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Keep in mind that one way to help the other spouse "prioritize" sex is to help them out with all the new chores around the baby and not just bug them about wanting sex!
Our mistake was allowing ourselves to back burner our relationship as a couple and making children our the number one (and only) priority. The typical scenario is that the Husband withdraws from the relationship from lack of appreciation or priority in the family while the Wife feels ever so more alone in the houshold with chores and children.
Neither is willing to give a little to break the cycle because the children is the focus and the excuse for not taking care of each other.
I came pretty close to walking out the door one day... That event jump started our path to a better place... no where close to perfect but at least headed in that direction. The number one root of our problems; communication failure.
Our situation absolutely sucks as we try to derive some sort of joyful experience as parents. Focusing on what on what we do accomplish (however small) and actually voicing/showing our appreciation for those accomplishments is the form of communicaiton that we needed. I had to stick around rather than avoidance. My wife had to realize that I cannot "fix" our situation and recognize the resentment/blame. We both had to accept that we were essentialy ignoring each other.
Sex is still not there and my wife has seemingly zero intererest of drive. It is still the one topic she tends to "withdraw" from.. even at one time had a panic attack of sorts when I just simply wanted to talk about it. So it is not something I bring up until later after things heal a bit. I am not happy about it.. at least we are again working together as a couple and parents; I do derive some satisfaction from that.
My husband and I had a wonderful sex life until our firstborn was born. He was very colicky to the point where we slept in shifts. We were both totally exhausted but when he started to want to have sex I resented it immensely because while he could escape to work I was stuck in the house with a constantly crying baby. When he came home I handed him the baby and took a nap.
Having kids, for us, at least, changed everything and not just the sex. But remember sex isn't going to be the same after many years together whether or not you have children.
We had to adjust our schedule. But, we had to adjust our respective personal schedules when we first got together, anyway.
My husband is not, as it turns out, an evening person, and I'm not a morning person, so early on in our relationship, we had to find something that worked for both of us...he's too drowsy in the p.m. to get really fired up, and I'm to sluggish in the a.m. (especially since I breastfeed, which means that feedings are all on me...but our son is for the most part done with middle-of-the-night feedings, and has been since he was about three or four months old...still does a late night or early morning one, though). Our compromise was making use of mutually amenable times...we got in the habit of often targeting late afternoon/early evening.
Those times don't coincide with baby nap time very often, though. So, my husband is adjusting to sometimes making use of nighttime hours when we have them free, and I'm adjusting to early morning nookie wakeups that happen before the young'un stirs.
Essentially, if it's important to you to connect in this way, you'll find ways to make it happen. My husband and I discussed ahead of time that we'd prioritize not losing touch in that department, and that we'd still seek out intimacy, even if it was limited in the early stages. I had a lot of physical healing that needed to occur, and it took time. But we still made a point to intimately connect during that time, no matter that we couldn't engage in a full range of activities during recuperation. If you neglect this area, you have to ask yourself why. And, trust, people get tired. It's okay to be tired. It's not okay to use being tired as an excuse long-term, though.
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