Neither of us said anything, but I
could sense we were thinking the same thing. As we lay there, side-by-side in
the darkness, a chasm was growing between us.
I longed to reach over and draw my
wife Diana to my side, but something stopped me. I felt frozen to the spot, my
stomach in knots and my heart pounding.
The problem? We hadn’t had sex for
more than a year and the longer we left it, the higher the hurdle became.
FOTO HERE
Traumatised: Martin Daubney with his
wife Diana and his son Sonny at home in London
What’s worse, we were both too
uptight to talk about it. So, night after night, we lay in silence, our bodies
not even touching.
For ten years, our sex life had been
great. But then Diana gave birth to our son, Sonny, and things ground to a
halt.
You might think loss of libido after
having a baby is far from unusual, to be expected even; most women
understandably focus their energies on their newborn, too tired to think of
anything else. But the lack of intimacy in our decade-long marriage was down to
me, not Diana.
And the reason? Witnessing Sonny’s
birth had turned me off sex altogether.
At the time, I felt ashamed,
bewildered, as if - ironically - becoming a father had made me less of a man.
But I now realise I was far from
alone. A recent survey by parenting website Netmums revealed that
three-quarters of couples make love less than they did before they had
children.
Almost half the mothers questioned
said they felt the man in their life no longer found them attractive. And a
third said their wife saw them only as a mum and no longer as a lover.
Part of the problem, I believe, is
to do with the changing expectations of fathers. Today’s dads see it as an
intrinsic part of their role to accompany their partner through every step of
childbirth. To suggest otherwise is seen as a dereliction of duty, an act of
misogyny.
I was no different - insisting on
witnessing my wife’s harrowing three-day labour and eventual emergency
Caesarean.
But this approach has undeniable
consequences, which I feel all parents ignore at their peril.
Witnessing the trauma of childbirth,
coupled with the toll it takes on their partner’s body, can have a devastating
impact on a man and his approach to sex.
Diana and I have lost count of the
number of couples we know who have separated after having a child.
At least three of my friends have
admitted to leaving their wives as a result of their dwindling sex lives.
I truly believe couples would have
more chance of normal intimacy after a birth if men saw less of the delivery.
Clinical psychologist Dr Rachel
Andrew counsels many couples with marital and sexual issues, and says men
suffering trauma through childbirth is much more commonplace than you’d think -
and the effect on intimacy can be huge.
She says: 'Even a relatively normal
birth can be extremely traumatic for men, as those who go to birthing groups
are not presented with the shocking reality.
'Men often experience strong
feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness and guilt for inflicting this on their
wives. They feel they should have done more to help, but couldn’t.
'This can have direct and profound
consequences on their libidos afterwards. So many marital issues can be traced
back to an underlying physical barrier, with childbirth being right up there as
a causal factor.'
Ironically, it was me who so keenly
wanted children in the first place. When I turned 38, I even issued Diana - who
is five years my junior - an ultimatum: I wanted to be a father before I
reached 40.
When she announced she was pregnant
three months later, I threw myself headlong into expectant father mode. I read
all the parenting books and attended every scan. There was no doubt in our minds I
would be present at the birth.
On May 23, when Diana was two weeks
overdue, we excitedly packed our birthing bag and took a taxi to London’s University
College Hospital.
Spurred on by what I now consider
unfair encouragement by our birthing groups - where I feel C-sections and
epidurals were portrayed as last resorts for the emotionally weak - Diana chose
to endure a hideous, three-day labour in pursuit of a natural birth.
During this time, she endured
endless internal examinations, was fed a cocktail of powerful inducement drugs
and attached to drips which made her arms balloon to twice their size.
Then, of course, there was the
agony. I hated watching her suffer. At 7am on the fourth morning, after
36 hours of nil by mouth that left Diana so weak she could barely open her
eyes, I told the nurses I was giving her a drink of Ribena whether they liked
it or not.
I returned from the nearby shop to
find Diana fitting and an emergency team of doctors crowding round her. It was
the most terrifying experience of my life. I thought Diana might die, taking
our unborn baby with her.
An hour later, an obstetrician
revealed that - after all that struggle with labour - an emergency Caesarean
was the only option after all. We were exasperated, exhausted, but relieved
when four hours later Diana was whisked into theatre.
I’d been keeping a video diary of
our journey to birth, from the moment we left our house. And for some reason - probably
to give me a sense of purpose and focus - I filmed the Caesarean. Looking back,
it was a step too far.
I won’t go into the gory details,
but suffice to say the sight of a surgeon elbow-deep inside your wife’s abdomen
isn’t something you forget in a hurry.
But there wasn’t time to dwell on
such things as Sonny was born limp, lifeless, and not breathing. It took a
second emergency team almost three minutes to jolt him into life.
We were allowed one brief kiss, and
he was whirled away from us with suspected broken ribs and a severe infection.
When it came to telling our parents
they had a grandson, I broke down in tears. 'I’m sorry for what I’ve done to
your daughter,' I sobbed to my in-laws. But once Diana and Sonny were home,
life just became more complicated.
The fact that the first few months
of a baby’s life rob you of sleep, fray tempers and generally create as many
rows as moments of joy is well documented.
But what no one talks about is how
witnessing childbirth - the most intimate experience in life - leaves a lasting
impression on a man and can drive a wedge between himself and his wife.
Admittedly, intimacy is hardly a
priority when a new baby comes into your life. It is only right that a man’s
needs, both physical and emotional, take a back seat at first.
But it’s at this time that the first
cracks appear. Straight away, a literal barrier is placed between you when you
have your baby sleeping in your bed. Sonny did this for the first few
months of his life. Every night I was terrified of rolling onto him and
crushing him to death, so would build a pillow mountain to stop myself from
moving.
It couldn’t have been less intimate
if Diana and I had erected a line of barbed wire down the middle of our bed.
Even after Sonny had graduated to
his cot, he remained in our room for a further six months, which meant we awoke
at his every whimper.
Then there were the more serious
hurdles: the memories of childbirth and how they affected the way I viewed
Diana.
There is no denying that having a
baby changes a woman’s body immeasurably. People don’t like to talk about scars
from the Caesarean, saggy stomachs or greatly increased nipple size, but that’s
the reality.
Some of my friends admitted they
missed their lover’s formerly toned body, that childbirth had changed the way
they viewed them.
For one friend, it was helping his
partner express milk that did it. For another, it was the stitches. Others said
they resented being relegated to second place.
Meanwhile, Diana became incredibly
self-conscious after birth, blanketing herself in baggy clothes.
But it wasn’t the physical changes
to Diana’s body that put me off sex. I was in awe, and at times envious of what
her body had achieved. No, it was something more primeval than that.
Apart from my haunting memories of
the event, Diana’s C-section had left her wincing with pain, and exacerbated an
existing back ailment, reducing her to a hobbling shadow of her former self.
She told me her endless and
humiliating internal examinations in hospital had left her mentally scarred,
too.
I felt guilty; I had made her
pregnant, so surely I was to blame. That’s what made me terrified of
love-making — I didn’t want to put her through that trauma again.
My loss of libido didn’t even
register at first; we were both so wrapped up in our son.
Then Diana started wanting cuddles
and I realised getting close to her in a non-sexual sense made me tense. I was
terrified to touch Diana for fear of what it might result in. And I was too
proud to admit this to her.
Again, Dr Andrew says this reaction
is not uncommon. She says: 'In extreme cases, men report symptoms similar to
post-traumatic stress disorder. It can give men a very real fear of pregnancy,
so they go into a form of sexual hibernation.
'This is made worse because, while
there is lots of post-natal help available to women, there is hardly
anything for men, so they suffer in silence.'
It was more than a year after
Sonny’s birth that I mustered up the courage to broach the subject with Diana,
and another couple of weeks before we resumed our love-making.
Initially, we were tense and nervous
as virgins, but I’m grateful we stuck at it, and things slowly improved.
Many of our friends weren’t so
lucky, and their babies drove them to break up. Stephen, 41, a stockbroker,
said watching his wife breastfeeding turned him off sex. 'I felt my wife’s body
was no longer mine, and never would be again,' he told me.
To his subsequent shame, he began an
affair with one of her colleagues: 'I guess I looked elsewhere for confirmation
that I still "had it".'
I would never have left Diana. But I
wish I’d found the courage to open up about my feelings before I did.
Now Sonny is three and our
relationship is back on track. We are even trying for another baby —something I
thought would have been impossible not too long ago.
This time, Diana will again try for
a natural birth, but I will be holding her hand and letting the doctors do the
delivery. If it comes to a C-section, I might wait outside.
I am not bewailing the plight of
men, saying we should be shielded from the horrors of childbirth. I just
think we should be realistic about the impact a man’s involvement at the birth
can have on a relationship.
By ignoring each other’s feelings at
this crucial stage, you create cracks, which can threaten the foundations of a
marriage.
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