Five acres, three children, two horses ... and NO SEX
One couple’s very frank admission
AFTer work trips forced them apart for a week, Liz and Leigh Brown celebrated their reunion by snuggling up together on the sofa. They swapped news and caught up on their Netflix shows before agreeing to head upstairs for an early night.
But rather than a night of passion, they merely exchanged a peck on the cheek before turning away and falling asleep.
Although they love each other, with two demanding jobs, three children, two horses, a dog, five ducks and five acres of land to tend to, sex comes so far down the list of the Browns’ priorities — a situation they are both now resigned to — it happens no more than a handful of times a year.
‘Given the choice between sex and an extra half-an-hour of sleep, we both choose sleep,’ says Liz, 37, a military photographer. ‘On the rare occasions we have time alone at home, there are other things that we would rather do, like putting the ironing away or cleaning the cooker.
‘I do realise how awful that sounds — and our younger selves would be appalled — but modern family life, with all its demands, just isn’t conducive to a regular sex life.
‘We have teenagers who are around in the evenings and think nothing of wandering the house, raiding the fridge at midnight, and a six-year-old who climbs into our bed in the early hours and then is up again at daybreak.
‘Like most families these days, we need two incomes to cover our outgoings and both travel a fair bit for work, which leaves one parent at home holding the fort. Living in rural Derbyshire, that involves a lot of taxi-ing our children, to Army Cadet meetings, predawn swimming training, and to school.
‘Although we outsource a fair bit now — having learnt the hard way that we can’t do everything — our two horses still need taking care of, then there’s walking our dog and maintaining the land around our house.
‘Who on earth would have the energy, or inclination, for sex on top of all that?’
The Browns agree they found it much easier to make time for intimacy when their children were young and, until four years ago, made love most weeks.
They struggle to understand couples with small children whose sex lives go off the boil, given that little ones are tucked up in bed in the early evening, and say they have found it far more challenging now that at least one of theirs is awake whenever they are.
Neither can bear the thought of their children, aged 16, 13 and six, hearing or, worse still, walking in on their parents in the act. And, contrary to the belief that men feel deprived by a lack of action in the bedroom, Leigh, 37, a specialist engineering consultant, is just as willing as his wife to allow their sex life to stay on the backburner for the next few years, while work and family responsibilities take precedence. ‘I’m open with male friends about the fact Liz and I rarely have sex these days and most of those with demanding jobs and kids in the house completely get it,’ says Leigh. ‘Some claim they will disappear upstairs with their wives and be as noisy as they like while their kids are downstairs watching TV.
‘I’m not sure they’re always telling the truth as it sounds like male bravado to me.
‘either way, that’s something Liz and I could never do. There were a couple of instances in my childhood that I’d rather not revisit, when I remember hearing noises coming from my parents’ bedroom, and I cannot bear the thought of embarrassing our kids in that way.
‘We have an open-door policy and never want them to feel uncomfortable coming into our bedroom.’
Liz and Leigh go away as a couple no more than once or twice a year, usually to a social event linked to Liz’s work, so the opportunities for carefree sex are few and far between.
The last time was in early May, when they checked into a hotel in Buckinghamshire to remedy the situation. The couple had been celibate for at least four months before that — and have gone as long as six months without sex in the past.
They had sex before dinner and again the following morning, proving that the desire and attraction is still very much there.
Who, I wonder, instigated it and wasn’t it a little, well, awkward after going so long without? ‘Neither of us had to make a move, we both knew it would happen,’ says Liz, laughing. ‘even though we were as tired as ever after a demanding week, we wouldn’t dream of not taking full advantage of being alone in a hotel room for the night.
‘I guess it might have been awkward if it had been the first time we’d seen one another undressed for months, but we’ve always been very relaxed about our bodies around each other. We sleep naked and Leigh will brush his teeth while I’m in the bath.
‘It was lovely, and afterwards Leigh said: “Why don’t we do this more often?” And I said: “I don’t know!”
‘Deep down we both feel we should make more time for it, but as soon as we were back home, faced with work, a laundry mountain, homework supervision, cooking and clearing up after the family dinner every night, neither of us had the energy to even think about it.’
Aware of the importance of making time for their relationship, Liz and Leigh have discussed driving their Land rover to one of their farflung fields and making the most of the peace and quiet.
‘If the kids are all out, playing or walking the dog, we’ll joke: “Well, we’ve got ten minutes, wink, wink,” but we never see it through,’ says Leigh.
‘There’s always a lawn to mow, a uniform to iron or some other chore we need to be getting on with.
‘It’s not because of a lack of attraction, I fancy Liz even more as time goes on.
‘She’s beautiful — I tell her, though maybe not every day — and I’m in awe of how amazing she is, both at her job and as a wife and mother. She says she’s still attracted to me too — in fact she’s always saying she hit the jackpot when she met me — but marriage is about a lot more than sex.’
Although Liz’s parents are happy to help look after the children, the Browns use most of their ‘childcare credits’ on school pick-ups or holiday cover. They feel it would be taking advantage of their kindness to ask them to have the kids overnight more than once or twice a year. As with
most couples, sex was a huge priority early on in their relationship, despite Liz already being mum to two children, aged four and one, when they met 12 years ago.
(The children no longer see their dad and Leigh has been a very willing father figure for most of their lives.)
Liz was a teacher while Leigh worked as a breakdown mechanic back then, and would frequently drop by in the early hours after a night shift for what she teased him was ‘a booty call’.
‘I’d be up early to take the children to nursery before work but somehow, back then, I had the energy for sex as well,’ she says. ‘Even six years ago, after our youngest was born, our sex life resumed within three weeks.
‘However, in those days, the kids were in bed by 8pm and we had the whole evening to ourselves.’
Finding time and space for intimacy became harder four years ago, when Liz and Leigh both began travelling more for work, the elder children started going to bed later and the youngest would wake and want to climb into bed with his parents.
‘At first, we both worried that the lack of sex meant we’d gone off each other, that it was the beginning of the end,’ says Liz. ‘Thankfully, we’re a couple that talks about everything and neither of us has any doubts about our commitment to each other.
‘We’re both very tactile and say, “I love you” most days, so it didn’t take long for us to feel reassured.’
The Browns know couples who schedule sex to make sure it happens, but believe a lack of spontaneity would take the fun out of it for them.
‘I’d prefer never to do it than know that on a Friday night it’s going to happen, come hell or high water,’ says Liz.
‘Leigh feels the same and we both agree that these couples are no happier, or closer, than we are, just because they can say they have sex every week.
‘You have to play the long game in marriage, and in another three years there will be weekends when the elder children are out and the youngest is away camping with the Cubs.
‘We’re confident we’ll still love and fancy one another enough to make the most
of the time together.’