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Hi there, I am hoping you can help me. I have been with
my partner for 20 years and we have two daughters, the eldest just turned 10 and the other is 8. Now that the kids are getting older I am hoping that my partner and I can start to carve out a little more time for sex again. I understood when the kids were little that she was touched out and we were both tired and stressed so we didn’t have much sex but recently I have been suggesting sex dates and she hasn’t been very keen. She said she does like the idea of more of a sex life and loves that I am still into her but that she worries about the kids walking in on us as the oldest stays up later now. I suggested we put a bolt on our bedroom door but she was shocked by that idea saying she would never lock her children out. She won’t let our kids ever feel like we are not there for them if they need us. She knows how horrible that can feel coz her parents used to go out heaps when she was a kid and left her with random babysitters. How are we ever going to get a more regular sex life going? – Mike

It is normal and appropriate for parents to be concerned about children and teenagers hearing them or walking in on them having sex. This is a healthy concern as it is a reasonable boundary and safe limit for children not to see or hear their parents having sex.

Your idea of putting a bolt on the door is a sound one that many other couples have successfully used to address this issue’s practical side. However, there is more going on here than the practicalities of privacy.

Your practical suggestion has brought a strong emotional response from your partner. That needs to be taken seriously and cared about. Although it’s presumably painful for her, it’s great that your partner can make the connection with experiences from her childhood. Given she had upsetting experiences of being left alone with strangers, unable to reach her mother and father when she wanted them, it’s understandable that she developed a fear about this for her own girls. However, we all must be careful about differentiating between what happened to us when we were little and what is happening to our children now.

Your partner may need assistance to see that she is overly anxious and that you have done such a great job as parents that she has already ensured that they have never experienced the same level of unsafety and vulnerability that she experienced in her childhood.

Be gentle and kind with your partner. Her fears are built on painful experiences. Try to get across to her the good news that she can stop worrying; she has already ensured that her girls have not endured anything like she did. She has protected them from what happened to her; she no longer needs to exercise the same degree of vigilance. Gently suggest that it is time for you both to focus on building the strongest, most loving connection you can and that this is also very important for the girls to grow up with.

Mum and Dad occasionally having a door closed (and locked with a discreet lock) is not at all going to cause them the great grief and pain she experienced in a totally different situation as a child. It’s essential to keep a sense of proportion. Consider this: there are 10080 minutes in a week; realistically, how many of them would the lock be used on average?

The kids knowing that if your bedroom door is shut, they need to respect your privacy (and only knock if their need is great) is a perfectly wholesome and healthy boundary for them to learn for you and themselves also. A few seconds delay while you make yourselves decent will not make your children feel like you are not there when they need them. Even if there is a moment of frustration for them, that’s not inevitably a bad thing. Frustration tolerance is an important attribute for children (at the right age) to develop for success in life.

On top of that, most couples find having a sex life where they are private enough to relax and enjoy themselves builds closeness and connection. Given that your partnership is the bedrock of family life, your children will directly benefit from the good vibes that flow in the afterglow of good sex. You could talk with your partner about the idea that the state of being loved up, close and physically comfortable with each other is something you both want your children to experience. Whatever they live with growing up with you will be their unconscious template for their intimate relationships. At their age, giving them a good model for this is arguably more important than being instantly available to them every minute of the day.

It sounds like you are both attentive and loving parents; in that case, your girls at the ages of 8 and 10, learning that sometimes Mum and Dad need private time (as they also do) is not the same as them being scared and left alone with strangers unable to reach their parents. She can perhaps see it as more modelling a healthy boundary, that everyone in the family needs privacy occasionally, and how to respect that. This is important learning for your girls for the future.

An excellent warm-up is a family talk about privacy and bedroom and bathroom doors. Your daughters are at a good age for this talk. Children and families have different cultures around things like nudity, but it is not uncommon for children to go through an age and stage where they don’t want to be walked in on when changing, or to see their parents naked.

So, it is a great general conversation to have in the family about having a policy or agreement about closed doors. For example, if a door is closed, you knock and don’t enter until invited or the other person has opened the door.

Once this useful privacy practice is in place, it may make it feel less stressful for your partner to have your bedroom door closed and may lessen the concern she has about feeling like she has stopped her girls from being able to reach her.

It is even possible to get very good at quickly responding to any knock on the door from kids so that they may not become particularly aware that there is a lock on the door.

So a family culture of respecting closed doors, plus the lock, acts as a way for you both to relax into your sexual connection, safe in the knowledge that no child will just be walking in on you.

Here is a chance for your partner to lay an old ghost to rest and for the two of you to celebrate your relationship and success as parents and build your intimate connection. All of this is only going to benefit not just you but also your children.

• Verity & Nic are psychologists and family therapists who have specialised in relationship and sex therapy for more than 25 years. They have been working on their own relationship for more than 40 years and have two adult children.