Mom, you may just want to stop here and come back in a couple of weeks for my next post. You have been warned.
Although I do not generally use others to gauge what is normal for my life, I have recently had discussions with other couples about the frequency of intimacy within their marriage. Their responses left me curious. The title is slightly misleading, as there is no real “normal” with anything parenting or marriage related. After all, we are all different and our marriages each unique. However, these conversations left me questioning whether my sex life is healthy.
How often is enough?
A wise woman once told me in my formative years that “sex is the glue that holds a marriage together.” That statement, made in passing, has really stuck with me. Now that I have been married for almost 6 years, I can say at times, it is 100% true. I personally believe that it is necessary and a must. The real question is, though, how often is enough? As I said before, I don’t typically look at other people’s lives to measure my own success but I needed to know if our sex life was average. Average, I am ok with; below average, I am not.
These past 9 months is the longest I have gone without either being pregnant or breastfeeding in 4 years. To say I am tapped-out, touched-out, etc. come 8:00pm is an understatement. I get ALL the physical contact from my loving two and four year old boys. I was quite comfortable with the amount of times we were intimate on a weekly basis but casual conversations with acquaintances made me rethink things. No, they didn’t have toddlers, but what if my excuse to my husband of “trust me, you are getting it as much as any other dad with toddlers,” simply was not true?! I didn’t want to point blank ask my friends how often they were getting frisky because at the end of the day, I did not care how many times so-and-so was getting it on. Instead, I just wanted to know what the average was for parents of young children. Sex is healthy and necessary for a marriage but how often is unique to each couple. As one mom said, “we were a couple before kids and we will be a couple after the kids leave.” I do not want to neglect my marriage while my children are young. So without further adieu, I have anonymously polled women who fit that description and this is what I learned:
92% have sex no more than 2 times in a one week period
In a one week period, 23% have sex 0 times, 54% have sex 1 time, 15% have sex 1-2 times, and only 8% have sex 3 times. 0% have sex more than 3 times in one week. So if you hit 3, you can reassure your loving partner that you’re doing great!
85% had sex more frequently before having children
No shock there, right? This is a revolutionary study, we know. Whereas post kids, the most times in a one week period was 3; prior to having children, some couples had sex as frequently as 5 times per week. Before becoming parents, 54% of couples were having sex 2-3 times per week and 15% had sex more than 3 times per week.
77% of the time it is the wife saying “no” to sex
Again, no real shock to me. Most women gave the reason that they are tired or tapped out as the excuse. Other reasons included different circadian rhythms, trouble switching from role of “mom” to “wife,” lack of time and weight gain.
I hope that you, like me, find comfort in these honest numbers. If you find yourself in the “less is more” or quality over quantity (read :: you are doing the deed once a week, twice if he’s lucky), then rest assured, you are not alone. Most moms stand in solidarity with you. If you are getting your freak on tri-weekly, rock on momma. Remind your husband he is a lucky man. There really is no such thing as “normal” because every marriage is different. If you are unsatisfied with your current sex life, here are some great tips on how to keep things interesting.
We just had a ❤️2❤️ about this last week. We’re of the “if it’s once a month that’s a major win” camp and while that was fine for a while it isn’t any more. Being stressed over bills and our babies makes it hard to communicate well, much less allow ourselves the release we both need. It distances us more as a couple and that isn’t healthy. So while I see nobody else has responded I think we all should look within to see if we’re doing it for all the right reasons.
Those numbers say to me that 75 percent have sex once or less a week. Personally, I read some studies that confirm that the average is once a week. That sounds about right to me. Once every 7 to 10 days is doing great. Life is busy with kids. And there’s nothing worse than being tired at the end of day and then your partner is asking for more. When you’re tired, sex just ends up being a chore. And no one should have to do ‘duty sex’. My wife and I always went to bed right after we got the kids down and fell asleep immediately so that we got a good nights sleep. For her it meant about nine hours, for me about eight. Then the next day we both felt more rested but still would go to bed right after we put the kids down. Except we felt less tired and could ‘play awhile’ with each other :)… And then start the rat race all over again. We were both thankful for at least once a week. And again, ONCE a week is NORMAL for all the couples we’ve talked to.
If the father feels neglected or refused then he can come to resent having kids and that is not a good thing. My wife and I have 6 so we’ve been through the new baby thing a lot and I really do understand that their need to be fed, burped, changed etc. is a higher priority than my need for intimacy, but that doesn’t make the need vanish.
Intimacy doesn’t always have to be sex, and it doesn’t have to be at the end of the day when you are most worn out either. Most guys will be happy with a somewhat messier house if it makes the difference between a wife that has time and energy to be with them and a wife that doesn’t. And a husband that feels loved is far more willing to help out with the housework.
Don’t worry about what commonly happens when a couple has a child, just do your best to meet the needs of all your loved ones.
Wow! 6 kids and you’re worried about YOUR “need for intimacy”? It’s not just about babies needing to be fed and burped etc. It’s about a mother feeling contstantly needed and drained. She’s exhausted and probably doesn’t practice self care but in your mind she needs to worry about banging her husband so he’ll feel loved enough to help out? Or worse that he’ll resent resent children that he fathered because he doesn’t get enough sex? YOU COULDN’T POSSIBLY SOUND LIKE A BIGGER ASSHOLE!
It was the “willing to help with the housework” for me.
I’m confused; how much sex do you charge for carrying an equal share of the domestic labor in a household with 6 children whom you presumably fathered? I see you are willing to tolerate a messy house for more sex, but how much to actually behave like a real human partner that values his spouse?
“tolerate” a messy hole…..meaning that your wife must not work for a living. (Unless she DOES work but you expect her to work, clean your entire house, take care of all your kids and THEN have time for you). She has 6 kids to care for, which you presumably fathered and wanted. Working for a living doesn’t make you a good father or husband. Period, it doesn’t.Avyually BEING a good father and husband does.if you’re “neglected” then there’s a reason. Its YOUR job to figure out why and how to make that better. If your wife loves you, she wants to show you love and wants to make you feel loved. If she’s having trouble doing that for you, the LAST THING you should do is resent your own damn children because they took attention away from your wife. You should love and respect the hell out of your wife for working so hard to be a good mom and figure out how you can help her with the kids so that she has more leftover for you the end of a day.
Honestly though, the idea of a man resenting his OWN children because his wife is working her ass off to be a phenomenal motherto them and he doesnt want to help at all just pisses me off.
I have 3 children, ages 4 1/2, 3, and 6 months. Sometimes my husband and I’s only moments alone are those spent making love. He is nurse and works 12 hours on the days he works (3 to 4 times a week), when he works night shift I may only see him for 30 minutes at a time until the next day off. We may not have sex those days. But the days he is off we more than make up for it. We will have sex 2 to 3 times a day on his days off. I’m always tired. I haven’t had a restful night of sleep since 2016. But that is my normal. This is our normal. I don’t say no to sex unless I am, literally, falling asleep. We get to go on dates every 2 to 3 months. Sex is free and it is how we bond among the chaos of life. I don’t let my kids watch tv, and that’s why they sit there and absorb all the screen time they can while my husband spend some quality time together. My marriage comes first. I love my kids, but my husband and our love is the reason they exist in the first place. When my marriage is going well and we spend those most intimate moments together, it makes parenting a little easier. And let’s face it ladies, as my husband says, “ sometimes you just gotta hit that reset button.” When I meet his needs, he willing to help with the needs around the house. When he meets those needs I’m more than happy to meet his needs.
So, you don’t let your kids watch TV except for the at least six to twelve copulation sessions, during which you are “always tired”, per week? That’s a lot of friggin’ TV, especially for kids who don’t watch TV.
Let’s all look within our own relationships to see if we’re happy. Let’s not brag about our nonstop, always-tired sex sessions and our kids who don’t watch TV. Let’s not ask someone else how much sex we should be having, congratulate ourselves for having sex more than average, or berate ourselves and others for having less. Talk with your partner and resolve these issues within your own relationship, which may or may not be worth saving. Never have sex when you don’t want to. It will condition you to despise and resent your partner. Divorce a partner who thinks they should demand sex when you don’t want it and then compensate you with a few minutes of housework, if they’re feeling generous. Married incels are even more revolting than single ones.
The “needs around the house” are HIS needs too, and his kid’s needs to, and he should want to and be required to help with house needs and child needs every bit as much as you do.
So. My kids are 2 and 5. Oldest is my step son. When I came into picture he was about 2. Me and my wife had sex regularly like 2-3x a week if not more. Now it goes 6 months at a time roughly. To the point when I finally get sex I’m irritated because now I know it’ll be many many month before it happens again
God I never thought that would be my life but I’m right there with you man.
My kids are 1 and 3. I’m lucky to get it once a month. I feel unloved and am never touched. You may act like we’re just pigs looking for our sexual fix, but you don’t know how we really feel. I don’t understand how one can think that i should be okay with being a roomate that takes care of kids. I give her space, time to go out by herself, trips with friends, i do a fair share of the chores. We’re gonna live life this way till they’re grown and when we’re older and not as capable we’ll look back with regret.
Can you talk to your wife and let her know how you feel? Maybe talk to her at some non-sexual time and let her know that sex is the way you feel loved. One way to explain it might be to compare it to her never being complimented or hugged or kissed – or whatever her love language is – or only getting that once every few months (I’m assuming that you hug and kiss her more than that.).
How old is your wife? I’ll tell you a chunk of truth that you won’t like but here it is. When women hit about 35-37, estrogen starts to really tank. Sex drive tanks, vagina starts to get thin and loses its plump fullness, sex starts to hurt and then progressively hurts more each time. This get worse and happens faster the more kids you have. As we get into periome opause and approach menopause, ALL sex drive is literally gone. Vagina is dry as the sahara desert. All the nerve endings are numbed or insensitive. If you had kids and your vagina was stretched and ripped apart your vagina will be lax and wide and feel like a garden hose instead of a fleshlight. Everything is just thinner, wider, deflated and painful. When your pussy is going through menopause, sex HURTS and usually causes a UTI. We don’t feel anything either, we just fake it a lot. Men don’t understand this and they just assume we stopped wanted sex because we became bitches or want to use sex as a weapon or some stupid shit. Would men ever want sex at all if it didn’t feel good at all, there was no lube, they hardly ever orgasmed, they got. UTI every time, and their penises were just small and weird and hard to get hard one day?????
I’m disappointed with the result of this article. I’m the woman who would like to have sex much more with my husband than he has energy or interest. It would have been helpful to have a point in it, “What if you’re the mom who even though you have the toddler would like nothing more than to be appreciated as a woman at the end of the day, but your husband just wants to sleep.” To me, there’s not much reward in being a child bearer, toy picker upper and NOT get to be romanced by husband who made me a mother. I’m sure there are some other women who feel this.
We have a 7, a 5, a 3 and a 11 months old, for me is hard to snap from the oger (that needs to shawer the kids, brush teeth, put pijamas, make homework feed before bed and then take to bed) and become a hornny wife ready to jump my husband… He works a lot and when he arrives, somethimes he’s tired to be the one to inisiate sex all the time, but when he does that helps a lot… i guess thats the reasson we have sex once a week but i can tell thats not enough for him. He’s a once a day kind of guy!!
I just hope as kid grow a bit more we can spend a bit more quality time too.
I came into this forum looking for advice and statistics on this exact topic because I am a mother of seven children(mostly grown), but three are minors aged 17, 15, and 5. My boyfriend of 6yrs feels as if I don’t “give him enough”, it irks me when he says this along with I must be getting it somewhere else if I’m not giving it to him. Is this normal? When we began dating we used to do it more than once a day…now it is every other day or even two or three days… my sex drive is not what it used to be and I don’t know why😔
Totally completely normal!!!! Its Because you’re a mom and also because youre getting older. Sex drive seriously tanks after 35, a long with loss of fullness in all the importance t parts between the legs and redistribution of belly fat I to the “mom body” patter.
Tits are DESTROYED after breastfeeding four boys. .
i know this is an older comment, but i wanted to chime in here and say this sounds abusive to me. as a psych major studying to become a marriage therapist, i don’t personally see this as healthy. every other day, or even every 3 days, is honestly a lot of sex for someone with kids. to have him accuse you of cheating and say you aren’t doing enough because it isn’t exactly very time he asks for it, is emotionally abusive. he is punishing you for saying no with verbal abuse.
Your sex drive is lower because your boyfriend is a jackass who is accusing you of cheating for “”only”” having sex with him 3-4 times a week instead of 7-10 times a week. If he were more considerate of you and your feelings you would feel more turned on.
Who the hell don’t love sex To all men forget marriage and got swing club