Dear Bel,
I’m 46, a middle-aged woman with no interest in sex. My husband and I are good friends and we love each other very much. We have been married for 20 years and have two children, one in the struggling teenage years and one in elementary school.
We both work full time. The problem isn’t that I don’t like my husband or have sex with him. I do – but I always seem to find sex a chore.
I have a demanding full-time job, two kids, and a household to run, so I want to do everything when I get home (after looking after the kids, making packed lunches, helping with homework, organizing dinner, and attending attended a parents’ evening). and doing household chores) is sleep.
I’ve been in a state of constant exhaustion for years. I have had help around the house before to ease the burden of housework and motherhood.
While my husband helps out with chores like ironing, it doesn’t solve the real problem of having a full-time job and commuting combined with a household to run really weighs on me. And it doesn’t get any better with age.
One solution would be to stop working, but we can’t afford to give up my salary. The only time we manage to make love is on vacation — usually after a full week to unwind, de-stress, and just re-energize.
My husband would identify with men who have written to you over the years complaining that their wives have lost interest in sex. I’m afraid to show affection at night because he might take it as a sign to go to the bedroom when I’m devastated and need my sleep.
Do you think this issue is a current problem and that the demands on women are overwhelming?
I don’t see a way to solve the problem – most of the time I’m way too tired to even think about it. I am sure that many women will identify with it. Sex at the end of the day requires energy that we no longer have.
It would be interesting to find out if our female ancestors experienced this as well. What do you think?
KATHRYN
This week, Bel Mooney gives advice to a woman who asks why she’s so tired she never wants to have sex with her husband again
I close my eyes and picture a supergroup of tired women singing, “I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.” . I want . . . want . . . I sleep alone in a big, soft bed. . . uhh.’
And believe me, it’s been a boring refrain for centuries!
This carefree start doesn’t touch your heart. Your problem is real and the difference between man and woman has rarely been expressed so convincingly on this site. They see the problem as a modern one, but in the olden days most women worked just as hard – and without any labor-saving tools.
thought of the day
Start the song right where you are.
Stay in the world you were made of.
Don’t name anything common in the earth or in the air.
From “The Singing Bowl” by Malcolm Guite (English poet and priest, b. 1957)
But it’s true that the expectations are much higher now. Women I know feel pressured to be hardworking and fun moms, serve healthy food, have good jobs (two incomes required), run an Insta-worthy home — and be effortlessly sexy in the bedroom, encourages magazine articles through gasping celebrity confessions and newspaper articles. In other words, you’re trying to be perfect—and that’s exhausting.
For now, don’t bother with the sex—I think you should do whatever it takes to lighten your workload. They say your husband shares the ironing, but why bother? Minimize (or skip) ironing and let him do his homework. Establish a roster so that all four members of the household do the chores, including the youngest ones. This grumpy teenager needs to get in shape and I know it’s an effort. But it has to happen.
Like so many of us, you accept “the overwhelming demands placed on women”—and must learn to shed them. It’s also important to be aware of menopause and how it can affect your energy levels and overall emotional well-being.
Change is hard (it’s something I struggle with myself), but unless we learn to restructure our minds and lives, we can be perilously close to collapse. So be careful. You have a good, loving marriage, so you need to tell your husband everything you’ve told me and work with him to find ways to lessen your stress. It is important that he does more and works with you on this roster. He may be frustrated that his sexual needs are not being met. Therefore, it is in his interest to be as understanding as possible.
Task him with organizing playdates and activities for the children on Saturday afternoons.
Then tender care, bed and a nap after intercourse could be an option.
I’m so lonely stuck in my apartment all day
Dear Bel,
In 1989 I was widowed at 39 but life was fine until Covid. I had two sons, two grandchildren, a few good friends and went on vacation to eat out. Now my sons and youngest grandson come for dinner twice a week.
My eldest grandson is busy but keeps in touch via text and email. Otherwise I have no contact with anyone. My younger son is often short-tempered when I visit, even though I have been kind and loving all his life. I also wash both sons every week.
I’ve been isolating during Covid as I have severe lung damage after an allergy attack 20 years ago – and I still can’t bring myself to socialize indoors in case I catch the disease. But I met some friends on café terraces this summer and went to a music festival one night with my 15-year-old grandson. Close friends have passed away in recent years. My sister and her three adult children live close by but I haven’t seen them in months and my niece and nephews haven’t seen them in the last year or two.
Day after day I sit alone, only two people call me, both quite distant acquaintances, but lonely like me. I mourn the loss of my past life and my good friends and wonder why nobody seems to think of me or want to get in touch with me. Nobody ever helps me or asks me if I’m okay.
I shop online, clean and cook for my family despite being in pain from arthritis and breathless from damaged lungs. My older son started taking me out in the car after the family dinner. Otherwise I’m just in my apartment or outside. can you give hope
ALICE
Not surprisingly, over the years I have read a great many letters about loneliness – sad stories from readers old and young.
In 2022, 49.63 per cent of adults (25.99 million people) in the UK reported feeling lonely occasionally, sometimes, often or always. But how do you define a condition that varies so much by personality?
About 7.1 per cent of people in the UK (3.83 million) say they suffer from chronic loneliness, meaning they feel lonely “often or always”. From your letter it appears that you would claim to be one of them.
Yet I study it and am confused. You see, countless lonely souls will read that two sons and a grandson come to your house twice a week, that your older son drives you out in the car, that your teenage grandson took you to a music festival, and that you made friends outside from cafes. . . and then they will shake their heads with envy and wonder why you seem to underestimate this precious human contact.
To learn more about loneliness, perspective and good advice, visit The Marmalade Trust (marmaladetrust.org/aboutmarmaladetrust).
There is no doubt that the condition is highly subjective. So if someone says they feel lonely, then by definition they are lonely.
More from Bel Mooney for the Chron…
But surely that’s not the end of the story? For example, we can ask quiet questions: Alice, can you really believe that you feel without “hope” when there are so many tragic souls on this earth who have no one at all? Significantly, the dreaded C-word in your email caught my eye. Although I have suffered from bronchitis and asthma all my life and am older than you, I have been a lockdown skeptic and have written on the subject more than once for this newspaper.
Reading between the lines of your letter, I am convinced that it is your ongoing fear of Covid that is still deeply affecting your life.
According to the Campaign To End Loneliness, social isolation worsened significantly during the pandemic (no surprise there), but afterward it continued to be worse than before the lockdown. This reinforces my personal belief that, even more than the virus itself, a terrible disruption caused by Covid took hold and changed society for the worse.
Finally, there are seemingly sane people within the Labor Party and the National Education Union who are in favor of more and tougher lockdowns. Can they face themselves in the mirror? Terrible damage was done.
Please take a breath and think. It could be that your younger son is mad at you because you tend to feel sorry for yourself and he doesn’t like it. It might be time for a woman in her 70s to stop washing her sons. It could be you who should call your sister and suggest a family reunion at her house.
It might be that you should stop “mourning” for the past and create a new present and future – one in which you realize that “hope” lies in looking around, in finding out about others, in reaching out to them and to say thank you for the family you did it and move on with the life that is left.
And finally… Find hope by believing in faith
Many readers love the quotes I choose – mostly from books I’m reading.
But space is often at a premium, so today I would like to highlight a passage from a book of essays by the late American writer Brian Doyle (1956-2017). One Long River Of Song is a beautiful collection – full of spirituality, observation and love – that I keep in the huge pile by my bed.
Contact Bel
Bel answers readers’ questions about emotional issues and relationship issues each week.
Write to Bel Mooney, Chron, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5hy or email [email protected].
Names are changed to protect identity.
Bel reads all letters, but regrets that she cannot maintain personal correspondence.
Brian Doyle teaches his readers to become aware of the shine behind the clouds, the beauty in the tiniest blade of grass, and the endless joy to be found in human relationships, no matter how flawed they may be.
Here he is – in this passage he expresses a profound truth about human existence that I keep reading when trying to discern patterns in the kaleidoscope:
“You see, I know very well that brooding, misshapen evil is everywhere, in the brightest homes and the happiest denials of what we do and what we have missed, and I know only too well that the story of the World is so entropy, things fly apart, we get sick, we fail, we get tired, we get divorced, we are plagued and haunted by losses, accidents and tragedies.
“But I also know with all my gray, confused heart that we are marked by immense, bewildering sanctity; that for us it is all about grace under duress; and that you either take a giant leap with nonsensical, illogical ideas like marriage and marathons and democracy and divinity, or duck behind the wall…. . In short, I believe in faith that makes no sense but gives me hope.”
I leave you with words of balanced wisdom and joy as this column will not be here next week. With our brood of dogs at home in the capable hands of my son, we set off for Brussels, Bruges and Ghent – and a feast of Flemish art and beer and moules-frites.
I’ll come back refreshed, so keep coming with these letters – to remind me of the truth of Doyle’s words.