Norajane said:
Delurking to add my 2 cents to this discussion. I think you have summed up what I've been thinking all along as I've read through this thread, especially the part where you say that if a couple is fundamentally incompatible disatisfaction can grow. The only thing I would add is that in my opinion, it's not so much about frequency as what someone else stated-the TYPE of sex.
I'll use my story, but really, it could apply to anyone. I had a first marriage that was fairly conventional. Sex was good, though of course, kids, jobs, etc. did play a part in how often. But the KIND of sex we had-vanilla-didn't change and wouldn't have. After 10 years my now-ex left me, to use a cliche, to find himself. And he didn't come back. Sex never entered into the problems in any way.
Then I started dating and discovered the internet, where I learned about BDSM and realized that was the intangible something I'd always suspected was missing in my marriage, which was actually pretty trouble-free right up to the end. I met people, I went to workshops, I had mentors, I grew in knowing what makes ME tick sexually.
When I got to the point where I wanted to explore serious relationships, I looked for partners with some interest in BDSM. I did not want to return to a vanilla relationship. I would not have been satisfied with someone who was not at all interested in it. As nora said above, one of us-me-would always have been dissatisfied. I don't believe that such a fundamental difference in sex could be worked around in a marriage. To me, it would be as insurmountable a difference as if I'd met someone who was a racist and unwilling to change.
Sex is not the be-all and end-all of my marriage. And as "older" parents with a young child, my husband and I find ourselves going weeks sometimes without much more than a conventional quickie. But the fact remains that when we met and got beyond the movie and dinner stage, I was upfront about WIITWD, and had he backed away in horror, that would have been the end of things.
He was a novice-and I had to teach him what to do. I helped him find a mentor to show him the dom side, and I found him some sites to look at. But had he never wanted to even try, I couldn't have made it work.
And we've been at it for 7 1/2 years now. While we can't always get out the toys and the ropes, there is a dynamic there that doesn't change. If one of us was crippled in an accident tomorrow or had major health crisis, that INTERNAL dynamic would remain. And I think that's what some of the posters have been saying-it's not really about how many times a week you want it, but the meat of the sex act as you want it.
Had my now-husband told me that it weirded him out but he was willing to talk about it and try, I'd have happily said yes. But as I assume a strict Christian wouldn't be sexually compatible with a person who wanted to explore swinging, there had to have been SOME interest there for me to move forward.
Those advocating that a good marriage can surmount many difficulties are right too. My husband and I live day to day dealing with things like teenagers going over their minutes, a first grader with a bully for a friend, and job woes. We've weathered health scares, family problems and money woes. But we talk it all out and go on. But we are still, in the end, people who are compatible in many ways. Sex is one of them, and I don't think we could have had a good marriage had we not been compatible there.
Sex is much more than when and how often. It's much deeper than that, and for me, the WAY I do it is a part of me. So *I* would need to do more than just talk it out before marriage. I would need to experience for myself what my partner would or could try to do. Technique can be learned. The need for it cannot.
Agi
