Kurt* knew that sex was off the table. His wife, after all, had just given birth to a baby boy. Her body would need time to heal, and they would both be worn out from the demands of a newborn. But what Kurt, 36, didn't know yet was that once sex resumed, it would be fraught and disheartening—not nearly as playful or satisfying as it had been before the baby. Instead, he found that he always had to initiate sex, and when he did, his wife often rejected his advances, saying she was too self-conscious about her body or too exhausted from nursing. "As a guy, it's pretty devastating when the woman you're married to doesn't want to have sex with you," says Kurt, who is a small-business owner in Portland, Oregon. His wife didn't feel so great about the situation, either. She told him that she wished she wanted sex more frequently, but motherhood had pretty much killed her libido.
After many fights and a lot of resentment, the couple, both of whom claim that in every other way, their partnership is solid and loving, finally came to an agreement: "She does it even if she doesn't want to," says Kurt. "And we snuggle like crazy, so she's got her intimacy, too."
Whether Kurt's situation strikes you as something straight out of Mad Men—or simply pragmatic—there's a good chance that at least some of his tale might sound familiar. In a recent poll of more than 60,000 American fathers, sponsored by Cookie and AOL, 79 percent said they want to have sex more often, 62 percent said they are the ones who initiate sex, and 40 percent said their partners reject their sexual advances at least once a week.
What do these numbers tell us about the sexual state of our unions? We've heard a lot from moms on this topic. We know they're exhausted and overwhelmed, and that this negatively impacts their sex drives. But what is going on inside the minds and bodies of their husbands? Every dad we spoke to said that he and his partner had taken a hiatus from sex after having a child. Some couples bounced back after those first months of celibacy and returned to business as usual. Others found that although parenthood had changed the nature of their sexual relationship, they were still able to connect erotically. But many fathers, like Kurt, discovered that having children triggered a full-on sexual crisis.
Next Page: Some of these men grudgingly accepted the new dynamic, while others gave their wives ultimatums...
