Sex File: His mum has moved in — and sex is out of the question 

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As my husband's mother is increasingly frail and so more dependent on us, she has come to live with us. Her bedroom is next to ours, and it is affecting our sex life. 

We're both becoming frustrated. She wakes early and we hear her pottering about, so morning sex is off, and knowing she's close by means I'm rarely in the mood. What should we do?

You may have scuppered your sex life but you have done a good thing and I am sure you sleep better at night knowing that your mother-in-law is being cared for under your roof. 

Even so, if this arrangement is going to work you need to make it sustainable. You are married, and your mother-in-law is an adult, so sabotaging your sex life because you are afraid of how she might react is a bit bonkers. 

You don't say what kind of relationship you have with her, but just because she is frail and elderly doesn't mean that she is either puritanical or judgmental. 

If she is compos mentis and fond of her son, I'm sure she would be pleased to know you still have a strong, loving relationship. If she's not compos mentis, she probably won't notice anyway.

Your problem is, of course, largely psychological. Self-consciousness and lack of privacy impede arousal, and orgasm depends on such a complex array of physical and psychological factors that anything that makes you feel inhibited will stop it happening. 

The impact of privacy on sexual function is a very under-researched area, but an Italian study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine in 2014 found that lack of privacy was associated with erectile and ejaculatory dysfunction in men, and couples who didn't have enough privacy had more relationship conflict and mental health problems. 

Other studies have identified a lack of privacy as a significant obstacle to female orgasm, though this was largely in the context of not being able to separate children's sleeping arrangements from their parents'.

Fortunately, your mother-in-law is an adult - and is unlikely to barge into your bedroom without knocking first - and you and your husband have options. 

If she keeps to a fairly predictable routine you could try to plan to have sex when she is most likely to be asleep. 

She may wake early in the morning, but she probably goes to bed earlier than you, so late at night, when she's sleeping soundly, is an option. 

And remember, just because you can hear her doesn't mean she can hear you - some 71% of over-seventies are affected by hearing loss, which isn't a cheering statistic, but may make you feel more relaxed about having sex in your room.

Of course, if you have space, you could find somewhere else to have sex. There's no need to restrict yourselves to the bedroom. The bathroom is an obvious choice - not least as it has a lock.

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