Source: Pollyana Ventura / Getty
After you’ve been with someone for years and years, you probably won’t have sex as often as you did when you first started dating. That’s only natural. It has nothing to do with loving one another less or even being less attracted to each other. In fact, you should focus less on why you have little sex later, and more on why you have so much in the beginning. That drive to do it all of the time in the beginning is an important part of your chemical bonding. It’s nice to think it’s just because you’ve found your soul mate but, call it what you may, it’s just biology. You’re exchanging and mass-producing the hormones that make you feel close to each other. That’s centuries of genetic programming making you feel attached to him, and making him feel protective of you. So, once you realize that that is what is at play with all of that sex in the early days of dating, you can see how, once you know you belong to each other and feel stable in the commitment, the need to do it a lot dies off. Some couples try to force the issue and overcome this change. In fact, my partner and I were one of them. But we eventually embraced the beauty in having less sex. It’s actually good for us.
via GIPHY
We need to be in the mood to enjoy it
Like we’ve already discussed, the longer you’re with someone, the less those “must have sex!” hormones are flowing. We simply aren’t in the mood as often, and, if we aren’t in the mood, and have sex, then that means we are sort of forcing it.
via GIPHY
Forced sex makes you sad
Having sex because we felt we had to, rather than doing it because we really wanted to, left us both feeling sad and strange. As two people who are usually very in sync and in tune with each other’s emotions, it felt weird to be so physically intimate with someone whose mind I can basically read. I knew he wasn’t really feeling it, and he knew that about me. The result was sadness.
via GIPHY
There used to be so much guilt around it
When our sex life first naturally took a dip—we went from doing it a couple times a day, to once a day, to just once or twice a week—we both felt a lot of guilt around it. We felt like we were failing. We both just thought about how we were falling short of doing it as much as we once did.
via GIPHY
Releasing the guilt felt good
We eventually realized there was no reason to feel guilty. We both knew we were still very much in love. We also still have a sex life, it’s just not as active. We were carrying around this guilt for nothing. It wasn’t productive. We had a “So what?” moment and have felt much happier since. And now, when we do have sex, we don’t feel we’re doing it out of guilt.
via GIPHY
It keeps it exciting
Having sex with the same person every day for years simply cannot remain exciting. Not if you do it every day or multiple times a day. When you first start dating, it’s exciting because that person is new to you. But after you’ve been together for years, withholding from sex for a while is actually a way of making your partner feel new again, when you do have sex.
via GIPHY
We have fewer sex fights
All of that guilt we were carrying around about not having enough sex was also causing a lot of arguments. We started keeping score over who initiated the most, and who kept turning it down. Playing the blame game around sex never puts anybody in the mood.
via GIPHY
It gives me time to be creative
If you’re doing it every day, you don’t possibly have the time to come up with new, creative things to do in bed for each session in the sack. Having sex about once a week gives me time to think of something new I’d like to try, and prepare for it (in case there’s any, um, shopping involved).
via GIPHY
The spontaneity is even better
If everything is spontaneous than nothing is spontaneous. What I mean is that, in the beginning, when you have sex every chance you get, it’s never a surprise when you do it. But if you do it less, then when those spontaneous urges to do it in the shower or have a quicky before guests arrive come up, they’re even more exciting.
via GIPHY
There’s something hot about waiting
By the time we do have sex, I’ve usually already been rearing to go for a couple of days. The anticipation and the waiting make it even hotter.
via GIPHY
And we do build anticipation
Even though we aren’t doing it every day, we’ll be talking a little bit about what we are going to do, every day. We’ll send each other little texts about that thing the other one did last time that we liked. Having sex about once a week means we have plenty of time to build up the excitement, which is half the fun.
via GIPHY
We appreciate our friendship more
Rather than think, “Oh no our relationship is falling apart because we don’t have tons of sex anymore” we think “Wow, we must have a really solid foundation because we don’t need to have sex every day in order to feel connected.” This new pace of sex has actually showed us just how bonded we are. We feel close, even without doing it all of the time.
via GIPHY
Occasional sexual downpours are even better
Every so often, we have a sexual downpour. We suddenly have a bunch of sex. I couldn’t tell you what triggers it (though going on vacation never hurts) but when it happens, it makes us especially happy because it’s out of the ordinary.
via GIPHY
I can look my best
When we did it all of the time, I didn’t have anywhere near the necessary attractive underwear to keep up with that. I didn’t have time to wax or shave every day, either. Now that we do it less often, I have enough really hot lingerie to wear when we do, and I have time to shave/prep everything.
via GIPHY
We used to do it when we were tired
When we used to do it every day, that meant doing it at night a lot because, well, it was a workday and we didn’t see each other until the evening. But we were both exhausted at the end of a workday, and the sex could lack luster because of it. We did it more out of obligation, but we really just wanted to hurry up and go to sleep.
via GIPHY
Now, we have the energy
Now that we really only do it on the weekends, we have the energy. We can do it in the middle of the day. We’re well rested because we slept in. It’s more quality sex, even though the quantity has gone down.
