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Top Ten Factors Affecting Marital Sex
If your married sex life seems to be underperforming, see if any of these ten factors may be the reason.
Preschoolers:
Fathers of preschoolers reported having less sex than men without preschoolers. Donnelly suggests men may be more likely than women to view young children as intruders into their sex lives and thus cease initiating.
If this is the case, women need to take the lead on initiating and make time for 'couple' activities. Make an extra effort to pay attention to him...let him know you still find him sexy, desirable and the love of your life. One way to do this is to enforce a reasonable, consistent bedtime. Preschoolers should be in bed by eight o'clock at night. This time makes sure they avoid most inappropriate television programs, get their sleep and most importantly, mom and dad get each other.
Probability of separation:
Couples who planned to separate within 12 months have sex less often.
This is a no-brainer, couples heading toward divorce often find they begin to despise each other which means they really do not want to get intimate.
Age:
This is a powerful predictor; the older the respondent, the greater the odds of being in a low-sex marriage.
On the flip side, when sex does occur in older couples it is generally more fulfilling, better quality and more loving. Learning curves as the common female lament goes, "He may have the stamina and the enthusiasm but he knows nothing about technique or how to love" tend to fade with age. Both men and women know what they're doing and the comfort level afforded in a lasting union eliminates the sloppiness of youthful exuberance marking sexual relations during the teens, twenties and often into the early thirties.
Years married:
Men married longest reported less-frequent sex, but the duration of marriage was not a significant predictor for women.
This could have more to do with the fact that in most marriages men are older than women and the stigma attached to women for multiple partners during singlehood does not apply to men therefore 'less sex' for men is relative.
Marital happiness:
Not surprisingly, the happiest couples also were the friskiest.
Again a no-brainer. When you're in love, happy and things are going well in your career, family and life, sex is the icing on the cake.
Health status:
Failing health decreased the likelihood of sex for men, but not for women. Donnelly theorizes that older women may feel duty-bound to have sex even in ill health.
Woman with an illness can often accommodate her husband by limiting her movement, but men have much harder time hiding illness and its effects through sex which is more physically demanding on a man than a woman. Any woman married to a man who's injured his back will tell you the first thing to change, (other than she now takes out the garbage) is copulation goes away. Depending upon the severity, (consult your doctor) products like the Liberator Shapes may alleviate lower back
pressure, knee, chest or arm/shoulder issues by changing the positions to easier to perform, lower impact and with better more efficient angles. If it's physical pain causing your husband to forego sex, this option may be worth looking into.
Erectile dysfunction, stress, an undiagnosed illness, these are all reasons men will avoid sex...make excuses or make sure the opportunity does not present itself. Men will wait to see a doctor often until its too late so women need to remain alert to warning signs such as sex on hiatus. If he's been finding reasons not to have sex for six months or longer, time to get him to the doctor.
Shared activity:
Husbands and wives who talked more and did things together were more sexually active.
If you enjoy being together during the other 90% of your married life it goes to logic that you'll enjoy sex together. Sex is the ultimate expression of love, cherishing and caring, and unlike other activities it is shared between just you two, making it extra special.
If your sex life seems a bit lax, try some new activities together. This could be sports, crafts or clubs. Not into that? Try sharing current events. Visit headline distributors like WhatReallyHappened.com, or commentary sites like Lew Rockwell, PrisonPlanet, CounterPunch and
other news/blog organizations covering what the mainstream doesn't. This can invigorate a relationship as you share with each other "What I learned today" and "Can you believe it?" with "What do you think?" In no time you'll find both husband and wife attempting to find the most interesting news of the day in friendly competition. Not only will you learn something, (and your children if they're around) but both husband and wife become more educated, aware and by default, confident. And there is nothing sexier than confidence!
Number of children:
More kids, more sex.
Reason: Presence of children may indicate that the marriage is stable. Of course this also means the husband and wife are very creative...finding time to have sex with all those kids!
Arguments over sex:
Couples who don't have sex much also argued very little about what they're not doing. They also don't talk about it.
Researchers theorized that these couples may have grown accustomed to not having sex and don't feel the need to discuss it. Whether an argument or discussions about "Can we try...", "I'm not comfortable when..." or "Why don't we ever..." the fact is couples who have sex, talk about sex and even disagree on occasion. That's healthy.
One of the warning signs of an unequal relationship is the lack of disagreement. One of our Couples Company experts not in the psychology or medical realm brags about the fact that he's never had a fight or argument with his wife of fifteen years. So for fifteen years his wife has never questioned his judgment, never had a differing opinion, never challenge his logic, never disagreed with how the children should be raised? Even siblings raised on the same issues, values and morals argue, disagree, over-step boundaries and
cross the line. A couple that never argues about anything is a couple that doesn't communicate and self-censors. It's the equivalent of a mental prison where one is dominant and the other simply accepts without opinion, challenge or discourse. This creates a false harmony and breeds resentments which eventually will come out.
Violence:
Another unexpected finding was the link between violence and higher sexual activity reported by women. Some researchers attribute this to the fact that some violent couples use sex to make up after fighting. Others believe that some couples are more physical when it comes to expressing love or anger. The correlation between sex and violence existed only for women, suggesting that some men may use sex as a form of control or dominance.
This association (fight, hurt, sex, make-up) is not healthy from him or her. This may mean the couple is having a lot of sex, but it also means the overall relationship is in serious trouble. Without sex, it won't exist.
There is also another reason violence may be seductive. Both men and women experienced increased sexual arousal with scary movies, the adrenaline rush, flight or fight response. Women today in Western Society spend most of their time being "men" on the job, at home and out and about. For the twenty-five percent of women who prefer to be the leader in male-female relationships this is fine. But, for the seventy-five percent who want the man to be the man, sex can be the only safe place where he can dominate her.
The difference between real violence like rape, S&M and beatings with play violence is control. Many women like to be tied up. This submission makes her feel completely vulnerable to him and for many women that vulnerability is the essence of femininity. Many have rape fantasies, the key word being fantasy. There's nothing sexy about real rape, beatings or persecution. There is something sexy about playing such with your mate, knowing that if you get scared, it will stop immediately. Keeping sexual play in
the realm of fantasy rather than reality is the key to using suspense in arousal.
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