How often do you think a couple should be having sex?

People in a relationship should have sex as often as they want to. If they can’t agree on how often that should be, then each one has to decide whether they are willing and able to make some sort of accommodation. And if they can’t do that, then they have to ask themselves whether their sexual incompatibility is a deal breaker for the relationship. When it comes to “should” questions and sex, that’s really as far as I’m willing to go.

Why? Because an asexual couple might not be having any sex at all, but that doesn’t mean the relationship cannot be healthy and loving. A couple in an open relationship might go a long time without having sex with one another while having various amount of sex with their other partners. So long as everyone is happy with the arrangement, why bother dragging in extraneous notions of “normalcy”?

It’s whatever works well for both people, which hopefully overlaps. It can really be anything or nothing, as long as both are content.

I feel sorry for you. I was in a similar situation with a guy once. Nobody should be pressured into having sex when they don’t want to. An incompatibility in sex drives is really unfortunate because the person might otherwise be great for you, but other than learning to put up with being frustrated I don’t know if there’s a way to resolve it. It’s a perfectly valid reason to end a relationship.

As often as it doesn’t feel like a chore to either

I’m not going to answer the question about “how many times should a couple…”, because it depends on so many unknowns and variables, including
– health of the partners (also “fitness”);
– age and general libido;
– length and depth of the relationship (sure, make jokes);
– commitment of the partners;
– timing issues, rest, diet and other intangibles and coincident variables

There’s no way to anyone to answer this about any other couple. No way in the world. Or, let’s say that someone does answer, and back up their answer with various reasons. If either or both of the people in the actual relationship say “No, that’s wrong” then the answer is wrong.

However, to your underlying point…

Your partner may have picked up on the fact that you do sometimes have sex with him (for whatever reason, a sense of obligation, wanting to keep the peace, wanting to make him feel better, whatever – when you might prefer not to – and he’s responding to what he knows rather than anything that you have said (or done) to the contrary. And that probably has something to do with the fact of your wanting or intending to end the relationship.

There is no normal here. Sexless marriages are far more common than people want to believe or admit. IMO if you are in a loving marriage, are compatable with practical things like work and family, still enjoy each others company then sex can take a back seat. In other words you build a relationship first and it will last. If you base it on sex alone it will likely fail. That said everyone needs intimacy and to deny it to your partner can easily create a rift in your relationship. I’m 40 and a couple times a week is usually good enough for me but I still really want it every day. For guys it’s how we connect on an emotional level to our partners. When the normal routine (whatever that is) is being denied we know there are problems.

When and how many times one has sex with your partner has lots of crossover be it a rented or real relationship. If the relationship is more cerebral, or emotional, both might be happy with sex once a year, once a month, twice a month, or once a week. So long as both are comfortable with the frequency then that is a good fit as no one feels deprived. If it were a real union, sometimes you have to bear with your partner and do intimacy even when you otherwise would not, but that is in short no difference than other activities one does with their spouse when they really had a mind to do something else. Sometime people even get into it once they start and enjoy themselves. There is more obligations to accommodate your spouse in a real relationship/union because you committed to be one flesh, so to deny them is to deny yourself. If you cannot be concerned for them and feel obligated something is not humming on all cylinders in the relationship.

I think this problem comes up if a women isn’t getting nearly as much out of sex as a man is, and she starts feeling like nothing more than a vessel for his pleasure. It’s hard for a woman to equate that to “love.”

I find the idea of forcing myself to have sex just to please someone so repugnant. Each partner is different, one partner might like it every day (for example) the other once a month would suffice.
I feel that the partner that wants it more often should do a little ground work, you know? I hate to say work for it, but if a person has no interest in sex, or little interest, then the horny partner should try and get them in the mood. That kind of makes sense to me? I have found as relationships go on for a while, say 2 years, often the sex part does slow down.

If you feel and I gathered this from your question, that this person is using it as an excuse to ‘get out’ of the relationship (sorry I might have misread that?). I would let it go, I wouldn’t pander to that since they would find something else to complain about shortly afterwards.

@CWOTUS I really loved your answer, it’s so true. There are always very important variables, like the ones you mentioned. Depression too for example.

So I start feeling less like having sex when I don’t feel supported in other areas of the relationship. Is anybody else like that?
What I mean is, when I can’t get my partner to get a job, or do the dishes once in a while, or have a nice conversation about something that I’m interested in (he can talk for hours about what he likes but shuts me down or talks over me when I want to discuss something I’m interested in). One of many reasons this relationship is falling apart is because he’s quit doing things and seems to be perfectly comfortable depending on me to take care of him. Although its been a slow process this is where its come to. I have trouble getting him to take the initiative on anything. I tell him he needs to get a job or sign up for temp work, then I’m the one pushing him to fill out the application or driving him to interviews. He thinks its ridiculous to save up for a better vehicle because he says that never worked for him in the past. Just stuff like that.
He gets all excited about starting an ebay business, goes out and buys over $100 on toys that he swears will sell, and then doesn’t get anything put online until two weeks later.
If I don’t remind him or push him he never gets anything done! Its maddening!

Everyone is like that @SamiCYa. Especially women.

Yeah, sounds like he wants a mommy, not a grown up partner.

He sounds lazy, @SamiCYa.

Thanks everyone. I know its different for everyone. I just wanted to see what everyones thoughts were. My partner is very good at making himself sound right all the time and I just needed to reassure myself that situations are not always like he says they are. I appreciate the responses.

@SamiCYa It’s a horrible feeling when you feel you have to nag to get your partner to do something. I guess that also falls under the ‘mommy’ title, I’ve had similar relationships. If I am honest. though, I think I am a control freak, so I think that which draws me to a type of person, eventually drives me mad. Both sides have to admit and accept responsibility for their own happiness, initiative, and contributions to life in general never mind just to each other.
He does sound immature, however, of course I know neither of you and am making a judgment on what is written here only. He could be depressed, suffering social phobias, all sorts of things I don’t know about.

There are so many variables involved (as @CWOTUS said); Age, number of years married, health… etc. I don’t think you could put a hard (no pun intended) number out there that would be true for the vast majority.

@SamiCYa :: Your dude better be swinging some massive pipe to put up with that.

You can’t fix him. There are actual grown ups that would be happy to have a relationship with you.

Seeing that you speak as if you are going to jettison the relationship in the near future I take it there are no formal steps to end or knot off before you do. If I may ask, how long were you dating etc. before you ended up in a quasi marriage situation?

Oh, hahaha no wonder you don’t feel like it. You have a mommas boy for a partner.

Please don’t listen to the judgement you’ll receive from some for having premarital sex. There is nothing wrong with what you’re doing.

I used to do the same thing as you, asking questions to try to figure out what was “normal” for other couples so I could make judgement calls about whether I was being “reasonable” for not wanting to have sex all the time. I am much, much happier now in a relationship with someone who respects my boundaries and who has a sex drive that is closer than mine.

I wish you luck. Frankly, your current boyfriend sounds like a jerk to me.

In their 20’s, 2 or 3 times a week. About 60ish, once per week, if possible.

@johnpowell what on earth would the size of his penis have to do with putting up with his childish behavior?

@Mariah Did someone clock her for having premarital sex? I totally missed that.

Who would want to have sex with someone they don’t have any respect for? Time to jettison this relationship and then find a guy who is mature and sexually compatible.

We all agree. But the OP is wondering what is “normal.” Well, she is normal. Let’s start there! What ever her desires are, they are normal.

I agree.

It’s better to live with someone for a while, @Hypocrisy_Central, and get to know all you can, including their sexual appetites and expectations, before you legally marry them. As she said, they were head over heels in the beginning. If they’d gotten married then, what a disaster that would have been.
DON’T GET PREGNANT, DEAR!!!

@Hypocrisy_Central we had dated for a year before we moved in.

@Mariah Thank you for your comment.

I’m definitely not going to put up with it anymore. I’m in the process of leaving him, finding a new place, storing some of my stuff at a friends before I break it off etc.

And @Dutchess_III No worries I am VERY careful.

Yay. Glad to hear it. All of it. We’re here for the details if you want to share. ♥

@Dutchess_III :: the same reason I spent a year with a person I didn’t really like. The sex was great.

@Dutchess_III It’s better to live with someone for a while, @Hypocrisy_Central, and get to know all you can, including their sexual appetites and expectations, before you legally marry them.
It has worked the old way, which some think doesn’t, by actually getting sex out of the way and actually courting, events together, talking, and not just to get to the bedroom….worked well for millions of people but why would we believe those lucky people, because surely it had to be luck to do it that way.

As she said, they were head over heels in the beginning. If they’d gotten married then, what a disaster that would have been.
Which is all the more reason to spend time figuring out the other aspects that tend to get overlooked because it got ran over by the physical side of a relationship? People take marriage too casual from what it truly is, you now that, go back over past threads, the proof is all over it.

@SamiCYa [..we had dated for a year before we moved in.
That makes me wonder how much time you spent together or how many questions that was significant did you truly get around to talking about. If you visited his house or he visited yours you did not see how neat or sloppy he was? Before you moved in you had no idea about his work ethic, drive, or initiative? Not to beat up on you but just to get you to think next time around, why were these things not seen? Sure, getting all giddy over a relationship (for various reasons) is one thing, but if you have to think of all contingencies of you believe the relationship will be more than some passing fling until something else better comes.

@Hypocrisy_Central yes I saw the red flags. I’m not going to try and preach about something thats not true. It was really F***ed up if you really want to get into it. I’ve had worse. Not an excuse I admit. I was 21yrs old and it was the best I’d ever been treated (sad to say but true) so I really wanted it to work. Its complicated. But if anyone wants to hear it when I first met him he was the first man I’d ever been interested in that’d ever been able to save a sizable amount of money to last awhile. (student loans. I know again. ugh…) but at the time it was impressive. We spent just about every day/night together we could. He had his own place (new to me in a partner, thought I was doing better). I finished my degree, he didn’t finish his by one class. Another red flag.

Well I thought I wanted to move in with him then he was acting irresponsible the summer before our move. I said I changed my mind. Then he got his sh*t together and it was a position were we either moved as a couple or if I moved without him it was very likely we’d break up (his mom has bipolar disorder and he was living with her). I just wasn’t ready to let him go. So I took the plunge. Bad decision, probably. There’s been a lot of good and a lot of bad.

Bottom line. I saw it. I did. I saw the bad and ignored it. I saw the good and inflated it.

It was great in a lot of ways but I look back now and if I could go back I’d have dumped his ass a long time ago. The only reason I’m telling you all about this is if it can reach one soul out there who might be going through the same and help change their course for the better then great.
But this is how it was with me.

And to anyone whose interested I left tonight finally. I’m typing this in a hotel room. I’ve never been more scared but at the same time I know deep in my heart its the right thing to do and it will get better.

@johnpowell I would hazard to guess that there is no sex that was so great for a woman that she’d stay for that reason alone. For women, “sex” has many layers, and can’t be satisfied just by sticking something in their vagina. And the size makes no difference for a woman’s satisfaction. I know that’s a concept men have a hard time accepting. But think about it…it’s men who bring that subject up, as you did, not women.

HC, exactly how does a couple “get sex out of the way” first and then start courting?

You’re experience is, unfortunately, the norm for so many women. Men “catch” you, start to relax, letting their true colors show, then, when they’re about to lose you, they straighten up again until you come back. Then things are OK for a bit, then their true colors come out again. Over and over and over again. I guess women do the same thing, but I mostly hear it about with men. It fools even the most mature of us. But, with wisdom comes…wisdom. You learn not to disregard those flags.
The thing is, HC insisted that the “old way,” worked. Well, not really. In the “old way,” you didn’t find out about his (or her) true colors until after you were married. In the “old way” you were, at that point, trapped.
Things started changing when the opportunities for women to support themselves started. The divorce rate went up….The “old way,” sucked for women.

That varies considerably. I like it two or three times a day.

LOL! Good luck with that in a relationship longer than 2 months, @VenusFanelli!

My lover and I have been together longer than two months.

Well, if you’re a female I don’t know how your body could stand the intensity of orgasms two or three times every day. I know mine couldn’t.

I’m very physically fit, and so is my lover. One girl said her lover made love to her up to 14 times a night. That would be too much.

LOL! It doesn’t have to do with stamina! Stamina helps with the athletics that are often involved in the sex act but it has nothing to do with orgasms.

I think it does. The man who did it 14 times a night was extremely strong and fit.

Well, the physical actions don’t really have that much to do with orgasms. It’s not that much work to attain one. I mean, you can have all the contortions and groaning and physical work and never have an orgasm. And it’s the blast of dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin that we describe as an “orgasam” that is pretty impossible to repeat every hour or half hour, day after day. I mean, the hormones has to have time to build back up.

@Dutchess_III HC, exactly how does a couple “get sex out of the way” first and then start courting?
Well, it is not that sequence, for lack of a better word, but when you find someone you like and they like you, you meet, dine, play miniature golf, whatever, not only to see how the potential mate interacts with people but their habits and personality. You have conversations so clues develop on what they think about pets, climate change, gender roles, etc. More times than not, some people seem to try to get into the sack for a shag by the third day as if the sex is some barometer of the relationship or attraction. If the sex is enjoyable then hard questions often go by way of the way side because people get scared if they field hard questions the other person will decide not to go forward and thus there is no more sex.

“I guess women do the same thing, but I mostly hear it about with men.”

Actually I hear it more about women but it’s not gender dominated. Sometimes guys have to alter their behavior to be able to enter and maintain a relationship. It catches up to them in the long run because “playing the part” is fake, childish and exhausting.

Some ladies on the other hand do the same type of thing with a twist. They will often pick a guy that is a “diamond in the rough” and try to “straighten him out” by continually offering little treats like letting him have space, not making get togethers with her family mandatory etc, etc.. then bit by bit she chips away at the things she does not like such as what he wears, who he hangs out with what his hobbies are continually moving goal posts.

But according to you, HC, people aren’t allowed to have sex outside of marriage, so how are they going to “get it out of the way,” before they marry?
I dragged Rick off to bed the first day he came here to hang out. FWIW.

@ARE_you_kidding_Yes, and I know at least one woman like that. It’s really heartbreaking for her now-husband, who didn’t find out until after they got married, and they were together for 2 years.
I’ve asked this before, but if people are “faking” it, faking being normal, until the trap is sprung, why can’t they fake it forever????

You can’t fake it forever so the old “just be yourself” cliche’ is really the best dating advice there is. People treat dating as if it was a job interview and both parties end up being disappointed.

Yes, but two years, and things are getting serious, goes beyond just dating. They got married and it was like, the next day, BAM!

I have seen that too. Again, just shitty people.

Maybe we’ve been looking at this the wrong way.

There’s no need for the couple to have sex at the same rate. They could do it the way that the old story has Bill and Hillary Clinton’s sexual practice was … That is, for Bill to telephone Hillary whenever he had sex, to tell her that he’d “be home soon, just cleaning up some things in the office.”

LOL! Got Hillary off the hook, anyway!

I think she’ll be OK. Her now Ex was probably trying to convince her that there was something wrong with her for not wanting sex all the time like he did. She left him within a day of posting this. (She mentioned that above, so I think I’m safe with the re-telling. @SamiCYa We try not to compromise personal information of our people here, unless we’re really, really, really mad at them! LOL! Then the Mods come in and whup us. And so does everybody else.)

@Dutchess_III I’ve asked this before, but if people are “faking” it, faking being normal, until the trap is sprung, why can’t they fake it forever????
First of all, why? Once the conman has gotten what he/she wants from the mark, there is no reason or motivation to keep up the act.

Second, try to imagine you were pretending to be an heiress from Morocco for some benefit or another but you had to play it off over a span of time. Are you really going to stay in character, or know to if you were roused out of sleep and your head is groggy, or you jamb your pinky toe on the end of a chair, or you going to say whatever you are going to say in character or will the real you react to the pain as the real you naturally would? Conman and women practice ”playing the part” because it is the way to the payoff, and they have a steely resolve to get to the payoff, but many hardly have to keep it up for years and years, if they did, I am sure more would be flushed out before they fleeced the mark.

If they’re faking it it’s because they know they’re doing something wrong. Not only do they know they’re doing something wrong, they know exactly what they’re doing wrong. So they do it “right” for as long as it takes for trap to close. Why can’t they just keep doing it right? Why wait and and then go back to doing it wrong again, with no holds barred, and end up making everyone who counted on you miserable?

BTW…this is hilariously relevant.. And it was posted by by my 21 year old Grandson. Guess he’s already had some experience. Kinda sound familiar @SamiCYa?

@Dutchess_III If they’re faking it it’s because they know they’re doing something wrong.
Most people don’t, look at the standard of this lagoon, if you are about getting what makes you feel good first, but if others or another benefit, fine, but it is about ”me first” in the long run, some do not see it as wrong but expected.

@CWOTUS “There’s no need for the couple to have sex at the same rate.”

I know you meant this as a joke/stupid political jab, but open relationships are a real thing (and the Clintons are in one). It’s one of the possible accommodations that I mentioned in my previous answer.

“There’s no need for the couple to have sex at the same rate.”

Is that like in the movie when Woody Allen movie is praised for his amorous activity and he says “Thank you, I practice a lot when I’m alone”?

I guess I don’t get the “joke” in the comment, “There’s no need for the couple to have sex at the same rate.” What did you guys read into it? How did you read “open relationship?”

@Hypocrisy_Central I’ll explain this one more time. It’s obvious that people with phsychological social issues know they’re doing something wrong, and what they’re doing wrong, because they can put on a show of doing it “right” for as long as they think it’s necessary. They may not understand why it’s wrong, but society has told them time and time again that it is. So they do what society tells them is the right thing to do when they want something, until the pretense isn’t needed any longer. Understand? Probably not.

^ Understand? Probably not.
I understand it with much clarity; I am not the one trying to put a spin on it. Nearly everyone alters who they truly are to gain something, to degree they alter their behavior or if they go far enough to be called deception is arbitrary. Even on best intentions people put their best face forward when they want to date someone or be involved with them, same as getting a job. Once one become comfortable or feel they are ”in”, the extra effort to impress, or whatever, is no longer seen as something to be highly maintained. I have don’t it in work, once I know I am in I am not the first person there, take the shortest lunch, always volunteering to do whatever, etc. sometimes I start to lax and get back 5 minutes late for lunch, more so if the job lost its luster. It would be no different to some in a relationship, if they got into the relationship because the involvement (think paycheck on the job) stopped being as impressive, then they are bored, feeling they are not getting what they wished, or like a panhandler, once they have gleaned enough to go get what they wanted, they quit. I have known many men to get with women for the physical more than the relational, once they got their feel of the physical and the excitement of a new variety for getting satisfied dimmed, they had no desire to be around her, because her without her bits were boring or plain annoying, and if they did not have the guts to rip it off like a Band Aid, they started cheating on her. Because they started out without marriage in mind but just what made them happy, then I guess many are deceptive or have psychological impediments if that is the standard.

@Dutchess_III Read the whole answer. The line we quoted was the setup, and the dumb political jab was the attempted “joke.”

OK. I read it as “no need for couples to have the same sex drive.” But I see the joke now. @CWOTUS made the original comment, then made a joke about it right after.
Sry.