Welcome to Ask A MWLTF (Yes, that’s Mother Who Likes to F*ck.), a monthly anonymous advice column from Scary Mommy. Here we’ll dissect all your burning questions about motherhood, sex, romance, intimacy, and friendship with the help of our columnist, Penelope, a writer and mental health practitioner in training. She’ll dish out her most sound advice for parents on the delicate dance of raising kids without sacrificing other important relationships. Email her at askpenelope@scarymommy.com.

My husband and I are great friends and co-parents, but the drudgery of raising kids and managing a home together has killed our sex life. Neither of us want a divorce. Is an open marriage the answer?

First of all, let me just say: You’re not alone. There are women all over the world lying in bed next to a husband they love dearly—and would still choose as a co-pilot for life’s chaos—while simultaneously feeling as much sexual desire for this man as they would for a box of fabric softener. Erotic attraction requires chemistry, but also a certain amount of distance, mystery, novelty, and surprise. Co-parenting while married requires the opposite: consistency, collaboration, and trust. When I think about all the couples I know who have struggled (and sometimes failed) to merge the two, I also find myself questioning Western assumptions around modern marriage and the nuclear family. I think of the the ancient civilization of the Mosuo people of southern China, a society where childrearing was traditionally organized around matrilineal and matrilocal structures, meaning women raised their children with the help of their mothers, sisters, and brothers—not their sexual partners or the biological fathers of the children. Mosuo women practiced what was called “walking marriage,” an arrangement where adult women had sexual relationships with men who visited them at night, but not with men they lived with. It’s not hard to see the appeal if you’ve ever tried to make out with a person after watching them change a blow-out diaper or trim their toenails in bed. I don’t know any folks in “walking marriages” today— I live in the Midwest. But I do know a lot of moms who, like you, wonder if consensual non-monogamy might offer a solution.

If you’re one of them, there are a lot of books and even a bad movie or two that can introduce you to the ins and outs of open marriage. The thing that most of these resources will tell you is that opening up is more like a home addition than a home repair. If your pipes are freezing, your foundation is cracking, and your basement is growing black mold, adding a new master bedroom and three-season sundeck isn’t going to be a smart investment. In other words, as tempting as it might be to find new partners when intimacy is strained and free time is at a premium, this is actually the worst time (if preserving the relationship is your goal) to shift energy toward other people. At bestpeople At best, it solves nothing. At worst, it can also cause real emotional harm if communication isn’t open, boundaries aren’t clear, and both partners aren’t genuinely on board (not just one of you trying to save the marriage). Also, you’ll need childcare, a lot of emotional bandwidth, and possibly a flowchart to keep track of everyone’s feelings. None of this means that opening can’t work, but it does mean that before taking such a huge leap, it’s probably worth asking yourself if you and your partner have talked honestly about what you’re missing sexually and about how you might make more space in your relationship for desire.

Because sometimes, it’s not about needing new people—it’s about needing to see each other differently again. That said, if you both explore the idea of an open marriage with curiosity, honesty, and full consent—not desperation or resentment—it could be a path worth walking.