By Bob Berkowitz, Ph.D., and Susan Yager-Berkowitz, M.A.
QUESTION: When my husband and I first started dating, he couldn't get enough sex from me. Then we got married, and now I can't get him interested in making love with me no matter what I do. What's going on?
ANSWER: While writing our book, we were surprised to learn how often sex ended either before or right after the wedding. In the survey that we're conducting for our upcoming book, "When Men Stop Having Sex," 24 percent of the women told us that sex stopped within the first year of marriage or sooner. As for the men, 8 percent reported that they quit being sexual during or before the first year of marriage.
So why are these men dropping out of sex so soon? Some experts say that the moment a woman becomes a wife she takes on a psychologically different role for a man who can't imagine a woman being his lover and his wife. Or as one 42-year-old woman told us: "Girlfriends are OK to have sex with, but if that girlfriend becomes your wife, suddenly you are sullying her by making love." Sometimes the sex slows after marriage, but stops completely after the birth of a child.
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