Marion’s testimony: “Our baby has replaced our sex life.”

I can’t remember the last time we really had sex, Pierre and I. I say “really” because since the birth of Théa, our sexual relations seem more like a task accomplished than an impulse. Théa is now 2 years old and we make love a lot less than once a month. We must even have missed two or three of them. I no longer count the days for fear of being distraught. We get along wonderfully. Accomplices, I can say that we are excellent parents.

But Peter no longer comes to me and when I approach him, he opens his arms wide to welcome me or he kisses my forehead tenderly, but he avoids really kissing me. I didn’t ask myself any questions about our privacy while I was pregnant. Then I imagined that we needed time to resume sexual activity. But when I saw that after a year, none of my efforts to please him was a game-changer, I started to panic. My pounds went off and I was able to put on the dress that Pierre could not see me wearing without immediately jumping on me… But nothing happened. This dress has been in my closet ever since. I look at her now with disdain, longing, and panic.

I feel like I have to do something, otherwise Pierre will leave me. A man like him cannot be satisfied with his fatherhood. I do not believe it. We must rediscover the sensuality of our beginnings! I decided to start, alone, the battle necessary for our sexual reunion. I don’t dare talk to Pierre about it. To put down words on a subject as complex and inconstant as desire is impossible for me. I understood that Théa’s naps were used by me to do the housework, and Pierre, to tinker in the apartment. I admitted that remedies that we apply to everyone, such as weekends alone to maintain privacy, are not suitable for my relationship. So I have to find the right remedy on my own, and really don’t know where to start for Pierre to regain momentum.

It was then that Erica, my best friend, to whom I told everything, asks me if for my part I feel the momentum for Pierre. And his question immediately clicks. Indeed, I noticed that Pierre was no longer looking at me, but do I still feel desire for him? The answer is not long in coming: it is no. I no longer have any desire for my husband. I fantasize about a carnal and full relationship, but I think of something else when we have sex. I then begin to tell myself that the wrongs are shared and that Pierre is not the grandfather who suddenly put an end to our sex life. Certainly, I tried to restart the machine by teasing it with alluring outfits, but my gaze is certainly not that of a woman in love … What if that was wrong?

Motivated like never before, I am fully ready to question myself. I study our respective behaviors closely. I feel like I’m spying on my own couple. Usually, Pierre comes home from the office before me and goes to pick up Théa at her nanny’s. When I arrive, I throw myself on Théa, and have a good time between cuddles, bath, dinner, songs … When two hours later, Théa is in bed, I hasten to perform a few emergencies, listening to Pierre with one ear distracted. Smiling, open, I welcome his confidences on his day, while cooking purees, washing baby bottles and folding clothes… He talks to me, and I do something else completely. Let’s say I half-listen to it. This distraction jumps out at me: where did my old-fashioned way of opening the door for him when he came to my house, and sitting down with him to share this moment? At the time, did I sweep the broom while he told me what was important to him? There, he tells me about the holidays and I prepare the bag for the next day for the nanny, noting on my hand that I have to buy liniment…

Witness to my own behavior, I then look up at him, sitting at the kitchen bar, who takes his time telling me what he’s imagining for the summer. He too has emails to write or things to put away, but our projects come first. I punctuate my speech with “Oh good”, “Great”, pretending to listen to him but totally occupied with something else. I have just admitted that since I learned of my pregnancy, I have not offered Pierre any “real” moment. I then sit down at the bar and listen to him. For real. Pierre serves me a glass of wine and I see in his eyes that I hold the key: for the first time in three years, I speak with him while thinking of him, and not of anything else: Théa, his future school, his gift birthday. Quite simply, by taking the time to be there, I notice that my man has changed less than me. I thought he was fleeing, I reproached him for kissing my forehead, but can we kiss something other than a forehead when the chin, constantly lowered for various tasks, does not give access to the lips?

I look at him, like the day I met him, and by that look, I show him that he is there, and that now I am too. I internally reproached my husband for not wanting me because I was a mother. It was enough for me to make myself desirable by listening to him, by really considering him, for his hand to rest on my thigh. At once. Being a mother is not the problem. To be a woman either. My problem was getting my head off the handlebars. And my husband had the delicacy to wait for it to come from me.

I think the night can begin. And I’m sure I have the key to the next ones. I promise to myself now to be really there. And to take advantage of the present moment.