First and foremost, sex tends to stop in a relationship because it cannot constantly be spontaneous. The excitement of the early days when a couple first meets gives a force to sexual desire which is often dulled by living in close proximity for any length of time. While sex may be very rewarding, it is easy to avoid engaging in sexual activity with your partner if you are not feeling a sense of high desire or spontaneous sexual excitement. In such cases, a conscious decision to initiate sex is always harder than falling into a spontaneous bout of lovemaking propelled by high sexual desire. So let's begin by looking at some of the common reasons why people find they stop having set in a relationship. The truth is, of course, that there are a million and one reasons why sex stops happening in a relationship.

For one thing, in many couples the man and woman have an unequal level of sexual desire. While this need not be a problem, difficulties can arise if the man sees sex as his entitlement or as a way to satisfy his needs without giving much consideration to his partner's needs.  His partner may feel that she is simply being used when it comes to sex, and begin to resent it. When this happens, trouble lies ahead, because sex may become a symbol of power, a weapon in the relationship: on her part it serves to assert herself, to get power over her man; on his part, sex may be something that simply fulfils his biological needs, divorced from seduction or romance in the relationship, and he may get grumpy or angry if he does not get it as often as he thinks he "should".

And sadly, it's often true that men do see sex as a need which can be satisfied by a routine, mechanical bout of lovemaking once every few days.  It's hardly surprising, in this situation, that women come to resent their partner's expectation of sex, and may withhold it. Even in these days of supposed liberation, it is almost always the woman who determines the frequency of sex in a relationship.

Many of us have come to believe in sexual stereotypes which suggest that women "need" love, romance and seduction to be sexual, while men need sex to make them romantic and loving.  However, there is plenty of evidence that men enjoy the softer, more sensual, more romantic side of sex just as much as women do, with or without intercourse and/or orgasm.  The basic problem is that when couples get into polarized thinking, the emotional issues lying behind sex - such as anger, unexpressed resentment, and fear of rejection - become so important that the very act of initiating sex can be inhibited. Then neither the man nor the woman suggests sex, and it gradually becomes less frequent.

One major problem is that we fear so many sexual issues. We fear the rejection of our partner when we ask for sex.  We fear not being able to perform (whatever that means for you).  We fear our partner will not want to have sex.  Men fear the loss of their erection.  Women fear not being aroused or not reaching orgasm. All of these fears, and thousands more, can stand in the way of a couple actually making the first step of asking for, of initiating, sex. And since no one in a long-term relationship could reasonably expect sex to be spontaneous all the time, if initiation does not happen, then sex will not happen either.

The problem is we're reluctant to admit to ourselves that we don't initiate sex because of our fears and anxiety; instead we make excuses for not having sex, for not initiating sex: I'm too tired; there isn't time; we did it last week; she won't want it; I might not be able to get it up; I've got to get up early tomorrow morning; I just don't feel in the mood. And so on, and on, and on.....we shall examine the excuses that people offer in more detail in a moment.

But, there are plenty of other reasons why sex stops happening. (And, incidentally, plenty why it should not.)

We have all heard of the so-called incest taboo; that is to say, a mechanism that prevents us from feeling sexual desire for those around us as we grow up. In the natural order of things, brothers and sisters do not feel sexual attraction to each other. Neither do parents towards children (at least, not in a psychological healthy family). What may be less obvious is the fact that when a couple get together and form a family unit of their own they are to some degree recreating an environment in which the expression of sex can be inhibited. In other words, what has been termed "family sex" may be incompatible with "sexual love", even between a consenting adult couple. An interesting example of this would be a man who becomes impotent after his wife gives birth: something is being activated about the incest taboo between mother and son. While this may seem far-fetched, think about it for a moment: when a wife or partner becomes a mother, her behavior and attitudes change. They may change sufficiently that her partner or spouse regresses psychologically, consciously or unconsciously, to a degree that makes him less attracted to her - just as he would have felt towards his mother.

Furthermore, how many of us as children really believed that our mothers and fathers had sex? This reasoning is very necessary for a child because it avoids a sense of exclusion from the relationship between mother and father. The child's natural narcissistic thinking cannot cope with the belief that the relationship between his or her parents could be more important than their relationship with the child. You may well remember the shock that you felt when you discovered that it was actually natural for your parents to have sex! But in the context of consenting adults in an adult relationship, you may ask, surely there is permission to have sex, not any kind of psychological restriction on it? Well, possibly, but remember also that when we enter into a committed relationship we are in a sense becoming mother and father ourselves, and whether we like it or not that tends to re-invoke memories of how our own mother and father were sexual, or at least how we perceived to them to be sexual. Whether or not this resonates with you, there is plenty of evidence that this mechanism is indeed work. The prime example of this is the fact that so many couples experience the death of their sex lives when they get married. There are several myths that support this change in our sexual behavior. One of them is that the ceremony of commitment, or even just "moving in" together, represents some kind of transition to a stage of life where sex always has to be an expression of love. Unfortunately there are many reasons in a relationship why love is not something that can constantly be expressed during, or though the mechanism of, sex: these include anger, resentment, frustration, disappointment, our needs not being met, the demands of everyday life, financial stress, loss of freedom, real or supposed, demands of the children, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Of course these transitions - from seeing our partner as a sexual partner to a family partner, now a little bit of mum or dad (or even brother or sister) -  do not have to happen. The problem is that we are psychologically primed for them to do so, and it takes effort on our part to reverse them. If you believe that you are seeing your parent(s) in your partner, and therefore not feeling sexually attracted to them, we shall offer suggestions as to how to deal with this later on. This phenomenon of projecting characteristics of your parents onto your partner is called transference and is a very predominant reason why people begin to have less sex. After all, you wouldn't have sex with your mother or father,  would you?

Psychological waters, like a still river, run deep. And for those of us who have a conscious or unconscious belief that sex is for reproduction, for making babies, the fear of pregnancy can be a force that overcomes sexual desire, sexual excitement and spontaneity rather quickly. Nothing can inhibit sexual desire more than the thought of an unwanted child and all that comes with it. But you may say, surely contraception has removed the danger of unwanted pregnancy? Yes, in theory. But in practice there seem to be many couples who express guilt or fear around sex through issues with contraception. A key idea here, perhaps, is the idea that sex is for reproduction and not pleasure, therefore if one enjoys sex for its own sake, one must feel guilty. Developing a fear of pregnancy may be a more acceptable route to avoiding sex than admitting that one feels guilty about indulging oneself simply for sexual pleasure.

It is also conceivable that when people complain about contraception - for example the mess of inserting a diaphragm, or the loss of erection that follows the unwrapping of the condom packet - they are simply expressing their sexual hang-ups or conflicts about the purpose of sex within their relationship. If you're a man who has had problems with loss of erection when he puts on a condom, or a woman who has experienced the mess of spermicidal gel in the middle of foreplay, you may find it difficult to believe the proposition that the real issue you're dealing with is about the purpose of sex. But consider that you can put in a diaphragm is several hours before sex, or that putting on a condom to an erect penis can be sexually arousing and exciting act, and then ask yourself why contraception has become a big deal for you rather than an exciting part of foreplay or a simple task to be done some hours before you make love?

The less common but still frequent converse is the woman who can only enjoy orgasm when she thinks there is a chance of getting pregnant. In essence once again the problem here is that there is confusion about the purpose of sex: is sex for recreation or is sex for reproduction? Getting over this issue may be as simple as giving yourself permission to enjoy sex for sex's sake, but we will look at what you can do to make this easier in a later section. And we will also examine ways that you can incorporate contraception into your lovemaking without losing an erection or losing the flow.

One of the most pernicious reasons why sex slows down is a myth that sex becomes less frequent as a couple grow older. Yet the main reason why men and women around middle age have less sex is that they believe middle aged people have less sex! The reality is that when a woman goes through the menopause she has the freedom to enjoy sex without worrying about pregnancy or contraception; she has the maturity to know her body well and to reach orgasm more easily; and, if the children have left home, she probably also has the time and energy to enjoy sex more often. 

For a man in middle age it is true that his erection may be less firm or less frequent, and sexual desire can be lower.  Low testosterone affects rather more men in mid-life than has been generally recognized: you can read about the effects of this male "andropause" here. Even so, these problems can be dealt with, and the reality is that the only reason why a couple would have less sex just because they were middle-aged is that they believe middle-aged couples have less sex. One practical benefit of age is that when a man's sexual desire decreases in middle age, the time it takes him to become fully aroused gets longer, so the length of time for which he can make love (in the sense of the time between vaginal penetration and thrusting to orgasm and ejaculation) increases....and that sounds like a recipe for sexual happiness! 

What else? Well, good communication in a relationship is an art that takes some effort, and some learning.  Without clear and effective communication, couples may find they become increasingly resentful over misunderstandings and issues. Mostly, of course, the outcome is suppressed anger.  Ask yourself if you feel angry towards your partner.  You may not even know, because we are good at disguising our emotions from ourselves.  So ask yourself what emotions you feel towards your partner.  And if you still believe you do not know, ask yourself this: "If you did know, what emotion(s) would they be?" If the answer to that question is anger then it is almost certain that your partner also has some unexpressed anger towards you.  And nothing gets in the way of sex more than anger!  And yet, discharging anger in a clean way that does not cause further damage, is a skill that can be learned, and a skill which few couples have. More on this later.

There is a myth that a good argument - fighting - clears the air and is often followed by great sex. Yes, true, couples often find fighting to be sexually stimulating.  One reason for this is that it gets rid of tension and it establishes contact between a couple (and paradoxically it also gives them more sense of self and establishes clear boundaries, or at least clearer ones) -  but I think the main reason why fighting can lead to good sex is that it is passionate.  In most relationships which have lasted more than two years there is a noticeable lack of passion; although we think of passion as being mostly sexual, the reality is that passion is a word that can relate to many emotions and many different situations. Think about how you use the word passion: you can be passionate about your job, passionate about your interests; passion can encompass many emotions from sexual desire through to anger.

With the excitement of a passionate emotion like anger to stir us, hot sex may not be far behind.  However, as we shall see, a better way to get in the mood and have good sex is to promote passionate sexual feelings, not angry feelings! And, having said that, if you are in a situation where anger is troubling you and your partner, exercises which can help to discharge the anger and re-establish intimacy can be very sexually stimulating - again, more on this later.

Sometimes sex stops simply because a couple are bored or because sex has become routine, predictable.  And, most of all, sex is no longer exciting.  If this is the pattern of your sex life, why would you wish to initiate sex?  The reward would be hardly worth the effort.  The solution here is to make sex more exciting, more intimate, more varied, and more interesting - and, of course, much more rewarding and orgasmic. There than are plenty of ways to do this which we shall look at later on.

Couples with young children may well find children interrupting their lovemaking. Many parents will just feel tired at the end of a day looking after young children - a demanding job that saps one's energy and reduces the desire to make love. As always, though, with the right solutions, and enough imagination, you can find the time and space for a passionate and exciting sex life - it's all about shifting your thinking to a different place, a place where sex is no longer a chore, but a part of everyday life which is fun and stimulating.

Sex can become a part of life like eating and drinking, something which folds naturally into the day-to-day routine, rather than being seen as something which you have to find time for, and which is at the bottom of your list of priorities!

One surprising finding, seen over and over again, is that sex diminishes in quality, excitement and frequency after a couple settle down, get married, or have a family.  The surprising explanation for this is that we may well be suffering from a biological program known as the "incest taboo". This is a very important genetic mechanism which prevents us from finding those people with whom we grow up sexually attractive.  Indeed, the ultimate taboo in most societies is to be sexual towards one's mother, father, brother, or sister.  We grow up with this taboo, and when we have a family, it is more than likely that it will come into play in our own lives - but not just with our children!

For, when we recreate a family of our own, symbolized by marriage or children, or even just by settling down with a partner, we reactivate the beliefs and taboos that we picked up about sexual behavior as we grew up.  Think for a moment how you, as a child, felt about sex. Did you ever think of your mother and father having sex?  You can probably remember the sense of shock and disbelief you felt when you found out that they did!  And perhaps you even felt an accompanying sense of disgust?  We all carry something like this belief into adulthood: that men and women, mothers and fathers, although in a loving relationship, may only have sex for the purpose of making babies.  Or perhaps, you believe that "mother and father" sex is the kind of sex that expresses lifelong devoted love, but not intimacy, spontaneity or passion (or, even, god help us, lust!).

Unfortunately, this rather eliminates most of the best reasons for having sex: fun, intimacy, and, above all, lust and sexual desire for your partner!

You may find this concept hard to believe.  Am I really suggesting that memories of our parents, evoked by being in a long-term relationship, deaden sexual desire and lust when we are adults?  Well, yes, that is exactly what I am suggesting.  As you were growing up in your parents' home you were not turned on by the people around you (and even in those rare and unhappy cases where sexual abuse may have meant that you were turned on in this way, the taboo against sex with your close relations still exists).  The simple truth is that when we have a safe loving home of our own, it may become one of the places we find it hardest to have uninhibited sex.

More fundamentally, it's all too easy for us to fall into certain roles and relate to each other in ways which, to put it bluntly, women may become mothers to their partners, and men may become fathers to their partners.  It's a truism that we tend to enter into relationships with people who resemble, at the least in some way, our opposite sex parent.  The sad thing about this phenomenon is that we are trying, albeit unconsciously, to resolve the emotional conflicts, the unspoken and unmet needs, and, worst of all, the unexpressed emotions that arose between us and our parents - but we are trying to do it with our partners, who should be relating to us as fully sexual beings, as equal adults, not as substitute mothers or fathers!

We all fall into these roles unconsciously: our partners evoke in us memories of childhood, as well as the intense emotions which went along with our relationships with our parents and siblings. And of course, we evoke the same things in them, and before you know it, you're back in a child-parent type relationship - arguing, whining, wheedling, being sullen, and who knows what else - but definitely not being sexual!

It's this unfortunate resemblance between some aspects of our partner and our opposite sex parent (a phenomenon called transference) that can make the idea of an affair - a sexual affair with a stranger who does not carry this transference - seem so attractive.  (Of course there are many other reasons men and women have affairs, such as the excitement and the thrill of illicit sex - which we will look at later.)

It is always surprising to me how many couples marry or settle down because they call themselves soul mates, or best friends, only to find that sexual attraction dies very quickly after the relationship is established.  And yet it is a commonplace that good friends do not have sex with each other.  They are friends because they share interests and possibly a similar outlook and attitude; they do not feel passionate towards each other.  It's possible that people choose a friend or soul mate to settle down with because they believe that exciting sex only happens outside marriage.  If you think about it, this is rather like many men's opinion that women are divided into two groups: the whores and the Madonnas.  One has great sex with a whore, but you might not want to be best friends with her. Your best friend, your support, your soul mate even, might be the Madonna, but she is a saint, not someone with whom you can have raw, raunchy sex!

This isn't always true of course.  Many men see a long-term relationship as the only place in which sex should happen. And so, for a while, it does - but eventually it stops, the victim of powerplay such as we described above, or lack of time - or at least, a supposed lack of time - or the children's demands, or family commitments, or long-term familiarity with one's partner, or one of a thousand other "reasons".

Over the years I've been able to predict with a fair degree of accuracy which of my friends' marriages would survive more than five years.  Often the ones which provoked the questions "What on earth brought them together?" are the ones which have eventually split up.  They are the relationships marked by an obvious imbalance between the partners: perhaps a naive (young) woman with an older man who can play at being her daddy, or a naive young man with a more sophisticated woman who can "mother" him. No wonder these relationships fail!  No-one wants to marry their mother; no-one wants to marry their father! (Well, we may, as children, want to marry our mother or father, but we never have raunchy sex with them!)

This website is not specifically about the power within relationships that leads people to choose a mate who resembles their opposite sex parent. Even so, if you feel like these are elements of your relationship, there are powerful and effective ways of removing the transferential image of your mother from your female partner if you are a man, and removing the transferential image of your father from your male partner if you are a woman. We shall look at these in a later section.

By the way, it's worth remembering before you blame your partner for being too much like your mother/father, that it is almost always both partners who fall unconsciously into the roles of parent/child.  If you're a man who likes your partner to iron your shirts and put your socks away, you may like it less when she tells you to take off your shoes and wipe your feet before you come in, and starts correcting your behavior when you're with friends, or reminds you to make sure you have your gloves and wrap up well when it's cold weather.  If any of that makes you feel less of a man, then perhaps it's no surprise that your erection falters when you get into bed with her. If you're a woman and you flutter your eyelashes at your husband or partner to get him to help you out because "I'm just a girl", it may be no surprise that when you get into bed your sexual feelings towards your daddy have disappeared.

Even now there is a pernicious belief that men have to lead and to be the boss in sex and relationships - especially marriage.  You might think that after generations of campaigning by feminists for sexual equality these prejudices would have diminished. Unfortunately, it seems little has changed, at least in some areas of society.  Wherever you look there are families and relationships where the man still behaves like a tyrant ruling over his family with an iron fist of control.  In the process he turns off sexual desire in his partner.  Power plays and imbalances of power which may at first seem attractive can become a distinct turn-off and kill the desire for sex in any relationship.

Like many people of a certain age, you may have lived through a time of great sexual experimentation.  Perhaps you had many different partners before you settled down; perhaps you tried sex in all kinds of illicit places.  But whatever your sex life was like, you may have found the excitement of these experiences contrasts markedly with the level of excitement you feel in your current relationship!  Maybe you feel that the exotic stuff is just "not right" with your lifelong partner?  Once again, this reflects how faulty beliefs about sex can interfere with your current sex life.  We all carry hundreds or thousands of beliefs around with us, beliefs which we never consciously question, but which have the power to stop us enjoying exciting sex. 

For example, do you think, at some level, that thrilling sex can only happen outside marriage? This reflects the fact that men are brought up to believe "you marry a saint but you have great sex with a whore" (or a mistress).  For women the taboos and expectations of society have always been different.  Women have been subjected to the beliefs that men should lead and women should follow in sex; that a man should know what to do to take a woman to orgasm; that a woman should be a virgin before marriage; and so on......In general, women have not been encouraged to explore their own bodies or to get a sense of their own sexuality which would enable them to enjoy sex in general, and orgasms in particular, easily and freely.  And while none of these beliefs, these faulty beliefs, apply to all individuals, what is certain is that they can, and do, taint our sex lives for the worse.

For women in particular sexual experimentation may be challenging.  In the face of such unequal expectations between men and women, how can women learn to be sexual?  How are they to translate those beliefs and prejudices, and the sexual experience - or lack of it - which flows from them, into great sex into a long-term relationship, especially if their partner lacks knowledge or confidence?

And women do like sex.  They may very often be inhibited about asking for things: oral sex being a good example, and masturbation being another.  We will look later on at how many women find mutual masturbation or oral sex more satisfying than intercourse, but the point that I want to make now is simply that expectations about each other's sexual behavior which are based on social taboos, prejudices and double standards will not help to maintain a healthy and exciting sexual life inside a long-term relationship. 

Let me ask you a question. How do you see sex?  Do you see it as a task which you have to complete efficiently, or do you see sex as a joyous, relaxed, uninhibited process that may take five minutes or five hours?  I have no doubt that your answer to this question will reveal in some way how exciting and fulfilling sex was/is for you, and how long it will remain an important part of your relationship. 

Those men who see sex as an orderly task to be completed efficiently bring a degree of precision to lovemaking which turns off their partners rather quickly.  For example, they may know which bits to touch, which "buttons" to press, and how to bring a woman to orgasm quickly and effectively (find out here: how to bring a woman to orgasm !) They may know for how long they can thrust before they ejaculate. They may know exactly how they want to "enjoy" sex.  But in such a performance-oriented view of sex, intimacy and real connection between the partners is missing.  Women who have partners with this approach to sex may very quickly be turned off, and come to resent sex, feeling that it is a duty, and seeing it as a job like putting out the rubbish - one best performed as quickly and efficiently as possible to get it over and done with.  Their male partners, meanwhile, are so wrapped up in whether they are doing it right or not that they don't even notice their partners' dissatisfaction.

And many men still hold to the belief that they have to be the leader during sex.  Even though almost all these men enjoy giving up the position of initiator and director, they find it hard to do so.  When encouraged to relax and to take pleasure, with their wife or partner as the active instigator of sex, perhaps even the "sexual aggressor", they can get turned-on to a degree they'd never have suspected possible.  For as long as they don't get this chance, or refuse to take it, their partners are deprived of sexual pleasure and the opportunity to express their sexuality as the dominant partner.  I have seen couples who have struggled with such power dynamics for ten or more years before the issue has finally come to a head, and usually only then because the woman has finally taken matters into her own hands and taken the lead during sex.  Often, the consequence of this is so dramatic - in terms of the man feeling threatened, rejected, or anxious - that sex stops altogether.  Changes in the balance of power can indeed be too much for some men and women to take!

I suppose that it is possible to come up with as many reasons why sex diminishes in importance and frequency in a relationship as there are sexless couples in relationships!  As you read through the reasons why sex disappears from a relationship, and resentment grows in its place, you may find things that resonate with your own situation.  Rest assured, please, that all of these situations can be dealt with - and no matter how different the cause of the dearth (or even the death) of sex in a relationship, the cures are surprisingly similar!  We'll look at plenty of these cures in the later sections of this website, but there are still a few more reasons that I'd first like to examine about why sex may become less rewarding, not to mention less frequent, in a relationship.