Aug 6, 2024

How My Married Sex Life Has Been (Compared To What I Expected)

Everybody has heard the stereotypes peddled by sitcoms, Hollywood, and hack stand-up comics around the world.

The core message being: Once you get married, your sex life dies off forever. 

‘You’re lucky if you have sex once a month! And if you have kids… forget about it!’

‘Blowjobs only happen on special occasions… like birthdays… maybe.’

‘You can reach across the bed for your spouse all you want, but they’ll always have a headache or be too tired to return anything.’

So while I didn’t take the societal narrative in as a belief, there was at least a sliver of it that was hard to ignore.

What if they were right? Could I be naive to expect anything different?

Is it the absolute inevitability of ‘mating in captivity’ that the passion dies off, never to be found again?

Compared to this oft-peddled narrative, my experience of married sex… has differed.

What Married Sex Life Has Been Like For Me

Simply put, married sex has been the most nutrient-dense, nourishing kind of intimacy I have ever experienced.

In my years as an overly sex-driven 20-something year old, married sex is the energy that my body and heart had always been craving and searching for.

As the saying goes, ‘You can’t get enough of that which doesn’t satisfy you.’ And so when I found each attempt at desperately seeking nourishing sex to be progressively void of nutrients and dissatisfying, my search continued.

It wasn’t until I had sex with my wife (when we were dating, engaged, and married) that I felt like I found what I had been searching for all of those years.

It felt like home.

It felt deeply safe.

There was an unspeakably nourishing element to the deep, felt sense of commitment. 

I have written before about how I had hundreds of sexual partners. And through all of those experiences, I was exclusively searching for the feeling that I enjoy when I am being sexual with my wife.

The older I get, the more I see the value in what (in terms of current societal conditions) is known as more traditional values.

The ‘freedom’ of incessant sexual exploration wasn’t freedom at all. If anything, it felt more like being in prison. 

An Unexpected Perk Of Married Sex

Another thing that I was surprised by as my sex life has progressed through the years with my wife, is the depth, nuance, and variety that has emerged. 

In retrospect, single sex (for the sake of this article, I am lumping hookups, ongoing casual relationships, and short-term relationships together under ‘single sex’) was always highly formulaic and predictable. By and large, my partners and I would meet up, carry out the dominant sexual script that we had both been raised with, and then moved on.

But with married sex, Demetra and I have had years to not just ground down into the most calibrated-ly nourishing things we both like, but also feel into certain edges that we hadn’t explored with others.

Now, through the lens of high-sensation single sex, someone could take the previous statement to mean that we’ve really brought out the whips, chains, harnesses, and horse masks and are regulars at the local sex toy shop. But it’s actually quite the opposite.

Instead of seeking for flashier and louder fireworks, our hearts feel so safe with each other in the commitment of our union that we have been able to explore the deeper, more tender regions of our sexual desires. The kinds of things that I absolutely never would have explored with a casual girlfriend in my mid-20’s. 

But again, these aren’t the forms of sexual intimacy that make front page headlines or hook people’s attention in 15-second sound bites in an Instagram reel or TikTok feed.

If I could deliver any message to my younger selves…

To the 20-year old me who was heart broken and doubted ever truly giving my heart to someone again…

To the 25-year old me who saw sex as more of a status game than an exploration of depth and vulnerability…

I would say that you don’t even know how good it can be.

How deeply fulfilling. Now nourishing.

When you truly find someone that your heart feels all-the-way safe with…

And who feels like your forever home…

Nothing that you do outside of a commitment that deep can even begin to touch it.

It isn’t 1+1=2…

It isn’t even 1+1=11…

It’s 1+1=the first time that you stand in the ocean at midnight and discover that bioluminescence exists as hundreds of magical blue lights swirl around your calves.

And to you, reading these words, right now…

I hope that you can come to a place in your life where you can let your heart be so open, and so available… that you get to experience the kind of nourishing intimacy that fills you up beyond anything you’ve ever known before.

It is available. And it is worth it.

Dedicated to your success,

Jordan

Ps. If you enjoyed this article, you’ll also love checking out:

How I Met My Wife

I Had Sex With Over 300 Women, And Then Got Married

I Used To Think That Men Who Got Married Were Idiots

Jordan Gray
About Jordan Gray

Jordan Gray has been a sex and relationship coach for over 15+ years, with his work reaching over 200 million people worldwide. His writing has been featured in Vogue, GQ, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, and countless other publications around the world. When he’s not working with 1-on-1 coaching clients or writing a new article, he’s most likely to be found reading, chopping wood, or spending time with his wife on a little island off the west coast of Canada.

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