Imagine this: you would love to have sex with your partner five times a week, and yet your partner is fine with once or twice a month.
For many individuals, they don’t have to imagine this scenario – because they live it every day.
Over the years, I have met countless men and women who were stressed out about their sexual desire discrepancy in relation to their partner’s.
Different relationship needs can create challenges, but they don’t have to be deal-breakers.
In this article, whether you are the higher-desire or lower-desired partner, I promise to give you practical tips that you can use to noticeably improve your situation starting today.
‘My Problem Is Worse Than Your Problem!’
Before we dive into the things each partner can do, it is vital that we begin with a sense of compassion and understanding of each partner’s situation.
It would be easy to skip these sections and just think to yourself, ‘Yeah yeah… gimme the action steps!’… but that would be a mistake.
It’s common to be so close to our own problem that we don’t take a moment to honestly consider the entire experience of the other person in its totality.
So whether you are the higher-desire partner or the lower-desire partner, I would recommend reading the following sections in their entirety to make sure you really have a grasp on the inner workings of each of your own internal processes.
Challenges Of Being The Higher Sex Drive Partner
There are dozens of challenges that come along with being the partner with the higher sex drive.
Some of the most common and prominent ones that I hear from my clients about are:
– Feeling under-touched
– Feeling alone
– Feeling needy
– Feeling sad, hurt, or resentful
– Feeling guilty for imposing your higher libido onto your partner and feeling like a nuisance
– Feeling like your physical needs aren’t as much of a priority as you wish they were
– Feeling like you are at the whim of your partner’s day to day levels of arousal
– Anxiety and preoccupation with sex/worrying about when the next time will be
– Wishing that your partner initiated sex more
– Missing the feeling of being desired (as a result of your partner initiating sex more)
Of course, having the higher levels of sexual desire in a relationship doesn’t only bring challenges. We will get into the advantages of being the higher-libido partner momentarily.
Challenges Of Being The Lower Sex Drive Partner
Similarly, there are dozens of challenges that come along with being the partner with the lower sex drive.
Some of the most common and prominent ones that I hear from my clients about are:
– Feeling like they’re letting their partner down
– Feeling pestered / crowded / suffocated
– Feeling resentful of the seemingly constants demands of their energy / touch / attention
– Feeling guilty for not being able to flawlessly meet their partner’s needs
– Feeling like they’re drowning in trying to keep up with all of life’s demands along with their partner’s needs
– Wishing that they had the room (in the absence of being requested to be sexual) to feel their own desire emerge naturally
– Feeling angry
– Feeling like no matter how much they will themselves to show up for their partner’s sexual needs, it’s never enough
– Feeling behind… exhausted… like they are unable to show up for their partner’s bottomless pit of sexual desire
– Feeling frustrated that they need to take time away from their life/hobbies/children to invest so much time and energy into their partner’s needs
Now, it isn’t just challenges that each partner deals with.
There are also advantages to being the higher and lower-desire partner.
And until we make these advantages conscious, they can often be the things that we subconsciously cling to in order to not have things change.
Let’s dig into the benefits of both the higher and the lower-desire partner.
Advantages Of Being The Higher Sex Drive Partner
For the higher sex drive partner… who is often left feeling sex-starved and frustrated… the notion that there could be any advantages might seem like an odd concept.
‘So, what… getting constantly rejected by my significant other is character building or something?’ Not at all.
But the benefits are there, when you take a moment to consider them.
For the partner with the higher sex drive, the most common strategies that they deploy in attempting to shift things are guilt and (subtle or overt) manipulation… and these strategies stem from fear and insecurity.
Because they start investing more and more energy into being afraid that sex is going to dry up and happen less and less… and that they then won’t get to feel validated, loved, and cherished via sexual connection… a part of them starts to panic.
‘Will it be this way forever? Am I going to be in a sexless marriage for life? If I’m this frustrated now, how can I possibly do this for several more decades?’
And how do they manage their fear and insecurity? Usually, with some combination of guilt, manipulation, logic, pouting, over-functioning, or withdrawing.
These maladaptive strategies may get them more sex in the short-term, but it is ultimately at the expense of the relationship’s long-term health.
Because of getting caught in this loop of subtly manipulating their partner for more sex to occur, the person with the higher sex drive is actually in a position to glean a lot of value from what is occurring underneath the surface.
First, if they allow themselves to get curious, they can use the fear and/or insecurity as a catalyst to learn something about themselves, and ultimately grow from it.
Perhaps the higher-desire partner is actually quite abysmal at self-care, and having sex is the only way they know how to connect to their bodies (and so they feel like they are dependent on their partner’s sexual participation in order to feel connected with themselves at all).
Perhaps the higher-desire partner has a yet-to-be-processed abandonment wound from a parental figure who wasn’t an active part of their childhood, and their sexual anxiety is a way that they are trying to feel worthy of love from men/women.
Or maybe the higher-desire partner received a lot of developmental conditioning saying that they are only as lovable and valuable as their sexual conquests… and so they have a lifelong habit of keeping their finger on the pulse of how-much-sex-we-have-equals-how-worthy-of-a-person-I-am.
What the roots look like will always be calibrated to the individual. The point is to get curious, and look under the hood of what is occurring.
If you notice yourself using guilt, emotional withdrawal, or even forcing your partner’s hand and trying to get them to open up to you emotionally (either with non-stop requests for deep conversations, or with requests for therapy), it would be a good time to get curious about your own emotional process, and see what could actually be driving your fears and anxieties.
And another significant advantage of being the higher-desire partner is that you have a major influence over the depth of the sexual intimacy that you share with your partner. We will touch on this point more further on in this article.
Advantages Of Being The Lower Sex Drive Partner
First and foremost, the lower sex drive partner has more control over the sex life as a whole.
Because they have the lower levels of desire, they pretty much get to dictate when sex happens, how sex happens, and how often sex happens.
Not only that, but they also get the benefit of being the partner who (more likely than not) is being pursued. So they both get to feel desired on a regular basis, and they are also spared the anxiety of being the one who has to initiate and face potential rejection.
The partner with the lower desire can also, in a sense, sexually phone it in and not need to put in as much effort. Both effort into masterfully meeting the needs of their partner, but also effort in terms of honestly auditing and prioritizing their own sexual needs. If good enough is good enough… if the lower-desire partner and their significant other are regularly willing to settle for scraps… then they wouldn’t be incentivized to dig in and do the honest work of looking at what it would take to go from functional to thriving.
This becomes a double-edged sword. You could label it as an advantage that the person can trend towards psychological laziness and not need to put in a ton of effort (and low effort saves energy)… but it also equally true that this can quickly become a disadvantage if someone allows themselves to take the easy route too many times… and the relationship suffers in the long-term.
There Will Always Be Some Libido Discrepancy
Because human beings aren’t perfectly-programmable, flawlessly in-sync robots… there is always going to be a higher desire and a lower desire partner.
For some, hearing that there will always be a discrepancy strikes panic into their hearts. ‘We’re just doomed forever then!’
And for others, it brings about a sense of calm.
How validating… how lovely to know that this is not a problem to be definitively solved, but a dichotomy to be managed.
Sexual desire ebbs and flows in seasons… and can commonly be disrupted by stress, illness, child-rearing, and seismic shifts in your extended family systems.
It is also entirely possible that the once-higher-desire partner becomes the lower-desire partner when one of these shifts occur.
We are not static entities. We are constantly-changing, evolving, shifting, complex beings whose needs will shift throughout life.
Now… on to the million dollar question…
What can each partner do to bring their sexual homeostasis to a place that better serves the relationship?
We’ll dive into five things that each partner can do, and then wrap up with a few things that both partners can focus on together.
Things That The Higher Sex Drive Partner Can Do
There are many things that the higher sex drive partner can do to manage, harness, and utilize their increased levels of energy. Both for benefits in their own life, and in ways that ultimately serve the relationship.
Try any or all of the following (especially the ones that sound more confronting, or that you’d prefer to avoid) and watch your relationship transform faster than you thought possible.
1. Notice if your life is full enough
One common reason that someone has an excess of sexual desire is that they simply have too much time on their hands, and they’re not effectively putting their energy into their life.
It could be that you no longer feel challenged in your career… or that your kids have all moved out and you no longer have people to care for… or that ever since you ran your last marathon, you no longer have a point of focus to pour yourself into.
If you have too much time to rest and ruminate, this could be one factor in why you have so much sexual energy that just wants to find an outlet.
2. Notice if your life is too full
On the other side of that same coin, some people pack their lives so full and are in such a prolonged habit of deprioritizing their self-care, that sex becomes their primary (or even sole) means of stress release.
In situations like these, the task becomes to remove the pressure from your parter of them being your exclusive energetic runaway lane, and to find alternate ways of de-stressing. This could look like going for solo nature walks, to the gym, or to any other hobby that registers to your body as restful, restorative, or fun.
3. Notice how much time you spend connecting with close friends/family/adult peers
One of the main things that we get from sex is a sense of connection. Both to ourselves and to others.
For some people with higher sex drives, the excess energy is rooted in the fact that they don’t have a diversified set of people that they get their social needs met through.
The solution? Invest more deeply into your friendships.
Regularly spend time catching up with close, safe, trusted confidantes, and you may notice the intensity of your libido soften and ground down as you get your deeper social needs met.
4. Audit how much you are using your creative energy in your life
Sexual energy comes from the same wellspring as creative energy. They are one and the same.
So something for the higher desire partner to feel into is… are you using your creative energy effectively (or at all) in your life?
When was the last time you created something? Made something with your hands? Spent time crafting, writing, or making art?
If you have a creative outlet that you have been neglecting for years… or one that you have been curious to dig into… let this be your reminder.
Make a plan, and take action on it. Your artist heart deserves to be expressed.
5. Audit how much you move/use your body
Another need that sex can meet in a roundabout way is affording us a sense of connection to our own bodies.
The average modern American only takes about 3,000 steps per day… which is far from optimal.
If you, like many millions of others, can sometimes feel like you are just a walking brain with legs and hands… with little to no connection to your body to speak of on a daily basis… then that would be something to put some attention on.
Regularly having some form of movement practice is a fantastic way to healthfully spread out our sexual energy.
This could be going for a daily walk, going to the gym, dancing around your living room, having a favourite sport that you engage in with friends, or a morning stretching routine. Anything that reminds you that you are not just a head, but a whole body, will be supportive to your process.
6. Self-pleasure more often
Now, this point is only for some of the higher-desire partners.
For some, they are overly used to self-pleasuring, and they are more than well acquainted with their own hands, thank-you-very-much! For those people, this point isn’t for you.
But to the higher sex drive partners who have a resistance to self-pleasure (more commonly known as masturbation) and feel like it’s sad or somehow less-than if they take matters into their own hands, on occasion, this point is for you.
It is totally understandable that you want to sexually connect with your partner. There’s even something beautiful about wanting the majority of your sexual encounters to be partnered instead of solo.
And… if there is any story that your mind is running about how you can/should only get your sexual needs met through your partner (and never just with yourself) then that could have a high likelihood of putting a lot of stress on your partner, and have adverse effects on your sex life, and relationship.
So if you haven’t had a self-pleasure date in a while, it could be worth making a priority.
Inform your partner (not from a place of manipulation or guilt-tripping… simply so that, if they’re home, they give you space), lock the bedroom door, gather your favourite lotions, oils, lubes, toys, and anything else you have that helps you explore yourself, and make it happen.
For some couples, even having a ratio if 30% self-pleasure and 70% partnered sex can take a huge amount of stress off of the lower desire partner. As always, discuss with your partner, and go from there.
7. Acknowledge what you make sex mean
One of (if not the) most common reason that higher desire partners feel anxious about their lack of sex is that they haven’t taken the time to fully notice what sex means to them.
Yes, touching is nice, and orgasms are great. There’s no big debate or mystery there.
But if you have added layers of meaning onto your partnered sex that you’re not yet aware of, this could unknowingly be adding a ton of pressure onto your partner about the secondary meets that you are both inadvertently trying to meet for you.
For example…
Does having a sense of consistent sexual access to your partner mean that you are worthy? Loveable? Worthwhile? Not going to be abandoned? Definitely aren’t being cheated on? Have a better relationship than your loser friend/sibling/boss/high school bully?
Take a moment to feel into what layers of meaning you may add on to sex, and if that added meaning could be putting unnecessary stress on the relationship.
Once you’re in touch with what those deeper needs actually are, you will then be in a position to brainstorm alternative ways to get those needs met in a more direct and nourishing way.
8. Ensure that you are making your partnered sex as nourishing for your significant other as possible
Now, I’ll name up front that this would be an easy thing for the ego-mind to co-opt and turn sour with its neediness.
I am not saying ‘If you give your partner perfect sex and make it amazingly mind-blowing for them every time then they’ll finally start initiating sex with you as often as you want it!’ Because that would just become its own manipulation, and people don’t respond well to manipulation. If anything, it shuts them down more.
This point is more about counteracting the tendency that some couples have to slide lazily into barely-getting-by, settling-for-scraps lovemaking that is almost exclusively calibrated to the higher-desire partner’s sexual needs.
If the lower desire partner is always just going along with things to get the nagging, persistent monkey off of their backs, then they will just grow to resent their partnered sex more and more over time.
So…. to you, the higher sex drive partner… make sure that you are aware of, and continually prioritize your partner’s peak arousal states in any ways that you can, so that your partnered sex continues to be mutually satisfying.
9. When you do have sex, make sure that you’re actually letting it in
This one might sound strange to some off the bat… but stay with me for a second.
If you are the higher-desire partner, it’s important to note that in the times when you are being sexual with your partner, if your mind is pre-occupied with thoughts of ‘Finally… we’re having sex. I hope it isn’t another several weeks until the next time…’, then you aren’t actually allowing the sex that you’re having to register in your body and heart.
This subconscious grippiness would be felt by any receiving partner, and would more likely make your partner feel less than ideal.
So when you are engaging in any partnered sex act with your significant other, slow down. Breathe. Actually soften your body and allow in the nourishment of what is taking place. By being present with what is occurring, you not only make the experience more enjoyable for your partner… but you also reduce the fear and anxiety of the grippy part in you that grasps for regular sex from a false place.
Things That The Lower Sex Drive Partner Can Do
To put it as succinctly as possible, I would say that the majority of the things that the lower desire partner can do come down to: self-care, and communication.
The better you take care of yourself so that you have usable bandwidth to be sexual with, and the more you communicate with your partner, the better off you’ll both be.
Alright, let’s dig into the actionable nitty-gritty.
1. Experiment with self-pleasuring more or less
Depending on your unique situation, you will likely benefit from either engaging in a self-pleasuring practice more, or less.
For example, if a man self-pleasures often but has minimal leftover desire to be sexual with his partner, he would be well-served by drastically decreasing the amount that he self-pleasures and holding on to more of his sexual energy to be expressed with his partner.
In another example, if a woman is the lower desire partner in her relationship and she seldom (if ever) self-pleasures, then her growth edge would be to start self-pleasuring more often and bringing her metaphorical water closer to a boiling point so that she would be in a position where she would be more likely to want to engage sexually on a more regular basis.
So depending on the specifics of your situation, either storing up more sexual energy by self-pleasuring more often, or keeping yourself more warmed up on a daily basis by leaning into more sexual self-expression could be a vital step in you being able to happily step up to the sexual plate more often with your partner.
2. Prioritize the fundamentals of your health, and address stressors
As I always say, horny equals healthy. Regardless of age or gender, it’s always good to check in on how you’re doing on the fundamentals of health.
Are you routinely getting 7-9 hours of quality sleep per night? Are you adequately hydrated? Are you eating a steady diet of nutrient-dense, bioavailable foods… and meeting your actual caloric needs on a daily basis? Are you moving your body, breathing fresh air, and connecting socially with loved ones?
Even slipping on one of these (getting consistently poor sleep… under-eating as a default habit, etc.) can have a rapidly negative effect on your available levels of sexual desire. So the next time you feel like you’re not in the mood for sex, take a moment to audit whether or not you’re eating, sleeping, drinking, and moving enough.
You certainly wouldn’t be the first person who identified a potential issue, and then took a nap, went for a walk, ate a big meal… and then found themselves astonishingly more desiring of sexual intimacy with their partner.
And beyond the fundamentals of your health…
Sometimes a significant block to having a healthy sex drive is major stressors that have yet to be adequately addressed.
Yes, getting your baseline needs met is a piece of it, but nutrient depletion might be part of it. Lowered metabolism, hormonal issues, feeling overwhelmed with life, past trauma that hasn’t been addressed (sexual or otherwise), environmental stress, grief, and really anything. We can move so quickly through life and never feel like we have adequate time to slow down and simply digest what we have experienced. Obviously, easier said than done. But less this be a permission slip to you to put some attention on any deeper things that may want you to be with them in a new way. Identify and shift the stressor, and, in time, you will feel like a whole new you again.
3. Identify and prioritize your deeper needs
Sometimes the reason you don’t have any bandwidth for partnered sex is because there’s some deeper itch that needs to be scratched. At times, that need is glaringly obvious… and other times it lies just outside of your conscious awareness.
Ask yourself the question…
‘For me to easily and happily be sexual as often as my partner would ideally want to… what do I need in order for that to happen?’
Perhaps there’s an old hurt from an unresolved argument that happened days/weeks/month ago that has yet to be resolved in a way that has you feel totally open or safe.
Or maybe you’ve been drowning in raising the kids for the last several years and you need to call in more outside support so that you can feel yourself and get back to a place of honest, abundant overflow again.
Whatever the deeper needs are, they are worthy of your attention and prioritization.
Once you’ve identified those needs, give them your attention, and also name them to your partner so that they can do their best to support you in getting your needs met as well.
4. Give yourself ample alone time, and take space from your partner
Most one of the most common reasons (that I personally hear of from my clients) as to why their desire is lower than their partner’s, is that they simply don’t get enough time to themselves or away from their partner in order to feel their desire grow.
Especially in modern times, when so many people work remotely, work from home, work for themselves, or even work in the same company as their partner… the ability many of us have to spend a lot of (aka way too much) time with our partners is, in some ways, unprecedented.
So if one reason that it’s hard for you to feel much desire for partnered sex is just the sheer volume of time that you spend around each other, make it a consistent priority to spend time apart. Have separate hobbies. Have separate friends. Have your own life, so that you can feel yourself independently from your partner, and watch as the organic desire has the spaciousness to emerge once more.
5. Identify your most predictable turn-on’s, and provide your partner with the cheat sheet
One of the most relationship honouring things you can do is identifying exactly what it is that most predictably turns you on, and then explicitly informing your partner as to what those things are.
The benefits of this practice are three-fold…
First, most people have never actually taken the time to explicitly identify exactly what it is that most does it for them, so the growth in self-awareness is of benefit.
Next, your parter doesn’t have to do any guesswork because they know (with a reasonably high probability) what it is that will help you get in the mood when you’re looking for a helping hand.
And finally, you get to have your needs met with more ease and regularity, without having to name those needs each time.
As for the things that you write on your list, I would recommend two types of things to write down.
First you should write down needs that are your holistic, contextual prerequisites. In other words, what conditions need to be in place so that you have a higher probability of being desirous of sex. For instance, you could write things like ‘give me 6 hours of uninterrupted alone time’, ‘make sure the dishes and laundry are all done’, or ‘support me in going to the spa and getting a massage.’
And secondarily, you should write action-based things that are more foreplay and/or in-the-moment type needs. As in, ‘touch this part of my body in this way for X amount of time, and I’ll almost always get super turned on’, or ‘massage my neck and shoulders for a few minutes without making it sexual at all to begin with.’
This is something that my wife did for me early on in our relationship and it has continued to pay massive dividends for us. Any time there’s a stretch of time where my sexual desire seems to consistently be outpacing hers, I simply re-read the list that she wrote for me (which I have in a Google doc, so I can access it no matter where I am in the world) and start taking action on the things that she needs in order to feel more sexual.
This strategy is deceptively simple. If you only followed this one tip, it would move a ton of energy for you in your relationship.
6. Communicate your love, and support them in their deeper needs
If you know that your partner partially values sex because of some deeper need that it hits for them, ensure that you are also meeting that need in a variety of ways.
For example, if you know that your partner feels loved, accepted, or safe in being sexual with you, you could experiment with increasing the number of compliments and acts of service that you provide them with that also speak to that same core need.
Or if your partner is looking for more of an ongoing sense of connection, perhaps you schedule a weekly date night so that you and your partner can spend more quality time outside of the bedroom as well.
Whatever their deeper needs are (that you know they also get met through sex), put some attention on creatively meeting those needs from a multitude of angles, and see how your relationship deepens as a result.
7. Identify what alternative sexual connection you can engage in as a regular baseline minimum
Another common reason that one person is consistently the lower desire partner and the other is the higher desire one, is that their default, agreed upon sexual script sets the bar too high.
For example, if the only acceptable form of sexual connection is prolonged, penetrative, penis-in-vagina sex, and one partner simply doesn’t have that in them on a regular basis, then the default sex will be no sex.
One way to shift this pattern is to decrease the action threshold by getting a bit more nuanced in your shared relationship to sexual connection.
So maybe you aren’t available for vaginal penetration, but you would be happy to engage in a simpler, quicker, less involved form of partnered sex.
Some examples would be, ‘I don’t feel in the mood for full sex right now… but I would be happy to make out with you while you self-pleasure’, or ‘I’ve had a really long day and want to get to sleep quickly, but I can offer you a few minutes of oral sex if you think you would be able to orgasm with that.’
Whatever the alternative option is, it can also be highly beneficial to have a pre-established baseline that you have both agreed upon will be the ‘even when I’m at my most tired, I’ll still be able to offer you _____ 95+% of the time.’ Obviously consent and mutually willing participation matter a lot. And, having this explicitly named baseline practice can do wonders for the higher-desire partner when they know what they can more regularly come to assume could be on the table as an option.
The two things that will make this agreed upon baseline habit the most sustainable is how low the difficulty is for the low-desire partner, and how nourishing the act is for the higher-desire partner.
And remember… as an added side benefit… the more often you engage in something sexual with your partner, the greater your sexual desire will often become.
Things That Both Partners Can Do
Alright, now we’re in the home stretch!
We’ve gone over the pros and cons of each position… and what each partner can focus on to have the greatest impact in their own individual lives.
Now, we’ll touch on a few things that both partners can take responsibility for in order to serve the relationship the most.
1. Stay in communication about your needs
It is up to both partners to stay on top of communication about your sexual needs.
Again, there will inevitably be ebbs and flows in the different seasons of your partnered sex life. And the more both parties do away with any and all instances of attempted mind-reading, and simply communicate directly, the better.
With honesty, clarity, willingness, and a high degree of self-responsibility, any two people can make a sex life thrive.
2. Make self-care a consistent priority
Self-care is a prerequisite of a mutually nourishing sex life.
If one or both people are constantly depleted, it will be next to impossible to sync up sexually.
Ensure that you’re doing your best to take care of your own holistic needs, and do your best to support your partner in making sure that they have the space to get their needs met as well.
3. Drop the action threshold
I mentioned this briefly above, but it bears repeating.
One of the most common reasons that partnered sex happens less often than some people like, is because the level of the ask is too high and requires too much energy.
If you’re at the end of a long day of work, raising kids, and various life duties… and if, as soon as your head hits the pillow, someone asks you to engage in a multi-hour sex romp, the answer will almost always be ‘No’. But if the ask is small, manageable, and doesn’t require an inordinate amount of your time or energy, then it has a far higher probability of taking place.
Have a dedicated conversation where you each identify what your minimal effective dose of partnered sex looks like, and then do your best to uphold that default option as often as you can (ideally upwards of 80%). And again, if that seems too daunting of a task, then see if you can make the act even simpler and easier. You’re aiming for minimal exertion for the lower desire partner, and maximal nourishment for the higher desire partner.
It’s also important to note that the aforementioned strategy is like eating a power bar versus eating a gourmet, five-course meal. Yes, it provides sustenance and will be nourishing the the higher-desire partner. And this shouldn’t be used as a way to avoid giving deep nourishment to the lower-desire partner. Sometimes you can have shorter sex or sexual things as a baseline and way to get the higher desire partners needs met, but also, it is deeply important for the pleasure of both people to ever have long, slow, nourishing sex and have that really fill you both up. This will fill the cup of the higher desire partner and it will also make the lower desire partner want sex more.
4. Mutually prioritize the deeper needs
Both the higher desire partner and the lower desire partner have deeper needs that need consistent prioritization.
This will vary from couple to couple, but they are there nonetheless.
The higher desire partner might need to prioritize more social connection, use of their body, and artistic expression. And their lower desire partner might need to consistently prioritize more alone time, sleep, self-pleasure, and eating enough.
Whatever you both need, take some time to identify it, name it to each other, prioritize it, and support each other in meeting those needs.
5. Agree on a cadence, and then schedule it
Once you’ve both done all of the work of patching up the cracks in the foundation and you’re both feeling more holistically nourished… then it can be time to agreeing on a sexual cadence that honestly works for both of you, and scheduling it in a shared calendar.
For some couples, in the season that they’re in, once per week would be mutually beneficial. For others, 3-5 times a week might do the trick.
There is no correct answer, there is simply the answer that is honestly workable for the two of you.
Some might balk at the notion of scheduled sex… and I would counter that I don’t know if there’s a more loving thing people could do than to schedule time to be intentionally loving towards one another.
We’re not in high school anymore. The majority of our wildly spontaneous sex (which in itself is largely an illusion) is likely behind us. In adulthood, responsibilities fight for our calendars and we have to intentionally carve out time and space to make physical intimacy a shared priority.
At a certain point, a resistance to scheduling sex is generally an avoidance of some deeper thing that one or both parties don’t want to face, admit, or discuss.
And… here’s a super powerful bonus point for any couple where one person likes being surprised (or one person dislikes thinking they’re going to have sex and then having the offer be rescinded). Have the lower-desire partner be the one who is responsible for ensuring that something sexual happens X number of times per week, but they get to spring it on their higher-desire partner as they please. That way, the higher-desire partner gets regular sex and gets to be surprised by when it happens… the lower-desire partner gets to feel in control of the timing and pacing… and both parties get what they want. Hooray!
So… want a nourishing, reciprocal, mutually beneficial sex life… while juggling your busy lives? Then it goes in the calendar, and is treated as sacred.
Sex Drive Discrepancy Is Inevitable – Dance With It
Again… differences in day to day sex drive are completely inevitable. The best thing we can do is learn to dance with it.
Just as the weather changes, so too do our individual levels of libido. Sometimes you need to bundle up and wear layers… other times you need to put on rain boots and go jump in puddles.
With patience, compassion, understanding, communication, and an ongoing commitment to self-revelation, any couple can weather the inevitable storms and make their sex life mutually thrive.
And if you’re a man looking to decrease sexual anxiety and boost feelings of self-connection and sexual mastery, you can check out my video course Supercharge Your Sex Life (a program that over 15,000 men from all around the world have benefitted from).
Dedicated to your success,
Jordan
Ps. If you enjoyed this article, you will also love checking out:
– How To Figure Out What Your Ideal Sex Life Looks Like
– The Spoiling Session: The Best Sexual Exercise For Couples
– 5 Questions To Ask Your Partner For Better Sex
– 33 Ways For Men To Have Amazing Sex Without An Erection
