The FULL list of reasons why couples stop having sex
by Mira and Charles on May 18th, 2009We must’ve been having one of our slow days. In our last blog we said there were 5 reasons people who’ve been together for awhile are not having much sex anymore. But wait a minute! 5?!?! There are 13 reasons!
And that’s good news for you. You can’t solve your problem if you don’t know what causes it. And so this means that now you can target just why your sex life isn’t as active as you’d like it to be. We promise, promise, promise that we’ll give you solutions next time. And it will be a solution targeted to your situation.
Now please rock the vote on this one. Let us know which of the 13 reasons below best explains why you and your partner aren’t having sex very often these days. Let us know. Here are the candidates:
1. You’re so busy and stressed out that it’s hard to get into a sexy, let’s-connect frame of mind.
2. You’re mad at each other and feel hurt, so you need some real healing to happen before you can feel sexually open to each other.
3. You’ve fallen into a sexual rut. Making love is too mechanical and predictable. You’re disappointed, which leads to discouragement, which leads to your not doing anything about it.
4. One of you wants to make love more often than the other and this has set up a dynamic where one is always pushing and the other resisting.
5. You don’t experience each other as sexy anymore.
6. Everyday life is almost overpoweringly mundane, and you have trouble breaking through to the intimacy and sensuality necessary for love making.
7. Your sexual chemistry wasn’t so hot at the beginning and now you’re dealing with this.
8. There’s been a decline of libido with age.
9. It gets harder over time to come up with new things to do in bed, and you have a need for newness.
10. You’ve fallen into a dynamic in which each of you is waiting for the other to make the first move.
11. One or both of you in fact is looking for a way out of the relationship.
12. Sex is not good now for a specific but temporary or treatable reason: something physiological or anatomical; there is a sexual dysfunction; a problem in current life circumstances; illness; etc.
13. Having sex and talking about why you’re not having sex never happen because while this is an important issue, it’s infinitely postponable. It’s not urgent, and many other things in your life are urgent, so you don’t get around to it.
Let us know which of these applies most to you. Which would you guess applies most to most people? We hope to be able to tell you next time. Then, finally, we’ll give you real solutions.
Love, Mira and Charles
May 21st, 2009 at 10:35 pm
In my case number 4 applies: One of you wants to make love more often than the other and this has set up a dynamic where one is always pushing and the other resisting. My wife had an affair a year ago and since then. our marriage is coming apart, including the sex life, nothing is the same, there is a marriage before the affair, and after the affair, complete different.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I am very sorry to hear about your difficulties. But in this case I think it is reason number 2 that is going on. It can be very hard for a relationship to heal when there’s been an affair. But you should know that it CAN heal. It just takes time and patience. And you may need counseling. But that doesn’t mean you can’t recover. I urge you to read our book When Good People Have Affairs. There’s a lot of wisdom and help there, and it could make all the difference to your marriage. There is a long section on how to heal things. Warmly, Dr. Foster