Sex and Mental Load

This fall, a number of therapists wrote in to ask me questions on the same theme: What happens to desire when one partner is carrying a lot more of the mental load?

In a relationship, if one person is carrying significantly more of the mental load (by which I mean, keeping track of all the chores and tasks that need to happen in order to maintain a shared household), it’s pretty predictable that their desire will decrease.

Stress tends to kill desire. That’s true in acute situations — i.e., you might not feel very sexy during your most hectic and overwhelming workday. But it’s also true in more chronic, long-term situations, like when the stressors of everyday life add up to the point that sex just starts to feel like another checkbox on the to-do list.

There’s a combination of things going on here:

• When you’re overwhelmed, it’s hard for desire to bloom.
• If the burden of maintaining your shared life is unevenly divided, it creates resentment, which isn’t a particularly sexy feeling.
• At the extreme end of things, one partner might end up feeling more like a caretaker or parental figure for the other partner, which can really dampen attraction.

This dynamic that arises from limited bandwidth and uneven stress or responsibility is pretty common. It can be hard to shift, particularly if…

• communication is going sideways
• resentment is building
• there are differences of opinion about whether the division of labor is fair
• power dynamics are in play
• or one (or both!) partner(s) isn’t aware of how much heavy lifting they’ve managed to avoid

Clearly, building or maintaining a lively sexual connection requires a sense of collaboration, balance, teamwork, flexibility, and consideration, and navigating all of this can be quite complex. So, what’s a therapist to do?

• Offer psychoeducation about stress and sex. Make sure your clients understand the relationship between sex and stress, and how chronic overwhelm with the work of running a household can dampen desire. The arousal nerves are in the parasympathetic nervous system; if you never relax, you are unlikely to be interested in getting sexual. If you’re pissed off all the time, that’s also not particularly compatible with sexual desire or arousal.
• Take a look at different routes to relaxation. Some people use sex to down-regulate, and some can’t access sex until they down-regulate. Both of these are common. If your clients have different styles, it can be really helpful to normalize these differences, and help them have a problem-solving conversation about how to experience more togetherness.
• Help your clients get clear on goals. My therapeutic work always starts with goals and motivation. The first step is to figure out if both partners are actually interested in having a stronger sexual connection; if not, you’re in a different conversation! But if so, the possibility of a better sex life can be powerfully motivating. For the higher-desire partner, I can’t guarantee that picking up a fairer share of the household work will lead to more sex, but it is clear that what they’ve been doing so far isn’t working. For the lower-desire partner: Are they speaking up in a calm and clear way about what they would actually love to experience sexually, intimately, and affectionately? Are they asking for the things that would help them get there?
• Reduce the pressure around sex. That includes removing any pressure to have sex, of course, but it can also include getting more creative about how you have sex, so that there’s no pressure to engage in any one specific activity. When people assume that sex needs to include penetration, for instance, or be orgasmic for a second instance, it can feel more high-stakes and more like a chore; but sex that is focused on experiencing pleasure and connection together, in whatever form that takes, is less likely to stir up stress.