Marriage without Sex = Children

“…tomorrow’s our anniversary and what am I going to do?”

My dear friend, Rachel of nearly ten years asked me before I could say the words, “Hey, how are you?” into the telephone. Her tone was rather frantic.

My mind raced: “I’m not sure why she’s asking me this question. I’m not married. ”

“Uh…Rach, why you asking me?” I questioned her. The words escaped my lips before I had time to push them back in; knowing I was going to get a lashing (not the good kind) from the other end of the phone.

“Humph…I need help. The kids… What am I going to do with the kids…? Tomorrow’s Monday and it might be really difficult finding a sitter on a Monday night. Brad’s out of town next weekend….so we can’t postpone it, and I don’t want to because tomorrow’s the actual date, and we REALLY need some alone time.” She was like a whale that wasn’t coming up for air in her frenetic; stream of conscious jive.

Okay. I think I’m getting dialed into this now, so stupidly I asked,

“Do you want me to watch the kids and get them off to school for you on Tuesday morning?”

Silence on the other end.

More silence.

Still; more silence.

“Rachel?” Are you still there?” I asked looking into the receiver; wondering if the call had been dropped into some cellular black hole.

“No. I appreciate the offer, but Brad’s sister could probably take the kids, Neve.”

Ouch. That hurt. I can’t say I blame her though. I’m not sure if I’d want me to watch over someone else’s kids either. I don’t have any kids. I pen porn. I live in the hood. I can see how a mother, even though she’s my friend, would have some slight concern as to the activities I would choose for her children while spending the night at Aunt Neve’s house.

I was about to pull another rabbit out of the hat; trying to figure out why she was calling me with all this in the first place when she finally asked,

“Can you go shopping with me and help me pick out a couple of things, you know sex stuff? Please? Please? Please?” There was pleading, no it was begging in her voice.

“Rachel, have no fear; your slutty friend is here!” Come on over later and you can go shopping in my over-stuffed, sex toy box.”

“I love you.” She said, satisfied with my answer and hung up.

Many of my friends, men and women have young children. Of course they’re the pride and joys of their lives, but it also seems to wreak havoc on their sex lives. I hear these horrific stories about why marriage partners aren’t getting down and getting busy with each other. The reasons run the gamut and I’m sure as a reader, you may very well be in the midst of this in your own marriage, or you know someone that is, or as a couple, you’ve survived the “we have children, but we don’t have sex” phenomena and have lived to tell the tale.

I’m interested in learning more about what you do to get through the "we're not really having sex" in your relationship, or what you did to survive.

What type of olive branch do you offer your partner to bridge the gap between your side and their side of the bed, even when there could be a child sleeping in that space at the moment?


p.s. For those of you that are going through this and can offer me no insight, and now you're scared; thinking, "Oh. God. I'm. Never. Going. To. Have.Sex. Again!" Don't get your knickers buckled. It's my understand this is a phase that parents go through and they get through it and they do knock boots again with their partners. :-)