Woman's Hour - Sex in long-term relationships

Episode Date: November 3, 2017

Psychotherapist Esther Perel wrote her first book Mating in Captivity ten years ago. Her second book The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity has just been published. She joins Jenni to hear from Woman's Hour listeners about the challenges they face keeping the sexual spark alive in a long-term relationship and to give advice based on 20 years experience of talking to couples . Mismatched libidos, pain during intercourse, getting into a routine and what happens to desire when kids come along are some of the issues raised. Is it unrealistic to expect passion in a marriage? Why does the sex seem to go off even in the most loving relationships and does it really matter? Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Erin Riley Reporter: Abigail Hollick.

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Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Friday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning. Anyone who's been in a long-term relationship knows that the sex ain't necessarily what it was at the outset. There's the baby question. Is there sex after childbirth? And how do men deal with the child occupying more of your time than they do? There's the familiarity. How erotic and exciting can it be when you've been at it for years? And then there's the mismatched expectations. One of you wants it. Often the other really can't be bothered. Well, several weeks ago we asked you to tell us your experience. And throughout this week, we've heard from four of you, Katie and three other women we are calling Lizzie, Diane and Sian.

You can hear those longer stories through the Woman's Hour website. But this morning, we're joined by the couple's therapist, Esther Perel, the author of the wonderfully entitled Mating in Captivity. We'll hear some of the most telling comments those women made and hopefully offer analysis and advice. Now Esther was born in Belgium to parents who had survived the Holocaust but had both lost their entire families. It's their vitality and determination to live their lives to the full that inspired her to train as a psychotherapist and write that first book ten years ago. Her second has just been published. It's The State of Affairs, Rethinking Infidelity.

She also hosts a series of podcasts, Where Should We Begin? and she now lives and works in New York and joins us from there. Esther, one thing that a lot of our case studies and emails had in common was the idea that, well, it used to be great when we first met, it was really hot, but now it's not. How inevitable is it that sex will go off the boil in a long-term relationship? We are involved in a grand experiment at this moment when it comes to modern coupledom, which is that we want to reconcile within one relationship two fundamental sets of human needs. From all of history, the notion of a passionate marriage

would have been a total contradiction in terms. Passion has always existed, but it was somewhere else. And marriage was for stability, for commitment, for safety and security, dependability, the anchoring experiences of life. We still want all of that, but we also want our relationship to give us a sense of mystery and awe and transcendence and excitement and novelty and surprise. And we really don't know what it means to reconcile love and desire in one relationships because often what eroticism thrives on is what family life defends against. That said, we have this notion that relationship starts passionate, hot, intense, and they have only one way to go, and that is down. But it actually is not the natural curve. There are plenty of relationships where sexuality becomes better over time because one knows oneself more, because sexuality is rooted in a sense of self-worth and confidence, certainly desire is. And as people feel

more at ease in their skin, more confident, they often actually experience a much more luscious sexuality than they may have had in the beginning when they were more anxious and more insecure. So there isn't one story only, although it is the one that we hear more often. Well, let's start with what I suppose is quite a cheery email that came from someone who was listening to the programme. She said, recently I decided to start really talking to my husband about sex. Obviously, things had got a little stuck in a rut. And she said she realised it wasn't going to just happen by chance. So she started talking about it. And then when he realised that she was serious and committed to making their sex life better,

he started talking to explaining how Shahid felt about it. And she says it's been amazing. And her last line was truly liberating for us. So much fun to be really intentional about sex. Yes. So is that a good idea, the idea of being intentional about sex? Absolutely. Long-term sex is premeditated, intentional, willful and conscious.

Our notion that it should just happen, you know, in a long-term relationship, whatever is going to just happen already has. So it only happens because you willingly attribute value to it. What she did was beautiful. She began a conversation. This conversation can be very, very intimate. You reveal so much about yourself when you talk about yourself and your erotic self. And it opens up vistas in a relationship that both people never knew about each other.

And then you really enter into the mysteries of the erotic together. It doesn't matter if it's 10 or 20 or 30 years later. It was beautiful, it was courageous, and he went with it. So why do so many of us assume that sex will just happen? Because I suppose anything else we do in life, we work at it. Yes, of course. I often have to say when you go to play tennis or any sports, don't you first prepare your gear, then you book your court,

then you find a person you're going to play with, then you prepare yourself for it, then you set the time aside, and nobody says, oh, how boring to prepare to plan for the tennis game. You know, everybody totally understands it. And nobody has ever regretted planning for the game once they went to the game. But when it comes to sex, for so long, we said sexuality is a sin. And then in the 60s, we moved the needle and we said, no, it is no longer sinful. Sex is natural. And from the moment we said sex is natural, it kind of got morphed into the notion that sex just happens, that it just lives inside of you, that everybody

knows what to do. We are born sensuous, but we become erotic. It is something that we learn. It's a language. And not everybody speaks multiple languages. And this language needs to be acquired. But it is very hard for us to talk about it with the person that we're the closest with, because for most of our childhood, we often learn to be silent about it. So we don't have a vocabulary. And when couples finally do talk sex, they often end up talking about the sex they don't have, which has never made anybody want to be more involved. Well, let's hear first from Katie, who we heard from on Tuesday. And her story is kind of familiar. She and her husband have been together for seven years. They've had two miscarriages. They have a 14-month-old daughter. And Katie is pregnant

again. But? I sort of assumed that you'd get married, you'd have a baby, and it would all happen quite quickly. But we actually got married just over two years ago and started trying for a baby relatively quickly, as it's the sort of done thing, and then ended up having a miscarriage and then became a bit obsessed with trying to conceive again, using fertility sticks, ovulation trackers, etc, etc.

So it became more of a science than necessarily a romantic, spontaneous gesture. It became quite laborious. We're just both so exhausted all of the time that the last thing we want to do is rip each other's clothes off. Is it hard as a mother to feel sexy again? I must admit I have been looking back at pictures of myself from even as little as three years ago and thinking how different I looked back then, how much more

energy I had back then, how much more exercise I did and I must say I did feel a lot more sexually energized back then. I feel more of a mother than necessarily a sexual being. And do you communicate this to your partner? It's totally not one-sided. He feels just as drained as I do. He often looks at himself in the mirror and thinks to himself I need to get down the gym, I need to start doing some exercise and I think you're gorgeous he tells me I'm gorgeous so it's not a sense of as not loving and fancying each other anymore I fancy the socks off him I still think he's the most gorgeous man in the world and you know vice versa it's just about getting that mindset and making time for each other away from the baby so So what advice would you be looking for? What's the change you want to see in your sex life? I think it's just about the small steps that

you can take. I don't really want to overhaul my life. I don't want to suddenly turn into somebody who's doing gymnastics from the ceiling every single night of the week. It's just what can I do, the small things that's going to make me feel better and also it's going to make him more likely to make the moves on me in order to instigate something because I don't necessarily feel like I want to instigate something. He doesn't feel like he wants to. So we're a bit of a Mexican standoff at the moment. So what can we do to sort of break that? Well, Katie was talking to Abigail Holick. How common then is it for a woman to become

more of a mother than a sexual being? Even though she talks about both of them going in that direction. I wrote an entire book, Mating in Captivity, because people would come into my office and say, we love each other very much, we have no sex. And that notion that there was actually a tension between the domestic and the erotic, it was the whole subject of why is it so difficult for them as a

couple to remain erotically interested in each other, to not just become full-time parents. Yes, there is a long-standing tradition that mothers are selfless, mothers are attending to others, mothers are caregivers, and mothers do not know how to switch off and to bring back the self-absorption that is needed in order to be able to connect with one's own sexual being. And that's part of what she's talking about. She then says that it is the man who needs to initiate and that she would like to do something that would then make him take the initiatives because she's very shy to do this on her own. The question I would ask it is this. I turn myself off when?

Or I turn myself off by? What would you say? And I imagine she would say, I turn myself off when I am thinking about our daughter, when I think about my pregnancy, when I think about how my body changed, when I think about how long it's been, when I think about the long list that I still have things to do, when I think about the fact that I need to get up early tomorrow morning. I turn myself off. I shut down my desires.

And that is very different from what turns me off is, and you turn me off when. Desire is to own the wanting. And it is up to each person to allow oneself to connect with one's own wanting. Because otherwise, if he initiates and she's not responsive and the shop is closed, nothing will happen. And I would ask the same question in reverse. I turn myself on when I awaken my desires by. And she may start to talk about when she takes care of herself, when she goes dancing, when she sees her friends, when she's out in nature, when they take some time off alone. It's when she feels vital, vibrant, alive, When she connects with her energy and her vitality, then she has the raw material from which to be sexual.

It's clearly not a problem that only happens in heterosexual couples. We had an email from someone who's in a same-sex couple who said she had exactly the same problem. She said the big difference in our case was that we've both been pregnant, breastfed, and looked after infants and young children. So perhaps the fallow years went on much longer than they might in a straight couple. How much does that make sense to you? Oh, much.

I mean, because one of the big differences in lesbian couples and heterosexual couples is that traditionally the less of a tendency to want to take the initiative and to impose something on the other woman that she may not want. And so when both people are saying, I won't impose this on you, if I don't sense that you want, I'm not going to come on to you, and the other one says the same thing, then you have a gap in between. So what little things could you do to get it all going again when you're in this position, whether you're lesbians or you're heterosexual? So the list of I turn myself on when actually becomes a list of 10, 15 items. And then I ask, if you say I turn myself on

when I manage to go exercise or when I run or when I go dancing or when I listen to music or when I take a long bath after the at the end of a long day or when I make sure that my child can go and visit my my in-laws so that I have some time alone, whatever it is. When's the last time you did this? The interesting thing is that what connects us to our sexuality are not necessarily sexual things. They are things that make us feel beautiful, radiant, sensual, embodied, in touch with our senses. From there, the sexual energy takes place.

The second thing she can do is, you know, she wants small things, but she refers constantly to big things. She refers to the ripping of the clothes. She refers to hanging from the chandelier. So her imagery is extreme, but she would like a little gesture. And a little gesture can simply be that we sit on the couch, we finish watching the television, we turn off the television, and we start to just stroke each other. And I just stroke your arm, and I go up and down your arm

with a different touch than I do when I just caress you affectionately. And then just say, it's been so long since we've touched each other's arm this way. It's so nice. Let's just stay there another minute. You know, we don't have this long often enough. And it does require the vulnerability of saying, I miss you, I want you, I miss myself in this relationship. And let's just see where it happens. What about the man in a similar situation, also caring for a child? What little things can he do? The same. It's the same.

The wanting comes after you start. You're not always hungry when you start eating, but as you taste it and as it smells good and as you enjoy what to have children, but it didn't happen. When they started out 10 years ago, it was a passionate relationship with lots of sex. She's now passed the menopause. She says she still loves him very much, but the sex is no longer working. I don't feel I can be the passionate, sensual and playful woman that I am. Because I think he feels very threatened by that. What would be the ideal that you're looking for that he feels missing right now?

To feel free to have the passion and the lust again. Like, you know, come on, let's just have sex now, right now, right here. That doesn't happen. So spontaneity has gone. Yeah. What impact is this having on you? How is it affecting your confidence with your body or your sense of freedom? I feel that I'm being too much for him, so I close down in order to please him. But I realise now, ten years on, I don't want to do that anymore. I need help in how to address the issue,

how to engage him in conversation and action that isn't threatening. We met when we were in our late 30s and I really wanted a child and I know this had a big impact on our sexual relationship that he felt that he was being a sperm machine and it was a real turn off for him. But there seemed to be no differentiation between having sex to create a child and sex as play and erotic and sensual time together. And that's where a lot of the rules came in. No sex at night, no kissing. There was no oral sex anyway because he just doesn't like that. And, you know, I can accept that even though it's a loss for me. In terms of intimacy you know hand-holding, loving words, hugs, you feel that connection?

Absolutely and it's never I've never had such a deep intimacy as this. I receive love notes in my lunchbox and if I've had a long day I'll have a bath run for me with rose petals and candles and that's normal. And I treasure that enormously. And sometimes I feel, do I just want too much? The only thing I have done is I bought a vibrator and lots of my girlfriends had had one for years and years and years. And I'd never had one because I thought, I don't want anything unnatural, you know. And then after a while I was like, do you know what?

I'm just going to get one. And it's been great, but it doesn't, you know, a bit of latex. It's like, you know what? Actually, I'd really prefer the real thing with my partner. Esther, this idea of mismatched libido came up again and again in the emails that came to us. What sort of advice do you give for people where it seems the libido just doesn't match? I don't think that that's the issue here, though. We know actually not much about this man's sexuality. We don't know if he has a very active autoerotic life, if he has an active masturbatory life. We don't know. We just know that he's not interested in her.

We know that he closed off around the attempts to have a child. We know that he does not like her to initiate, that he needs to be in control, that he doesn't like to be overpowered, that it needs to be that it's quite rigidly defined as to when and how and what positions, etc. That we know, but that doesn't have much to do with libido. And we know that she lives with a deep sense of loss, because once she gave up on the idea that she would be a mother, she really wanted to still feel that she was a woman. And that that sexual impasse that they're in gives her a real feeling of deadness inside and a deep sense of the loss of the erotic.

That is what we know. The question is, how can she approach him? And without him shutting down each time or saying it's going to change and we're going to do it and then nothing happens and then she waits another two months and then she says again, I can't continue like this. This is not the way I want to live, etc. And generally, you know, if you have that kind of stonewalling on his part and threatened, then I would probably recommend a letter

in which he really speaks to it and just says, I miss you. I miss being with you. I miss feeling like a woman with you. Tell me if there's anything that you would like. And not just that you would like sexually. Are you still seeing me as a sexual being, you know, or are you treating me in a de-eroticized way? That's just not the way you look at me. The fact that they're affectionate and loving is what actually is in common with all these couples. But affection almost functions as a sexual appetite suppressor. But why? I mean, if she gets love notes in her lunchbox, lovely things, why isn't that sexy? For him or for her? For her it is. She would very much see this as the opening of a flirtation, of a kind of an engagement.

For him, it's a way actually to pacify her, to say to her, I love you dearly, but don't expect anything more. And why, you know, actually some of the most important reasons of the desexualization of couples is not about mismatched desires. That is the presenting issue. What often happens is that you have, and this has to do with your question about the mother as well, when couples become parentified, when couples start to talk to each other as, you know, a mother and a child, a father and a child, a brother and a sister, when people become familial with each other, and they actually experience the love sometimes that they never had in their families growing up, they also have inside a click, and that click says, no sex in the family. What about the vibrator? What would

you say to her about that? Wonderful, wonderful. You found a way to remain connected to your sexual self and you do it by pleasing yourself. The essence of sexuality, if it's not reproductive, is about feeling and connection, pleasure and connection, with a partner or at least with yourself. Beautiful. You're not letting your husband deprive you of something that you can still at least on some level experience with

yourself even though it hasn't replaced your longing for him a lot of people who got in touch with us were worried about the menopause and whether you know being post-menopausal would mean my sex life will be over and we did have one lovely email which said oh pre-retirement we'd almost lost the joy of it well i had post-retirement and probably post-menopause a different story altogether most days we have sex whenever we want it isn't confined to the end of the day what i have seen by writing the book about infidelity is that you give some women another partner and they don't need hormone replacement because they're experiencing a different version of themselves. Menopause for many women is freedom,

freedom from the fear of childbirth and pregnancy, freedom from having to take care of other people. And the burden of caretaking is the primary block in female sexuality. In order to attend to herself, she needs to feel free of worry, anxiety and responsibility for others. So menopause gives her that. I must ask your view on something that came from Carol. She said, doesn't matter how long the relationship is. Resentment is the biggest killer of libido. Men who put the marigolds on, in other words, rubber gloves, and help around the house get more sex because we feel appreciated and equal. If you're full of seething resentment, you simply don't want to have sex with that person.

How true is it that a man who's good around the house will get more sex? It is true for some women, but it is actually not nearly as true as we would like to believe. Meaning the man who helps will for sure have a woman who is happier and less resentful. But if her desire is compromised because she desexualizes herself or because she desexualizes him, no amount of laundry is going to change that. This is Woman's Hour with the couples therapist Esther Perel about how to keep sex alive in a long-term relationship. You can hear longer versions of the stories we're talking about

by going to the Woman's Hour website. Esther, on Monday, Diane told us that she is totally turned off by sex. And after a difficult birth 12 years ago, she simply does not want to know. I'm not interested. My body says no. My mind says I miss it. My heart says I miss it. But my body's uninterested. So do you almost feel that your body recoils from it? Is it that extreme? It's that extreme that, yes your body recoils from it? Is it that extreme? It's that extreme that yes it recoils from it. If my husband accidentally brushes up against me

sadly my reaction is a shiver not of delight which is really hard for him. You know imagine the one you love and he still finds me attractive and that's the reaction that he gets that I recoil from his touch I don't want to do that I try hard not to but that's that's what happens I find it very hard to have actual intercourse that is painful my husband and I have said to each other that I feel that my cervix has moved. He feels that my cervix has moved and that is uncomfortable. But I don't feel that I can just lay back and let him get on with it. To me, letting someone I love do that to me feels like a massive intrusion. It's such an intimate act to let him do it when I physically recoil from it. It would feel like an assault. I can't allow my husband to be in that

position. I still think he's a very attractive man, but that doesn't translate to anything physical. I want to cuddle him as long as he doesn't touch me in any vaguely sexual way. The switch is off and I don't know where the switch is to turn it back on. I have hope. I always have hope because I still love my husband. I still have hope that, you know, one day it'll come back. Esther, can it come back? When sex is painful and your body has been changed because of a difficult delivery, what would you suggest?

But there is so many things that she can do that don't have to do with intercourse. To reduce sex to this act. I don't know if this woman ever actually strokes her arm. I don't know if she's ever rotating her hips. I don't know how she feels in her own mind. Does she have any sexual thoughts? Or when she has a thought, she instantly stops it because she associates it with pain. And at this point, she has become phobic and avoidant.

I don't know if he ever just simply whispers in her ears and licks her ear and just doesn't do anything else, doesn't threaten her with invasion, but just stays and gradually allows her to take his hand and put it over her chest and maybe just gently stroke down on her body. This idea that they have to go for the act which is so painful, no, she could have an entire relationship with him and him with her that is sexual and doesn't necessarily involve penetration. And that requires an education,

and for that I would either recommend reading or a psychosexual therapist, but somebody who helps them begin with touch. A course like that is going to be traumatizing. I can't imagine her wanting it to change. And it will not change if she stays with that kind of story and imagery and anticipation of pain. But how successfully have you found women have got through this, when they can go through an idea that I can't let him do what he wants because it feels like an assault. Yes, if he's going to enter her and she's recoiled and she doesn't, and it hurts, he shouldn't enter her like that. But you know, he can enter her with a kiss. He can enter her with a touch. There's some, when the lips of the mouth open, so do the lips of the vagina.

It's this idea of going straight for the point that so many women find distasteful and painful, not just her for that matter. So many of the people that we heard from said, oh, you know, at the start, it was wonderful. It was so passionate. We were at it all the time, every day. How long in the average relationship can you expect that stage to continue for before it goes a little bit downhill? The pheromone stage, about maximum two years. Maximum two years, is that all? Yeah, that state of transport, of rush, of it just happens to me and I don't have to do anything and it's effortless and my order is right there and all of that. It's generally a two year thing. But part of that is because there is not enough active engagement of one's imagination.

The most important sexual organ is our mind. And that is often left aside. You know, it is a certain kind of preparation in one's head where one experiences and anticipates pleasure. Anticipation is the mortar of desire. When you go on a trip, you haven't been to Paris yet, but you're imagining yourself walking in Paris and how much you will enjoy being in Paris. And so that motivates you to do the tickets, to pack the suitcase. You know, we have the capacity. Our erotic mind has the capacity to imagine ourselves in a situation in which we are not yet. And that makes us want it. And that activity of sexuality is left aside when people over-focus on the physicality

and on the physiological excitement, on the arousal. The arousal comes afterwards for many people. Well, we stay on the subject of the mind in the issue that was raised by Sian on Wednesday that was picked up by lots of people in emails. If either partner has difficulties with mental health, it can cause problems for both of you. My partner had a mental health condition and it became worse, gradually became worse. And he went to see his GP and he was put on some medication. And this particular medication was renowned for really affecting a man's libido and I think it's a combination really obviously when you're in that space when

you're feeling depressed you don't sex is pretty much the last thing on your mind however the medication didn't help you know you look on the website that it does improve, but in his case, it didn't. And what impact did that have on you? It was really hard, partly because I think as women, I mean, particularly, I suppose, you know, I was kind of brought up in the 70s where, you know, Benny Hill was, like, chasing women around the back of the sofa.

You know, you think that it's going to be the guy that will want sex. And I was very much brought up to believe that men were always after it. And so to be in a situation where actually that wasn't the case was a bit sort of perplexing, I guess, at first. And I think what I really do want to kind of stress is that until you've actually been there, you can't really see how utterly excruciating those conversations are. You literally feel like you'd rather do anything than have them. And how long has he been on the medication

and how long has the no sex been continuing? It's been a long time now, at least sort of four or five years. I mean, we have had, you know, the odd, odd occasions. So currently it's been about a year and a half. So what change would you love to see in your sex life? What advice are you looking for? I just want to know, I mean, is there any hope for us? Or ultimately, do I have to accept that this is my life you know because I see other men

but you know I don't think any of them are as attractive as my partner and that's the really sad thing about it I think. What advice have you been given or have you sought out so far? Well there'll be things like you know just you don't have to think about it as being sex just take your clothes off light a few candles and give each other a massage. Again, it's just like the thought of it. It's so cliched. That may work if maybe you haven't had it for a couple of weeks or maybe you've got a babysitter and you want to kind of get in the mood.

But if it's an ongoing problem that has deep roots, sex is about a lot of things. It's not just in the mood. But if it's an ongoing problem that has deep roots, sex is about a lot of things. It's not just about the act. What, Esther, can Sian do to support her partner and at the same time get what she needs? Well, a part of the conversation between her and him is about how much he may not experience his sense of masculinity, his sense of self-worth. Her sense of self-worth that she experiences has been sapped by the negligence and by the longing and the loss that she feels.

What she's saying is that it's not about doing physical things sexually. It is really about having a deep conversation about self-worth, identity, deserving pleasure, still being able to feel manly even if you cannot perform. What does it mean to be a man that cannot have erections or whose erections are tempered or that struggles with mental health? It's that depth of conversation the conversation ends up not being about sex it ends up being about deeper questions of value, of self-worth, of self-esteem of identity, gender, of power

those kind of things and that's why it becomes such a block in between and what she needs is to be able to engage with him in that conversation not have him go into a full sense of silence. But how do you engage in that conversation? My thought for many men who are in her situation like that is often to write a letter rather than to confront them face on, to not have these conversations face to face, but actually when people are walking, so that you're not locking the gaze, you allow him an out. But the writing is very important, because it allows him to read it alone. And just to say, I have a sense that you must really wonder what kind of a man am I,

I am ashamed of myself, I can't even keep it up. Look at me, how can I please you? Why do you even stay with me? Why do you even love me? And it's a conversation in which she writes and she just says, you know, allow me, allow me to help you, allow us to experience that again. And you invite a person in giving themselves the permission to experience pleasure when they don't feel deserving. How do you know, Esther, when it's time to walk away? In each of these situations, it is so difficult because these are loving, caring, affectionate relationships. Part of what I wrote in the book about infidelity was that for some of the people, this becomes the reason for transgression. The longing, the loss, the loneliness,

the deadness becomes so painful that one day they burst into acts of exuberant defiance. They don't really want to leave the relationship, but they want to leave the person that they have themselves become. They want to re-experience a different version of themselves. Sometimes they just say, I can't. I finished raising the children or I finished doing this and I cannot imagine 25 more years of this. I have to. I will die inside. But the big dilemma is either I lose you, either I lose a part of me.

And this is why these sexual stalemates are so painful because it feels like there is no, in both cases, one person will lose either the other or themselves. Can an affair ever reignite a long-term relationship or does it always end in heartbreak for somebody? No, some affairs break a relationship and sometimes the relationship was already dying on the vine and some affairs remake a relationship

and jolt people out of a state of complacency and laziness in which they had found themselves. And it becomes a powerful alarm system by which people realize, I don't want to lose this. Sometimes also when a partner is really closed off sexually, I've seen more than once where the affair of their partner breaks the stalemate for them and suddenly they experience a rebirthing of desire for their partner that they haven't had in years. So there's all kinds of unforeseen consequences to this thing. But what I think we see in the cases that you introduce here for me today is that many of these men and women, because Sean matches the husband of Diane, you have the male version and the female version. After years of this, after years of this, when these people end up responding to the kindness of a stranger. It isn't so difficult to understand that this is not about cheating and betraying,

that this is a real difficult dilemma of how important is sex anyway. It isn't that important that we wouldn't be together, but it becomes so important that I can't live without it. And it's not the sex, the act, it's the experience of intimacy, of connection, of expression, of transport, of surrender, of being touched, of being loved, of being made loved too. It's that what people are longing for. And that is a serious loss. There has been some criticism of you for appearing to condone infidelity. How do you deal with that criticism?

I have worked with hundreds and thousands of people who have been shattered by the experience of infidelity. If I ask a general audience, 80% of the people have experienced infidelity in their lives, either as the children of a parent who was unfaithful, as a friend whose shoulder is wet from others crying on it, as the third who completes the triangle, as the partner who is betrayed. It is systemic. And we need an approach that is more compassionate and more caring for all those involved. So I have tried to understand this phenomenon that is ubiquitous, so common and so

poorly understood, shrouded in shame and secrecy. And that doesn't mean condoning and understanding doesn't mean justifying. Before we finish, Esther, let's just recap on some of the advice and tips you've given. What are the most important things that you have to do in order to try and reignite a relationship? You need to connect with your own erotic self, your own sensuality. You need to know that desire is rooted in a sense of self-worth, in feeling that you deserve to be made love to, that you deserve to experience pleasure. You need to deal with the shame and the guilt that many people carry around that. Those become the things that are blocking you. And then you need to be able to have conversations with your partner that are not about why don't we have sex,

but that really are about what we would like, what we would enjoy, what we enjoyed in the past, what we could like, what we would enjoy, what we enjoyed in the past, what we could do tonight. And then put yourself in situations, small situations that are open and vulnerable without being too threatening, that are inviting and that just say, come on, let's go there. And don't wait for the other person to make the initiative. When you are rejected for years on end, at some point, you may want to just say, I can't live like this. And then you need to make a decision if you will continue because this is going to be your activity that puts you in touch with your own movement, sensuality, femininity, any type of dancing, just even alone. Go take, do a class

that expresses that so that you connect with the woman inside of you. Know that to be sexual is not just for you, but that today it's even important for your children, because if you don't, at some point your relationship may suffer so much that you will have given everything to your children, but the family will dissolve. On the long list of what children need, parents who have an intimate erotic connection needs to be a part of that. Esther Perel, thank you so much for being with us this morning. Well, I was talking to the couples therapist, Esther Perel, and we did have lots of emails from you. No names, by the way. So I'll just read out

the emails. Parent sex lives are really impacted by having young teenage kids, 11 to 15, not just toddlers. That adult-only evening slot you had after putting the kids to bed just disappears. They now stay up later, so if you used to have sex in the evening, you now need to stay up even later, if you can stay awake that long. Being on holiday, previously a good time to catch up on neglected sex lives is even worse as everyone seems to stay up until the same time plus worse still if they accidentally overhear they'll probably know what you're doing which really puts the dampener on any desire you may have left no one really warns you about this stage another email i'm now 58 i'm now at a point where I feel like my libido has been literally switched off.

I don't feel like having sex and actually feel that I really don't want it. I'm still married to a lovely man who would like to have sex with me, though only if I want to have sex with him. I resent the idea that having no libido is not normal and dysfunctional, and I'm discomforted by some of the solutions offered up. Having shared my body with my partner and my babies for years, I now want some space from physical intimacy. I love to sleep alone. I don't think I'm unusual. It's just that society's norm is that we should continue to be sexually active

through the menopause and beyond. This pressure makes women unhappy beyond the sadness they feel about this part of life fading out. I also know that many women feel differently and seek active and adventurous sex well into later life. That's great for them. But I don't like the suggestion that I have something which requires fixing when to me it feels normal. And then finally my husband and I stopped having sex about 13 years ago. No idea why but whenever I bring up the subject he refuses to speak about it. Now I have found a lover online and have never been happier sexually. I would hate any of my family to know, but I desperately needed to find satisfaction,

and I refused to give up my sex life while I feel so active. I want this to be anonymous, for obvious reasons, but even a woman of 69 can have a very intense sex drive. I think my current lover really respects my needs, and we have a wonderful time Do join Jane for Weekend Woman's Hour tomorrow at 4 o'clock We'll hear from Dr Delia Jarrett-McCauley who was talking about Una Marson the first female poet of significance to emerge in West Indian literature

and the author Catherine Hewitt talks about her new biography Renoir's Dancer, The Secret Life of Suzanne Valladol. Do join Jane tomorrow for Me for Today. Bye-bye. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know it was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more

questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.