in my head but it also helps take out the intimidation factor. We don’t have to focus solely on having sex apparently. It’s more about intimacy and enjoying one another in a physical way.
When Paul and I were trying to conceive children, we’d had a lot of mechanical sex which was devoid of any eroticism. It was planned on days when I was ovulating and was generally in the same position.
I hated sex so much because it became a chore and felt joyless. Also, the truth is that many women do not orgasm through penetrative sex alone, and this was the case with me too. I find this broadening out of “what constitutes intimacy” helpful (i.e. less pressure to “have sex” but to instead re-frame how we see intimacy).
Perel also talks about the need to “re-sexualise your relationship”’ so finding ways to express erotic feelings. So over the next couple of days I try to introduce a bit more physical touch when I see him. I make an effort to not get triggered so easily (this in itself feels revolutionary) and I hold his hand whilst we watch TV and stroke his arm. I also give him a hug when he comes in from work instead of immediately launching into my download of the day (which is my natural tendency).
I think about how often I have withheld physical affection and realise I rarely saw my own parents being affectionate with one another (they divorced when I was five years old). I feel guilty that maybe our kids don’t see us being affectionate towards one another though we do cuddle now and then. I also think about how I am actually pretty cold with Paul and tend to show more affection with my female friends. This is a big learning.
I suspect the reason I do this is because I am so comfortable with him that I don’t consider the impact of my actions on him as I do with my friends. Perhaps too I take him for granted. I often send cards and gifts to my close friends but when was the last time I did the same for Paul? I realise I want to be seen, to be acknowledged but haven’t made the effort to “see” him either. I vow to make more of an effort in the future.
One of the most revealing lessons for both of us is around our own sexual conditioning and the messages we learned about sex growing up. This obviously impacts how we feel about sex as adults.
During the 90s, ladette culture preached that women were “one of the lads/2 but that these “lads” also had big breasts and appeared on the covers of lads’ mags in bikinis. It was a time when women were made to feel hyper critical of their bodies with a lot of body shaming in the media (and lots of sexual predators behind the scenes).
I realise that I’ve never felt good about my body and growing up in the 90s made my feelings of self-hatred more intense. I also experienced two traumatic births that left me with injuries that made me feel even more self conscious. I don’t like seeing myself naked in the mirror and usually avert my eyes when I step out of the shower.
Even with my partner of so many years I feel self conscious. The fact that he’s seen me wearing a giant nappy several days post-birth, watched me getting multiple internal scans when I was going through IVF, and then crying hopelessly with both boobs hanging out (battling with feeding early on)… well none of these experiences made me feel sexy but they also make me doubt how attractive he finds me these days too. I look at images of women who claim to feel sexy and empowered post kids but can’t relate to them as it’s not been my experience.
Paul raised the fact that sex had always been a big source of self-validation for him especially when he’d gone through difficult times. He’d been promiscuous when he was young, before we’d met and used sex with different women to boost his self esteem. He said that he’d like to have sex more often and it makes him feel sad that we don’t do it any more. He told me that he’d always found me attractive and in fact felt I’d become more gorgeous as I’d got older. I could hear these words but found it hard to take them on board.
In the last module Perel talks about how important it is to do something new, something that you wouldn’t usually do with a partner. Paul and I are locked in a routine which feels safe but stale. We get up, take the kids to school, ferry them to activities (mainly Paul) and then watch TV. We go out with just the two of us maybe twice a year and are probably back again by 10.30 because babysitters are so expensive and we don’t have loads of cash to splash about.
We talk about this and make a plan to do something that isn’t a turgid “date night”. I remember how I used to feel a lot of excitement when we went to gigs. This was something we did a lot before children. Before kids we’d also sit up late playing one another music and talking about why we loved certain bands and what they meant to us. We had this mutual passion. So we set a date to go and see a band we both love. It makes us both feel a bit more excited about doing things together.
I feel confident that we can learn to desire one another again. It’s not something that will happen overnight or something that will happen because we’ve had one date and we’re both wearing sexy underwear. It takes effort and a bit more mindfulness. The WhatsApp messages are still pretty functional right now but there is the odd flirtatious comment now and then.
It’s a start.
