My Sex Life Took a Big Hike
intimacy and rediscovering sex postpartum
Relationships take time to nurture and understand especially when it comes to a life-long partner.
Whether you sign on a dotted line or make a verbal commitment your heart belongs to this one person who may be your ride-or-die to the end.
Through thick and thin, good times and bad you are committed to this person.
But what happens when your sex life starts to die?
What happens when you go through a sex drought separately and/or together?
Are you still committed to each other or do you start to question the relationship?
Personally this is what happened to me and my partner.
We are currently repairing our sex life after a long-drought of no sex to slowly getting our groove back.
It’s tested our relationship and also my ego.
7 months ago we had a baby.
Prior to that we had sex a handful of times in the pregnancy.
After having our child we recently started having sex again just a few months ago.
Between the pregnancy, postpartum, lack of libido for both of us, stress of having a child, financial losses it was kind of hard to even consider the thought of fucking each other.
So our sex life took a big hike.
For months I struggled with shame and embarrassment around us not having sex. I felt uncomfortable sharing with girlfriends that we didn’t have sex for 8 months.
I thought something was wrong with us.
I thought something was wrong with me.
I took his lack of libido personally.
I questioned if I was good in bed or if I just didn’t make him happy.
I was coming from an unhealthy place about my view on sex.
I saw sex as a source of validation and of my contribution to the relationship.
If I was good in bed — then he loved me. If he was happy sexually then our relationship was good.
I’ve slowly realized that our sex life has absolutely nothing to do with our relationship but my trauma brain lumped it all together.
We have a great relationship and at the foundation of us is a beautiful friendship.
We are great friends, lovers and partners.
We laugh, we flirt, we bicker, we apologize, we may big choices together.
We are a team.
We have communicated immensely about our sex life, personal traumas around sex, libido repair and the road to repair.
But nothing comes easy.
It’s awkward for me after having a baby to have sex again.
I feel insecure about my body.
I feel like a novice in the bedroom.
I don’t know if I am sucking his dick right or if my vagina feels good postpartum but we take it easy and that’s what I am aiming for these days.
It almost feels like I am learning how to ride a bike again, haha.
I was caught up in a story that our relationship wouldn’t survive if we aren’t meeting our statistical quota of having sex a certain amount of times a week = a successful relationship.
It can be easy to compare your relationship to what the stats tell you is healthy and successful.
It can be easy to compare your relationship to your friend’s train of happy photos with his or her family.
But you are the only one who knows your relationship.
And you are the only one who is sharing it with your partner.
Remember the facts of what makes your relationship strong together and what you are both willing to do to repair your sex life.
Healthy relationships can still thrive outside of infrequent sex.
According to science, there is no association between frequency of sex and self-reported relationship satisfaction.
The road to repair takes time.
Intimacy is more than sex.
It is trust, feeling safe with each other, communication, boundaries, being friends to one another.
