Scheduling sex in marriage - has anyone actually made this work?

[lionkin]

Does anyone have a success story about scheduling sex in marriage? Specifically those with young children, busy lives, work etc etc.

We are juggling all the above plus perimenopause and sex life has been low quantity and quality since our last child was born - they are now 4! Our dynamic is probably the most common / typical one: that my libido has crashed and I'm often tired in the evenings but husband still wants it. (I've started on HRT for peri - not solely for this reason but hoping it may help with that too).

We have read about scheduling sex and know that many people recommend this for couples at our age / stage of life to try to get things back on track. I'm a bit cynical however and would love to hear if anyone has actually made this work? What happens if as the woman you really don't feel like it or feel tired on a night it is scheduled? How does it work in practice?

It’s not quite the same situation but we tried scheduling sex when we were trying to conceive and it didn’t work for us, it turned sex into another job on the to do list which was just not working for either of us so we stopped with it pretty quickly!

We’re now busy and have a young child and scheduling would work even less in our current circumstances, I can’t predict in advance how tired we’ll be, what kind of day we’ll have, how bedtime will go etc… I can see how it could work for some people if you set a date and decide to “make the effort” but for us personally having sex pencilled in turned it into a chore which was the opposite of productive!

I think scheduling sex is a bad idea. Maybe it makes sense if the issue is that you’re too busy or tired, but that’s not the problem here. Can’t think of anything less likely to be a turn on that feeling you have to have sex whether you want to or not.

I do think making sure you have early nights is a good idea. Good for you generally but also just being in bed together may make you feel closer and more likely to want sex. But without pressure.

I think you can schedule quite loosely e.g. decide to have sex twice a week rather than deciding to have sex once on Wednesday and once on Sunday.

I'm not married but I think you have to balance quality and quantity. I personally need and like to spend a few hours being intimate at a time, anywhere between every 2 - 6 weeks. Work out what you need and want first.

I wouldn’t say we schedule sex exactly, but if it’s going to happen, it will be on weekend mornings when the dc are on their screens. It used to be fairly predictable whether I’d be up for it based on my cycle but peri put a spanner in those works.

It’s more that it’s “us” time - and sometimes one of us will get up and make a coffee and we’ll just be lounging together in bed, scrolling, comparing scores on puzzles and sharing snippets of news.

If we get an opportunity to go away, or meet up during work hours and nip home to an empty house, the assumption is that we’ll have sex, so it’s scheduled in that sense. But it’s never been a problem if one or other of us isn’t able or up for it. We share a coffee or a meal and enjoy an uninterrupted conversation.

I definitely think having rituals of intimacy helps a lot - we always have a hug and a kiss before work. Often it’s perfunctory but it’s still important. We talk on the phone during the morning commute and even that is quite predictable - asking each other what we’ve got on, etc. Always a hug in the evening to say hello. It sounds dull as ditch water but I think those frequent little non sexual touches keep the door to sex open.

Just to add that vaginal oestrogen pressures have made a massive difference to my libido.

We don't schedule sex but as I'm a night owl and DH works a very early shift... it's weekends or nothing !

Absolutely no one ever needs 2-6 hours of intimacy per week, some people might want that and some people don’t even want 2-6 hours of intimacy.

I think prioritising an early night when possible over doing other things that can wait is probably better than scheduling sex. You can then sleep and not be completely exhausted the next morning too, double benefit.

We do kind of schedule it as we have teenagers around in the house most of the time, and they stay up later than us
, so the times in the week we know they will all be out at the same time become our sexy times. If something comes up or one of us doesn't feel like it it's not written in stone though. Sometimes I'll jokingly say 'when do you have meetings, when can you pencil me in?'

I read that as sessions that lasted a few hours at a time, then 2-6 week gaps in between.

Erm I said personally I do. So erm yes there are some people that do. There isn't one way of being intimate.

Yea that was what I meant.

When we had young kids we didn't schedule it specifically but we did try to go no more than a week without. It tended to be each weekend, and if we got to the end of the weekend without, it was sort of on the mental list. For a while it felt a bit like exercise - you know, you can't really be arsed with it but once you get started you enjoy it.

Our kids are older now so it's a bit more spontaneous (although limited in time as they never bloody go to bed 😫😂)

Dh and i scheduled sex. I like to know if sex is happening or not day to day and enjoy the anticipation. It doesn't mean sex is never spontaneous but I think it has helped maintain a sex life, through the difficult years of small children and now teens.

We scheduled in sex a few years back when the house was full of teenagers and we had full time busy jobs. It became a Sunday thing and really helped keep that part of our marriage going. Now they are older we have a spontaneous sex life again but I wouldn't hesitate to schedule it again if I felt we weren't prioritising each other that way

Same. DH and I usually have sex on the same days every week. It sounds very unexciting, but like the previous poster says, on those days, I start to look forward to it. I used to absolutely hate be approached by DH out of the blue and then have to reject him. I really need to be the right headspace, and this solves that issue. We generally have sex 3 times per week now.

Friday night tends to work for us, as sex causes me a lot of pain which means I can be awake for hours after. This way I know I can start my Saturday with a lie in to recover as opposed to being up all night and then having to manage work the next day. Or doing it in the morning and spending all day in pain.

@thebear1 @socks1107 @LadyPips can I ask how this worked if you / one of you were feeling tired or didn't feel very sexy on a day it was scheduled?

🤣 I don't think 2-6 hours of intimacy is feasible with young children!

Yes we have found ourselves doing this for a few reasons. Dh takes Viagra for ED so needs some prior warning. We have an older child in the house and neither of us feel particularly comfortable doing it when he's around so we wait until he's at his dad's. Then we have a younger child so we have to wait til she's in bed. She also co sleeps with me so we end up having to do it before going to before lol. As you see there are a lot of barriers for us!
It's not the most spontaneous or exciting. Sometimes I don't feel particularly in the mood but have to make the effort anyway or I know it'll be a while until the next opportunity.
I don't think this arrangement would work for some people but we are ok with it for now.

Why does sex cause you so much pain, if it’s ok to ask? More importantly habe you seen your doctor? Sex shouldn’t be painful, and to thr extent you can’t sleep for hours and need to recover the next day is very worrying.💐

I've seen dozens of doctors, and no one can sort it. It's a stomach ache, sex isn't the only thing that causes the pain it's just one of the things that do. I have never been given a diagnosis, and I've had it over 40 years now. I have given up even asking, as I think it's at the stage where doctors just don't believe me and think the pain is in my head. Even when it has me up vomiting for hours and hours on end..

This is awful. Is it just full on penetrative sex or do you get pain from oral ?
I think I wouldn't do it at all.
Does your partner know ? I hope he doesn't pressure you.

We don't schedule sex as in have set days every week, but we do ‘arrange’ when we have sex. My dh (or me) will say, when do you want to have sex? and then we’ll agree a day. It's not set in stone as of course we can change our minds, but if that happens we just rearrange the day, so its not a rejection, just a small delay. While not very spontaneous, we find it works for us because it keeps sex on the agenda and weirdly, it increases my sex drive, as my when I know we've agreed a day to have sex, I'll find myself thinking about sex more in the run-up to it.

Ugh.
Glad I don't have to have sex anymore, let alone schedule it.
Would spoil my whole day.

I wouldn’t ever have sex again. How can your partner expect you to?