“Dear Eve, ever since my wife and I had our child 6 months ago, I have not been the same. I am even struggling to perform sexually in the bedroom. I’m afraid my wife will think I am no longer interested in her! Please help.”

– James.

Dear James,

Congratulations on the birth of your baby and thank you for your question. I can see you are quite worried about what is going on, and with good reason. A man’s sexual expression is one of the key indicators of his health physical and psychological so when it gets affected, it can be an indication that something else is going on. Let us explore some possibilities on the psychological front.

1.Fatigue.

Isn’t it ‘funny’ how a new mother is attended to and supported based on the assumption that she must be very tired, yet her male partner is almost always ignored on the premise that he’s fine? Well, James, it’s bad enough to be ignored by ‘others’ but might you have ignored your own fatigue as well?

2. Overwhelmed

One of the most commonly overlooked aspects of life is the sense of overwhelm that can occur as a result of majorly positive life events. Imagine with me that you received a big promotion at work. I’m willing to bet that you would celebrate what (you think) it means; more money, more prestige and more benefits in general. However, I am also willing to bet that you would overlook aspects of that promotion; more responsibilities, more likely to get blamed should things go wrong (just as you would be more likely to get praised should things go right). This is similar to your current situation.

3. Postpartum depression

Yes, we have heard of women experiencing depression or baby blues after the birth of a child. However, the thinking is evolving to include men in this category because more and more, doctors and therapists are seeing men present with symptoms of postpartum depression; the research backs this up as well. The challenge had been easy to overlook in men because it manifested differently from women.

~eve

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