The Mental Load Is A Libido Killer

Maybe you haven’t lost your sex drive. Maybe you’re carrying too much. Women are constantly given advice about how to improve their libido. We’re told to schedule intimacy, buy lingerie, take supplements, try date nights, or talk to our doctors about hormones.

Some of that advice may be helpful. But it often ignores a much larger problem. Many women are trying to generate desire while managing careers, children, aging parents, finances, household logistics, emotional labor, and an endless list of responsibilities.

Research has consistently found that stress is associated with lower sexual desire in women. Studies have also shown that women who carry a disproportionate share of household mental load report lower relationship satisfaction and lower levels of desire than women in more equitable partnerships. In other words, the problem may not be your libido.

The problem may be your workload — both at work and at home. Here are ten things that may be contributing to your sinking — or already sunken — libido:

1. Remembering Everyone’s Schedule

School events, doctor appointments, soccer practice, birthday parties, and the list goes on. Many women function as the household project manager. That cognitive labor is exhausting.

2. Being The Default Parent

Even in loving relationships, women frequently become the first person everyone turns to when something goes wrong. The constant vigilance can make it difficult to fully relax, which is necessary for intimacy.

3. Managing Other People’s Emotions

Children’s emotions, partners’ emotions, coworkers’ emotions, and extended family members’ emotions. Where does it end? Many women spend their days regulating everyone else’s feelings. By the time intimacy is presented, you may be operating from a completely empty tank and crave rest, not a romp.

4. Financial Stress

Bills, inflation, debt, unexpected expenses, and economic uncertainty can all increase stress and reduce emotional bandwidth. When survival concerns take center stage, desire often takes a back seat.

5. Household Planning

Knowing when the milk is running low, scheduling repairs, ordering birthday gifts, tracking school forms, and on and on. The work is invisible but relentless, exhausting — and overtime — a major killer to your sex drive.

6. Constant Notifications

Emails, texts, social media alerts, and calendar reminders. Many women are never truly off duty. In fact, many of us are on call more than ER doctors. This leaves very little energy and interest for intimacy.

7. Caregiving Responsibilities

Whether caring for children, aging parents, or both, caregiving often creates chronic stress and emotional fatigue. Both of which can be exhausting and deplete your desire for sex.

8. Decision Fatigue

Research suggests people make thousands of decisions every day. About 35,000 every day, to be exact. Women frequently make many of those decisions for entire households. This further contributes to cognitive overload, chronic stress, and fatigue. All of which can zap your sex drive.

9. Unequal Household Labor

Research has found that women in more equitable relationships report greater relationship satisfaction and greater sexual desire. Fairness matters. Resentment matters. Mental load matters. Enough said.

10. Never Prioritizing Your Own Pleasure

Perhaps the most important item on this list is not prioritizing your own pleasure. Many women become experts at meeting everyone else’s needs while losing touch with their own. Pleasure requires time, energy, and attention. Those are often the exact resources women are expected to give away all day long.

Maybe It’s Not A Libido Problem

We spend a lot of time asking women why they don’t want sex. We spend far less time asking whether they’ve had a moment this week when no one needed anything from them. Maybe low desire isn’t always a personal failing.

Maybe it’s a predictable response to chronic exhaustion. So, before we ask women to fix their libido, we should ask why they’re carrying so much in the first place.