Have you ever heard the old saying about beans and a jar and your first year of marriage? The idea is that if you put a bean in a jar every time you have sex during your first year as spouses and then remove a bean every time you have sex following that first year, you'll never run out of beans. Basically? Everyone's ready to get it on during the first year of marriage, but nobody cares to have sex once you're past the honeymoon phase. It perpetuates the myth about sex after marriage and, although it's fun to joke and laugh that everyone's sex drive ends once a ring is on your finger, it's not exactly true.
I get it — married people are busy. Add in kids to the mix and you do lose a lot of hours that were once dedicated to bedroom romps. But that's not where the myth lies when it comes to sex after marriage. The myth you need to banish is the one that suggests sex becomes less important in your relationship, simply because you're married.
According to Redbook, you should emphasize quality over quantity when it comes to sex after marriage. Of course you may have a dry spell here and there. Of course you're tired and the kids are sick and work has been crazy and all you want to do is watch Jimmy Fallon and fall asleep. But that doesn't mean sex has lost its appeal. It just means you have to make the time to enjoy quality sex.
But Huffington Post noted that it's hard to keep that in mind for some people. In a survey, the website found responses from married couples that ran the course from silly to downright sad. Some of the readers claimed married sex was boring, routine, and was better when they were doing some solo pleasuring.
But why? What is it about marriage that makes everyone assume sex is no longer important or worth fighting for? According to Good Housekeeping, 12 percent of all married people don't have sex in at least three months and six percent of married women reported not having sex with their spouse in over a year. Pretty sad to hear, right? Especially when you consider that, as The New York Times noted that, generally couples who aren't having sex in their marriage are pretty unhappy.
The New York Times also reported that most couples who aren't having sex in their marriage can contribute it to one of two things. They either didn't have sex a lot to begin with or there was some major event, like child birth or an affair, that pushed them into the dry spell. Boredom with spouses is also a pretty general theory as to why sex slows down in a marriage.
But sex in marriage matters. In an interview with four married women, Cosmopolitan found that factors like illnesses, stress, travel, and lack of communication can attribute to no sex, causing a difference in the relationship. It makes sense considering Psychology Today noted that sex can create intimacy and vulnerability which is incredibly important to share with your partner.
The running joke about sex after marriage is that it doesn't exist. But it's a myth. Sex after marriage does exist and, in a lot of cases, is thriving and healthy. According to Good Housekeeping, married women are twice as likely to orgasm and one third of married couples are interested in trying bondage and BDSM.
It's easy to get lost under the pressures and responsibilities of life, but by making sex an important, healthy part of your relationship, you can skip out on all of the "honeymoon period" jokes. (Just maybe pick up some sex toys to keep spicing things up.)
