It's a taboo subject in our culture: Married women, who dislike -- even hate -- having sex with their husbands.
It's a subject usually held in silence, behind embarrassment, confusion, sometimes even apathy. It's consoled with inner placations, like "There's more important things in a marriage than sex", or "This is just a phase" or "My attraction will increase when the kids are older."
But at the back of minds, a thought lingers: What if this is forever? What if I'm abnormal? What would outsiders think if they knew the truth about "us"?
Well I'm going to come right out and say it: I despised having sex with my husband when we were married. And I'm not saying this to suggest that he was a bad person or I was a bad person, it was just my truth. And there were many reasons contributing to my disinterest:
1)Exhaustion from having three kids in diapers
2)Hormonal changes from pregnancy
3)Not feeling sexy/desirable in my skin
4)Feeling pressured to have sex and thus, like an "object"
5)The emotional disconnect we experienced outside the bedroom rolled into the bedroom
6)And many others...
Add up all the reasons and basically what it came down to is that I emotionally "closed" to my husband... and soon my legs followed.
That's not to say I didn't try -- in fact, I participated anyway, knowing full-well that if I didn't, emotional retaliation would follow: He'd be grumpy, mean, sarcastic, accusing. It was easier to just close my eyes, smile, pretend... and mentally go somewhere else.
I'm sure that my disinterest in sex, which I come clean on in my upcoming memoir, isn't driven by the same reasons for all married women; after all, no two marriages and no two women are exactly alike.
But I suspect that wives' disinterest in sex is more prevalent than we realize and the thick silence it's veiled in only damages us and our relationships even more.
Thus, I'm inviting you ladies to take this poll, your identities non-traceable. Because if this problem IS more widespread than we realize, the first step is to eliminate the taboo and be honest.
Please be sure to answer both questions.