Is Sex The Most Important Part of a Relationship or Marriage?
Not long ago, a girlfriend of mine had a conversation with her husband that went like this:
“So…did you have fun with the guys playing poker last night?”
“Yup.”
She sat there waiting…finally : “So what do you guys talk about when you meet up?”
He looked at her like she was green. “What do you mean?”
“Do you talk about work? Sports? Sex? Do you complain about your wives? What?”
He sighed. “We don’t get all personal the way you and your friends do if that’s what you’re asking.”
“But you do talk about your wives?”
He could tell she wasn’t going to leave it alone. “YES. We do talk about our wives. But we don’t complain about how much money they’re spending or if they’ve gained weight. No one ever complains about his wife being a bad mom. The only complaint that goes around the table time and time again on any given night is that they aren’t getting enough sex.”
When my girlfriend relayed this conversation to me I was irritated. Stupid, insensitive men, I thought. Maybe if they helped their wives out with workload around the house, they’d more amorously-inclined instead of exhausted.
But later on, my friend’s conversation made internal alarm bells go off. For truly, how long can men (or women) go without ‘enough’?
My ex-husband didn’t go long – he cheated on me three years into our marriage. I’d known we’d had problems in our sex life – but I thought there were way more important things in a relationship than sex. Like our three infant children. Our trust and love of one another. All that we’d built together. You know – important stuff.
One look at infidelity statistics show that fulfilling sex IS really important to most people. An estimated 50-62% of women cheat on their husbands, compared to 70% of married men. Moreover, one partner in 80% of marriages has an affair.
So maybe sex SHOULD be at the top of our lists when we assess the happiness level in our relationships. Cause at the end of the day, how long can anyone go without feeling PASSION of some sort?
13 comments
I lived for 13 years with no passion. That was about 12 years too long. There can’t be a marriage without an intimate, passionate connection between spouses. There can be pretence but not a marriage.
I’m always puzzled when spouses who put other things before sex in their marriage are surprised when their spouse cheats.
I know that young mothers are tired. There are children to raise, bills to pay and the libido goes into hiding. What they don’t understand is that men connect with their wives through intimacy.
Husbands and wives who are doing without aren’t nagging about sex because they want to get their rocks off. They are wanting to maintain an intimate connection with their spouse and when that intimate connection there some will go looking elsewhere for it.
I never looked elsewhere but I will always wonder why I didn’t AND I will always wonder why my ex didn’t care enough about his relationship with me to nurture an intimate connection instead of ignore my need for one.
I think the world is full of people like me…people who are wondering why their spouse doesn’t care enough to make sex and important part of the marriage.
I thought I had gone too long at 8-9 years without passion/sex. I agree, that is way too long. There were a lot of other things wrong with my marriage as well but the loss of the intimacy was one of the first things to go. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t like the person he was becoming and that translated into not being physically attracted to him anymore. I am looking forward to rediscovering that passionate, sensual, sexual part of me.
Sex is the big connector – the main barometer of what is going good (or bad) in your marriage. I know that a good romp can dissipate a million bad feelings and reconnect spouses in a way nothing else can. Lack of it allows everything else to build and build until it blows up. And anyone who says that sex isn’t that important is not only lying to themselves but is setting themselves up for a rude awakening when the want and need for passion becomes so great that cheating becomes a justification. I tried to live in a sexless marriage (did for over 10 years) and tried to convince myself there were more important things to focus on in order to minimize my latent frustrations. But deep down I craved it and ultimately knew it would come down to leaving and/or cheating on my spouse. I did both. But having fantastic sex after a 20 year drought made me realize what I was missing and that I could never compromise that vital part of myself, that vital componant of my womanhood ever again. Men need that as well – it is a primal drive you cannot logic away. And it is their main way of connecting to their woman. It is how they express themselves – more freely and openly than they can with words. ’tis true.
[...] Are there more important things in a relationship than great sex … [...]
I just can’t figure out how a person male or female can say outloud, that they were in a passionless/sexless relationship for 8,9, or 12 years and blame it on the other partner? Really, You stayed in that relationship THAT long, YOU did too, why? I have passion and sex, 6-9 times a week and certainly don’t say it’s all because of my partner! Anyways, males and females go through different life cycles, males have lots of desire between 17-27, females between 32-42, so that already against a couple and stresses and pregnancies and health. It takes communication to live a long life with any one person. Life is up and down, good and bad, periods of lots of sex, and dry patches too. So, come on, if your having lots of sex and life is good take a little credit, and when times change and you are not getting any, take a little credit. This makes wonder, if the partner who just had to get sex outside the relationship is having more sex now, in their new relationships? When I look around at my circle of friends and relatives that went through that, it seems we are having more sex now? hmmmmmmm
If sex is the barometer for which we meausre the health of a marriage then I’m in serous trouble. I’ve blamed alot of the disinterest on us having kids, twins, one whose colic had me going up the wall and my husband out the door. I am considering leaving him now. The passion didn’t come back and its three years later. I feel dispresetced by him, neglected and he is acts like its all my fault. He won’t see a counsellor so I feel I’m on my own…I don’t want to wait 8 or 13 years like you other ladies did…
I think that a fulfilling sex life is an extremely important part of a healthy relationship. I don’t think that many relationships can last a long time and be healthy and good without good sex. I think it’s important to work on keeping the passion right from the beginning…trying to find it again after it has been lost is very difficult (and not always possible).
Hali, I think you made some great points and I’d be curious to know how many divorced people are having more, if not better sex in their next relationships when they’re five years/ten years in …or would they find themselves back in the same situation as they were in thier marriages. May second time round they’d be more inclined to look at themselves and see their role in thier dwindling passion instead of just pinning it on the other person.
Momma Sunshine – I agree – sometimes it isn’t always possible to get it back. Especially when touch isn’t wanted or respectful. I know someone who, while married, was constantly groped by her husband. For example, if she had a baby in one hand and the other busy on the stove, he’s come up and grab her breasts or stick his hands down her pants. Because her hands were occupied, she couldn’t prevent this intrusion (not enjoyable to her). But her husband wouldn’t listen to her when she told him she him to stopt; he’d tell her to relax and that she was ‘no fun.’ What resulted was an automatic trigger response to his touch that caused her to cringe…even when her hands weren’t busy…
Delaine writes:
“I know someone who, while married, was constantly groped by her husband. For example, if she had a baby in one hand and the other busy on the stove, he’s come up and grab her breasts or stick his hands down her pants.”
When I read this, I was irritated. Stupid, insensitive woman, I thought. Maybe if she had realized her husband felt neglected, and had actually bothered to show him some real affection and make time to have more sex with him, he’d be less likely to grope her all the time. After all, the baby does sleep from time to time.
(In case you missed it … the template for this snarky reply about clueless wives is taken directly from Delaine’s snarky comment about clueless husbands in the blog posting.)
The real point is this: Many, many wives, especially after the first baby comes, make the serious mistake of disregarding their husband’s desire and need for sex.
And then these same wives put all their time and energy into the baby, and then act shocked when their husbands feel neglected, get angry, or end up having an affair.
What these wives tend to overlook is this: For most men (and many women), sex and intimacy are not optional — rather, sex and intimacy are a primal, fundamental need, akin to hunger.
It’s worth saying that again: For most men (and many women), not having sex is akin to starving. Imagine what you would do if you were denied the chance to eat a meal in three weeks. You too might be grabbing food off a passing plate in very inappropriate ways.
Yes the rhetoric is exaggerated — but the need for sex and intimacy is not. It is that powerful of a motivating force in most men’s, and many women’s, lives.
So in Delaine’s example, the husband clearly was acting inappropriately by not stopping when his wife asked him to. But there’s almost certainly more to the story than that. The wife likely contributed to the problem, if you define the problem as the lack of sex and intimacy in her marriage.
That is some inspirational stuff. Never knew that opinions could be this varied. Thanks for all the enthusiasm to offer such helpful information here.
Sex becomes a problem in a marriage when the libido`s are different or far apart.. One person always feels deprived and the other person always feels imposed upon. Even a happy medium isnt a good answer. However if two people are of low libido, them lack of sex will not be as large of a problem. I have found a woman who loves sex as much as I do. Almost every day. We stay connected and it feels right.
I have been married over 7 years and have two kids and strongly agree with “Healing Internally” point. Sex is an overpowering need for men. I find myself ‘groping’ more the longer that I go without sex. It it like a warning single to my wife. On the other hand, in my mind in a very weird way, it shows that I still find my wife attractive. Why would I grop my wife’s bottom or breast if I was truly not intrested? Wouldn’t ignoring them be worse?
Also, another key point about marriage and sex that is very critical IMO is how often and how brutal someone gets turned down for sex. Image being in a committed marriage, the kids are asleep, the house is quite, nothing critical needs to get done and the man seductively asks his wife to have sex. And this is met with laughter or a roll of the eyes (many times a month). Even if the man and women have sex the next day, that type of brutal rejection sits with men and really can lead to other marriage problems and eventually cheating. This goes back to point in the article about passion and connecting with your partner. If you consistently turn your partner down for no reason in a brutal fashion, this will break that connection no matter how much ‘sex’ you actually have a week/month.
I 100% agree with you around the rejection issue Man’s POV. I’ve known men and women in this situation and it wears hard on one’s self-esteem, desirability and eventually, the solidity of the marriage. A lot of people try to convince themselves that they don’t ‘need’ sex, that other things are more important like the family unity, taking care of the kids, being a good person etc. But the bottom line is that if one person DOES want sex, and isn’t getting his/her needs met, resentment grows and a countdown clock on either divorce – or an affair – come into the picture. This has been my experience and same for many clients and friends. I think it’s fixable however – IF it’s not too late, and IF both parties involved are willing to put in the work.