Continued from Page 2Come to Terms
“I’m scoring like a third-rate British soccer team -- once every fifth Sunday.”
--Peter, married 10 years, 3 kids.
How do you reconcile one person’s desire for sex every other day with another’s desire for it every other month? Most couples who’d run some of the numbers together told us they’d had a little tête-a-tête (the polite term for banging their heads together) about how often they would generally try to do it. They’d figured out a happy medium they could both live with.
“I still think about sex all the time, and I wish we could do it more than we do, but at least I no longer have that nagging sense of dread not knowing when the next time will be, or getting shot down three times in a row. And my wife likes it better than when I was pestering her all the time.”
--Greg, married 7 years, 2 kids.
Based on our extensive conversations on the subject, we’ve concluded that
sex about once a week is required for basic marriage maintenance. Experience has taught us that anything less than that leads to maintenance problems. Things are going to break down. One day you have a sweet, obliging husband, the next he storms out of the house when you ask him to take a look at the water heater. Some men get plain bitchy and would give any premenstrual woman a run for her money. If the “long dry spell” continues, a man who feels he’s been relegated to the bottom of the family totem pole will start to invest time and energy in other things: work, the golf course, the gym, beers with his buddies. And if the drought continues: the Internet, strip clubs … other women.
But guys by the same token give your wife a break, would ya? Cut her some slack if you can see she’s in a “state” or too tired to get undressed before she collapses into bed. Just let it be at the particular time. Even if she promised you’d do it tonight after she said she was too tired last night. Don’t pressure her with the threat of the Hourglass Effect. If, on the whole, she’s making an effort to meet your needs, don’t start tapping your foot and glancing at your watch (or looking elsewhere) the minute you get turned down.
Solutions for Women
“I always thought my husband’s desire for sex was pretty extreme. I thought he was way out of line. But now I’m learning he’s not any different from any other guy.”
--Victoria, married 5 years, 2 kids.
When it comes to sex, women have been in the driver’s seat most of their lives. For all the years a woman is single she determines who she will sleep with, when she will sleep with him, and for how long. If she doesn’t want to do it, that’s that. If she thinks a guy’s demands for sex are too high, she can just politely deposit him by the side of the road and move on. We aren’t used to guys having much of a say, much less getting an actual vote, on the matter. Now that we’re married, though, we asked ourselves, “DO our husbands a vote?” Is it really “part of the deal” like Larry described it? After hearing what all those guys told us in the preceding section, we at least decided to consider their point of view.
“We have a pretty predictable pattern at this point. If it has been too long, more than a week, he starts to get cranky and a little mean and I realize he needs sex. Every time I swear not to let it get to this point, but what can I say?”
--Samantha, married 7 years, 2 kids.
Excerpted from 'Babyproofing Your Marriage' by Stacie Cockrell, Cathy O'Neill & Julia Stone. Copyright© 2007 by Stacie Cockrell, Cathy O'Neill & Julia Stone. Excerpted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
