If you’ve been with your partner for 12-20 + years & have kids
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Anonymous
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How successful have you been at keeping the spark/“in love” feeling alive and not feeling like roommates or business partners who happen to have sex once a week?
What are your tips for this? Also, do you have any podcast recommendations? |
Anonymous
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We have sex once a week. She has a stressful job and we have 3 kids.
It's usually very exciting. When life gets less stressful, we have more sex. She'd probably put out more often if I told her I really needed it, but I'd rather wait for when she's really into it. We had to have MANY conversations to get here. We had ups and downs like anyone else. |
Anonymous
| There's more than a spark which bonds people. It's the shared history, love, patience and understanding which has kept us together and feeling "in love" for 29 years. There are going to be times where things are mundane. That's life. It passes, though, and you find your way back. We, at a minimum, hug, kiss and say I love you every day no matter what. |
Anonymous
| Married 17 years. Just reading your question caused me to howl. Thanks for a big belly laugh. Spark? It took more than a decade to get to the point where we didn't have a conflagration every 48 hours. When you have sex infrequently, despite the physical ability of both partners, all the other things you do share bring you together like brother and sister or dear colleagues, not lovers. Tha |
Anonymous
| Until COVID, we were doing well. But this is just a grind. |
Anonymous
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We've been together about 15 years
I think the key is that we appreciate each other and express that, and we keep doing things for each other and that's key - both doing things that make each other's lives easier and doing things we know the other person likes with our bodies/clothes/etc. So this morning for example, DH was wearing a lavender t-shirt I've told him he looks good in, and was cutting up a melon I'd said yesterday I planned to cut up today. |
Anonymous
| Staying kind and staying respectful. Don't behave petty or like sniping teens. |
Anonymous
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Together for 12, married for 8, 2 kids (3 and 1). I'm hesitant to give marriage advice because lots of people are married this long and still get divorced. But I will say, we still have awesome sex and have a lot of fun together. Maybe it's just chemistry? Maybe some other things that contribute (but I don't really know): kids both in own rooms. They go to bed early and the baby is asleep reliable until at least midnight. We're both in good shape. No money worries/fights. We communicate. He does a lot around the house/with kids.
I would ask you, too, what kind of birth control are you on? I had the implant for about 6 months and it KILLED my sex drive/interest in my husband. Once I got off it, we were back to our old selves. |
Anonymous
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OP here. We have sex 1-2 a week, which I wouldn't say is infrequent for being together for 20 years and having 3 kids.
The thing is, I often feel like we are more like "business partners"/best friends than we are lovers, if you know what I mean? I listen to the podcast Girls Gotta Eat a lot. The hosts are in their thirties and they talk about sex and relationships. They mostly focus on the dating end of relationships but the way they talk about it often makes me miss that period of life. They're always talking about how they want someone to "excite" them every day and "light them up." We have sex because it feels good and there is an expectation that you need to be having sex at least once a week in order to have a strong marriage. But it's not like either of us is really dying to rip the other's clothes off anymore. He gets in that mood more often than me but it's not a daily thing for him either anymore. Idk. We love each other and we love our family. We're comfortable together. We trust and respect each other. We talk a lot and remember to verbally appreciate small acts of kindness. But I wouldn't say he excites me anymore. I don't think we're doing a good job of keeping the "spark" alive. We have really great sex but in between we're more like business partners dealing with our joint project which is our house and family. Does anyone else relate to this? I feel like we're doing something wrong. |
Anonymous
This is how we feel after a day of conference calls and kid wrangling. I'm sure it's almost universal. Date nights help. Getaways help. Of course those are pretty damn hard right now. What about putting sex on the calendar and sexting throughout the day? Or if you're both home anyway, make out for a minute a few times a day. Hopefully you'll both still be exciting after kid bedtime. |
Anonymous
| Marriages vary. Sex once a week isn’t a must for every couple. Some have lots more, some have a lot less. Do what is right for you guys and don’t use a formula. |
Anonymous
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I think what you describe is normal and even the best case scenario for most long marriages.
Best friends who occasionally have sex. |
Anonymous
| I've been married 25 years and have 3 kids. We haven't had PIV in at least 4 years because DH has ED that hasn't responded to any medications. Yet, we still have a great marriage despite what sexual intimacy brings. As PPs have said, we're respectful, communicative and make an effort to appreciate each other. I really like my DH. |
Anonymous
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I love how, when this female OP writes that they make sure to have sex 1-2 a week, people write in saying “sex isn’t everything.”
Whereas if a man wrote this, saying he was hoping for his wife to get to this frequency, people would be telling him to “open the marriage.” Such a mixed message depending on if the op is male or female. |
Anonymous
| I don’t know that we still have a spark, but we are very good at sex at this point after 20 years! |