It is no secret that marriages are difficult. In fact; up to 63% of marriages end in divorce according to a recent statistic. That statistic was before the pandemic and I know that Covid has been very difficult for many couples as well. There are many components of a successful marriage such as communication, intimacy, love and sex. If any one of those components is broken or missing, someone is settling and perhaps harboring resentment. When one partner harbors resentment, the relationship is stunted since intimacy cannot flourish. Without physical intimacy, your relationship may be reduced to one of friendship, co-parenting, convenience, or co-dependence. In my relationship with Kevin, I don't feel the butterflies that I did when our relationship was new. This isn't because Kevin is a bad guy, boring or any other negative thing about him. In fact, this means that Kevin and I are a great match.
When a couple is in a committed relationship, the body stops creating those butterflies. Naturally with trust and intimacy the newness wears away. This isn't a bad thing, can you imagine if you felt the same level of uncertainty and anxiety after years with a partner? This sexual tension and newness is natural with a new relationship and the novelty and whimsy of a new partner is much of the allure of a new relationship. The hookup lifestyle encourages us to hop from one relationship to the next, constantly searching for those elusive feelings of newness. Having your cake and eating it too would be newness and novelty coupled with the intimacy and partnership of a long term relationship.
Females are inherently challenged with maintaining a sex drive toward a long time partner. Our bodies aren't wired for it, society makes us feel guilty for it and sex that we determine to be repetitive becomes a chore. Sexual desire discrepancy/disparity is the difference between one's desired frequency of sex and the actual frequency of intercourse in the relationship. It is said that 80% of couples regularly experience situations where one partner wants to have sex and the other doesn't. Some partners don't see the discrepancy as a big problem but this mismatch in libido can lead to all sorts of problems such as resentment and infidelity.
When there is a hint of mismatch, the relationship is in a constant state of famine. The partner who is not getting enough is seemingly never satiated because their level of desire is always higher than the baseline desire of the other partner. We all know the reasons why we don't want to have sex. Headache, stress, lack of connection, these are all very common reasons why sex doesn't happen and the woman becomes the cliché housewife that doesn't desire her husband. The male need to be validated as a man is deprived and he goes to seek his fulfillment elsewhere. It is a self fulfilling circle that can damage relationships irreparably.
Breaking this cycle of sexual desire discrepancy is challenging but not impossible. The first step is for both partners to level-set with the current state of the relationship. Sit down face to face with no distractions and each of you must choose a number from 1 to 10 and speak for a few minutes about why that number was selected. For example, that number may be a three because he doesn't last long enough when we have sex and only seems to be focused on getting off. The number may be four because he never goes down on her and that is something that she needs sexually. Be prepared for there to be a big discrepancy between one partner's number and the other. One partner isn't compromising sexually and may have somewhere close to an 8 or 9. The other partner, doing all of the compromising may be close to a 4 or 5. The goal is to bring both partners to a 6 or 7 and meet in the middle. When both partners are getting their sexual needs met and align on sexual frequency and/or certain selection of sexual activities their numbers grow together. For example, they may align on a 6 but over the course of a year, grow in intimacy where they are both at an 8 or 9. It is unrealistic for either partner to say that their level of sexual satisfaction is consistently at a 10. In fact, I would suggest that the number one and ten are off limits. There is no way that either partner is doing everything wrong, just as there is no way that the partner is doing everything right. This isn't about criticism, this is about constructive evaluation. Now set a calendar reminder to have this same conversation once a week.
Alright so one partner needs to compromise forever for the sake of the other partner, this seems pretty one sided. Not really! This isn't always about sex, this is typically about sexual attention which ranges anywhere the mild such as a mutual massage or allowing a partner to masturbate while you watch him or her. It is about making time for your partner sexually. If your partner feels that you aren't making time for him or her sexually, they will feel that tenfold throughout other areas of the relationship. Men often feel a level of performance anxiety in the bedroom and this stunts their ability to perform or their willingness to put themselves in a situation where they may underperform. Women on the other hand may feel like sex is a chore or something that they simply don't want to be bothered with. Perhaps they feel like sex is repetitive, mundane, boring or perhaps even physically or emotionally uncomfortable. In both scenarios, this is totally normal! Adapt to your partner and figure out what makes them tick. When you have your weekly level-setting conversation, talk about what turned you on. What worked for you. What didn't work for you. Communication about sex is uncomfortable but cast that aside for a moment and communicate on a deep level about how sex made you feel.…
