I wonder if those who say ‘never have sex unless you really want it yourself’ are in long term happy relationships?
Lots of what many have said on here resonates with me about long term, happy relationships where lives are busy.
In these lives, there is often real genuine affection, being a team and still sexual attraction, although it’s not the same as when people first meet. And in those marriages, people are often tired and sometimes have to actively try and make choices about all kinds of things that don’t always feel exactly what their top choice of use of time might be, but they make those choices because they are things that build and support the relationship.
Sometimes my DH will play a board game that I like, which he really can’t be that bothered with. He does it because he loves me. Sometimes neither of us really want to go for a walk, but we go because we know the exercise will do us good and also it’s a chance for time alone for a good chat and can’t think of a single time when afterwards I’ve thought ‘I wish I hadn’t done that’ and it certainly builds our relationship. Relationships need work and effort or they wither and die. The idea that it’s all romance and a strong feeling to always want to be together, when you’re well into a relationship is just naiece, in my view.
Mature people in relationships know that lots of aspects of their relationship need work and effort, and that it’s so worth it. It’s not a case of coercion, or pressure but choice. And as lots of people say, when they make an effort they enjoy it.
Perhaps a good question, having made the effort to have sex, when you felt a bit tired and more like going to sleep, is to ask yourself afterwards, is ‘did I enjoy that’ as well as to see the impact it has on the relationship in the time ahead and see if that’s a positive thing. In many cases, I believe lots of people do enjoy it and see the benefits later. And as others have said, the more you enjoy something and remember you enjoy it (it can easy to forget) the more you want to do it and perhaps you’ll initiate it even. Lives change and small children become less needy and the exhaustion of some stages of life passes.....and many of us want to still have our DHs there, who we love dearly at those next phases of life and not find that somehow our relationship has just slipped away through lack of effort. It can and does happen all the time.
This is nuanced isn’t it. Clearly there are women who really really don’t like sex with their DH or really really don’t want to have sex. Well they shouldn’t. There are relationships where people are manipulative about sex and it isn’t a case of someone freely choosing to have it but being emotionally bullied into it. That’s not good. But there are also loads of happy marriages where neither partner is a bully and both parties really like each other. Once they were mad for each other and now they are still attracted to each other, if a little tired by life. As others have said, a key element of marriage is sex. It’s the key thing that makes a relationship different to 2 good friends who are bringing up a child together and house share. It does make a relationship different.
No-one has to have sex...of course not. And no-one needs to be in a marriage or keep a marriage going. But the two things are often connected, and those who love each other and and have sex (regularity can clearly vary loads) often have good marriages.
Some people seem only to be able to imagine sex of the type people have when they first meet and can’t think of anything else. Or they can only think of it as part of something coercive or manipulative. There seem to be no grey areas of gaps between the extremes of gagging for it and being really horny, and either not having it at all or any sex being coerced and wrong. But in mature, happy relationships, some level of maintenance sex (which is a horrible term and has nasty connotations, but I understand and can see why it’s used) when someone regularly pretty tired and realises it could slip out of their relationship, can be both really beneficial (nothing wrong with going into something for boring, beneficial reasons rather than crazy lust) but also turn out to be far more enjoyable than initially imagined.