How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids

by Jancee Dunn

  Along with touch, we make an effort to maintain more eye contact, another proven way to strengthen our bond. It’s not something most of us think about, but a prolonged gaze is believed to release a chemical called phenethylamine, responsible for feelings of attraction. Susan O’Grady, a psychologist in Walnut Creek, California, says that many couples will go for days without looking directly into each other’s eyes—she and her psychologist husband included. “When I was raising our twins and working many hours a week, I neglected to notice that my husband had shaved his mustache,” she says. “He tells me it took me three days. That was a learning experience. And we work in the same office!”

  On to the Sexperiment.

  Night one: Perel asserts that desire needs distance in order to thrive. In her research, she often hears that people are most drawn to their partners when they are away—and then reunite. “This is rooted also in absence and in longing,” she says, “which is a major component of desire.”

  On the five days prior to our Sexperiment, Tom is away on yet another carefree assignment, this time at a robotics lab in California. I ask him to make no calls or FaceTime during his absence—he just texts our daughter a hello and that is it. While he is away, I play music that reminds me of our early days together and look at my favorite picture of him. With the all-important distance, I am able to simulate a kind of mild crush, which lasts until his return. Aaand… action!

  Night two: “You can’t force desire, but you can create an atmosphere where desire might unfurl,” says Perel. “You can tempt, compliment, romance, and seduce. I suggest that people consciously create an erotic space, a space to be, not to do, to enjoy each other, to cultivate pleasure—a space not where sex must happen, but certainly can happen.” As Tom is generally the one feeling deprived, that evening, he transforms into the Australian bowerbird, who attempts to lure females to his bachelor pad by creating a lavish courtship site, decorating it with colorful shells, berries, and leaves. When a female arrives to inspect his design prowess, the bird does a touchingly elaborate leaping and posturing dance in hopes of sealing the deal.

  Tom dims the lights, brandishes a bottle of scented oil, and offers to give me a massage—not the usual stilted, two-minute Husband Shoulder Scrunch, but a twenty-minute professional rub. If something happens in our consciously created erotic space, great. If it doesn’t, he says, he is willing to walk away. He does not have to walk away.

  Night three: Many moms I know get tense when sex is attempted late, which cuts into their already-dwindling sleep time. “It feels like right after we turn out the lights, within a minute his member is sticking in my lower back like I’m being held up at gunpoint,” says my friend Avery. “And I’m immediately doing time calculations, like, ‘Okay, it’s 11, we’ll finish up by 11:45. I won’t fall asleep for a while afterward, so I’m looking at midnight earliest. I have to be up at 6. So, no.”

  In our new spirit of openness, I tell Tom that I sometimes have similar thoughts—so he builds in an extra thirty minutes by putting our daughter to bed earlier. (Not only is she unable to tell time, but he doesn’t cave and read her seven bedtimes stories, as I do.) Right before bed, he feeds her a snack that a sleep researcher once told me brings on slumber quickly: whole wheat toast (carbs raise brain levels of rest-inducing tryptophan) spread with almond butter (which contains magnesium, linked to sound sleep). Voilà: a free half hour. Which is plenty, according to a Penn State survey of sex researchers, who agreed that after foreplay, the optimal, most enjoyable stretch of time for intercourse is not a Tantric marathon but a mere seven to thirteen minutes.

  Night four: Perel says the stereotypically male definition of sex is that foreplay is the mere introduction to the “real” thing, but often, for women, it is the real thing. I try a technique recommended by my friend Emma: make out for fifteen minutes, with no obligation to do anything further. Yes, it is the most obvious reverse psychology in the world, but more often than not, the slow buildup, emotional connection, rich concentration of nerve receptors in our lips, and aura of the suddenly forbidden result in some action. As is the case with us.

  Night five: Perel tells me that “probably the biggest turn-on across the board” is when people see their partners holding court at a party, or doing something they’re passionate about—any time that they are presenting their best selves to the world. “It’s when you see your partner as radiant and confident,” she said. “They’re in their element; you can admire them. You look at them and they are forever somewhat mysterious, elusive, unknown. When they are in their element, they don’t need you, and hence you don’t have to take care of them, emotionally or psychologically.” In that space cleared of needing, she says, rises the wanting of desire—in other words, in the space between you and the other lies the erotic élan. She likes to refer to Marcel Proust, who suggests that the real voyage of discovery lies not in traveling to new places, but in looking with new eyes.

  So that night, at a loft party given by one of Tom’s photographer friends, I don’t go near him all night, and instead watch other women flirt with him. I see him as others do: tall, handsome, blue-eyed, fit. It is the same feeling I get when I accidentally bump into him on the street as he returns from a meeting. For just a millisecond before recognition sets in, I give him the up-and-down and think, Hey there! Before realizing, Oh, it’s you.

  After the party, once again: success.

  “Can you not text me about this experiment anymore, or Sexperiment, or whatever it is?” my sister Dinah pleads. “It’s making me really uncomfortable.”

  Night six: Pioneering sex researcher Marta Meana has found that being desired is exceedingly arousing for women. This manifests itself in one of women’s most frequent sexual fantasies: to be ravished by an attractive man. But when they talk about being dominated, she has said that what they’re trying to communicate is I was so wanted by someone I wanted.

  Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher says that women are more aroused than men by romantic words—and that there is an evolutionary basis for this. Men, she says, derive intimacy from doing things side by side. “For millions of years, to do their daily job, men sat behind a bush together to look out over the grasslands and see where the animals were,” Fisher says. “If they swiveled to talk to each other, they wouldn’t be able to do their job. So you’ll see two men on a Sunday watching a football game in absolute silence, both looking forward at the game. That is intimacy to men.”

  Women, by contrast, find intimacy in words. “For millions of years, words have been women’s tools,” she tells me. “Everywhere in the world, women spend much more time holding their baby, literally in front of their face, talking to it. And women, as a result, get intimacy from talking. If you and I are together, we swivel until we’re face to face, do what’s called the ‘anchoring gaze,’ and we talk. And that is intimacy to women.”

  I think of Fisher’s remarks after we put Sylvie to bed and repair to ours. I ask Tom if we could just lie quietly together while he gives me compliments. My friend Sally often requests this of her husband: he strokes her hair, kisses her face, tells her how pretty she is, how much he loves her. “He is good at specific compliments, such as ‘I love the way you read a book all scrunched in a chair surrounded by pillows,’” she says. “That’s probably because I tell him, ‘I want to know that you still choose me, the person.’”

  Caught in our anchoring gaze, Tom is a bit rusty at first. “You’re… a great mother,” he says, awkwardly stroking my hair.

  I sit up quickly. “You know what? That may not necessarily be the best way to, you know…”

  He nods, embarrassed. “Right. Right.” But when he tries again and hits upon some praise that is slightly more romantic, I soon realize that sweet words are my gateway: the method that relaxes and unlocks you, takes you away, elicits a physical response. Everyone has one, or many, even if they’re long buried.

  Dr. Hutcherson is right, I think as I smilingly hand Tom a cup of coffee at breakfa
st the next morning. Little things don’t bother me as much!

  Night seven: Renowned sex researcher Rosemary Basson discovered that women often begin sex feeling neutral, and then become aroused once the act is under way. (Men, meanwhile, are more apt to get in the mood spontaneously, hence the lower-back stick-’em-up.)

  So why not obtain a little help? Some women read erotica for a few minutes and then they’re ready to go. (Sales of this genre are surging thanks to the welcome discretion of electronic readers.) Friends of mine swear by porn movies, but by and large, I do not find it alluring to watch creepy dudes surrounding a glassy-eyed gal with watermelon breasts who is twisted into an uncomfortable position in some sad San Fernando Valley office with bad industrial carpeting and grimy swivel chairs.

  But there are a few renegade directors who make porn that isn’t depressing, such as Barcelona-based independent erotic film director Erika Lust. Her beautifully filmed, plot-driven movies feature actors with real bodies who look like the cute tattooed baristas at your local coffee place. The settings are vacation worthy, and even the clothing they eventually remove is cute (no orange lace tank tops and Lucite stripper shoes!). Lust’s production crew is almost all female; she refuses to hire any actor under twenty-three, encourages them to choose their partners, and pays them well (as she tells me, “Women care about this stuff”).

  My favorite feature on her website is called XConfessions, in which she solicits anonymous sex confessions and turns her favorites into explicit short films with intriguing titles such as Meet Me in the Stockroom, Carnival Hustler, Boat Buddies with Benefits, I Fucking Love Ikea, and, my favorite, A Feminist Man, based on a user’s fantasy about having sex with a gender studies professor.

  Ten minutes and you’re good to go, she tells me, which makes her short films particularly attractive to a fried young mother. “Those films are made for everyone to relate to, even those who aren’t feeling very sensual at the moment,” she says. “As a mother of two, I can tell you I have my own personal experience with that. Erotic content can help you reconnect with your sexual self.”

  Tom peeks over my shoulder as I tune into A Feminist Man. “Your fantasy would probably be to have sex with a vacuum cleaner,” he snickers, alluding to my next-freak tendencies. “Or a Container Store clerk, on top of a sock cubby.”

  But XConfessions nicely leads to a seven-day home run. In fact, we continue for ten nights—and might have gone longer, but Tom has to leave for another “business” trip (a travel piece in the Virgin Islands). I report the news of our ten-day streak to Hutcherson, who says she isn’t surprised. “It’s common knowledge among sex therapists that the more sex you have, the more you want.”

  After Tom leaves for the Caribbean, I meet my usual crew of mom friends at the playground. As our kids play some sort of dystopian version of tag involving zombies, we discuss the news of the day, both local (Brooklyn opened its first Japanese-style cat café, in which you pay a fee, drink coffee, and pet cats for an hour) and national. Bruce Springsteen’s show at Madison Square Garden was mentioned next, along with the observation that he still looks fantastic (consensus: He May Be in His Sixties, but I’d Hit That).

  “Speaking of sex,” I say, looking furtively around for the kids, “guess what?” My friends all lean in, faces alight. “I’ve just had sex for ten nights in a row. That hasn’t happened since the Clinton administration.”

  Their eager expressions harden into disappointment as they regard me silently.

  Finally one mom clears her throat. “Why?” she asks. The others nod and murmur, That’s just what I was thinking.

  I tell them about my experiment and they look at me skeptically. “I will say that your skin looks amazing,” concedes one. I have noticed the same thing. As it happens, research presented at the British Psychological Society’s annual meeting found that subjects in midlife who had sex at least three times a week looked between four and seven years younger than those who had less. Lead author David Weeks listed myriad reasons why: sex releases human growth hormone, which helps skin stay elastic, as well as endorphins and other feel-good chemicals that bolster the immune system, calm inflammation, boost circulation, cancel stress, and enhance sleep.

  One mom looks wryly at my triumphant and temporarily unlined face. “I haven’t made out with David since the twins were born,” she muses. “Oh, what the hell, I’ll try it.” I wouldn’t say that I started a trend, but she does tell me later that they made a breakthrough. “Friday and Saturday night,” she announces, arching an eyebrow.

  While we never do repeat our seven-day bonanza (and three-day extension), it does serve to revitalize our sex life. Soon we revert to the proven “sweet spot” of once a week—sometimes it’s spontaneous, sometimes planned, but we’re always mindful that it’s a critical part of maintaining our connection.

  From coupling, Tom and I move on to couple time, which in our relationship is woefully lacking. While we have managed to carve out some restorative solo time using our new strategies, we haven’t been out as a twosome in months. I remember a conversation with Terry Real in which he asked us what we did to “cherish each other as a couple.” We couldn’t come up with much and began to gabble various excuses: fatigue, heavy workloads, the eye-wateringly expensive rates of New York City babysitters (one survey tracked an average hourly rate of $17.50, and that doesn’t include the cab fare home that you must often pay).

  When I told him that we mostly brought our daughter everywhere,

  his thundering response rang in my ears. “You need to do something, because the both of you are spent! Listen, the problem with being child-centric is that the couple becomes threadbare and starts looking like you two, which does Sylvie no good! You say that you’re busy, but what you really get is lazy!” He shook his head. “There are 168 hours in a week. How many of those do you give directly to your relationship? Get a babysitter! It’s a good investment!”

  The term date night causes many parents to smirk, but a University of Virginia study found that it is, indeed, important. People who built couple time into their schedules at least once a week were over three times more likely to report being “very happy” in their marriages, compared to those who had less quality time together. Wives who had couple time less than once a week, meanwhile, were nearly four times more likely to report above-average levels of “divorce proneness.”

  Perel gets incensed when she hears from parents who forsake their relationship for the kids. “They spend their entire weekends on the sidelines of these ridiculous games, cheering their children on when they finally manage to touch a ball,” she says. “This sentimentalization of children has reached a complete apex of folly. There is a total depletion of the importance of the adult relationship.” She tells parents to plan one curfew-free late night every six to eight weeks, in which they “lose control, let themselves go into excess, get high, drink, and dance, which connects them with the sense of freedom and possibility. And they do not spend the time talking about the children.” We vow to book a babysitter once a month.

  But there are ways to do date nights on the cheap as well. Perel advises creating a “family of choice”—friends and neighbors who can trade off watching each other’s children. We start a standing playdate with another family in which we swap hosting for a few hours every other Sunday—so at least we have some adult time together once a month.

  Many churches and synagogues run parents’ night out programs for their members; various children’s play spaces, YMCAs, and national kid-gym chains offer safe, supervised drop-off evening care for kids, often for less money than your average sitter. You get some couple time, and your kids enjoy a night racing around with their friends.

  Terry Real was right: we have gotten lazy. Tom and I soon train ourselves to think creatively if we encounter even a small pocket of kid-free time. When we have a free hour and a half after we drop Sylvie at a birthday party, we impulsively go to a tarot card reader in our Brooklyn neighborhood whose crystal-bedeck
ed storefront we have often passed and wondered about. This, to me, is a can’t-miss: If she is off the mark, you have a laugh. If she hits on something that resonates, as our seer does when she tells Tom that he “likes cilantro and dislikes crowds,” you can feel excitingly spooked. While we wait out another birthday party the following week, we jump on a water taxi that ferries people between Brooklyn and Manhattan, and savor the feeling of bouncing along on the sparkling water.

  There are hundreds of ways to get creative and to relish your adult time together. We spend an hour in a bookstore, or go for a brief walk, which a mountain of studies shows can immediately lift your mood and reduce stress. Even a thirty-minute stroll can make a huge difference; benefits increase further if you are surrounded by nature, a practice that the Japanese call shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing.” Or we grab some bagels and coffee and sit in the park with the newspaper.

  “My husband and I like to do kid stuff without the kids,” says my friend Jill. “Zip-lining, go-karts, Pac-Man at the arcade. Sometimes my stomach hurts from laughing.” (One study found that activities that trigger nostalgia can increase feelings of connectedness to your partner.)

  My friend John and his wife occasionally tell their bosses that they will be an hour late for work because of a doctor’s appointment—then steal away for a breakfast date after dropping off the kids at school. Breakfast is quicker and less expensive than dinner, and they still maintain their connection with each other.

  Another father I know from my daughter’s soccer class takes this idea even further: he sets aside a few of his vacation days a year, and so does his wife. Then, while their children are in school, they have a daytime date. “You can fit a lot into six hours,” he says. “A movie, an art gallery, lunch. One spring, we spent the day at a sketchy carnival and ran around riding the rides and eating bloomin’ onions. Which made us both sort of sick, but we still laugh about that day.”