THE OP MADE ME GO RIGHT OFF SEX

MiChael MoriarTy, 37, works in construction and is married to Collette, 35, a full-time mum. They live in north london and have three children: Brice, ten, louis, eight, and victoria, four. Michael says:

WHEN our youngest was born in 2011, my wife and I decided our family was complete. Three was a big enough handful — we didn’t need any more little ones running around the house. so, having discussed it together, I decided to have a vasectomy. It was a very straightforward procedure: I went to my GP, was referred to the local Marie stopes clinic and was in and out in just a couple of hours.

I was in quite a bit of pain for three or four weeks afterwards. It wasn’t constant, just a throbbing sensation from time to time.

They tell you to wait a while — around six weeks — before having sex, and when the time was up I couldn’t wait to be intimate with my wife again. I hadn’t felt much like sex in the first month after having the snip, but I put that down to the pain and discomfort. We’ve always had a healthy love life and I’ve never suffered from low libido in the 12 years Collette and I have been together.

But to my horror, when my six weeks were up, I found that my sex drive was non-existent. It wasn’t that I didn’t fancy Collette — she’s a beautiful woman, and I adore her — but I simply wasn’t feeling it in the bedroom and my libido had nosedived.

At first, poor Collette thought it was her fault. As a busy mum with three young children to juggle, she wasn’t getting much sleep or time to herself, and she used to get upset, worrying that I no longer found her attractive.

she would try to initiate love making and, every time I rejected her advances, we rowed about it. she took some convincing that it wasn’t her; it was me. It came as a real shock — I wasn’t warned that going off sex was a possible side-effect — and I felt really disappointed.

What was the point in not needing to use contraception any more if I didn’t feel like making love in the first place? I went to the doctor several times but was told there was nothing they could do. It wasn’t that the operation had been botched; it’s just the way it sometimes goes.

Four years down the line, we’re still working on getting our love life back to normal. We try to make time for sex in our relationship and spend evenings together away from the kids.

Things are better, but I still don’t feel like I used to in the bedroom.

Having the snip was the sensible, practical option — but this was something I didn’t foresee. I only hope that one day I’ll get my libido back.