Sex after having a baby

[Gemba100]

a work collegue of mine has a 4 yr old son, but says him and his wife dont have sex much anymore, and says its because his wife had complications before and during the birth. They havent completely stopped, however they dont have it as often as, I suppose, he'd like or as much as they used to. I imagine he has a healthy, but high sex drive, which can not be said for his wife. I know that some women can 'go off' sex during and shortly after having a baby, but for it to go on 4 yrs since.... plus they are clear they do not want any more children, due to her complications. is this sort of thing normal?

[noxlumos]

I think it would obviously vary from person to person. My first wife hated sex full stop and would avoid it at any costs and viewed our children as some sort of unpleasant result of it. She had a zero sexdrive whilst I have a high sex drive so you can imagine that that marriage was just doomed. Her manner with the children became unacceptable to me and we eventually divorced and I have to say that the sexual mismatch started a lot of other problems and we ended up just rowing and fighting incessantly because we both resented and hated each other so much.
If your friend is happy with his wife then that's fine, if not I'd suggest some urgent communication before it starts to have a knock on effect with the rest of their marriage.
My second wife thankfully is an angel and loves my boys as her own ( I have custody of the kids) and has a very healthy attitude towards sex despite having had miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy so I don't think that you can really blame "complications" on your friends wife's lack of sex drive although a traumatic birth can I believe put women off sex, but even then if you have a loving relationship there are other ways to demonstrate how you feel about each other.

[lady_p_gold]

I know someone else with exactly the same problem and I think that after that length of time that if she really had a high sex drive she would have sorted it or made attempts to do so. Also just because you have gone off it, does not mean that she could not give him lots of nice sex in other ways, orally or manually etc. So I suspect if you asked you would find that she never had much of a sex drive in the first place and is possibly hiding behind these 'complications' as an excuse. I have a theory on women ... that they are often 'very interested' from a young age and usually remain so throughout their lives .. or they are never really that interested and tolerate it or go along with it for the sake of things, but are never really 'driven'. That is only a theory of course ... before someone shouts 'rubbish' !! Not sure what your friend can do .... my male friend is in just the same situation but does not want to be unfaithful and yet in his early thirties is faced with a life without any sex life with his wife. Its a tricky situation.

[boobesque]

Birth can be incredibly stressful and makes the thought of sex very difficult, i had a very traumatic birth with my 7 year old son and i didnt have sex for nearly 3 years afterwards, just the thought of anyone near my lady bits was terrifying, maybe she has an underlying fear of partaking in sexual intercourse again.
There could be many reasons why she isnt wanting to restart a healthy sex life, often children make it quite hard, and a four year old is a very tiring thing!
The best thing your friend can do is to sit down, without kids about, and get talking, he may find she was deeply affected by the birth, or maybe that she is genuinely just too tired.

[lastchance]

May be she doesn't want anymore children and this is her way of making sure. Or could it be that her husband is treating her differently, my ex said things were never quite the same after being present at the birth of our first, he never saw me in a sexy way again, but loved me and respected me for having his kids, maybe she is sensing this from him. He needs to be loving all the time, make her feel good again, not just when he wants it!

[redcrx]

Id be furious if i ever found that my partner talked about our sex life with his work colleagues.
Until a woman experiences child birth they cannot really understand what physical and emotional changes occur. It is possible to give birth vaginally with no damage to the body but it can also result in 3 degree tearing (of muscles and skin) and lots of stitching. It can also cause uterine prolapse (the womb drops from position)
A woman can also feel that her partner may not be looking at her in the same way, may no longer feel sexy etc.
Also having a young baby changes everything too, lack of sleep, parental responsibilites etc all change the relationship.
So to sum up, a lot of it is normal but to different levels.
I hope that your colleague is being understanding to his wife.

[Gemba100]

thanks for your help...and yes he is very supportive to his wife but just doesnt know what else to do - I'll suggest a few of these things that could be causing this, but wont tell him i asked my friends at AB! thanks again!