what happens when you give up on sex in your relationship

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There is so much more to a relationship than sex, but sex should be a part of your romantic relationship. I mean, think about it: if you’re not having sex with your partner, then how is your relationship with him any different than the one you have with your sister, best friend, father, or coworker? If you’ve been together for a while, then your comfort level is probably pretty high. Perhaps too high. You may already be wearing your period panties around him and using the toilet with him in the bathroom. You share gossip with him about your friends, and have shows you binge watch together over a bottle of wine. Can you see how, very quickly, if you stop having sex, you’ll just become like a couple of sorority sisters? Yikes! Don’t let that happen to your relationship—it’s hard to come back from. Here is what happens when you give up on sex in your relationship.

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You become insecure

You start to feel insecure in your relationship. When you stop having sex, your body and his stop producing some very important bonding chemicals—chemicals that make him feel protective of and attached to you. And you can feel their absence.

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You don’t feel as emotionally close

You also lose some of the hormones that make you feel emotionally bonded. Having sex isn’t all about physical pleasure, after all—it makes you feel connected.

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You bicker about dumb stuff

You begin to realize that sex was this nice balm that sort of smoothed over little things that could otherwise bother you. Now, all of those little things bother you.

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You become more sensitive

You start taking jokes personally. You start reading into things, interpreting his ten-minute tardiness to your friend’s birthday party as a lack of interest in your friends, or the fact that he comes to bed after you as a sign that he no longer loves you.

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You lose that partner-in-crime feeling

Something about having sex regularly helps facilitate that fun and important partner-in-crime feeling between, well, partners. Your whole dynamic feels more boring and serious when you stop having sex.

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You think about other people

You can’t help it! You’re horny. You have needs. You want to feel desired. If you don’t have recent memories of sex with your partner to daydream about, your mind can wander to somebody else.

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You feel like you failed

You sort of feel like you’ve failed as a couple. You may not necessarily be fighting, but you don’t have that buzz and excitement you used to.

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You feel like imposters

You feel like imposters around other people. Your friends will allude to your sex life, and you both are siting there thinking, “We are lying to their faces…”

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Hearing about sex is awkward

If you watch a movie with your partner in which there is a sex scene, things become awkward. You are both painfully aware of the fact that that thing isn’t in your lives.

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You want to cry out for help

When you’re with your friends, and they ask how things are going in your relationship, you say, “Fine!” But you secretly want to cry out for help and tell them that you’re not having sex!

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It gets harder to get back into it

The longer you go without having it, the more pressure there is on it if you do get back into it. In other words, the longer you go without having sex, the less likely you are to have it again.

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You get rusty at some things

Oh come on. We all know that things like oral have to be practiced regularly if we’re going to be good at them. Do it enough and it becomes muscle memory.

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You worry he’s thinking about other people

You worry that your partner is thinking about having sex with other people, and this paranoia causes you to act out in bizarre and petty ways.

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You fall out of sync

When you do have sex again, your bodies are out of sync. When you have sex with someone regularly, you get into a nice rhythm, but it’s easy to lose that.