Not tonight, Honey

WARNING:  I really really try hard to write things that are appropriate and will not offend many people.  This post addresses sensitive subject matter.  If you offend easily, please do not read it.  

Sometimes you just don't feel like having sex.

We have all been there.  Maybe you have a headache.  Maybe you're sick.  Maybe you just plain aren't in the mood.  Sometimes this feeling lasts a day.  Sometimes a week.

Sometimes it persists longer.

When I was pregnant with, well, every single kid, actually, I got really really sick in the first (and into the beginning of the second) trimester.  Like, the I-want-to-die-rather-than-having-to-stand-up, or-think-about-eating-anything-even-crackers kind of sick.  I have a friend right now who is in that exact spot.  She is right in the middle of her first trimester with her first child and she is sick as a dog.  Her body is working overtime growing a tiny human and her hormones are all over the place, and unsurprisingly, her libido is non-existent.

She is concerned about her husband.  He hasn't been complaining overtly, but she can tell he's hoping this dry spell will end soon.  She is concerned enough that she asked some of her female friends what she should do, hoping for some helpful advice.  The advice fell into four main categories:

1. Tell him to take care of it himself.  (Her husband does not want to.)
2. Tell him to try porn.  (Her husband does not want to.)
3. Tell him to deal with it. (Her husband is currently doing this.)
4. My friend should just do it, even though she doesn't want to. (She dreads the idea of this.)

After talking about this with her, I felt strongly enough about the subject I could not stop thinking about doing a blog on it, despite the sensitive nature of the subject matter.  I finally decided that with a problem this universal I could not just stand by and allow the advice like my friend received to be the only thing floating around in the blogosphere.  

Here is my opinion.  As aforementioned, I have certainly had a day here or there where I wasn't in the mood, or I had a headache (yes, it's cliche, but true nonetheless.  Hey the classics work because they're true!)  There have been days in a row where I was tired, or overwhelmed, or stressed or sick.  I have had weeks and weeks where I was sick as a dog from being pregnant.  I can relate to my friend's problem.  I believe it has most likely been your problem too, kind reader, at some time or another, and I mean that whether you are a man or a woman!

So what's my advice?  You know, the advice I apparently think is soooo much better than the advice my friend was getting elsewhere.  It's simple.  And I will get to my advice soon, but first I am going to tell you why the advice she received was so gosh darn awful I practically couldn't stop myself from losing it right then and there.

1.  Masturbation: Telling your husband, "I can't honey, I feel too sick, but go take care of your needs yourself" is a terrible idea.  It might seem easy to just say that.  It might seem tempting.  There are all kinds of inappropriate jokes people make on this topic.  The media will tell you it's so common that everyone in the world does this.  The point is this: sex exists in a relationship to bring two people closer together.  If you tell him to buzz off, you are sending two harmful messages.  The first is that you are not in this relationship anymore.  You think he should go "deal with things" himself. On his own, because you aren't a team right now.   That is bad anyway you slice it.  You are pulling away from him when you should be relying on his support.

The second harmful message you send is that your husband needs sex like he needs to eat.  Or that he needs it like he needs to breathe.  That is patently untrue.  Obviously it's untrue: you aren't having it, so why does he need to?  The answer that "he's not sick" is not acceptable.  If you're sick you may need medicine, but your basic human requirements remain the same. You still need to breathe, you need to eat, you need to drink.  The thing that needs sex is your relationship, not your husband.  It's healthy for the two of you, when done together, and it strengthens your bond, but society has sold us a lie when it says men, or boys, or people need  sex like we need food or water or air.  It's a lie that excuses all kinds of things and leads to the absolute worst advice of all time... see below.  Think this through though.  If you buy the lie that your husband needs to have sex, then there is a major slippery slope.  What if he "needs" it more than you?  What if he "needs" things you don't want to do?  Then is it fine for him to go to someone else, to other places?  Where do you draw the line?

Bottom line: this is not a need.  You relationship will suffer without nurturing but there are other ways to nurture it when you are sick or uninterested, as I will address below.

2. PORN?  I mean, really?  There were not one, not two, but SEVERAL people who gave my friend the advice that she should just "give him porn" if he doesn't want to take care of things himself.  GOOD GRIEF.  If this is not the worst advice for this situation anyone could have given in good conscience, I can't think of anything to top it.  In my mind, this is like saying, "Oh your husband is tired at work?  Well, give him some cocaine.  That will really perk him up."  Umm, no.  He will get addicted, and it will cost money, time, and probably ruin your relationship, and maybe get you tossed in jail.  And it damages your body.  All of those things are true (or in the jail-time realm, true-ish, because soft porn leads to hard porn, leads to the illegal kind... but I digress) of porn as well.  DO. NOT. EVER. ENCOURAGE. ANYONE. YOU. LOVE. TO. DO. PORN.

In case my capitalization and my periods confused anyone, my message is this: do not ever suggest your husband, or your wife, or your kids, or your friends, or even your enemies should do porn if your libido is down.  It ruins lives.  It destroys relationships.  It will end yours.  Trust me when I say it is a horrible, degrading, evil idea.  It's not a harmless, "everyone does it" kind of thing.  But the main reason it is an awful idea here is that my friend's husband is basically telling her he misses her.  Turns out, my friend misses him too!  Usually whatever it is (in this case, a tiny fetus) that is making YOU not want to have sex, is probably impacting your partner as well!  I am hinting at my solution here, so I will stop and instead say that if your partner says, "I am feeling distance.  I want us to be close, and I want to be with you," but you feel pressured by that, the worst thing you can do is toss him a magazine or video and say "Go pretend you're with someone else."

Because he might actually do just that.  

3. Telling him to "suck it up" is about as close to the right answer as anyone got, or at least it does the least harm.  So I guess it's the best of the bad options.  It's where my friend is right now, and it has left her feeling guilty and badgered, despite her husband's best intentions not to do that.  On the flip side, he is feeling unloved and alone.  The problem with saying, "suck it up" is that you are thinking only of your own feelings.  You're thinking, "Gosh, I don't want this.  I can't deal with it, why are you wanting something from me that I don't want or can't give."  Your partner is thinking, "I love and miss you and what we had.  What's going on?  Why can't we get back to where we were?"

Telling him (or her) to suck it up basically sends the message that things are hard and you only care about yourself.  Like I said, that's the best of the options she was given, but if you're sick for a long time, or in this particular instance, when you have the baby, things will continue to be hard.  And if you have more kids, lather rinse and repeat.  If you tell them to suck it up, they may be sucking it up for a veeeery long time.  And the longer it goes, the more hurt feelings, and the more resentment that can exist.  Their love for you will not be nourished.  That has far-reaching ramifications.  There is a better way.  Just one more bad one to refute before I elaborate on my suggestion.

4. The idea that my friend should just suck it up and have sex when she doesn't want to is on par with the first option, or perhaps worse.  This is a very, very, bad idea.  As I have previously mentioned, at the very least, sex is a barometer of a healthy relationship.  It's not that every single good relationship has a robust sex life and every bad one has a dwindling one.  I'm sure there are terrible ones with very active sex lives and great ones with terrible sex lives.  I'm merely saying that in general, a good sex life is one way to measure whether a couple is happy.  That is true because it is a great way for a couple to connect.  It is also something couples do when they are feeling connected.  In that way, it is both the cause and the effect.  

To tell my friend to do something she doesn't want to do is going to have the reverse impact of option three.  She will resent having to do it.  She will take something that should be creating joy and trust between the couple and instead create resentment, frustration and anger.  In the most extreme end of the spectrum, it might even create feelings of disgust.  If this happens once, or twice, in an otherwise happy relationship, it's probably just a blip on the radar.  But if it happens over and over, say every week for three months, or six months, or nine months, this can destroy your entire relationship.  This is potentially poisonous to any couple, if one person repeatedly does something they don't want to do because they think the other partner "needs" or demands it.  DO NOT RISK your marriage over this.

Now for my suggestion.  It's so simple.  Now you will all think, "lady, you wrote a whole blog on this?  Seriously?"

Let me tell you, people do NOT take this advice on their own very often.

Talk to your husband about it.  Talk to your wife about it.  Every day.  Tell them how you're feeling and why.  Then you both tell the other person you love them.  If the lack of desire goes past a few days, keep talking about it and come up with a list of some other things you can do instead to strengthen the bond between you.  This list will vary widely by couple.  I know that my husband loves to go shooting.  I don't love this activity, but when I am physically able to go (not third trimester!) I could go do this and I don't hate him.  I don't resent doing it, but he knows I care enough about HIM and what he likes to do it with him.  Here's the kicker: even if I do hate it, and resent doing it, I am hating and resenting an activity that didn't formerly bring us together.  I am not ruining something that used to improve our relationship.

If you are struggling to come up with ideas for things you can do, here are a few ideas.  If you both like to cook, make meals together.  If he just misses touching you, let him give you a back rub.  If you aren't familiar with the "Five Love Languages", go look them up and take their free test right now.

Figure out what means love to your spouse and do things that will feed that love while your libido is down.  My biggest love language is acts of service.  So if my husband ever wasn't in the mood (yeah, right!) he could do some act of service for me to show me that even if he doesn't want to have sex right now, he still loves me.  (Conversely, if I'm not in the mood, he can do something for me then, too, or I can do something for him.  This goes both ways.)

If you aren't in the mood but your husband's love language is words of affirmation, sit down and tell him all the reasons you love him.  If his language is physical touch, you're thinking DARN!  I can't win!  But no, for people who crave physical touch, there are so many other avenues.  If you are being open with each other, you can find those.  Let him give you a back rub.  Sit with his arm around you.  Snuggle up next to him and hold his hand.

The key here is for each of you to show the other that you still love them, that you're still connected, and that you still care, even if one of the primary ways you would normally express that is off the table.

So my advice has two components:
1. talk talk talk talk talk about it.
2. find other ways to express your love for one another so you keep growing together.

That's it!  No porn.  No masturbation.  No sucking it up by either of you.  You two are in this together, high and low, hard and easy.  Don't forget that just because life has thrown you a curve ball.  Curve balls will just keep coming, over and over, faster and faster and you need to be ready to catch them and move on.  Just make sure that whatever you do, you do it together.