"My husband wants nothing to do with me sexually, now that I’m a mother"

Sexless marriage, anyone? Surprisingly, there are cases of couples having less to no sex at all after saying their vows, even when they were doing it about 3 times a week before getting married. According to the author of Why Men Stop Having Sex: Men, the Phenomenon of Sexless Relationships, and What You Can Do About It, she said that "if a couple is content with intimacy less than once a month, and happily married, I doubt they would refer to themselves as having a sexless marriage … and neither would we."

But what happens what you're not content with the little to no intimacy between you and your spouse?

Emily*, a 32-year-old accountant shares her story...

I don't know where I went wrong! Joel* and I met when we were in university and our relationship was nothing short of perfect. Friends and family predicted our marriage even when we were just starting out and we thought it was just us against the world.

Fast forward to 7 years later, we got engaged for two years and during the engagement period, we were sexually active- we had sex at least three times a week.

However, things changed after we exchanged vows.

On our wedding night, Joel didn't want to have sex due to fatigue, and I brushed it off, as I too was tired from the wedding functions. But now when I think about it, maybe that was the red flag?

It's not like we had no sex at all. We did but it was less satisfactory and just less in general. We could go a week without having sex and it didn't seem to bother him at all. And even when we did make love, it was not long at all, most of the time, under 3 minutes. Sad to say, I felt like it had turned into another thing he was checking off his to-do list for the day. Something I had read about, heard my friends talk about, but never expected my husband and I to have to experience.

Things got worst after we had Christabelle*, our daughter. We stopped having sex completely! Even when she was staying over at my parent's place for the weekend, we did not have sex nor get intimate on any level. This felt absurd to me, and I started questioning if he was still attracted to me. Silly things like the smell of baby food in my hair made me think that he had lost the sexual feel towards me. I felt like I was driving myself nuts with such thoughts. Where did our deep love go? Was having a baby supposed to be so life-changing as this? Why did nobody warn me about this?

My mind started to wander in all directions- that Joel was having an affair with someone who probably could satisfy his sexual needs or was more appealing to me. The fat old me. Boring old me. Who focussed on her new baby and the household chores than creating fireworks in the bedroom like she used to.

I confronted him about the whole thing and to my surprise, he was indifferent, like it really didn't matter to him one bit. I'm ashamed to admit but I actually did some research and cyber-stalked Joel and found nothing. He was not having an affair.

Joel even used our working schedule as an excuse for our lack of intimacy:  I'm an accountant working long hours while Joel's a property agent, constantly working round-the-clock.

But that reason sounded like a lame excuse to me....

I tried everything to make Joel have sex with me. I planned for a staycation, a romantic getaway to Bali and even bought new sexy lingerie. To my surprise, he wasn't fazed at all! He even laughed when he saw me in the lingerie, asking me to take it off, saying it was ridiculous.

It's been 3 years now since we've had sex. Joel hasn't even complained about it, much less address the issue. We've even grew apart from each other emotionally, although he's still an amazing dad to Christabelle. It's starting to affect my work and my behaviour at home, and I don't know what I should do to make things the same again.

(Story as told to Pavin Chopra)

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of those involved

Mummies, have you ever encountered such distance after child-birth? Is this normal? Do share with us.