Distracted during sex? This is how to be in the moment

Margaret came to the Sexology Clinic with an interesting request: she wanted me to tell her husband that she was fine without sex.

“Tell him that I am okay, that sex is actually distracting me from the more important things in life,” she explained.

The couple had been off sex for four months and Wilson, Margaret’s husband, was getting agitated.

“I have previously given in to sex and because my mind was not there, it ended up being painful,” Margaret lamented, “I am now busier than ever and giving attention to sex is hard for me.”

A social scientist, Margaret was doing her PhD and also had several projects she was leading at her workplace. She worked for an NGO as a project manager and spent most of her days in communities supervising projects and training project facilitators.

Wilson, on the other hand, was a businessman. He bought land, built houses and sold them. His time was flexible and, according to him, sex was an important part of what he wanted from his wife.

Now in their late 30s, the couple had been in marriage for 14 years and had two children.

 “What is marriage without sex?” Wilson asked when he joined Margaret at the clinic, “If I wanted a roommate I would have lived with my sister!”

Margaret and Wilson’s experiences are replicated in many marriages that I come across each week. For one, many people have time pressure imposed on them by the nature of their jobs. Whenever they are in a sexual situation they worry about pending work. As such they do not enjoy the moment and in fact are happier keeping off sex.

For others, it is the responsibilities that weigh in on them. You may be attending to a sick mother or father; maybe you have a child with special needs; or it could just be that your house help has become a problem and you have to do the house chores in addition to your work responsibilities. Further still, you could be having a side hustle for extra income that could be quite demanding.

Then there is the problem of fatigue, many times accompanied by sleep deprivation. You could be sleeping for less than seven hours a day and this has had a depleting effect on your physical and emotional energies. As such you lack energy for sex.

“I am tired, I have little time for what I have to achieve and having sex has become a distraction from my daily routines,” Margaret blurted out.

There are other unusual factors. Politics is at the centre of these. The anxiety and disruption caused by the politics of the day are making it impossible for couples to give attention to sex.

Interestingly, climate change and its effects have similarly been found to be distractors. In some places it could be floods; in others, it could be drought and yet for others it’s disease outbreaks. Overall, whatever the effect, climate change has had its toll on the bedroom.

“So, can we just say that we focus on all these problems and let sex be?” Margaret insisted, “I believe people can still live happily even if they are not having sex.”

Whether a relationship can survive without sex is definitely the elephant in the room. In many cases, one party may not want but the other wants sex. There is a danger that this discordance can cause dissatisfaction and conflict in the marriage.

“Well, I know my husband is not happy and so I am actually very stressed with this whole sex thing,” Margaret said.

The safer route, if you are interested in maintaining a long-term relationship, is to look for ways of maintaining sexual activity. Be intentional and prioritise sex in your busy program. You may want to go for work-life integration rather than work-life balance. Integration means that social issues find space in and are part and parcel of your busy program. If you travel for work, for example, you could have your spouse accompany you.

On a day-to-day basis, have rules that keep you and your partner connected, e.g. you may block Friday evenings for coffee; Sunday for religious and social activities together or annual holidays as a couple. When you prioritise being with your partner, just the two of you alone many times a week, you stay connected and sex easily follows. And when in bed, choose to have quality time and focus on the activities of the moment. When done you can then create quality time for your work and other engagements without the worry of offending your partner. 

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