How Often Is Enough?

How Often Is Enough?

My lover said to me, “Rise up, my darling! Come away with me, my fair one!

Song of Songs 2:10

Studies show that married couples make love an average of 98 times per year.^a So what do you think? Is that good or bad? It’s a relative question, we know. How you answer depends on your perspective and your expectations. If you want to have sex once a day versus once a month, you’ll look at this news differently.

Consider the following comments made by a pretty typical wife and husband after just three or four years of marriage.

Wife: “He keeps saying he wants to make love, but it doesn’t feel like love to me. Sometimes I feel bad that I feel that way, but I just can’t help it.”

Husband: “I don’t understand. She says it doesn’t feel like love. What does that mean, anyway? What does she think love is? I want to have sex with her because I love her!”

We’ve done enough marriage counseling to tell you that this kind of talk is not unusual. In this marriage, as in many others, the husband sees himself as showing his love to his wife by engaging her in sexual activity. It’s genuine. He feels connected to her, and lovemaking is an expression of that. He doesn’t need much “warm up” to get started. In fact, little to no conversation is required.

The wife, on the other hand, sees sexual activity as something that should evolve out of verbal expressions of affection and love. She doesn’t understand the mere act of lovemaking as being loving at all unless it’s contextualized in a conversation that brings it about. Like a scene from a Woody Allen movie that cuts too close to home, this couple bickers continually about how frequently they have sex.

“I’d be happy if we had sex just once a week,” the husband will say.

“He wants to have sex all the time—at least once a week,” the wife will tell us.

Of course, the question about how much lovemaking is enough is not a matter of counting the number of times per week or per month. There is no prescription, no magic number. For partners who are dedicated to each other, the question of frequency will be answered in terms of concern for the needs and desires of the other person.

The only stable happiness for mankind is that it shall live married in blessed union to woman-kind.

—D. H. Lawrence

^a 125