Everyone’s guilty of wanting to know the answer to these questions. Just how long is too long without sex? What can be done to help a relationship if it’s too long? Is it a new phenomenon?
How long is too long without sex?
The Archives of Sexual Behavior studied over 26,000 Americans. The participants reported having sex 54 times a year which when averaged becomes approximately once a week each year. A similar study was conducted in 1990 with the current reports finding out that current sexual interactions between couples is 9 interactions lower than the 1990 study. The participants weren’t exclusive to being married couples and included people who were married, single, dating and cohabiting.
The researchers also found that the average for married couples was slightly lower at about 51 sexual encounters a year or less than once a week.
Are Sexless Marriages Becoming More Common?
One theory about sexless marriages is that it sounds more common because we hear more about it now. Birth control has progressed a lot which allows couples to enjoy casual sex more often. Sexless marriages used to be a way of limiting the size of a family. Women also used to use sex as a bargaining chip in their marriage and weren’t supposed to enjoy sex. Unhappy couples were also much more likely to stay together because of expectations from society or because of their children. It was a very different world back then and all of these reasons likely contributed to sexless marriages in olden days.
What Can Be Done To Help Save A Relationship If It’s Been Too Long?
The area which sees the most success is therapy. Seeing a therapist for marriage counseling is a good place to start. Marriage counselors are trained to help you both find the issue or issues with your marriage or sex lives and find a solution you both can be happy with. If you’re looking for a recommendation, there’s a great place called Collaborative Therapeutic Services in Tampa, Florida which has received rave reviews. That would be a great place to start. Therapy might look like it doesn’t work from the outside but if you care about your marriage you should at least give it a try. Many relationships have been saved by counseling because both partners recognized that they had a problem and were willing to find a solution together.
Reasons you could be having less sex include falling out of love with your partner, constant fighting or it could be a symptom of a much bigger problem. Sometimes the problem is simply parenthood, being busy, being sick, identifying as asexual, etc. While these might seem like quite tiny problems, it is important to know about them so that you can take steps to correct these tiny problems so that they do not turn into larger problems in the future.
Collaborative Therapeutic Services (CTS) seeks to maximize clients’ options by offering a variety of services, hours, and service providers with diverse specializations. We offer evening & weekend appointments. Have questions? Contact Us Here or Call 813-951-7346. Located in Tampa, Florida.