The birth of a long-awaited first child changes a couple’s life, and not always for the better. It happens that a man manifests himself as a tender parent and caring father of the family, but at the same time completely loses sexual interest in his wife. Our reader told how her relationship with her husband changed after they became parents, and psychoanalyst Marina Myaus commented on the situation.
Our wedding was preceded by a long romance that began as a student. We wanted children, but we decided not to rush, build a career, get housing. It took six years, and all this time we had a wonderful friendship and love relationship.
Upon learning of my pregnancy, my husband was happy, he only regretted that we had put off this moment for so long. However, after the birth of her daughter, much has changed. At first I was completely absorbed in caring for the baby. My husband helped, at night we took turns rocking her, and both were not up to intimacy.
But now our girl was five months old, it became easier, and I realized that it was time to think about relationships. I quickly lost weight and returned to my previous shape, but my husband began to avoid sex. Now only I propose to make love, and he refuses under various pretexts.
From loving each other, a man and a woman, we turned into just close friends.
Otherwise, I have nothing to complain about: my husband is kind, reliable, takes care of both us and his mother (she raised him without a father, and now he feels responsible for her). I tried many times to talk to him, but he avoids answering, limiting himself to the fact that he is very tired and that everything will gradually get better.
From a man and a woman who love each other, we have turned into just close friends, and this torments me, because I love my husband — including as a man.
“Attitude towards a woman is formed in early childhood”
Marina Myaus, psychoanalyst
The heroine mentioned that her husband grew up in an incomplete family. Often this is precisely what explains why an adult man loses attraction to his woman immediately after the birth of a child. The boy without a father did not fully overcome the period of the Oedipus complex: in his unconscious mother was fixed as a symbolic sexual object.
The boy begins to feel especially tender feelings for his mother at the age of three or four, and at the same time he has a symbolic struggle with his father. Ideally, dad should make the baby understand as carefully as possible that — yes, this is his mom, but as a woman she will belong to dad. This experience is extremely important for the formation of the sexuality of the future man, and if the boy does not receive it, problems may arise in the future.
In some cases, a man refuses sex, feeling that the woman herself has lost interest in him.
Immediately after childbirth, the wife is unconsciously associated with the mother, with whom relations are taboo. If you do not resort to professional help, the defense mechanism will push the man to seek sexual relations with other women. He may still have warm feelings for his wife, but not attraction.
In some cases, a man refuses sex, feeling that a woman, absorbed in motherhood, has herself lost interest in him. If the partners are not able to openly discuss this, the feeling of intimacy is lost in the couple. Therefore, even before the birth of a child, it is important to think about the fact that this happy event can be a test of readiness to hear and understand each other, not to hush up problems that will never be resolved by themselves.