Remember when you were dating? When sparks were flying, you got that bubbly feeling in your stomach every time you went on a date and the sex was amazing? During that time, you couldn’t keep your hands off each other, you were in love and everything was right with the world. Then you got married. Children came. Bills came. And the bedroom that once had the perpetual smell of hot steamy sex just smells like plain old linen now. What happened? Why did all of the passion disappear?
Phases of a Romantic Relationship
To understand why married people have less sex, we need to understand what happens as a romantic relationship progresses. Therefore allow me to present my hypothesis on the Phases of a Romantic Relationship. Any romantic relationship exists in Five Phases.
The Honeymoon Phase
The first phase we all know and love is called the Honeymoon Phase. The Honeymoon Phase is the first stop of the love train. It is fuelled by lust, passion and long intimate conversations. It is most associated with feelings of addiction, you can’t stop thinking about this person and you want to spend every waking moment with them. But the Honeymoon Phase is temporary and can last 3 months to 2 years.
The Comfortable Phase
After the Honeymoon Phase dissolves it’s time to hop back on the train and head to the next stop—the Comfortable Phase. The Comfortable Phase begins when the high of the Honeymoon Phase ends. As the guards come down, the rose-coloured glasses come off and you can finally see the person for who they really are.
You’re comfortable eating with all ten fingers in front of them or walking around the house in less-than-appealing clothes. You feel like you can be yourself around this person, it’s nice, it’s comfy. However, the problem with the Comfortable Phase (this is where we start to see problems with sex life in marriage) is that people stop trying. They don’t make enough to meet each other’s needs anymore and convince themselves that they never changed and their partner is the problem. They wrongly believe that this is what love is; two people in one home barely tolerating each other. Because the Honeymoon Phase was easy, they believe the rest of the relationship should be easy as well. But it isn’t; all relationships romantic or not require intentional effort to be maintained.
Believe it or not the Comfortable Phase is usually where sex stops, the irony I know. Most times, one partner’s sexual needs aren’t being met while the other’s sexual desire has all dried up. Even though comfort sounds all nice, comfort is actually the enemy of progress. In a relationship, having a comfortable mind-set means you try less. As I mentioned in my article about the dangers of getting married for sex, the focus should be on intimacy and not necessarily on the act of sex itself. But during the Comfortable Phase, intimacy is no longer automatic, it requires effort. If there is no intimacy, there will be no satisfying sex.
The romance has died, and the spark faded.
The Conflict Phase
As you become comfortable with each other you begin to realise areas in the relationship where there might be fundamental differences. This is usually the time when you have your first fight or major disagreement. Those once adorable quirks have turned into unbearable faults. The Conflict Phase and the Comfortable Phase usually exist in tandem, where Conflict feeds off of Comfort like a greedy parasite. The more comfortable you become, the more issues arise. This is usually the phase where women become passive-aggressive and men become arrogant. The dishes become a problem, her attitude is a problem, his video game addiction is a problem. Here a problem, there a problem, everywhere a problem.
The truth is that these seemingly minor issues are indicators of bigger problems in the relationship. Needs aren’t being met anymore so now they get buried in pointless arguments about whose turn it is to take the clothes out of the dryer. The Conflict can last anywhere between 1 year and 20 years. It is usually during this Phase that people break up, get divorced or get a side chick.
The Compromise Phase
If a relationship manages to ride through the Conflict Phase, the next stop is the Compromise Phase. The Compromise Phase is where things finally begin to turn around. You finally begin to understand why your partner does what they do. You’ve analysed their childhood trauma and begin to adapt around them. You have those deep conversations, similar to the ones had in the Honeymoon Phase, but now the roots of the issues emerge.
The Compromise Phase is where you begin to understand your partner’s love language and they begin to understand yours. Both partners make a conscious decision to try harder at the relationship, to work at intimacy and to create a system where sex happens naturally. It’s also the phase where you begin to work on yourself, because you know by dealing with your faults and weaknesses, you in turn make the relationship better. You begin to feel ‘in love’ again and notice all the amazing qualities about the person that made you fall for them in the first place
The Oneness Phase
The last stop on the love train is the Oneness Phase. This is where you set up camp, this is your home base. You’ve arrived at long-lasting sustainable love. The kind of love you wouldn’t even dream of leaving your spouse. The kind of love where you’re happy to spend time with each other and excited to do things that make your partner happy. It is a place where needs are consistently being met through specific love languages, where goals and passions align and the journey to become more and more in love continues.
Though sometimes you may hop back on the train and revisit each phase for a time, you always soon return to the Oneness Phase because that’s where the relationship lives. According to Mark 10:8 “And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.”
Marriage doesn’t have to ruin sex
Becoming one is the goal of marriage. It does not happen automatically; you don’t suddenly wake up and have the same goals, ambitions and lifestyle. It is a process. ‘The shall be’ indicates progression, a becoming, a getting there eventually.
When two people get married they come with their own baggage, habits and faults from their family and from their past experiences. The willingness to identify differences and compromise helps in building a foundation for a healthy relationship.
The reason why married people have less sex is that most people are stuck between the Comfortable Phase and the Conflict Phase of their relationship. In reality, the amount of sex you have within your relationship is irrelevant; the real question is ‘Is the quantity and quality of the sex satisfying to both partners.’ If the answer is no for either one of you, then the answer isn’t ‘have more sex.’ The answer has to start with, ‘How do we make our relationship better?’
Remember,
Tell Your Story.
Niques.