The wife who dares admit she makes up excuses to avoid sleeping with her husband... and she's certai
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Lissa Robinson cursed herself when she spotted her husband's car in the driveway. Returning home from dinner with friends, she'd planned to be fast asleep in bed long before he got back from work. Now she was going to have to resort to plan B.
Fumbling with her keys, she burst through the door with a resounding crash and stumbled into the house as if horribly drunk. She lowered her eyelids and slurred her words convincingly as she told her husband, Andrew, about her evening.
And the reason for this rather bizarre performance? Lissa would go to almost any lengths not to have sex with her husband.
Opting out: Lissa Robinson has not had sex with her husband for five months
'I knew that he wouldn't try it on with me if I was drunk,' says the 40-year-old chef from Watford. 'It's not that sex with Andrew repulses me; I am still attracted to him. It just feels like such a chore. To be frank, I just can't be bothered.'
Other excuses she admits to having employed range from fearing their children might burst in on them to period pains and backache.
Sound uncomfortably familiar? Well, Lissa is certainly not alone. The fact that she would rather feign drunkenness than make love with her partner of 17 years illustrates one of the last great taboos of modern marriage.
After a wedding day, married couples are meant to drift off into the great Happy Ever After ... but the truth is that many wives - particularly after they've had their children - just don't feel like having sex with their husbands any more.
It's a trend that's emerging in 40-something women, and I've no doubt it will strike a chord with thousands of others, too.
A recent survey by the motherhood website iVillage backs this up. They questioned 2,000 married women about their sex lives.
Only 37 per cent said there was nothing else they would rather do than make love to their husbands and 55 per cent admitted they sometimes have sex out of 'marital obligation'.
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ShareAnother study shows that one in five British women regularly makes excuses to avoid having sex, with 'I'm too tired', 'I'm not in the mood' and the old favourite 'I've got a headache' being the most popular reasons. Three-quarters of the women admit that 'I couldn't be bothered' sum up the situation.
Lissa continues: 'Andrew and I last had sex about five months ago. We've remained very tactile with one another, but I'm always cautious about being too touchy-feely, as I don't want it to lead to other things.
'It sounds awful, but when I was diagnosed with a mild arthritis in my back seven years ago, my first thought was: "That's going to be a good excuse not to have sex."
Movie sex is usually ardent, successful-orgasmic. At the very least the protagonists are burning with desire, the blood running hot in their veins
'Other excuses I've used include pleading period pains, stomach cramps, a headache - or that I simply feel unwell.
'Poor Andrew is always telling me that I should go to the GP because there always seems to be something wrong with me.'
Of course, most husbands aren't gulled that easily. The reason they don't vocalise their fears is often because they feel rejected.
Lissa concurs: 'I think Andrew sensed I was just approaching sex as doing my wifely duties - my heart wasn't in it. That annoyed him and caused a few minor rows.
'I suppose thinking about it from his point of view, he probably felt rejected. But it wasn't anything to do with loving him any less. I can't ever imagine being with anyone else - I simply have no desire for sex.
'I think Andrew has all but given up on sex now. I do feel sad when I think how much our relationship has changed in that respect.'
But what causes this sudden decline in libido?
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The pressures on women today are well documented. There's an awful lot of juggling going on: jobs, children, housework, friends - to say nothing of the now obligatory 'me-time'.
What isn't talked about so much is the effect all this stress has on the bedroom. Is it any wonder that women often prefer sleeping, reading and watching TV to the far more physically challenging act of having sex?
Traditionally, the truth about married sex has always been incredibly hard to uncover. Couples tend to close ranks when they get married or move in together.
A woman who once told her best friend every lurid detail of her love life finds that her loyalty transfers to her partner once they commit to a marriage.
That's as it should be, but it isn't so healthy when couples feel that admitting to any kind of difficulty in the marriage is tantamount to a public failure. Keeping up appearances shouldn't take precedence over getting help for an ailing sex life.
Not tonight, darling: Women often prefer sleeping, reading and watching TV to having sex
The traditional three-times-a-week figure that's often quoted as the average number of times married couples have sex has been proved to be wishful thinking, as women pour out the truth on online forums. Most married women of all ages are having sex only one to three times a month.
Our view of our own sex life is all about expectations. If we live in a culture that thinks sex is the glue that keeps a marriage together, that believes passion should be 'kept alive' and rampant, that even says that disappointing sex is a reason to leave a marriage - as we do - then one to three times a month will be seen as a disappointing figure.
Clearly, many married women are feeling pressure to have more sex than they'd like and, worse, feeling that there might be something wrong with them. But what if there was nothing wrong with them at all?
Who decreed that grown adults who have already had children should be making love several times a week?
The idea that sex drive wanes for a woman after she has had children would certainly seem to make biological and evolutionary sense.
After all, surely that would mean they would be more likely to remain faithful to the father of their children, not finding other men alluring. It would also mean they would focus more intently on nurturing their offspring.
Perhaps it's the expectations of our highly sexed culture that are faulty here, rather than the exhausted mothers of this world who are doing the best they can.
What's fascinating now, though, is the idea that rather than telling their husbands they don't feel like making love, women are actively seeking any excuse they can think of to get out of sleeping with them.
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One in 20 British couples share a sexless marriage - defined by experts as having sex fewer than 10 times a year
Lissa pinpoints the decline of her libido as occurring after her second child was born 14 years ago. She says: 'I believe completely in the theory that women are biologically programmed to want sex until they have a family and then experience a falling off in their desire. That's what's happened to me - and many of my friends, too.'
Dr Ashley Grossman, Professor of Neuro-Endocrinology at St Barts Hospital, says: 'Libido in a man is very simple - more of the hormone testosterone means a higher libido - but it's much more subtle in women.
'I see a lot of women aged 35, 40, 45, who tell me that they love their husband but sadly no longer want to have sex, and I believe the issue is tied up in psychology and biology.
'From an endocrine (hormonal) point of view, there's no change in the levels of the three main female sex hormones oestrogen, progesterone and prolactin after a woman has children.
'But if a woman has had her two or three children and doesn't want any more, having sex is essentially a biological waste of time. There's no longer any reproductive purpose. It's easy to think: "If I'm not going to have any more children, I don't need to be having sex." In many cases, they stop.'
Lissa explains that like many couples, she and Andrew had a passionate relationship when they first met. 'We had a whirlwind two-year romance and a great social life together. We had sex every day and were madly in love, so having children was something we both wanted to do quite quickly.
'When our children were little, we were still having sex once or twice a week, but that's when the excuses started. With two babies who were both poor sleepers, I was very tired.
'Happy with two children, I was also fearful of falling pregnant again - the contraceptive injection I'd been using didn't agree with me, so we relied on condoms. But, more than that, suddenly sex felt like such a chore. I just couldn't be bothered.
'Thankfully, Andrew was really understanding of the demands on me as a mother. When the children went to school the frequency of our sex life did increase a little, but that didn't last long.
'Andrew was keen to nip back from work at lunchtime so we could make love like we did in the early days of our relationship, but that's when I started to make excuses - telling him I was meeting a friend or going shopping.'
I spoke to other women who echo these sentiments. One, a 36-year-old writer who has been married for four years and has two children, explains: 'At the end of a long day when I've had to give, give, give to the children, I just don't want to give any more.
There's a physical element to this, too - the children will probably have been climbing all over me, being so demanding. I crash into bed and I just want my body to myself.'
Another, a 38-year-old full-time mother-of-three, says: 'I know my husband wants sex more than I do, so I feel constant pressure.
There's a fear that he might be counting the times, and if I don't live up to his expectations then there might be awful consequences - an affair, I suppose, which I'd then feel was my fault.
It's hard to get in touch with my own desire when I feel like that. We've been married for 12 years, and these days his requirements can feel like just another demand on me. Sex becomes another thing on my "to do" list.'
The fear of the consequences of not having sex with your husband is a pertinent point. It isn't helped by the fact that if the media is to be believed, everyone else is at it like the proverbial rabbits.
But the sex we see in films and on TV is so idealised. The lighting is flattering, the mood is feverish, the choreography is well rehearsed. Movie sex is usually ardent, successful-orgasmic. At the very least the protagonists are burning with desire, the blood running hot in their veins.
No wonder many married women feel that something is lacking when they turn to their husband with a head full of shopping lists and a sense of wifely duty.
And then there's the fact that childbirth takes such a toll on the body.
We are bombarded in the media with images of perfectly toned women, and that can make it hard to feel sexy
We are bombarded in the media with images of perfectly toned women, and that can make it hard to feel sexy - especially if the reality is post breast-feeding breasts and a touch of middle-aged spread.
But could the mundane reality of everyday relationships take its toll on a woman's libido too?
Denise Knowles, a Relate therapist, sees couples where the wife's residual anger with the husband kills her desire for sex.
This anger can be something that's grown up within the marriage and not been dealt with, like, for example if a woman gave up her job to look after the children and feels she hasn't been sufficiently recognised for this, or is angry that she no longer has any control of the family finances.
Denise says: 'A wife who's not good at expressing anger can internalise it and become convinced that she no longer feels anything for her husband.' And that's when the excuses start.
One 41-year-old teacher, who is a mother of two and has been married for nine years, tells me she finds herself locked into a power struggle with her husband.
'I'm often so annoyed about the fact that he hasn't put the rubbish out, or done the washing up, that I think I'll be damned if I'm going to have sex with him.'
But was it ever thus? In my view, it's only really since the Sixties - when sex became part of mainstream culture - that people have come to expect such an active and fulfilling sex life.
Before that, the idea of sex as a chore wouldn't have been at all unusual. Sex used to be thought of as a religious duty, a means to having children, or a wifely sacrifice.
Now, it's seen as a necessity and a fundamental key to our well-being, with the emphasis being placed on mutual satisfaction. It's not enough any more for a woman just to do it - she has to enjoy it, too.
But there is hope - for men and for women. Denise says: 'I see so many wives who say they have "gone off" sex - but these problems can often be easily overcome with therapeutic support.'
After all, it's not that women don't necessarily wish to rediscover their feelings of desire.
Lissa says: 'I would love my feelings towards sex to change. I do have friends who are older and their children have grown up and left home and they've found their sexual desire has come back again. So, perhaps, one day, mine will, too.'
It seems that even a small amount of talking things through can make a huge difference.
Many couples come through their problems to an understanding that although the sex they have later in their relationship is different to the sex they had when they first met, it can be just as good.
It's not the main attraction - but it is the icing on the cake of longterm companionship and support.
Until that time, however, it seems thousands of otherwise loving and dutiful wives will continue to construct elaborate reasons why they cannot sleep with their increasingly exasperated husbands.
Additional reporting: Sadie Nicholas
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