Something else? Ask Aunt Vadge – bottom left of your screen!
Dear Aunt Vadge,
I got married in 2008 and we have one son, aged six. My wife is 30. After the birth of our son, she doesn’t enjoy sex, and most of the time her vagina is dry even after foreplay. How can I get through this problem?
Sincerely,
Sexless
India, age 38
Dear Sexless,
This is one of the most common things couples write to us about, and the fact that you’re trying to understand it rather than just complain is a good sign. It’s also very workable. The one thing I’d say up front, though, is that desire isn’t a switch you can flip from the outside – you can’t make your wife want sex. What you can do is help build the conditions where wanting it becomes possible again, and that’s a job for the two of you together.
Start with why she’s lost interest
Low desire almost always has a reason sitting underneath it, and it’s worth finding hers rather than guessing. After a child, the usual suspects are exhaustion, carrying most of the mental and household load, low mood or postnatal changes that never quite lifted, feeling touched-out or unseen, or simply resentment that’s built up quietly. Sometimes it’s that sex has started to feel like one more thing being asked of her.
So the most useful thing you can do isn’t a technique – it’s to ask her, gently and without an agenda, how she’s really doing, and to listen without defending or fixing. Whatever she tells you is valid, even if it’s hard to hear. If she feels safe and really heard, you’ve already changed the temperature.
The dryness is worth taking seriously on its own
This part is squarely our territory: if she’s dry even after foreplay, and especially if sex has become uncomfortable or painful, that alone can switch desire off completely. Nobody looks forward to something that hurts. Vaginal dryness has real, treatable causes – hormonal shifts (including anything lingering from pregnancy or breastfeeding), the contraceptive pill, thyroid issues, stress, or just needing much more warm-up and arousal than before.
Two practical things: use plenty of good lubricant so sex stops being sore, which breaks the pain-then-dread cycle; and if the dryness or discomfort is persistent, she’d be very welcome to look into it properly, either with her own doctor or by booking in with us. Painful sex is common and fixable, and it’s not something she should just put up with. You can read more about the ways arousal and comfort can be disrupted in our guide to female sexual function.
Get some help, together
There’s no magic fix, and you don’t have to work it out alone. A sex therapist or couples counsellor is really good at drawing out the reasons behind lost desire and helping you both talk about the things that are hard to say directly. You can go together or separately, and it often deepens the relationship well beyond the bedroom.
Your needs matter too – wanting a sexual connection with your wife is completely reasonable, and a long-term mismatch is a real problem worth solving, not something to just swallow. The way through is honest negotiation as a team: what you each hoped for, what feels possible now, and what you’re both willing to try. Approach it as ‘how do we make us happier’, never as pressure, and you’re far more likely to get somewhere.
Be patient, keep your sense of humour, and prepare to hear things you might not love – and to be gracious about them. Marriage is one of the harder things to pull off well, so full marks for putting the effort in.
Thanks for writing, and let us know how you get on.
Warmest regards,
Aunt Vadge
This is general information, not a substitute for personalised medical advice.
