My husband went to New York last week, leaving me on my own for six stressful days trying to negotiate three children, six feet of washing on the line, a million demands and a full-time job - all without any childcare. And without going completely insane.
I always miss him when he’s away, of course - just as anyone would miss the love of their life and tea-drinking companion of the past 17 years. But this time I was struck by an unsettling feeling.
The first night he was away, I lay in our bed, completely exhausted after another hectic day, and as my head sank into the pillow and I felt myself drifting into heavenly sleep, all I could think was: “Phew, I don’t have to have to have sex now as well. I can go straight to sleep.”
Not exactly the most passionate thought in the world, but quite true and very familiar.
As a 37-year-old woman, I am supposed to be in my sexual prime. But if I had to choose between a night of passion or a night of blissful sleep, I’d choose the sleep five nights out of seven. Oh, all right, six nights out of seven. At least. And I suspect I’m very far from alone.
A few frank conversations with female friends have reassured me that I am in very good, knackered, company. It would seem that the vast, yawning, child-rearing, laundry-folding, packed-lunch-making, homework-helping, working majority of us are simply too shattered for sex most nights.
It’s not that we’ve gone off sex altogether. Yes, of course we still like it, when we get round to it (or, as one friend put it “when I’m coerced into it”). It’s just that after 13 years of motherhood, a stressful job and a bathroom that still stubbornly refuses to clean itself, the naked truth is that I, like many others, would often rather have 40 winks than 20 minutes of passion between the sheets.
I’ve even been known to say to my beloved, when he’s clearly “in the mood” and I’m half asleep: “If I snore halfway through, you just carry right on, OK? Don’t take it personally: I’m just cream-crackered.”
So how did we get to this stage, when vast swathes of British women would rather nod off than make love?
The biggest passion-killer for most people is, of course, parenthood. A recent survey for this newspaper found that 50 percent of women in their 30s cite children as the main reason for low libido. For “low libido” read “being so exhausted that anyone who even tries to have sex with me will get a whack on the head with a hardback book”.
As one female friend put it: “It is one of life’s ironies that children murder the very process that conceived them in the first place.”
And when you think about what’s involved, it’s hardly surprising. First up, having a baby transforms us from Sexy Woman into Articulated Lorry With Built-In Dairy Facility within a matter of months. And going back again is a real challenge for most of us. Anyone who says “Oh, the pregnancy weight just fell off while I was doing the housework!” is talking rubbish.
Body issues aside, chronic lack of sleep and the never-ending demands of looking after children, a house and a job simply leave many of us with no energy left over for sex.
And you don’t need to be a bra-burning women’s rights campaigner to realise that this relentless list of jobs affects women far more than men, leaving many mothers exhausted, fractious and disinclined to romance.
So when we crawl exhausted into bed, aching simply for the sweet release of sleep, and we’re asked to engage in yet another activity, however pleasurable, we’re faced with that familiar female dilemma: Refuse, and feel guilty that we’ve wounded our loved-one’s pride; or give in, despite the fact that we feel about as erotic as a dishrag.
Often, women fool themselves that it’s just a temporary blip, while the children are young. Well, think again. It has been a real shock for me to discover, as my own brood has got older, that finding time and energy for sex has got considerably more difficult, not less.
Where once they all used to be tucked up in bed and asleep by 7pm, now my eldest is up until after 9 o’clock - by which time I’m half asleep myself. And the idea of engaging in any sexual shenanigans when there’s a chance that one of my children might come into our bedroom, only to find - actually, let’s not go there.
Suffice to say that even if they don’t intrude on the performance, older children can still act as the Sex Police, putting a dampener on anything that even hints at physical affection between their parents.
During one fond hug, my husband and I were ordered to stop by our six-year-old son, brandishing a lightsaber, who announced: “There shall be no sex in this kitchen!” while his sister was making charming “I’m going to be sick” faces behind us. You know how it is.
And an author friend tells the story of how her daughter told her and her husband off for kissing because “it gives me a tummy ache”.
Caroline, a mother-of-two, told me that becoming a mother completely changed how she felt about herself and her role.
“Before children, I used to wonder why a woman wouldn’t want sex. Were they mad?!
“But then I had our daughter, and some switch got flipped that turned me into a Mum. Now, my sole purpose in life seems to be being a mother. I still enjoy sex (when convinced to have it), but I’d rather be cuddled and snuggled.”
I admit, switching between the roles of “mother” and “lover” is something I have also found very hard. As a mum, every part of me is switched on to looking after them, caring for them, and being an Efficient, Organised, Good Mummy for them.
While this is very handy if you don’t want your children to go to school in rags or get scurvy, it can also lead to a slow switching off of the Old You.
And then there’s the dreaded mental To-Do List. Switching this off is notoriously hard for many mums, who tend to be the ones remembering school events, shopping lists and their mother-in-law’s birthday.
In a classic Cannot-Switch-My-Mummy-Brain-Off moment, I remember one night, in the middle of an intimate moment with my husband, suddenly sitting bolt upright in bed and crying out: “Damn! I left the clothes pegs in the garden, and now it’s raining!”
We laughed so much, we almost cried. Or maybe we really were crying...
Talking about all this with friends has revealed that I am far from alone. The daily battle between sex and sleep seems to be being fought nightly in thousands of ordinary households.
It’s not just mums who are in the “No” camp. I now know of several couples where she has the larger sex drive, but he is too tired after work. Or he wants to watch Top Gear and think about being a spy for a while.
But in the majority of cases, it’s still the man who wants it and tries to initiate it, and the woman who says “Not tonight, darling, I’m too tired. And I have a headache. And mouth ulcers. And I forgot to put the recycling out.”
All of this wouldn’t matter a jot if there weren’t so much dishonesty about how much, and what kind of sex, we all have - putting us all under pressure to feel we ought to be keeping up with the Randy Joneses.
It’s almost impossible to get away from the media’s message that there’s no excuse for a low libido.
Every week, it seems, there’s a new survey claiming that the “Flirty Forties” are at it like rabbits, that Cougars can’t get enough of it, or that Everyone Everywhere Is Having Amazing, Steamy, Shirt-Ripping Sex All Of The Time. Aren’t You?
Well no, not really. I’m filling out a cheque for my daughter’s cello lessons and answering 20 emails; and my husband’s on a conference call.
The reality is that most of us have sex far, far less than the media-fuelled fantasy suggests.
My very unscientific snapshot poll of mums suggests that once or twice a month is perfectly normal in many households with children. It’s a far cry from what Hollywood or the boastful bloke in the pub would have us believe. But it’s the reality.
And when a beautiful, intimate moment with our loved ones gets added to the list of “chores”, it’s hard not to feel bad, guilty or resentful about it.
As Emma, a mum-of-three puts it: “When I’ve spent all day giving every part of myself to needy children, bosses, my mum, and the kids’ packed lunches, then I feel a hand sidling its way across the bed, expectantly, I almost feel like saying, ‘Look, mate, everyone’s had a piece of me today. I’m all used up!’”
Instead, like many, she often resorts to compromise. Forget the Kama Sutra: the “Off You Go, But Hurry Up” method is the sexual technique practised by tired parents up and down the land.
But there is some good news, summed up by Jo, a freelance journalist and mother-of-two: “Once I’ve managed to switch off my mental to-do lists, the sex we have now is great because we just know each other so well. Yes, it’s a rarer occurrence than when we first met - but that makes it all the more exquisite because we relish it.”
Kate, a mum-of-two, agrees: “When we do have sex, it’s so much more important to me now, and I enjoy it and benefit from it more. Since we’ve had children, it’s been less frequent but much better.”
Like all rare things, it seems that sex is worth the wait - and all the better for it.
My husband got home from New York on Friday. I was awake; the children were asleep. Everything was perfect. Except that he was fast asleep, exhausted after his trip.
Maybe tomorrow, eh?
“If I snore half-way through, then you just carry right on, OK?” - Daily Mail